Metal Gear (NES)

The NES Metal Gear is a rushed conversion of the classic MSX2 game, with many changes that led to it being disowned by the series' creator Hideo Kojima. Among the differences was the absence of the actual Metal Gear itself, the walking battle tank that the player must destroy in the first place, it replaced by a measly supercomputer.

Still, as different as it may have been from the original, this was the only version of the original Metal Gear available in North America for many years (since very few countries outside Japan had the MSX available in their regions), which helped broaden the brand's recognition worldwide and ultimately made development of the later Metal Gear Solid games possible.

Transceiver
Solid Snake's radio communicator on the transceiver screen was given a much more complex design in the NES version. The word "TRANSCEIVER" was also recolored from gray to white and aligned a bit more to the top.

Electric Panel Room
In the area with the electrified floors on the third level of Building No. 1 (located two screens south from the east elevator), the player will receive an incoming radio transmission from one of his allies. In the Famicom version, it's a message from Schneider telling the player where to find the guided missiles needed to destroy the power panel. This is notably the only instance where Schneider contacts the player during the first half of the game (before the checkpoint where everyone switches their frequency number), which gives the player the added benefit of learning Schneider's frequency number without having to hunt it down himself.

In the NES version, the call will be from Big Boss, who will advise the player to contact Schneider instead (the player can still call Schneider after Big Boss' message is played). The NES version is much closer to the MSX2 original in this regard, as it is Big Boss who calls Snake in the MSX2 version of this area as well.

Odd Vehicles
The NES version adds a few non-military vehicles as part of the scenery that were not present in the Famicom version. Can you spot the difference?

Passwords
The password system originally used an alphanumeric set of six numbers and 26 letters. In the European version, the character set was rearranged to replace all vowels and certain consonants with additional numbers and symbols. Presumably this was done to censor the infamous "FUCKM E1111 11111 11111 11111" password, which would take the player to the final boss battle completely unarmed. The input cursor was also changed from a star to an arrow pointing up, since one of the new characters used for passwords was the star itself.

All the passwords used in the Japanese and American versions can be converted to the European version by simply changing the characters accordingly. In the case of "FUCKM E1111 11111 11111 11111", it becomes "R9NY1 QBBBB BBBBB BBBBB BBBBB"

Oddities


When the player contacts Schneider in front of the elevator on the roof of Building No. 1, he will tell Snake the location of the bomb blast suit needed to pass through the wind barrier....except the location he gives is wrong: the only important items on the second floor of Building No. 1 are the iron glove (guarded by Machine Gun Kid) and the infrared goggles (one screen west of Machine Gun Kid's area). The bomb blast suit is actually located in Building No. 4, alongside the bulletproof vest and enemy uniform. Either the bomb blast suit was originally going to be in Building No. 1 (and they forgot to change the message accordingly), or they planned to move it there and never actually got around to doing it.

There are also many instances of radio conversations from the MSX2 version that were not removed or relocated to accommodate the stage design differences in the NES version. A perfect example would be calling Schneider outside the room where the gas mask is located, in which he tells the player the location of the mine detector despite the fact that there are no mines in that particular area. There's also one area where the player can contact Diane using Jennifer's frequency number, and another area where Jennifer can be reached using Schneider's first frequency number.