>terms of presentation, blurring player, game and narrative as well as thematically dealing with simulation vs reality, information overflow and so it's a cont

>terms of presentation, blurring player, game and narrative as well as thematically dealing with simulation vs reality, information overflow and so it's a contentious opinion, but I believe that a lot of that stuff came at-no-cost for the Metal Gear franchise as part of trying to fit into the world of 'hard sci-fi' mecha genre. The blurring of good and evil, the singular fabricated narrative for the player character until exposure to 'the real world' , the concept of simulation versus reality, information overflow.. these are all themes pretty heavily explored in other mecha franchises (Evangelion, Mobile Suit Gundam, VOTOMs, Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell, Macross). It's my opinion that Kojima has always made mecha fan-service games (I love REX) for mecha fans such as himself -- delivered via the medium of interpretive story-telling in the format of an MG game. Zone of the Enders didn't have the mass appeal due to the fact that he jumped into the deep-end with the mecha content; he has found that it works better to sugar-coat the mecha content in James Bond espionage and sexual allure. All opinion of course -- but it's the opinion of a die hard mecha fan. Also, I don't want this to come off as mean or underwhelmed , it's not; Kojima has been a part of some impressive world-building, I don't want to sell that short.