Yeesh, I forgot how awful the level design in this is. Just replayed Moving Up (the fans rescue the girl) on normal. It's... guess and check and remember. The flow from the first is gone.
Which is awful because the music is excellent, I love the characters, and the plots are pretty good. And a lot of the game is still fun, but just... Long hallway with gunman at the end is just bad design. Baiting people around corners gets so tedious, compared to the first.
Still really glad I played this. And I actually don't regret completing the hard mode, but only because it felt good to get really angry at a thing (instead of people). Same reason I played more than 5 minutes of slippy fuck repetition, I mean Super Meat Boy.
Also, I played the Reporter's first mission first (the mission before Moving Up). It was pretty easy on normal, and I just love how he unloads the guns. Reminds me of this:
http://www.doctorshrugs.com/foxhound/comic.php?id=294Ah, Last Days of Foxhound... I still consider it more canon than any of the actual MGS games.
Anyway yeah, HM2 has a rad plot with great trimmings and fresh mechanics. But the level design makes my head hurt.