I'm impressed by your writing and I agree. Not a big fan of raiden and it annoyed me how he was both able to stop a ship with his body and wield a sword with his mouth. I dont think it makes snake worthless as he is a better soldier and by far smarter. Raiden is to forward and puts himself in danger but yes they are trying way to hard with raiden

What did you think of his MGS4 "evolution"?

Kojima isn't trying to make him cool. The fans were complaining that they never got to play as Raiden in MGS4 as he pretty much ran the whole game via cinematic and Kojimas team pitched the idea to make the game, but failed him when he gave the go ahead.

I understand where you're coming from. There was a lot of smoke and mirrors involving his return in MGS4 to try and make you forget about him from MGS2.

Personally, I didn't forget his appearing in MGS2 though. I guess I formed part of "the internet" that you mentioned in your original post. It was just... his character, had all this background and history... being a child soldier, being mentored by Solidus, all that jazz, he had the potential to be amazing. Yet his actual appearance and behaviour in the game itself just didn't fit. It was more Rose than him actual, their inane conversations really dragged the game down.

I remain indifferent to him after MGS4 really. The bit where he's fighting Vamp while you're taking out the Metal Gears was utterly amazing, I'll admit. But he'll never be Grey Fox, and heck, he'll never be Olga. Both of those character have one-ups on him by being involved in disgusting but upsetting death scenes, yet even before that their characters were more developed. Olga was actually my favourite character in MGS2. The reason she was involved in the game (Sunny) was such a simple story, yet really effective. Was sad to see her go.

Will be interested to see what he's like in Metal Gear Rising, at least. The Boss will probably remain my favourite Metal Gear character for a long time though, gonna take something really special to design a more compelling character than her.

It's okay though, Trucks. You're still a sexy beast.

I always liked Raiden. Even in MGS2. I can understand the hate he got because most people wanted to play as Snake but honestly it was mostly Rose who was the bringing up their relationship n stuff in the middle of the mission lol.

MGS4 Raiden is completely awesome imo, though I wish they didn't make him out to be quite as overpowered. But He's still a cool character.

I have no idea what you are talking about...

No, if you posted this thread more than 10 years ago right after MGS2 came out you would've been one of the pioneers of the Raiden hate club.

That's the thing though, 10 years ago I didn't hate him. It's the MGS4 version that screwed things up.

he became a Badass in MGS4. But in revengeance he is a bit lame.

if you've replayed MGS2 , you'll know why he became a badass, the whole game was actually a training simulator for him to make the perfect weapon for the patriots to take down Solidus, and bring down after saving Rose from them when she was kidnapped, she acted like she is having an affair with the Colonel, and then he became a killing machine, well just read on it, I seriously am too lazy to revise the whole story , but he's a badass without "Trying too hard" in MGS2 he was "The rain (sorrow/pityful)" , and in MGS4 he became "Lightning, the rain transformed"