Narramblings #10: Snakes and ladders

I used to not get too worked up about remakes. Then I grew old (I mean millennial old, mid-thirties) and studios started remaking games I’m nostalgic about. Metal Gear Solid Delta is coming out this week and my thumbs are already sore from twiddling. To give them a rest, I decided to write about some of the weirdest and most memorable moments in the series. Get in, we’re talking about the ladder scene… and songs in gameplay in MGS.

Spoilers ahead! For: Metal Gear Solid 3, Metal Gear Solid 4

About halfway through Metal Gear Solid 3 we encounter a ladder. It’s not Snake’s first and it won’t be his last but it is the most special. First, it’s long. 1:47-to-climb long to be specific. Second, Snake climbs it to the tune of the acapella version of Snake Eater, the game’s title song. There is nothing more to it. No obstacles, no dialogue. You just hold the up arrow for two minutes and listen to the song.

Here it is in all its… glory, I guess?

If you haven’t played MGS 3 you might think it absurd. And you’re right! But watching that scene on its own strips it of its point. It’s the context of the larger game that makes it sing, pun intended.

The ladder climb comes after a long segment of sneaking around the woods full of enemies, capped with a protracted boss fight  - a sniper duel slash a game of hide and seek against a legendary soldier called The End. That entire stretch can keep you on your toes for a good while and it gets tedious. Immediately after comes the ladder scene. It’s a pacing technique, albeit delivered in a unique way. No more tracking The End across three separate maps, no more stressing about your stamina bar, no more switching in and out of the sniper view. For almost two minutes it’s just you and Cynthia Harrell’s soulful performance. Enough to take a deep breath and steady yourself.

The climb and the song are also an intermission of sorts. Remember that MGS 3 doesn’t have standard between-level breaks. So the ladder marks the halfway point of the game, more or less, and an environmental transition. Until that moment, you have been traversing woods, swamps, and bushes for several hours. Once you reach the top, you are at the base of the Groznyj Grad fortress with its warehouses and military installations.

It wasn’t necessary, of course. There are countless ways to slow down the pace after an intense section and to transition between environs less weird than making the player climb a ladder for almost two minutes. But we don’t remember them, do we?

What makes that ladder climb so memorable, other than the absurd length, is the choice of music. In games, we’re used to looped instrumentals playing in the background. An actual song is a rarity, especially outside of cutscenes. The reason is simple. It’s hard to ensure what’s happening on screen syncs perfectly with the song for the desired emotional effect because the player is a fickle beast who rarely does what the writer wants them to.

To pull it off, you need to build enough emotional investment in the player that they will want that scene to play out exactly how you envisioned it, instead of goofing about, messing with the camera, or flicking through the menus when the song hits. And even when you’re confident you can do that, better hedge that bet. When Snake gets on that ladder and Cynthia Harrell starts singing, in theory we could stop or even come back down but… it’s literally just a long, dull tunnel with a ladder. The game made sure there’s nothing to distract us from the task of holding the up arrow.

This worked so well that Konami put a song in gameplay again in Metal Gear Solid 4, though using it differently. MGS 4 was the culmination of Snake’s story that the fans have been waiting for for a decade (or two, if you count the original Metal Gear). In the game’s penultimate chapter, we are sent back to the ruins of the military base in Shadow Moses, where the action of the first Metal Gear Solid took place. The mission opens with a snowstorm. We’re left to find our way around almost blindly until we pass through a small crevice and the storm stops, revealing the view of the base. We’re back to where it all started and the map is laid out exactly the same as it was in the first game, except now it looks dead and decrepit. Cue the song.

The Best Is Yet To Come is the end credits theme from the first Metal Gear Solid. If you haven’t played the previous games, you’ll hear a ballad with unintelligible lyrics (unless you speak Irish) and move on. Odd, perhaps, but whatever. But if you have, this is an emotional atomic bomb. You’ve been on this journey with Snake (and Big Boss and Ocelot and a cast of cartoonish heroes and villains) for years and now you’ve come full circle. Unlike in the first game, however, there are no enemies here so you’re free to take it in at your own pace and as you walk around, flashbacks of old dialogue lines play and mix in with the music. In a way, it’s the opposite of the ladder climb. There, the game made sure you had nowhere to go but up. Here, it invites you to roam freely. Also contrary to MGS 3, the scene has nothing to do with pacing. The preceding hour has been all cutscenes and dialogue. As a player, at this point you’re itching to actually do something. And what you get to do, instead of sneaking around and shooting enemies, is reminisce and appreciate the good times you’ve had with MGS. It is fan service, but with the combination of the location and music, it is the best executed fan service you’ll ever see in video games

These two scenes in MGS 3 and 4 served different purposes but both are powerful examples of what you can do when you’ve got the player invested in the story. You can be weird! You can play a song in a gameplay section and not worry about ludonarrative dissonance or the player’s actions not syncing with the emotional beats of the tune.

… okay enough of this just give me Metal Gear Solid Delta already!