Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake

The canonical sequel to the original Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is basically what Metal Gear Solid would've been if it was 2D and came out exclusively on a Japanese 8-bit computer instead of a console most of the world actually owned. Konami would later include this, along with the first MSX2 game, in Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence with a full English localization in 2006, but at the expense of the original likeness-infringing character portraits.

Sub-Page#

Prerelease Info

Unused Text#

An unused name tag assigned as a value to the byte variable D6. This was a name tag likely intended for "Maniac Cop", a scrapped enemy character mentioned in the liner notes for the official soundtrack. According to an early draft of the game's map, he would've been encountered on the first floor of Zanzibar Building, most likely after the first boss battle, since this name tag is stored right after Black Color's (D5), but before Running Man's (D7).

Another unused name tag, obviously intended for enemy soldiers. The enemy soldiers in the game have a few lines of dialogue, but none of them ever use this name tag. It's assigned to the byte variable DD.

This appears among text strings used for weapon pickups between the lighter and the silencer. Wires were likely intended placed traps similarly to land mines and plastic explosives. There are wired traps in certain areas of the final game (such as the spiral staircase chase and the final escape sequence), but they're used exclusively as obstacles against the player.

This is located at offset 0x61834. It's codec advice given by Campbell on how to avoid searchlights, an obstacle that was cut from the final game. Searchlights were intended to be used by the enemy in the very first area of the game (similarly to the ones present on the heliport in the original Metal Gear Solid).

This appears among Campbell's codec dialogue at offset 0x61D50, but he's obviously not the intended speaker (despite the dialogue being assigned to his name tag). The character of Carrie (キャリー) was most likely Master Miller's daughter, Catherine (キャサリー), who is mentioned in the game's manual. This conversation would've likely been used for a frequency number change, similarly to the ones Campbell and Holly go through, but Miller sticks with the same number throughout the final game.

Sound Test#

Equip the cigarettes and then go to the radio screen. Set the frequency to 140.07 and the game will play a random music track. Change to another frequency and then switch back to 140.07 to play a different track.

Debug Mode#

Metal Gear 2 has an extensive debug feature that's been made inaccessible in the retail version. The only way to unlock it is by opening the ROM image with a hex editor and changing the value placed at offset 7F801 to a 0, which will remove the instruction preventing its access.

This can also be done on an actual MSX2 with a MegaRAM cartridge containing the ROM, although the procedure is a bit different. Go to page 3F of the ROM and change the value placed at position B801 to a 0.

Controls#

Stop Mode#

Warp Keys#

The following keys will transport the player to the indicated location when the game is running on debug mode.

Revisional Differences#

Metal Gear 2 was released on the Wii Virtual Console in Japan in 2010. This version has some graphical and text changes that were made to bring it more in-line with the 2004 mobile phone port that the versions included in Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence and HD Edition were based on.

Graphic Changes#

Opening#

Original	Virtual Console

The Balmal-branded cigarettes pack (an obvious pastiche of the real life Pall Mall brand) was changed to Gator brand and the palette used for the rest of the image is slightly different as a result. Oddly enough, the Lucky Strike-like design used for the cigarettes icon on the inventory screen and HUD went unchanged, despite being replaced with a different icon in all the other versions.

Original	Virtual Console

The close-up of Solid Snake's face at the end of the opening prologue (which is also used for the ending cast roll) was changed from the original Mel Gibson-like design to a stylized design more akin to Yoji Shinkawa's promotional artwork in the later games.

Portraits#

All of the character portraits used for the game's conversation sequences were similarly replaced as well. Most, if not all, of the original portraits were traceovers of actual celebrities at the time, with some of them being pretty blatant, such as Colonel Campbell's (who is obviously based on Colonel Trautman from the Rambo movies), and Big Boss's (basically Sean Connery with an eyepatch drawn over him), which may had necessitated their replacement when the game was ported to other platforms in later years.

The revised character portraits are drawn in a style similar to Metal Gear Solid series illustrator Yoji Shinkawa's (as well as somewhat resembling the style of the character portraits seen in Metal Gear: Ghost Babel), in order to more closely resemble how the characters looked in the later games, with Gray Fox and Master Miller in particular no longer resembling how they originally looked on the MSX2 version. However, the revised portraits lack the eye and mouth animations that the original versions have, with the sole exception of Natasha. Natasha (who was renamed Gustava in all re-releases) was given an alternate portrait with her eyes closes used for her death scene in the other ports, but the Virtual Console version uses it to give her a blinking animation.

The blood on Fox's face after he is wounded from his fistfight with Snake are sprites that are layered over his portrait. However, the blood pattern was not changed to better suit his new portrait, unlike the other versions (which all use an alternate portrait instead).

	Original	Virtual Console
Solid Snake
Roy Campbell
Holly White
Master Miller
Yozev Norden (Johan Jacobsen)
George Kasler
Natasha Marcova (Gustava Heffner)
Kio Marv
Dr. Madnar
Gray Fox
Big Boss

Ending#

The romanized names used for the ending cast roll were also changed to match the other versions, with some rather interesting results.

Original	Virtual Console

Roy Campbell's last name was originally given the rather Engrish-sounding romanization of "Kyanbel" in the MSX2 version. They tried changing it to the way it's normally spelled on the Virtual Console release, but they were one letter short, so we get "Campbel" instead (the fan-translation patch by G&T Soft managed to use the full spelling, but apparently Konami didn't think it was worth the effort to code-in an extra letter).

Original	Virtual Console

Similarly, Horry became the more natural-sounding Holly...

Original	Virtual Console

...while Kesler became Kasler.

Original	Virtual Console

Petorovich was changed to Pettrovich (the manual uses Petrovich, without the extra 't', which is how the actual name is normally spelled). His full name was actually changed to "Drago Pettrovich Madnar" in the re-releases, which the revised script for the Virtual Console version also uses, but they obviously didn't try to fit it in here.

Original	Virtual Console

Yozev Norden was renamed Johan Jacobsen for some reason, but they didn't have enough room for the full name, so they simply shortened the first name to its initial.

Original	Virtual Console

The spelling of both, Fox's real name and his code name, were changed to match the ones used in the original Metal Gear Solid.

Original	Virtual Console

Natasha Marcova became Gustava Heffner in the re-releases, possibly to avoid confusion with the similarly-named Nastasha Romanenko from Metal Gear Solid, but also because her last name was taken from a character in the J.C. Pollock novel Crossfire (which is where some of the plot elements in the game were drawn from, including Natasha's doomed romance with Frank).

Metal Gear D#

The screen-flashing effect that occurs when Metal Gear D is being damaged or destroyed during its boss battle was removed in the Virtual Console version in order to reduce the risk of seizure.

General Text Changes#

Names#

In addition to the name changes from the ending shown above, all the bosses, most of which had reference-themed names in the MSX2 version (such as Black Color, whose name is a mistransliteration of Blackcollar) were renamed except for the Running Man and Red Blaster. The spelling for FOX HOUND was also changed to the one word style used in the later games.

The name change of Dr. Madnar is particularly a special case. Originally he was simply called Dr. Pettrovich in the first MSX2 game, with the initial idea being that this was the character's surname, only to be given the full name of Dr. Pettrovich Madnar in this game, as well as in Snatcher. Despite this, he is still addressed as Dr. Pettrovich in the script like he was in the first game, creating a bit of an inconsistency. In the re-releases of both games, he's addressed exclusively as Dr. Madnar and his full name was further changed to "Drago Pettrovich Madnar", establishing Pettrovich to be his patronym. On a side note, the original MSX2 version was inconsistent over the transliteration of Dr. Pettrovich's name, switching between ペトロビッチ and ペトロヴィッチ depending on the line.

Items#

The names of some of the items displayed on the weapon and equipment selection screens were changed. Most of the changes were done to omit the proper names of weapons (such as the Beretta M92F and Ingram M11), as well as references to real-life products (such as Lucky Striker, a pastiche of the Lucky Strike cigarette brand), while other changes were just transliteration-related (such as Plastic Explosives and the Hang Glider).

Similar changes were also applied to the shortened names used for item pickups and dialogue. ムリョクカガス (Incapacitating Gas) became ガス・グレネード (Gas Grenades), タイクウミサイル (Anti-Air Missiles) became スティンガーミサイル (Stinger Missiles) and ボデイ・アーマー (Body Armor) was corrected to ボディ・アーマー. The B1　ユニット (B1 Unit) was changed to B1　レーション (B1 Rations) and likewise for the B2 and B3 ration types. Despite this, the typo for the Green Card (which is displayed as グレーン　カード when picked up as an item instead of the correct グリーン カード) was left unchanged.

The description for the cardboard box was slightly changed. The term takkyūbin (タッキュウビン) used in the original description is a reference to an express delivery service used by the Yamato Transport company in Japan. Since the term is trademarked, it was replaced with the more generic takuhaibin (タクハイビン).

Script Changes#

Roy Campbell#

The MSX2 version originally required you to look up in the back of the game's case to learn Campbell's second frequency number (apparently intended as a copy protection gimmick, later reused in the original Metal Gear Solid). But since the Virtual Console version was a digital download, he tells you to look up for a screenshot in the digital manual instead. Likewise, he helpfully reminds you of the tap code deciphering chart in the manual during his next frequency change. The original versions of the lines are still present in the game's ROM.

References to the Hanoi Hilton and Minovsky particles were removed.

Holly White#

The original text says that the rooftop is the 40th floor, but it´s actually the 31st. The manual also made this mistake.

The original text incorrectly stated that the northern elevator stops at the basement (the B1 floor), when it's actually the central elevator that does that.

Holly originally did not specify on which building the mine detector was located. Not that she needed to, since the 3rd floor on Tower Building is inaccessible, but it helps a bit.

Master Miller#

生きのびびる was corrected to 生きのびる (survive).

George Kasler#

The Patrice Lumumba University was an actual university in Moscow that was established in 1960. However, the organization changed their name to the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia in 1992 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which dated the game's story. At any rate, it's doubtful that "elite assassination" was ever part of their curriculum, as the Lumumba University is just a regular college, which would've necessitated the line change anyway.

The reason for the redundant translation for both versions of the line is due to the fact that he's explaining what the name Red Blaster means in Japanese (赤い爆破魔). This was naturally unnecessary for the English localization, so the line was slightly rewritten.

The William Morgan mentioned by Kasler was likely a reference to the U.S.-born Cuban revolutionary known as the Comandante Yankee, whose life has a few parallels with Big Boss's backstory due to the fact they're both Americans who fought as revolutionaries for third world countries. The comparison was likely removed due to being too obscure.

Dr. Madnar#

Snake now uses Dr. Madnar's full name during their first encounter in the Virtual Console version of the game.

As a result, Kasler's later use of Dr. Madnar's full name when talking about Big Boss's rumored involvement in the Snatcher project was omitted.

Kio Marv#

Originally Dr. Marv's dialogue was written in what was apparently either, broken Russian or Russian-sounding gibberish, that was passed off as Czech. In the later ports his dialogue was completely rewritten into something actually resembling Czech in both, the Japanese and English versions. The Virtual Console version used a transliterated version of the new dialogue. The script from the Subsistence version has been provided as well along with corresponding translations for reference purposes.

Natasha Marcova#

The title 博士 was added to Marv's name.

Snake's Fan#

Aside from the obvious name change from Night Sight to Night Fright, the name of the gun mentioned in the original line, the Wēi Shēng Shǒuqiāng (微声手枪), is just a Chinese word meaning "silent handgun".

Bosses#

Every instance of "FOX HOUNDER" (all three of them), a term for FOXHOUND members used in the two MSX2 games that felt into disuse in the later games, were replaced in the revised script.