Best Handheld Metal Gear Games

The Metal Gear franchise is one of the most influential in gaming history. Since the first game was released in 1987, the series has produced some of the most influential stealth games ever made and is largely responsible for popularizing the genre in the first place.

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These games have been released on everything from the ancient MSX2 home computer to current-gen consoles and everything in between. That includes handheld consoles. Handheld entries in popular franchises haven’t always had the best reputations, but every handheld Metal Gear game has been a hit.

Metacritic Score: NA

Metal Gear: Ghost Babel

Systems

Platform(s)

Game Boy Color

Released

May 5, 2000

Developer(s)

Tose

The Metal Gear Solid timeline is famously difficult to keep track of. There are a lot of games in the series and knowing where they sit in the overarching plot is never particularly easy. Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel is a sequel to the original Metal Gear but isn’t a port of the PlayStation 1’s Metal Gear Solid. Instead, the Game Boy Color version is set in an alternate universe and tells a story set seven years after the ending of the original Metal Gear.

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It’s pretty confusing if one isn’t a Metal Gear expert. The game itself is pretty good and is one of the best Game Boy Color exclusives ever made. Its story bears all the hallmarks of the series’ complex storytelling and introduces new characters like Sgt. Chris Jenner and Black Arts Viper. The game made good use of the limited hardware and crammed 2D stealth, puzzle solving, and action into a portable format. On the downside, the graphics and sound are less impressive than other entries, but that’s to be expected. Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel gets the bottom spot only because of hardware limitations.

Metacritic Score: 65

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops

Systems

Released

December 5, 2006

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus was released as a standalone expansion for Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. Calling it a full-fledged game would be too generous. The expansion was poorly marketed, and a fair few fans bought it thinking it would carry on the original’s story. The fact that the original wasn’t even needed to play this version only added to the confusion.

Portable Ops Plus doesn’t even have a story mode. That was cut and replaced with the new “Infinity Mission” mode, which had players hunting down specific points on randomly selected maps. However, the real focus was on adding new multiplayer modes and more recruitable characters. The content Portable Ops Plus added wasn’t bad, but Infinity Mission got old fast, and pretty much no one cares about multiplayer Metal Gear Solid experiences. For these reasons, this entry rarely shows up on lists of the best Metal Gear Solid games.

Metacritic Score: 75

Metal Gear Acid

Systems

Metal Gear Acid was the first Metal Gear game to hit the PSP, but it wasn’t really what fans were expecting. Rather than adapting the franchise’s usual action/stealth gameplay, Metal Gear Acid was a digital card game. It acted as a spin-off of the other games that featured some of the best Metal Gear Solid characters but told a unique, non-canon story.

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It might not have been what was expected, but the game was well received. The card-based system required players to build decks and then use a hand of six cards each turn. The more powerful the cards used, the longer the player had to wait for their turn. It was a fun system that combined the franchise’s usual style with a more tactical approach. The game also looked great on the PSP and ran smoothly. The only real problem with it was its story, which wasn’t quite as strong or engaging as fans had come to expect from the Metal Gear franchise.

Metacritic Score: 80

Metal Gear Acid 2 was a solid step up from its older brother. With just a year between the releases, Kojima Productions could have rushed out a minor upgrade, but they didn’t. The game’s mechanics were refined and streamlined to make them more user-friendly, making it one of the Metal Gear games with the best gameplay. If one doesn’t mind the card mechanics, that is.

The biggest step up, though, came with the graphics. The game features gorgeous cell-shaded-style artwork that looks awesome and makes the game stand out from other entries in the franchise. The game even shipped with a weird peripheral called the “Solid Eye” that, when clipped to the PSP, made some parts of the game appear 3D. It was a bit of a gimmick but pretty cool nonetheless. Much like the first Metal Gear Acid, the only real sore point and the thing preventing a higher ranking was the lackluster story.

Metacritic Score: 87

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops was the first entry in the franchise to try and take full-fat Metal Gear gameplay and put it on a handheld device. Of course, some compromises had to be made, but the result was one of the best PSP stealth games the console ever got. For a start, despite not being directed by Kojima, the game had a surprisingly good story that continued the storyline from Metal Gear Solid 3 and had all the twists and turns fans expect.

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The stealth gameplay was solid, although some felt the control scheme was a little awkward on the PSP. Some critics also disliked the game’s mission structure, a result of the game being designed to be played in short bursts. Impressively, Portable Ops actually introduced features. It included a recruitment system that let players capture enemies and convert them to the player’s cause. These characters could then be added to the player’s squad and taken on missions where they could be controlled directly. It was a popular system that Kojima later adapted and included in Metal Gear Solid 5.

Metacritic Score: 78

The original Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is one of the best games worked on by Hideo Kojima, so there was a fair amount of concern when Snake Eater 3D was announced. Fans of the original were worried the little 3DS didn’t have the horsepower to adapt such an epic game and that the result was going to be a substandard port, with 3DS-flavored gimmicks shoehorned in. Thankfully, they were wrong.

Snake Eater 3D wasn’t a half-hearted port. It was built from the ground up with 3D visuals in mind and used to add a new layer of immersion to the game’s jungle environments. The console’s touch controls were well implemented and used to do things like inventory management. The camera could even be used to create custom camouflage patterns. Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D is an awesome experience, only stopped from being top-ranked because it’s a port rather than an original game.

Metacritic Score: 89

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker isn’t just one of the best handheld Metal Gear games; it’s widely considered one of the best Metal Gear games full-stop. It took what gamers liked about the Portable Ops games and expanded upon them, sanding off the rough edges and adding impressive new features. Just from a technical perspective, the game is incredibly impressive.

For a start, Peace Walker has one of the best Metal Gear Solid stories, traditionally a weak spot for handheld games. The game also kept the recruitment mechanic but added a management system with the inclusion of Mother Base. The game had a full-fledged co-op mode that let gamers play through the story with a friend and use special co-op actions. The moment-to-moment gameplay was also expanded by the inclusion of certain elements from Metal Gear Solid 4, including an over-the-shoulder view and CQC combat moves. Despite the limitations of the PSP hardware, Peace Walker pretty much felt like playing on the PS3 with very few compromises.

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