MGS 2 or TLOU 2 - which had the worst character switcheroo?

It's Abby, no contest.

I'd say come back in 12 years and see if Abby turns into a cyborg ninja leading a Scooby-Doo gang to fight an unholy lovechild of Brock Lesnar and Margaret Thatcher.

Until then, I'd say Abby is automatically worse.

I didn’t really mind all that much playing as Raiden in MGS2 to be honest. Thought it was ok and it led to some cool moments with Solid Snake popping into some story sequences as an outside character.

I haven’t played TLOU2 but I have seen copious amounts of gameplay and read and listened to a fair amount of discussion on the game so I pretty much know the entirety of it by now.

My vote goes to TLOU2.

MGS2's was perfect actually. It allowed Snake to be more in control and act as a mentor instead of looking like a fool for not what is going on.

TLOU2 is horrible. Abby is a literal piece of trash. The only thing that I respect about her are her biceps.

Raiden was sympathetic, likable, and viewing Snake from his perspective was cool.

No plans to play TLOU2.

cuz

im da good kid

I may have disliked Raiden cos I wanted to play as Snake in MGS2, but by the end of it all, you'll find that Raiden is a really likeable guy.

Abby is a remorseless killer that doesn't show any empathy.

Metal Gear Solid 2 predicated stuff.
Way ahead of it's time.

@SolidGame_basic:

Say what you want about Last of Us Part 2 but at least you didn't have to play as Abby throughout the entire game. I usually avoid Metal Gear Solid 2 for that reason. Raiden is okay but he's no Solid Snake.

Oh look. The OP spoiled TLOU2, but nobody cares. Knew it wasn't that well liked.

Abby hurt my feelings. All this soya is killing me. :'(

I know its real hard for most to believe, but the fridge *cough*, i mean Abby, isn't even bad. Back when i played MGS2 on the original xbox, i was like 15 or whatever. It was my first MGS game and i didn't even knew Raiden was hated and all.

Haven't played tlou2.

MGS2, there was that initial wtf, but wasn't that big a deal to me. Wasn't that invested in Snake as a character at the time, was actually his portrayal in MGS2 that made me more of a fan.

And yeah, long run I actually ended up liking the Raiden switch and how it worked for that game. One of my all time favs.

Really wish they would've built on Raidens character development from MGS2 instead of scrapping it and "hey you like emo cyborg ninjas!" in MGS4. Discount sad ass Gray Fox.

neither.

@ConanTheStoner: lol, emo cyborg ninja. It was a big deal for me in the sense that MGS 2 was a follow up to my favorite game of all time.

@nepu7supastar7: the thing about Abby is she played differently from Ellie and she was pretty badass at combat. I don't recall Raiden being much different from Snake. All I remember is the sword.

Yeah for sure man.

I liked MGS1, but the series didn't really click for me until MGS2. But I do remember the MGS fanbase, from core to casual, collectively losing their shit lol. Was a huge deal.

Even reflected in sales of MGS3. MGS2 sold 7 million into an install base of roughly 10 million PS2s. Crazy numbers. MGS3 sold about 3.5 million I believe into an install base closer to 100 million. Plenty of factors at play I'm sure, but I think MGS2 did turn a lot of people off of the series.

@Watch_My_6: "Abby is a literal piece of trash.".

lol

@ConanTheStoner: I actually wasn't that into MGS 3 but I recognize its brilliance. The River of Sorrow is one of the coolest experiences in a game. But that was another character switcheroo type game lol. And when you finally do get to play Snake again he's an old fart.

@ConanTheStoner:

my guesses

1.2001/2004 were big years for gaming but you can argue MGS3 had tougher competion in 2004.

2. MGS3 mechanics were outdated(it was upadated by subsistence) that turned people off.

@Watch_My_6: "Abby is a literal piece of trash.".

lol

LoU2 by a country mile

I hate Abby with a passion for killing Joel

of course TLOU2 has worst.

MGS2 still respect solid snake. raiden is wanna be snake.

I forgot tlou2 released

MGS2 is better.

Well considering MGS2s twist was mindblowing, and The Last Of Us 2s "twist" was fucking terrible, I'd have to say Abby

Agreed.

Last Of Us 2 suffers from the modern age where it leaked to the public domain, Metal Gear Solid 2 was a time when such a thing was far more easily covered up.

It's also a different political age where what we have, essentially, is bigots trying to masquerade their hate as something legitimate than what it really is.

Hell, even Metal Gear Solid 2 had that to a lesser degree because Raider was more effeminate, at least in the West, Japan is far more open to the concept.

Had Last Of Us 2 not suffered from such contemporary extremities, and other big words, much like Metal Gear Solid 2, it probably would be reappraised as bold.

In the future, that may still be the case, much like white students protesting black pupils going to the same school, scholars will look back with a sense of shame, but ultimately point to this with pride as pushing the medium towards acceptance. Which is great.

If I have to pick between Raiden and Abby, give me the former.

The opportunity cost expended in TLOU2 is far greater, there is a better story to be had than what we ended up with.

You do know this is a video game character. Pixels. Yea?

Its like some of you took it personal. She killed your daddy Joel now you must despise her anywhere possible. Like holy shit. Never have we seen a video game character that made people go ape shit like that. ND has created a monster. Now give her a game of her own 🤣

.... And? Since when couldn't we hate video game characters? Neil was crying about this on Twitter too, calling people who hate his characters "mentally ill". If Neil wants to make degenerate art, he can't whine when people criticize it.

What degenerate art are you referring to? And he isn't wrong about A LOT of people crying about this game being mentally ill. There's a difference between a person who disliked a game, calls it shit and move on, and one that has to write paragraphs of super hate and get into this insane Abby hatred calling her all the shit imaginable. Who the **** does that to a game character? Hallo? Shitting on Neil, sure, cry about it, but wtf is an imaginary video game character has to do with anything lol. Abby ain't gonna respond to anybody's filth, its just pixels. People this attached to Joel are mentally ill aright.

@hardwenzen: There's a "daddy issues" thing going on in society right now. This Joel situation is just a manifestation of it.

But to the writer's credit, being able to generate such hatred for a character is a sign he touched in something big, even if by accident.

"buh buh I invoked an emotion" is what all degenerate artists say.

@pinkribbonscars: We get it dude. 'Degenerate art was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party"

Just so you know, there are more things happening in the game than Joel's death. Its like you see it happening in the first 1/30th of the game, and for the rest of it, you ignore everything that is positive and laser focus on what happened at the beginning. I don't understand how could anybody ignore the actual gameplay which is far superior to anything made by ND. We constantly hear gameplay>graphics, but in this rare case, both are top notch, but the game is still getting more hate than NMS did, and that game launched in pre alphas stage, while TLOU2 is one of the most polished titles of this gen.

Why is PinkRibbonScars now called deactivatedaccount. Did she deactivate herself or was she just banned?

Raiden was awesome and MGS 2 was ahead of its time. Now every third person interested in modern politics investigates and praises plot of MGS 2. It seemed weird back then. It predicted future quite well.

@ezekiel43: Usually means self delete.

If MGS2 actually had Raiden kill Solid Snake, then that would've been the worst character switcheroo of all time. But instead, MGS2 treated Solid Snake with respect, and we got to see him from a different perspective. By the end of the game, Raiden came into his own and became one of my favourite video game characters of all time.

If TLOU2 had Ellie take over as the protagonist from Joel, then that would've been more equivalent to what MGS2 did. Since Ellie respects Joel, the same way Raiden respects Solid Snake. But by introducing the ruthless Abby into the equation, TLOU2 took it a step too far.

It's worth noting that much of the Raiden hate in the early 2000s was motivated by homophobia. Message boards back then were full of haters calling Raiden "gay" and "fa****" along with debates questioning Raiden's sexuality, over his "effeminate" appearance. Not unlike some of the Abby hate over her "masculine" appearance.

There are plenty of differences between Raiden and Snake in the gameplay. For example, Raiden is more acrobatic and throws more kicks. The biggest difference, however, is Raiden's cartwheels vs. Snake's rolls. The cartwheels allow Raiden to jump over gaps (which Snake can't do), jump down the stairs (which falls flat with Snake's rolls), and move more quickly.

1. 2001 was a bigger and more competitive year for console gaming than 2004 (whereas 2004 was a bigger deal for PC gaming). So it was MGS2 which had tougher competition in 2001 than MGS3 did in 2004. But the difference was that MGS2 had a ton of hype ever since the E3 2000 demo, whereas MGS3 had far less hype (partly because it came fairly late in the PS2 life cycle, and partly because of the MGS2 backlash).

2. Not true. If anything, MGS3 mechanics were ahead of their time. For example, the camouflage system, survival mechanics, CQC combat system, interrogation mechanics, etc. The only thing "outdated" about it was the overhead camera, which Subsistence replaced with a true third-person camera.

It's been a long time since I played MGS 2, but all I really remember about him was that he ended up being another "pawn" in the game, much like Snake was in the first game. It felt like a retread of the first game. But with Abby, I felt like there was something really powerful about playing a character from the "other side". It really humanized her and it was something new for storytelling in general. I didn't feel that way about Raiden.

@SolidGame_basic: Oops read your post wrong.

MGS itself was a retread of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (the 8-bit predecessor on the MSX computer), and could almost be considered a semi-remake of MG2: Solid Snake (which most people didn't play and so they didn't realize it). What MGS2 did was different, in the sense that it was subverting expectations that players previously had from MGS, rather than simply retreading it (which is what MGS previously did with MG2: Solid Snake).

Raiden had a powerful and subversive story arc in MGS2. For roughly 2/3 of the game, Raiden is essentially an "avatar" representing the player. His purpose is to view Solid Snake from a rookie's perspective, which makes Solid Snake look cooler and more interesting as a character, making the players respect and appreciate Snake more.

In the last 1/3 of the game, Raiden starts to shred his "avatar" role and come into his own. He remembers his real past, stops being a Snake wannabe fanboy, and becomes his own person. His character arc includes a subversive revenge story, which goes in a very different direction to Abby. The Patriots essentially had a revenge story scripted for Raiden: after the revelation that Solidus killed his parents and raised him to be a child soldier, Raiden was supposed to seek revenge and kill Solidus. But their plan almost fails when Raiden refuses to seek revenge, forcing The Patriots to instead resort to a threat (the life of Olga's child) in order to force Raiden to kill Solidus. This makes Raiden a more likable character, because he isn't a vengeful person, and isn't motivated by blind revenge.

Playing Abbys chapter was awesome. Somewhat new mechanics from how Ellie played. Then learning about her story made me 180 my thoughts/feelings at the beginning of the game. Joel had it coming for what he did, could say he was the villain.

LMAO - my 10 second reply really struck a nerve.

You call me mentally ill but you need to be the voice for the voiceless Abby. You are a true hero. LMAO

I have played Part 2 yet (waiting for next gen version with multiplayer) but I really don’t like character switch ups like Locke etc. I didn’t like Raiden at the time. He talks too much.

Mgs2, Joel is no Solid Snake.

Let's see, a well-made, well-written, interesting character that provides a different perspective of the franchise's protagonist

vs

unrealistic roided monkey woman with no boobs who kills one of the most relatable and likeable characters in gaming history..

Yeah The Last of Us 2 was by far the worst.

I didn't mind playing as Raiden. Playing as Abby almost ruined one of the greatest games of all time for me.