After game director Hideo Kojima introduced a new protagonist in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, many fans of the series responded with heavy criticism. This led developers to make fun of MGS2 in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater through a parody of its predecessor’s main character.
In MGS3‘s second act, Naked Snake is tasked with sneaking into the inner sanctums of Groznyj Grad, a weapons facility where sadistic antagonist Colonel Volgin is constructing the Shagohod (MGS3‘s fill-in for a Metal Gear). To do so, Snake comes equipped with a synthetic mask made to resemble the face of Major Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov, one of Volgin’s trusted officers with access to Groznyj Grad’s most secure sections. If the mask’s appearance wasn’t enough of a giveaway, then the name should be. Raikov is a carbon-copy of Raiden. This connection is solidified when players see that a poster of Raiden is taped to the inside of Raikov’s locker. Likewise, after Snake remove’s Raikov’s uniform, a small lightning bolt logo can be seen on his underwear – a reference to Raiden, the Japanese god of lightning. It is also a reference to his heavily implied relationship with Colonel Volgin, who can manipulate electricity.
However, Raikov isn’t just a reference to Metal Gear Solid 2, he’s a parody of it. More specifically, he’s a parody to many fans’ reactions to Raiden being MGS2‘s protagonist. In an archived interview with 1up.com, Director Hideo Kojima admitted that he “knows fans outside [of Japan] don’t like him,” and as a result Kojima decided to “make him the clown in the movies.” Kojima would do this by portraying Raikov as a caricature of all the things fans hated about Raiden, mainly his lack of confidence and his non-masculine appearance.
How MGS3 Makes Fun Of MGS2’s Raiden
According to the gaming trivia YouTube Channel DidYouKnowGaming?, “Kojima explained that he intentionally placed the effeminate Raikov so players could vent their Raiden-induced frustrations.” This is important to note because it points out what exactly fans (particularly in the west) did not like about Raiden, along with how Kojima chose to make fun of that.
It’s not hard to see from Metal Gear Solid 2‘s story that Raiden is supposed to be a subversion of Solid Snake’s character. Though he is placed in eerily similar circumstances to Snake in MGS1, Raiden is very much everything that Snake is not. His design is more androgynous than Snake’s macho aesthetic, and where Snake is a one-lining veteran badass, Raiden is originally portrayed as an unconfident rookie with girlfriend problems. He’s not exactly the hyper-capable super-soldier Metal Gear fans had come to love – he hasn’t even actually been on a real mission before, players are told, just VR substitutes.
Metal Gear Solid 2‘s final act goes on to further subvert these assumptions about Raiden, revealing that he was actually once a legendary Liberian child soldier; a child so capable with a blade on the battlefield that he earned the title “Jack the Ripper.” While this revelation does not fix Raiden’s lack of confidence nor his relationship issues, it was a layer to Raiden’s character that many fans either disregarded or failed to fully grasp at the time, instead hyper-focusing on the attributes of Raiden that, in the eyes of certain players, made him seem comparatively weak or unlikable to Snake.
By taking these qualities and cranking them up to 11 with MGS3′s Raikov, Kojima was giving those players a bit of what they wanted while also making fun of how ridiculous this perception of Raiden is compared to the real thing (although, unfortunately, in a rather homophobic manner which has not aged well). Raikov is not Raiden, he is an exaggeration of the things Metal Gear Solid 2 detractors perceived as weaknesses of Raiden’s character.
Even then, Metal Gear Solid‘s developers are much quicker to please Raiden’s fans. MGS3‘s Raikov mask allows players to essentially play through the game as Raiden if they wish, and it even proves to be a valuable tool during Volgin’s boss fight. The rest of the series also does its best to prop up both Raiden and MGS2. Both MGS4 and Metal Gear Rising: Revengance portray Raiden as a powerful, capable character from start to finish (even if he does act a bit silly at times). This, combined with a recent surge in appreciation for MGS2‘s story, has made Raiden one of Metal Gear Solid‘s most popular characters.
