Through all its iterations over the last 25 years, the Metal Gear series has been about the element of surprise. Whether it was the stealth-driven gameplay that required you to sneak up on enemies or a story filled with twists and betrayals, Konami’s franchise has taught us to expect the unexpected.

Raiden’s emergence came from one of the more startling turns: in 2001’s Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, grizzled solider Solid Snake was but a supporting character, and players spent most of the game controlling a white-haired bishonen ninja. Recent appearances have endeared the world to Raiden after his abrupt introduction, to the point where he finally has a true starring vehicle in the form of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. It’s genuinely surprising (in good ways and bad) to find the generally stealthy series spawn an offshoot that slices, dices, and explodes to Revengeance’s extent; fortunately, there are no barriers when it comes to Metal Gear stories, and Revengeance is every bit as off-the-wall as its predecessors.

After the proliferation of private military companies (PMCs) during the events of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Raiden sets his sights on Desperado, a PMC whose ill intentions go far beyond supporting terrorists. It’s staffed with a rogue’s gallery of insane soldiers this side of FOXHOUND. Between Raiden’s allies at Maverick, the oddball bosses you’ll fight (limb-multiplying Mistral, magnetized-man Monsoon), and Desperado’s super-nefarious plans, Platinum Games was able to fit plenty of over-the-top plot developments into Revengeance, even with its relatively short playtime (about 10 hours) compared to Metal Gear Solid campaigns. The one downside to Revengeance’s characters (including a talking robot wolf!) is that they lack the in-game usefulness of Metal Gear Solid’s cast. While Raiden can engage in codec conversations, few allies actually divulge pertinent battle tips, which can be problematic when enemies and bosses use hard-to-decipher tactics.

Revengeance's first boss battle. You have even bigger robots to fry later on.

Even though Revengeance is drastically different from the Metal Gear Solid series, it still has weird VR missions.

Though Revengeance began development at Kojima Productions, it wears its Platinum Games pedigree on its sleeve. Raiden, who was once as beholden to gravity and common-sense tactical maneuvers as Solid Snake, has stopped peering around corners and firing tranquilizer darts in favor of a more proactive attack plan. You can collect projectile explosives to shoot at faraway flying objects or throw into groups, but most of Revengeance’s offense is blade-based.

Which means, of course, that its combat lives and dies by the sword. At the outset, you’ll have but one tool of destruction in the form of Raiden’s blade. Pressing X will perform light strikes while Y deploys more extravagant attacks, although you can map the latter button to a different weapon (more on that in a bit). Pulling the left trigger engages Blade Mode, which stops Raiden dead in his tracks (unless he's sliding) but allows him to aim his blade and slice in any direction (with bullet time–style slowdown if its gauge is full enough). You can aim and maim either by moving the right analog stick in the direction of your slices or, for a quicker approach, by hitting X to cut horizontally and Y to cut vertically. Because of their ease of use, we went with buttons for most of the game, but certain portions require quick-reaction cuts in very specific directions, necessitating analog-stick movement.

Unfortunately, said events are so uncommon that you’ll likely be caught by surprise and have trouble adapting to analog attacks. Still, for most of the game, Blade Mode is a blast, giving you the power to cut giant objects to ribbons, hack limbs off hulking enemies, and perform Zandatsu maneuvers. The latter are particularly enjoyable, as slicing across an enemy’s core before they fall to the ground gives Raiden the opportunity to yank out their lifeforce, refilling his own life and Blade Mode gauges. It leads to some pretty entertaining sequences where you’re racing against time to slice the critical spot on an airborne foe mere moments before they die, often with Raiden’s own life on the line.

Though all of your enemies are cyborg-based, a twist adds a bit of guilt to the proceedings.

Find out our final verdict in the second half of our Revengeance review!