system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: I think Hideo Kojima is supremely overrated

Ok, here's what I suspect is genuine a controversial statement on here, because I know Reddit has a massive boner for Hideo Kojima, but here it goes...

The guy is simply mediocre. That's already a concession from my part already; my default view was that he's kinda crap, but I didn't want to be super harsh without having all the facts that I'm sure are about to hit me like a firehose.

The Metal Gear series is all over the place. It gets retconned, takes nonsensical plot turns, the characters aren't especially endearing (I'll admit that there's probably a few touching moments in there, but touching moments does not equate to a strong, well designed character - anyone/anything could have a touching moment)... everything feels incoherent and incohesive. You know your plots aren't well-crafted when you need a freaking wiki guide to walk you through what the hell is going on. And not in the brilliant "Shakespeare needs to be translated into modern vernacular" kind of way - most characters and situations are nonsensical, in a sort of improvised way that makes me think Hideo had no damn clue what he was doing with them.

Hideo is treated as some industry god, but he's only done one real series worth note. I suppose he had some influence over Silent Hill (another meh series, imo), but he didn't conceive it, he just helped. That's not god-like. Look at Shigeru Miyamoto as comparison - the guy invented Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda and Link, and had a major hand in creating stuff like Star Fox, Metroid, and Pokémon. Fucking Pokémon, man! They make TV shows and movies about his shit.

Kojima made Snake, a man with a juvenile codename and almost zero personality. Also he made Raiden, so yeah, undo any credit he gets for the other Metal Gear characters right there. All his other characters are either stupid (fat guy on rollerskates as a boss? Nanomachines, son? ugh) or fan service (she breathes through her skin? come on...)

I've played most of the Metal Gear series (Silent Hill too), so please understand that this doesn't come as an outsider opinion. I just don't think the guy deserves all the praise he gets like he's one of the videogame gods. He shouldn't be listed alongside Kojima or GabeN or Romero or Wright as major innovators. CMV, please, because I WANT to like the guy, but just can't because I feel he's overrated.
gpt
Hideo Kojima is neither a particularly great game designer (compared the likes of Shinji Mikami or Hidetaka Miyazaki) nor a particularly good movie director. What he most definitely is, though, is an auteur with a vision and ability to convey it. His scripts are bad according to even the lowest screenwriting standards, his cinematic direction is silly according to cinematography and his game design is just all over the place. But these elements combine into very special and unique experiences in his work that is way, *waaaaay* more than the sum of its parts.

And let's not forget that his stuff is meticulously, *meticulously* crafted. From MGS 1's codec calls (long before, and way different from, the idiotic and useless modern radio companions) to MGS4's weapon commercials, Kojima's games are hand-crafted down to a pixel \*and\* everything in them serves the aesthetic purpose. You may or may not like the resulting games, but mediocre they aren't.