PixlBit

Stage Select

While the redead in Ocarina of Time always scared me—the way that scream would freeze your character was genius—a much more terrifying creature from that game is the Great Fairy. The NPCs in that game were already unsettling but that nearly naked monstrosity coming up out of the fountain was much worse. Her...laugh? That was supposed to be a laugh, right? It was bone-chilling and didn't she always talk about kissing Link? I could easily look up a video to refresh my memory but, really, I'd like to sleep tonight.

Cage Match

Oh man, this choice is painful. I love both of these games. I think I'll have to go with Dead Space 2. RE4 is wonderful but overstays its welcome by the end whereas Dead Space 2 is a tighter experience. Plus Isaac is just plain tougher than Leon. Does Leon have to do anything as remotely painful as jamming a giant needle in his own eye? I think not. Also, Isaac takes out his foes by dismembering them and Leon has a bad habit of getting decapitated, so that's probably how this cage match would end.

The Zelda character who scared me the most was either the shopkeeper in Link's Awakening or the "LEAVE YOUR LIFE OR MONEY" dude. Even Ganon be like, "hasn't he suffered enough already?"

Most of the Konami hate seems to be coming from Kojima fanboys. They do seem to be doing better in gaming. And honestly, I can see Konami's side in that. Kojima comes off as a bit of a prima donna and Konami was probably getting a little tired of him. His games also tend to be expensive to produce and may not have been giving the best ROI. That doesn't mean there wasn't fault at Konami itself - Kojima wants to do things other than MGS - but i doubt it was one sided the way it's portrayed in the press and in comments sections.

i am enjoying Metroud Dread, but there are too many QTEs with tiny windows for success.  

I am sure Kojima is hard to work with, and his games don't sell as well as people may think based on his fame. But Konami definitely made a focused move away from video games last gen, and it sounds like they burned a lot of bridges with their employees. But I think they had a big reorganization and are pivoting back to games. I am hopeful that something good comes from it.

 Konami is a huge company with lines of business outside of games, and at the time video games were underperforming the rest of the company. Metal Gear Solid has never sold anywhere nearly as well as, say, Resident Evil. Pachislots were a tempting market for a lot of video game manufacturers at the time. SNK went through its own period where they were going to skip console video games altogether and just stick with mobile games and licensing its characters out for pachislot characters, though they've made a hard pivot back to traditional console games. Sega's parent company, Sammy, was also steering Sega towards pachislots at the time (Sammy originally started as a slot machine manufacturer.) So hopefully Konami will make a similar comeback in video gaming.