It was 2003. EA Games was basically the king of the world, and everyone was obsessed with storming the beaches of Normandy. Then, out of nowhere, Medal of Honor Rising Sun dropped. It didn't take us back to France. Instead, it shoved us onto the deck of the USS West Virginia during the chaos of Pearl Harbor.
Honestly? It was kind of a mess. But it was a glorious, ambitious mess that a lot of us still think about twenty years later.
If you grew up with a PlayStation 2, GameCube, or Xbox, you probably remember the opening cinematic. You're Joseph Griffin. You’re literally blown out of your bunk as the Japanese Imperial Navy begins its surprise attack. Water is rushing in. Pipes are bursting. It felt like playing a Michael Bay movie before Michael Bay movies became a parody of themselves. For a lot of gamers, this was their first real exposure to the Pacific Theater of WWII, a side of the war that the "Greatest Generation" shooters usually ignored in favor of the European front.
The Pearl Harbor Opening Still Hits Different
Most games take ten minutes to get going. Not this one. Rising Sun throws you into the fire within seconds. You're running across the deck of a sinking battleship, manning AA guns, and watching the iconic silhouette of the Zeroes dive-bombing your fleet. It was intense. Even with the chunky, low-resolution textures of the early 2000s, the sense of scale was massive.
The sound design was what really sold it. EA’s audio team, led by legendary composer Christopher Lennertz, didn't just make "video game music." They recorded a full orchestra. The score for Rising Sun is actually considered one of the best in the entire franchise, even if the gameplay didn't always live up to the prestige of the soundtrack. When that main theme kicks in over the menu, you feel like you’re about to do something important.
But here’s the thing: after that incredible first level, the game gets... weird.
It shifts from this massive, cinematic set-piece to a series of stealth missions and jungle crawls. You go from defending a battleship to sneaking through the streets of Singapore in a tuxedo. It was a jarring shift that confused a lot of critics at the time. Reviewers from places like IGN and GameSpot gave it middling scores—mostly 6s and 7s—because it felt like two different games stitched together.
Why the Gameplay Was So Divisive
Let’s be real for a second. The AI in Medal of Honor Rising Sun was not good.
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Sometimes, an enemy soldier would see you from across a field and snipe you with a pistol. Other times, you could stand three feet away from a guard and he’d just stare at the wall, contemplating his life choices. It was inconsistent. If you compare it to Call of Duty, which launched the same year on PC, the difference in polish was night and day.
- The movement felt heavy.
- The aiming was twitchy on consoles.
- The "Save Hole" system was a nightmare.
Remember those? You couldn't just save anywhere. You had to find a specific physical location in the level to record your progress. If you died right before the end of a forty-minute mission in the jungles of Guadalcanal, you were basically out of luck. You had to start the whole thing over. It was frustrating, yet it added a layer of genuine tension that modern "auto-save every five seconds" games just don't have.
The Singapore Mission: Hitman but in 1942
The "Midnight Rendezvous" mission is probably the most debated level in the game. You're undercover. You aren't wearing a uniform. You have to meet a contact in a crowded city. For a Medal of Honor game, this was unheard of. It felt more like a James Bond title—which makes sense, given that EA held the 007 license at the time and was using the same engine.
While some players hated the slow pace, others loved the world-building. You saw the civilian side of the war. You saw the occupation of Singapore. It gave the conflict a human face that wasn't just "shoot the guy in the different colored helmet."
The Multiplayer and That Infamous Cliffhanger
If you had a Multitap for your PS2, Rising Sun was a staple. The four-player split-screen was chaotic. We spent hours running around the "Baseball Field" map or the "Calcutta" ruins. It wasn't balanced. It wasn't "fair." But it was fun.
The cooperative campaign was also a huge selling point. Playing through the entire story with a friend made the technical flaws way easier to ignore. You could cover each other, share health packs, and laugh at the glitchy physics together.
Then there's the ending.
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Warning: Twenty-year-old spoilers ahead. The game ends on a massive cliffhanger. Joe Griffin fails to rescue his brother, Donnie. The villain, Shima, escapes on a plane. The screen fades to black with a message basically saying "To Be Continued."
But it never was.
EA originally planned a sequel, Medal of Honor Rising Sun 2, but because the first game got lukewarm reviews, they pulled the plug. They shifted focus to Medal of Honor: European Assault. Donnie Griffin’s fate was left hanging in the air for years until it was finally addressed in a completely different game, Medal of Honor: Heroes, on the PSP. Talk about a letdown for the fans who stayed loyal to the console version.
How Rising Sun Influenced Future Shooters
Even though it’s not remembered as the "best" in the series (that honor usually goes to Frontline or Allied Assault), Rising Sun did a lot of heavy lifting for the genre. It proved that there was a massive appetite for the Pacific Theater. It showed that players wanted more than just "D-Day clones."
Without Rising Sun, we might not have gotten the masterpieces like Call of Duty: World at War or the Pacific expansion for Battlefield V. It took a risk on a setting that was considered "too difficult" to render due to all the jungle foliage and complex environments.
Technical Specs and Legacy
On the PlayStation 2, the game pushed the hardware to its absolute limit. The particle effects during the explosions at Pearl Harbor were genuinely impressive for 2003. However, this came at a cost. The frame rate would often dip into the teens when too much was happening on screen.
If you play it today on an emulator or original hardware, you notice the "fog" used to hide the draw distance. It’s thick. You can only see about thirty feet in front of you in some levels. It creates a claustrophobic feeling that actually works in the jungle levels, even if it was just a trick to keep the PS2 from exploding.
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What Most People Get Wrong About the History
There's a common misconception that the game is pure fiction. While Joe Griffin is a made-up character, many of the events are grounded in actual reports from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The mission involving "Yamashita’s Gold" is based on real-life legends of stolen treasure hidden in the Philippines.
The developers at EA Los Angeles actually consulted with military historians to get the uniforms and weapons right. The M1 Garand "ping," the rattling of the Thompson submachine gun, and the specific look of the Japanese Type 99 rifle were all handled with a level of care that was rare for the era.
How to Experience it Today
If you're feeling nostalgic, you can't exactly buy this on Steam or the PlayStation Store. It’s stuck in licensing limbo. To play it, you’ll need:
- An original disc and a working console (PS2, Xbox, or GameCube).
- An emulator like PCSX2 (which actually makes the game look surprisingly crisp in 4K).
- A lot of patience for the old-school controls.
There is no "modern" remake on the horizon. EA has largely let the Medal of Honor brand sleep after the 2012 Warfighter disaster and the VR-only Above and Beyond.
Actionable Steps for Retrogaming Fans
If you decide to dust off the old console and jump back into the Pacific, here is how to make the experience better.
First, go into the options and turn off the "Auto-Aim" if you’re playing on a modern controller; the original snapping is way too aggressive for high-sensitivity sticks. Second, don't play it like a modern shooter. You can't sprint. You can't slide. You have to lean around corners and use your canteen for health wisely.
Finally, pay attention to the "Hero Moments." These are optional objectives hidden in each level, like saving a group of prisoners or destroying a specific radio. Completing them unlocks historical films and concept art that provide a ton of context for the real-life events the game is based on. It’s basically a history lesson hidden inside an action game.
Rising Sun wasn't perfect. It was glitchy, short, and ended on a cliffhanger that went nowhere. But it had a soul. It had an atmosphere that few games have managed to replicate since. It remains a fascinating time capsule of an era where developers were still figuring out how to tell cinematic stories in a 3D space.