Kojima, Fukushima, Murata and whatever happened to MGS after Snake Eater

originally in NEOGAF by DevilFox

I think it’s time to have a topic about this argument since it pops up “once in a while” (reads as in every MGS topic). Thing is, even the most hardcore fans cannot deny that something changed in MGS after Snake Eater (or Portable Ops): themes, storytelling, even the style of the cinematics and the representation of women, the fiction stuff and so on. All these changes, somehow, match with Fukushima’s departure from Kojima Productions, which brings me here asking you: what happened? Was Fukushima the key for the classic MGS or Kojima just changed style all of a sudden? Let’s share what we know and our opinion on the matter.

First, quick background:

• Hideo Kojima: you know him. MGS creator, credited as Game Designer, Screenwriter, Director and Producer (plus more roles…) for almost all the games. Basically the face you picture when someone mentions MGS.
• Tomokazu Fukushima: he’s a writer until the early years of MGS4 (see the first trailer) and then he left in 2006. You can see him credited as Writer, Setting Design Assistant, Scripter (codec), Camera Setting etc.
• Shuyo Murata: is the other important writer. He started with MGS2 but it looks like MGS4 is the real starting point for him as MGS writer.

Personally, I noticed that after MGS Portable Ops…

1) THE THEME OF ANTI AMERICANISM TOOK A BACK SEAT
This is probably one of the most evident things happened, since it basically changed what the Patriots were meant to be, a very core element of MGS lore. I also think that the original meaning was something that Fukushima wanted more than Kojima, simply because.. well, Kojima changed it. This article, The Decline of Anti-Americanism in Metal Gear, perfectly explains my opinion on the matter.

In particular, this piece (from MGS2 Grand Game Plan, page 37):

The evil in MGS2 is the American government. However, this does not refer to Americans in general, nor to any particular persons, but to the festering discharge that has built-up within the democratic state of America over the years. The intention is not to defame any race, state or ethnicity, but rather to look at the “monster” that the country’s political structure has created. It is an intangible entity yet at the same time a massive menace to the world.

and Fukushima’s profile in MGS2 make me believe there was a strong vision for something else than what, later, has become.

(extra: Kojima had more style with his profile, though)

2) THE SAGA EMBRACED (THE WORST OF) HOLLYWOOD
Yep: MGS4.. but it’s not alone. While I understand, and even agree to certain extent, that MGS4 wasn’t developed under the most positive light, I just can’t ignore what I’ve seen. I can’t even pretend this bad attitude was over after MGS4 because it’s not true. I’m talking about..

• Weird (to say the least) cinematics and.. logic?
  Since I enjoy video editing sometimes, this one pissed me off quite a bit. Cinematics became dumber and dumber with each game, but if I think that up to MGS3 they were somehow stylish (Eva’s stunts on the bike excluded, lol), when they were not simple as I like them, I can’t say the same for the sequels. I mean, MGS1–3 cinematics were still believable.

Then with MGS4 they reached a drastic point: even ignoring the “comedy” clips (see Meryl and Akiba), there are a lot of weird choices. We also started to see pointless slow motions (MGSV is full of them, below a couple of examples), lens flares everywhere and some truly ugly animations (why the Frogs move and scream like that?) and to me, seems like “making sense” wasn’t a priority anymore. MGSV is the apotheosis of this, see for example Skull Face that could’ve killed Venom like 3 times and avoid all the troubles. Sad, because all the cinematics are great looking.

I’m not considering The Twin Snakes because we all know that game doesn’t exist.

Hiring of actors and models.
Not that important but was it necessary? It started with MGS4 I think, the B&B Unit is based on real life models (Scarlett Chorvat, Mieko Rye, Lyndall Javis and Yumi Kikuchi). Then, of course, there is Kiefer Sutherland as Venom and Stefanie Joosten as Quiet. I don’t think they achieved a great result with any of them and I wonder if those money could’ve been spent better.

UPDATE 25/03/2016 : The Inside Story Of Recording Metal Gear Solid, video interview by the guys of GameInformer. Few quotes from David Hayter (thanks Rymuth):

Hayter on losing the role

David Hayter said:

“It was annoying to me, because I thought that I had given a lot to the series and really helped promote it. At the same time, I genuinely feel that the run I had as Snake was remarkable. If you get that once in your career, that’s amazing. I don’;t have any ill will toward Kiefer Sutherland or anything like that. The whole thing could have been handled better and a little more respectfully, but I’m not going to cry about it.”

Kojima’s obsession with Hollywood

David Hayter said:

“I had to re-audition for Metal Gear 3 to play Naked Snake. They made me re-audition to play Old Snake, and the whole time, they were trying to find somebody else to do it. I heard that Kojima asked one of the producers on Metal Gear 3 to ask Kurt Russell if he would take over for that game. He didn’t want to do it.”

Hayter’s feelings towards Kojima

David Hayter said:

“I never felt he was a particularly big fan of mine. I don’t think he liked the fact that I got the attention for the role when he meant to be the rockstar of the whole thing. I’ve got no particular love for Kojima. I don’t feel any need to go back and work with him again.”

• From now on, call me.. George Lucas.

Apparently, after MGS1 Kojima started to have more and more control over everything, from voice acting direction to localisation, reason why we call him the auteur of MGS. In MGSV he even loves to see his name plastered on the intro credits of every single mission.. quite annoying personally, no matter the TV shows template he wanted to use.
But that’s nothing compared to Jeremy Blaustein’s story. Blaustein is appreciated for his adaptation of MGS1 script to the West audience but it’s known that Kojima didn’t like it that much. Result: he was never hired again and Kojima has surrounded himself with translators that didn’t touch a word, when he wasn’t involved in the English script himself.

A comment by Blaustein about the editing process:

Jeremy Blaustein said:

“Cultural differences are pretty big in some cases. It really depends, but in the case of MGS for example, it’s my feeling that the Western audience has a more sophisticated sense of movie cliches. In other words, there are things that will seem trite and cliched to a Westerner that might not trip a Japanese person’s radar. So, from the POV, to adapt it, to localize it so that it achieves the same “feel” to both audiences, would require some understanding on the part of the creators that such a thing is necessary. Unfortunately that is a rather hard point to get across if you don’t yourself have one foot in each culture. As a translator, you can have a lot or a little role in the editing process, but it is usually more like zero role. If you want to make changes, you have to fight for them and that’s not really the best way to make friends.”
Source.

And some interviews: Push-To-Talk interview (changes to script from 5:30), Hardcore Gaming Interview 1, Hardcore Gaming Interview 2.
I just wonder if something similar happened with Fukushima, with our auteur leaving less and less room for creativity to others.

We also have a Hardcore Gaming Interview with Agness Kaku, translator of Metal Gear Solid 2 and Ghost Babel. Of particular interest for this thread is her opinion about the writing in both games (part 2 and 3).

3) WOMEN’S DEPICTION GOT WORSE
This has been discussed extensively on GAF recently, starting from here. We moved from good or decent female characters, meaning they were either strong, smart or both, independent, well written with a good background and something to add to the plot, to some kind of talking puppets with tits.. sometimes, not even talking.
I put in the first group characters such as The Boss, Naomi (MGS1), Olga, Meryl, Mei Ling (MGS1), Emma, Eva, Sniper Wolf and Para Medic.
The second group includes

• Naomi (MGS4) and her beautiful, yet pointless, cleavage.
• Mei Ling (MGS4) as above, this time it’s about her butt. The briefing before Haven’s attack is just embarassing.
• B&B Unit, they couldn’t be less interesting than they are.
• Paz and Cècile, all I remember is them dressed with a bikini. The’re so weakly characterized that if it wasn’t for the final twist we could take them out of the game and lose nothing.
• Female Skulls, perfectly dressed for battle (with a bikini). We know nothing about them but we had amazing shots at their butts. Oh, they feauture bouncing tits too, thanks Fox Engine.
• Yep, Quiet. Or should I say, her body.

Basically, we didn’t have a good or interesting new female character since Portable Ops.

4) YEAH! SCIENCE BITCH! aka “we need to explain this!”
After MGS3, someone believed it was absolutely necessary to explain everything they had introduced as fictional stuff, which was a key part of a good MGS, with the good old science. So it began: nanomachines, AI, the Wolbachia bacteria. No more Vampires or photosynthetic old men, no more fiction, everything must be explained, possibly even retroactively and if we can’t, well, who cares!
Guys, I hate this. It killed a good part of the charm MGS had. I like to believe Fortune was able to deviate those missiles without that chip simply because she strongly believed she could. I liked to believe the Cobra Unit wasn’t some kind of freaks born out of a bottle, but the incarnation of the emotions a Naked Snake had to defeat in order to become the legendary, feared Big Boss we knew.
And it’s not about science alone. The “we need to explain this” attitude involved characters too and it ruined them all! Big Boss, Liquid, Mantis, Kaz.. I can only save Campbell.
The.. the pussyfcation of Big Boss in particular disappoints me. I loved him until Portable Ops included, when he realized his purpose. Starting with Peace Walker, though, Kaz takes the lead even if it’s behind the scenes: literally everything is his idea and he’s the one who tells Big Boss what to do all the time. This is not how I picture a legendary leader.

5) SOMEONE STOP CARING ABOUT LORE AND CONSISTENCY
There’s a general lost of interest towards some details, such as technology. It’s evident that MGS Peace Walker and MGSV both feature some awesome tech that not only isn’t real, which is ok, but it’s also more advanced than the tech we find in the MG positioned later in the timeline. It’s not a big deal for some but I truly appreciated the effort with MGS3 and MGS Portable Ops to adapt MGS formula to a different era with older technology.
Then we have some retcons, that took a more serious weight with MGS4. Some are not that important, but some others (Big Boss saving Frank and Naomi, Big Boss and Zero motifs..) definitely are. I think a writer should’ve more respect for such things.

6) IDEAS THAT DIDN’T WORK ANYMORE
Kojima has always been a master of not delivering. Even MGS3 should’ve been different, way more deep, but they achieved a masterpiece nonetheless. With MGS4 he did it again: “no place to hide”, “different allies”, “you can decide to kill or not to kill”. Guess what, none of that worked or did matter.
I believe that in order to achieve an emotional impact, you need good writing as support. On top of my head I can think of two similar situations that worked before Portable Ops and didn’t work later:

• Raiden and Venom
  The “you think you’re playing as someone else” trick didn’t work with Venom for a number of reasons, with the most important being probably the emptiness of this character that made impossible for me to care about him, let alone link to him. In addition, MGS2 was smart enough to actually show Solid Snake in the game so you could see him from the outside, from the eyes of Raiden, and appreciate the hero as the others did.

Venom is nothing and no one. I mean, the idea of him being an avatar for the player is nice but that’s it, an idea. Take him out of MGS universe and nothing changes, he’s there for the sake of the final twist. Maybe with better pace, better performance and more real Big Boss somewhere, it coul’ve worked.. shame.

• Meaningful kills: The Boss and Diamond Dogs
  How do you achieve a meaningful kill? If you want the player to feel something when he presses a button, you better work on your writing to make him care, but also on lighting, scenario etc. to make the moment unique. It’s definitely not easy but with The Boss they did their best, I’m sure we all agree on this.
  I didn’t feel a thing during the “Shining Lights, Even in Death” mission for the same reason above: there was no proper build up. Who are these guys if not resources for my Mother Base, did I ever talked to them? Are they persons, are they faceless puppets? If I’m supposed to be Venom then I’m supposed to feel like him.. but I didn’t. The cinematics were nothing short of amazing, really kudos for that, but again, the idea didn’t work, it wasn’t well thought out because that single shot I took on The Boss had more impact than the two magazines emptied on my soldiers.

So, final thoughts. I believe Kojima really grew tired of a lot of stuff. He desperately wanted to try something else but he was never allowed to nor he had the courage to leave for whatever reason, like other professionals of his era did. Consequently, he started to care less and less even thanks to the press that, quite honestly, praise everything he does regardless of its quality.. I mean, look at MGSV and Quiet in particular.
I also believe Fukushima was a great help for him and yes, the key for a good MGS as I personally learned to like it. I picture him as the guy that was able to make order and sense of Kojima’s crazy mind, the one that made ideas actually work, a role that Murata apparently has never been able to cover maybe even due to Kojima’s increasing decisional power over the years (which could be the reason Fukushima left, we’ll never know).
Finally, I must confess that with MGSV being such a huge disappointment, I’ve questioned Kojima’s talent as a developer. He can be great, especially as a game designer, but I think he should be more modest, honest (all the lies before MGSV, why?) and stop trying to prove himself as the master auteur of the gaming world because there are devs out there that are doing things better and more efficiently. I mean, if even Cage realized he needs more writers in the team, it can’t be too hard for Kojima to take a couple of steps back, right?

TL;DR Now, your turn. What do you think about this never ending Kojima VS Fukushima argument or the drop in quality in MGS saga, if there’s any? Is it about a man tired of working on the same game, did the team actually lost a good resource, IP fatigue?

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note: I decided to bring this article here as an archive. It was posted a long time ago on NEOGAF, and the original formatting and images had been lost (fortunately, I had translated it to Portuguese so I had the original)