If you were a Nintendo fan in 2004, you probably remember the sheer hype surrounding Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. It felt like a fever dream. Kojima, the mastermind behind the series, was teaming up with Shigeru Miyamoto and Silicon Knights—the developers behind Eternal Darkness—to bring the PlayStation classic to the GameCube. It wasn't just a port. It was a complete overhaul.
But talk to any hardcore fan today and you'll get a mixed bag of emotions. Some love the shiny graphics and modernized mechanics. Others? They think the cutscenes are absolutely ridiculous.
Honestly, the legacy of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is messy. It’s a game caught between two eras of design, trying to please everyone while simultaneously alienating the purists who worshipped the 1998 original.
The Silicon Knights Connection and the Hideo Kojima X Factor
Back in the early 2000s, Nintendo was desperate to shed its "kiddy" image. The GameCube was powerful—more powerful than the PS2, actually—but it lacked that gritty, cinematic edge that Sony had mastered. Enter Denis Dyack and the team at Silicon Knights.
The development of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes was a weird international collaboration. You had the Canadian team at Silicon Knights handling the heavy lifting, Konami overseeing the assets, and Ryuhei Kitamura—a Japanese film director known for Versus—reimagining the cinematography.
Kitamura is really where the controversy starts.
Legend has it that Kitamura originally shot the cutscenes to be identical to the original PS1 game. When he showed them to Hideo Kojima, Kojima basically told him to do it in his own style. He wanted it "cool." Kitamura took that advice and ran with it, adding slow-motion bullet-dodging, backflips off of missiles, and Solid Snake doing literal gymnastics that would make an Olympic athlete weep.
It changed the tone. The original felt like a gritty 80s action flick with a bit of supernatural flair. This? This felt like The Matrix on steroids.
Why the Gameplay in Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes Broke the Game
Here is the thing about the original Metal Gear Solid: it was designed for a top-down perspective and a controller without analog triggers. The encounters were tight. The arenas were small.
When Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes updated the engine to match Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, it introduced first-person aiming. This seems like a small tweak, right? Wrong.
In the original game, the boss fight with Revolver Ocelot was a tense game of cat-and-mouse. You had to run around the perimeter to get a shot at him. In the GameCube version, you can just stand in a corner, go into first-person mode, and pop him in the head. The AI wasn't built for that level of precision.
Most of the level layouts remained identical to the 1998 version, but the player's power level tripled. You have lockers to hide bodies in. You have the tranquilizer gun. You have hanging maneuvers. It’s significantly easier than the original, which some people find refreshing, but veterans find trivializing.
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The Visual Leap (and the Audio Trade-off)
The Jump from 32-bit to the GameCube's Gekko processor was massive. Suddenly, the blocky, faceless models of Snake and Meryl had actual expressions. You could see the breath of the guards in the freezing air of Shadow Moses.
But it wasn't a total upgrade.
Because the game was on those tiny GameCube discs, the audio took a hit. The original voice cast was brought back to re-record every line of dialogue, but the results were... different. Mei Ling and Naomi Hunter lost their accents. Some fans argue the new deliveries felt bored or detached compared to the raw energy of the 1998 session.
Also, the iconic music was replaced. The sweeping, synth-heavy score of the original was swapped for more ambient, orchestral tracks that some feel lacked the "soul" of the PS1 version.
The "Over the Top" Problem
Let's talk about the missile scene.
In Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, there is a moment where Solid Snake literally jumps off a Hind-D missile to launch a stinger at a helicopter. It is the most "video game" thing to ever happen. In the context of Metal Gear Solid 4 or Rising, maybe it fits. But in 2004, it felt like a jarring departure from the Snake we knew.
Is it fun? Absolutely. Is it "Solid Snake"? That’s debatable.
The game treats Snake like a superhero. In the original, he felt like a tired soldier who was just barely surviving by the skin of his teeth. The remake makes him look like he's bored by the lack of challenge.
Is it Worth Playing Today?
If you are a collector, finding a copy of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is a challenge. It was never ported to other systems. It wasn't in the Master Collection Vol. 1. It remains a GameCube exclusive, which has driven the price up on the secondary market to eye-watering levels.
If you want the "true" Shadow Moses experience, most people will point you toward the original. However, if you want a weird, high-octane, visually impressive curiosity that represents a very specific era of Nintendo/Konami collaboration, this is it.
The game runs at a smooth 60 frames per second (most of the time), and the character models still look surprisingly good on a CRT or through a high-quality upscaler like a Retrotink.
How to Experience The Twin Snakes Properly in 2026
If you’re planning to dive back into Shadow Moses on the GameCube, don't just plug it into a modern 4K TV and hope for the best. The image will look muddy and the input lag will ruin the stealth.
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- Use a GameCube Component Cable or HDMI Adapter: Modern solutions like the Carby or the Retro-Bit Prism use the GameCube’s digital out port to give you a crisp 480p signal.
- Turn Off the "Action" Camera: If the Kitamura-style zoom-ins are too much for you, some settings can be tweaked, though the core cutscenes are unchangeable.
- Play on Hard Difficulty: Since the MGS2 mechanics make the game easier, starting on a higher difficulty helps restore the tension that the first-person aiming removes.
- Compare the Dubs: If you have the original PS1 game, listen to the briefings side-by-side. It’s a fascinating look at how voice direction changed in just six years.
Whether you view it as a masterpiece or a "Michael Bay" style disaster, there is no denying that Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is one of the most interesting artifacts in the history of the medium. It’s a loud, proud, and slightly broken tribute to one of the greatest games ever made.
To truly understand the divide, look at the Psycho Mantis fight. On the PS1, it was a mind-bending trick that felt grounded in a weird way. In the remake, it’s a high-speed spectacle. Both are valid. Both are Metal Gear. But only one lets you kick a grenade into a tank's muzzle in mid-air.
The next step is simple: track down a copy, ignore the purists for a second, and enjoy the beautiful absurdity of the GameCube's most controversial remake.