Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake development anecdotes from Beep! Mega Drive

Inside Stories of the MSX Now Revealed Part 2: The MSX of Our Youth [The Final MSX Machine]　

by Hideo Kojima

Personally I would like to cover Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake in this issue, which ended up becoming the last MSX title we ever released, since there are some heavy inside-stories regarding its development that can now be revealed.

Metal Gear 2 is a game that I have a particular strong attachment towards, with various inside stories surrounding it (nothing tragic though). In the next two months I will be publicly revealing 5 or so anecdotes about the game (you won’t be disappointed).

Part 1: Snakes from different mothers

Do you know where the idea for Metal Gear 2 came from? It was a strange circumstance. Another department within the company was working on a Metal Gear sequel (Snake's Revenge) for the NES at the time, since the NES version of the first Metal Gear was a million seller overseas. One day I received a passionate request from one of the developers from the other team, which was tom make this sequel. If I wasn't approached by this so-called brother from a different mother, it might had never been born.

Part 2: The sales division was holding out on us

This happened because the Famicom version of Metal Gear was not well-received domestically (in Japan) compared to abroad (at the time the MSX sales division had many people that were transferred over from the Famicom division). Our staff went on a business trip for a whole day to persuade the sales division. Thus, our enthusiasm and planning intention got us through one obstacle.

Part 3: There was no designer!

Despite the fact that our team was already formed, we still went days and days without a designer. At that rate we ended up carrying out an internal design contest for the Metal Gear mech and the best one ended up serving as the finalized design for the Metal Gear D (we even gave out an actual prize with monetary expenses). However, the designer ultimately ended up becoming a member of the game’s development team.

To be continued in the next issue.

Inside Stories of the MSX Now Revealed Part 3: The MSX of Our Youth [The Final MSX Machine]

by Hideo Kojima

Continuing from the the previous issue, we  will reveal further anecdotes regarding the development of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, the final MSX game we made.

Part 4: The game developers became battlefield otakus

Since one of our goals for Solid Snake was to pursue realism, we spent the days and nights gathering as many reference materials we could think of as possible such as movies, books and model guns. The reference materials and model guns were piling up like mountains on the top of our desks and people were even starting to show up for work in full combat fatigues. We even met with an author who was a former Green Beret. We secluded ourselves to a mountain in order to play a survival game using infrared guns. Thus, our work became a hobby and our geeky daily life became a simulation of the game. All of the equipment that belonged to the developers were photographed and used for the packaging and manual. The crawling characters that appear in the game were even roughly designed after staff members who were acting out the poses.

Part 5: The development of the game was temporarily suspended

While in the middle of development, progress on SD Snatcher was compromised, so the entire Solid Snake team was brought in to lend them support. There were concerns that the development of Solid Snake might be halted under those conditions, but development resumed without any issues after SD Snatcher was completed and the game was released shortly afterward. In retrospect, that incident provided a suitable cooling-off period so we could look into Solid Snake more calmly.

By the way, did you know that the final shot of the ending features the MSX boot-up sequence? This message contains a flood of emotion towards the MSX, which has walked alongside me up to this point . To the users who supported us, as well as our staff... The MSX will keep on being a page of my youth (that was a very moving ending).