This Metal Gear game feels kind of like it's trying to be a watered down Devil May Cry or God of War. That said, the secondary weapons (Which replaces the heavy attacks when just using the main weapon alone) sort of feel like they're just, there. Sort of like 'hey, see that cool weapon that boss just used? You can use it, if you really care to invest points into it.' And for a while, it's a pretty novel deal, wielding their weapons and doing a little damage, but it's sort of begs the question 'do I really care ebough about this weapon to buy it and then wield it at all?' Personally, with the secondary weapons, no, I don't find any points where they're really useful. I'll try a harder difficulty and see if they're worth the effort, but I really doubt I'll get much use out of them.
That said, I'll list my opinions on the weapons I've unlocked through three playthroughs, starting with the obvious.
HF Sword: A good weapon, it makes its point of being the weapon to use throughout the entire campaign, with good speed, good damage, good reach. A good all around weapon that says 'here's your ass' as you hand it to them. Fully upgraded, I imagine it does better (Haven't fully upgraded it yet as I've focused on other weapons and techniques, as well as maxing out my health and fuel cells)
Spoiler:Kill a beautiful woman and a lot of Dwarf Gekkos for this
Pole Arm 'L'etranger': First new weapon to be received, replaces the heavy attack instead of being a full weapon in its own right, which is where the game loses any effort of trying to be a DMC or GoW game and becomes something like a more action Legend of Zelda wannabe. That said, as far as range goes, L'etranger can mess up your enemy's day in a hurry, and when you're surrounded, this should give you a nice way to keep them at bay, and tear apart Dwarf Gekkos in any amount. Having said that, fully upgraded, the damage is okay, not great. And since you can't upgrade anything apart from the damage aspect, it sort of begs the question of purpose for secondary weapons other than letting you tear apart the scenery faster than a sword unless you waste electrolytes in Blade Mode.
Spoiler:Unleash Jack the Ripper upon the magnetic rainmaker, and you get this
Sai (Forget the name): What's the point of this? Throw it out, stab an enemy, fly at them and kick them in the head. Upgrading damage, I guess this is your go-to anti-Slider weapon, unless you by the flying kick attack that does the job slightly more efficiently. Letting it sit and charge up to purple electricity, however, lets the intial strike stun your enemy, letting you get in a free hit, and then let you rip your enemies a new one, or fifty if you use it to Blade Mode to mimic the effect of a paper shredder or a woodchipper. Other than taking down Sliders or Hammerheads by pulling yourself toward them, I sometimes forget about this entirely.
Spoiler:Avenge a good man by killing his murderer, and you get these
Scissor Machetes: You get a two hit combo, hold the button for scissor mode to cut something in half in one massively damaging hit, and the one upgrade lets you swing up, then down, then up, then down, for a four hit combo. If it hit faster, I'd call this perhaps worthy of being a main weapon, but the windup is like an enemy attack. You're saying 'hey, take a second to see this attack coming from two miles away, and then stop it just before it makes contact'. But while the windup can be a killer, with good timing, you can minimize the interruptions, to an extent, but in the end, you're really better off just using the HF Sword to do your damage.
Spoiler:Beat the game on any difficulty, and you get this
HF Murasama: When I first saw Sam, I knew that blade would be mine, eventually. I looked at the beautiful blood red blade, arcing with red lightning, and I said to myself 'oh yeah, that's going to do some damage. That's going to ruin my enemy's day, thoroughly.' And yeah, it requires you to beat the game from start to finish on any difficulty, but it's entirely worth the effort you put in. It feels like it does a hell of a lot more damage than the regular HF Blade, swings about as fast, and when fully upgraded, it's probably about half as much more damaging, probably up near the scissor machete. Fully upgraded, this becomes your standard blade, no doubt. You just sort of, need to use it. It's everything the original blade is, with, give or take, 50% more damage at the same speed, maybe a little faster, and when you swing it, blood red blur behind it, and it seems like the damn thing is on fire. What more can you ask of it? I mean, come on, Katanas are just better than other swords.
Spoiler:Collect 10 DSU and you get this
HF Machete: Having just talked about the endgame blade that you're likely going to fall in love with and use nother else whenever possible, the HF Machete comes along. A little weaker in attack power, shorter reach, but much faster than the HF Sword or Murasama, you're going to do some critical damage with this little thing no matter who you're hitting with it. That said, due to the lack of length to the blade, it does leave something to be desired, and then, you have to get in a lot closer than before. To unlock, you must acquire ten Data Storage Units and complete the mission in which you got the tenth. While it doesn't hit quite as hard as the HF Sword or Murasama, you'll be cranking out attacks like a submachine gun, hitting rapidly, but not doing full damage. Fully upgraded, it hits small calliber assault rifle damage at about SMG speed, meaning a lot of damage in a very short amount of time, just shredding your enemies like a paper shredder from hell.
:Edit:
Spoiler:Find the MiB and destroy them to get this
HF Wooden Sword: Having acquired it, I expected it to be a beast of a weapon. Turns out, it can't cut, at all. Obviously that was the point, as it allows 'no kill' victories, leaving you able to go through the game guilt free, with only kills done during the prologue mission. Even then, I think you can just run away from those guys, so, even there you're kind of safe. So there's that. Anyway, this weapon has four upgrades. One of which lowers the weapons attack power, while the damage increaser actually just makes it more likely to knock your target out, symbolized by their body fading. This can be funny when you sneak up on an enemy, perform a ninja 'kill', run them through and proceed to Blade Mode beat them with a wooden sword, and they vanish without dying. They just lost a major internal organ and likely got their spine broken, and maybe a f***load of slivers along a gigantic wound track. Yeah, he'll live, after getting a new body to replace the broken spine and ruptured stomach and obliterated liver, not to mention bruises that would be potentially lethal. However, it's made of Honduran Mahogany. So, there's that.
Those are all I've unlocked thus far, but I just need one last Left Hand ID for the Armor Breaker, and I'll test that thoroughly before getting back to this. If anyone else wants to list the weapons with their opinions and general stats, please do.
Then again, Sub-Weapons. I hardly use them, never found much use in them, but I'll give my thoughts on them as they come.
Grenade: Standard 'pull the pin, toss it, blow something up'. No frills, nothing special, just throw it, kill someone, move on. They actually make good distraction items as well. Just toss one out, and watch your enemies look around curiously for a moment, and when they start walking away, backstab and restore your power. Get enough at once, and bad things happen to your enemies.
RP Grenade: Red Phosphorous, AKA, smoke grenade. Since the enemies are cyborgs and robots, they can see in infrared vision, apparently. So this smoke is designed to make them blind in both normal vision and infrared. A great idea, and it can buy you a moment to smoke a crowd, and then tear them apart before it clears. Good on ya if you manage to actually do so. Because that'd be badass. Kill them, let the smoke clear, walk away with bodies behind you... Er, shattered and burnt shrapnel that once were bodies, I guess, would be more fitting.
Chaff Grenade: Makes radio communication impossible and temporarily disables remote controlled UGs... Uh-huh, great to hear. I've never used these to any noticeable effect. Tossed a few, tried to run by Dwarf Gekkos, turns out the little turds are not remote controlled. Nor are Gekkos, Mastiffs, or anything except for, Sliders... I think. Collect your five and just collect the rest for points to upgrade your stuff. Wish sub-weapons could be upgraded. Make the Chaff do something useful, like disable your enemies, or make it so only one fights you instead of calling in everyone.
EM Grenades: Electromagnetic Grenades. Useful for a sudden stun by shutting down electronics. Great example of electronics, the control units of UGs, and the cybernetics of Cyborgs. In other words, all of your enemies are going to be temporarily paralyzed to the point you can get in free hits and maybe Zandatsu a number of them. When will you not want to have these on hand?
Rocket Launcher: RPG-7 anyone? Yeah, this is your standard 'pull trigger, wait a few seconds, watch your enemy disappear in a cloud of smoke and flame while others get curious' weapon. Fire it, cause massive damage that will kill most enemies, and those it doesn't, it hurts them so bad they either get stunned, or they're going to die very quickly when they get up close to you.
Homing Missile: The RPG is great, probably does more damage, but this is better in some ways. Forget taking the time to manually target one specific enemy. The Homing Missile looks at them and says 'you want me to hit that guy? Piece of cake.' Fire and forget, ladies and gents, fire the missile, and let it do the work. The only thing you need to remember is that it hit your target to give you a little breathing room.
Cardboard Box: Let's be honest. Metal Gear without a C. Box. It wouldn't be a Metal Gear game without it. You want this. You need it. If anything else, this is the tool that made Snake and Naked Snake legends. When you're in the box, you'll understand. If you want stealth, the box is foil lined so that Cyborgs and UGs' IR Vision modules can't see inside. And they're so stupid, they can walk by you, you can go across the street, and if they see the box over there, they don't question it, or why the flaps are open and it's upside down.
Barrel: MGS4 had it. It was the new Cardboard Box. Sometimes, you might actually question 'what's that box doing here', and the answer is 'target practice' in so many words. The barrel? 'What's that doing there?' The answer: 'Whatever it is, boss must want it to be there, so just leave it alone.' Better yet, you can tip it and roll it to get around faster. Just don't do it too much or Raiden's going to hate you for it, throwing up.
Holographic Photo Frame: Let's face facts, Cyborgs aren't about to read a magazine. These days, that is to say the year 2018, a soldier's not about to spend his time flipping pages to get his rocks off. But, a holographic image of a woman in a bikini, posing just right... Oh yeah. That's just what you need to get him to forget about patrolling around, and, test his cybernetic grip, if you know what I mean.
Edit: Feb 24, 13 9:07am
------------------- The sins of the son shall not bother the father.
the fox blade is a beast. its pretty much ripper mode in the form of a blade when its special effect is upgraded along with its other components. i recommend it to anyone.
yeah, the fox blade is almost a BFG. Its almost a cheat weapon. After you upgrade it, it kills mastifs, raptors, etc., in one sword swipe, if you connect. I owe almost every S rank I got to this sword. It makes the game almost too easy.
