Snake's Revenge

Development

The first Metal Gear game that wasn't designed nor produced by the series' creator, Hideo Kojima. After the success the NES version of the first game had in the US, Konami decided to do a sequel specifically with the western market in mind. The game was developed by a team within Konami's Famicom division and the developers used the original MSX version of the first Metal Gear (instead of the NES port) as the basis for their sequel. Hideo Kojima wasn't interested in doing a sequel himself, since the original MSX version didn't sell very well in Japan. However, the lead programmer of the Snake's Revenge team met with Kojima at a train. The two became acquainted and eventually the undisclosed programmer revealed the development of Snake's Revenge to Kojima, saying that although "(he) was a fan of the first Metal Gear", he wanted Kojima to do a "true Snake game" himself. When he arrived home, Kojima began working on the first draft of what would become the true MSX sequel to Metal Gear, titled Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.

In an interview with journalist Steven Kent, when Kojima was asked about Snake's Revenge, he said that "(Snake's Revenge) was faithful to the Metal Gear concept" and that he "enjoyed it".

Non-canon

This game is not a part of the official Metal Gear timeline.

Manual

The in-game dialogue in the NES version of the first game was translated by Konami in Japan, whereas the NES version's instruction manual was written by a writer Konami had in their US division, which were in charge of packaging and distributing their games. Konami of Japan had almost no editorial supervision over what the writer wrote in his manuals. Because of this, the writer would try to make his manuals as "humorous" as possible by taking any liberty with the game's plot. In the manual, the reader is led to believe that a middle-eastern terrorist named Vermon CaTaffy (a play on the name of Muammar Gadaffi most likely),is the bad guy in the game and that Snake's commanding officer is named Commander South. However, no such names are featured in the game's dialogue. In the actual in-game plot, the main villain's identity is intentionally kept a secret to the player because of an eventual plot twist. The writer of the NES manual (intentionally or not) ignored this plot twist by making a made-up villain that's not featured within the game.

Snake's Revenge, the "American" sequel to Metal Gear also suffered from a similar localization treatment. Snake's Revenge continues the plot established in the first Metal Gear for the MSX and NES and even has an appearance by the actual Metal Gear mecha (which was replaced by a Supercomputer in the NES port of the first game). In the in-game plot of Snake's Revenge, the player is sent to neutralize a terrorist group from an undisclosed hostile nation who are developing a new Metal Gear prototype. In the manual, another made-up villain by the writer named Higharolla Kockamamie (a play on the name of Ayatollah Khomeini most likely), is described in the storyline. The Snake's Revenge manual has even more banal attempts at humor, by describing one of the characters to be "related to Ginger from Gilligan's Island".

The writer of KoA's manuals did the same thing with several other Konami games, including The Adventures of Bayou Billy, Contra, and Life Force, where liberties were taken with the manual for "humor" without any consideration of what the original designers intended.

Storyline differences

In the original Japanese storylines, every Metal Gear game pits you against U.S. Special Forces who have become addicted to war and who decide to start a few of their own. Perhaps because that wouldn't play very well to a domestic audience, Konami of America changed the storyline of the original NES Metal Gear game so that you were up against Third World terrorists. Snake's Revenge, continued this trend with its storyline.

Information also contributed by Alan Chan and Johnny Undaunted