Metal Gear Solid (PlayStation)

Metal Gear Solid
Developer: Konami Computer Entertainment Japan Publisher: Konami Platform: PlayStation Released in JP: September 3, 1998 Released in US: October 21, 1998 Released in EU: February 22, 1999 This game has unused animations. This game has unused code. This game has uncompiled source code. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused models. This game has unused music. This game has unused sounds. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden sound test. This game has a hidden level select. This game has regional differences. This game has revisional differences. This game has a prototype article

To do: Document the game breaking bug, where the elevator stops working when taking the elevator after backtracking from Communication Tower. Document any further changes made to the game for Metal Gear Master Collection Vol 1.

Metal Gear Solid is a game about a lonely Alaskan dog musher who gets reunited with his long-lost family.

Sub-Pages

Prototype Info

Debug Menu A rather big debug menu was left in the game.

Unused Sounds A plethora of (currently disorganized) unused dialogue.

Unused Music

Every pre-Integral release

This music is stored inside s10a, the stage for the first Sniper Wolf boss fight. Its intended use is very clear; it was supposed to be the track that played during the codec conversation after Meryl was shot. It is internally known as vc123201. The track itself is an in-game rendition of The Best Is Yet to Come, the ending theme, shifted by +3 octaves. It was later replaced by a mix of cutscene tracks and the actual The Best Is Yet to Come. This video shows the unused song replacing the final music.

Original Japanese only

This eerily sounding section, internally known in source files as jingle03, is a completely unused leftover only found in the original Japanese release of the game. It is supposed to belong to the same set of short tracks that are used for dramatic reveals, like locating the Darpa Chief and Otacon by pressing against their respective walls. Hard to say when or where this might have been triggered, since the nature of the track makes it available for immediate use throughout the whole game, but honest guesses due the ominous vibes it gives off would be: the Ninja hallway (s08b), the prison cell (s03c) or maybe even s10a, s11c or s12c, respectively the Underground Passage, Communication Tower B and the Snowfield.

Unused Textures

To do: Please organize these textures and make them look better than I did, if possible. Add the DEATH radar status.

These textures are known to be unused in every full released version of the game. They are listed by the name of the stage they're found in.

Objects

init (Bandana)

An unused Bandana.

s06a (Item Box)

This is an item box displayed for major collectable/equippable items, such as weapons. This was found in s06a, the Nuclear Warhead Storage stage, which is devoid of such items on any difficulty. This might have to do with the scrapped cardboard box for the Canyon.

s07a, s07c (Doors)

These are early textures for doors in the B1 floor of the Nuclear Warhead Storage. Hard to say where the first one was going to be used, but since s07c (the stage you teleport to after Meryl's cutscene) looks like an afterthought, you may have had direct contact with Meryl just after rescuing Otacon, which wouldn't have needed a Level 5 card to reach Mantis' room.

Characters

Early Snow-themed Genome Soldier Textures

These textures belong to early versions of the snow-themed Genome soldier models (predating even the famous E3 1997 trailer). You can see them in action in other various pre-release materials as well.

s04b (Liquid inside Hind)

This is the face for Liquid when he's inside the Hind, discovered in s04b, the Ocelot boss fight stage. They might have tried to recreate the 1996 pre-rendered video (which has snippets in the 1997 E3 one) using in-game assets at some point.

Early Ninja Textures

These textures are from the head of an early Ninja model, also seen in the E3 1997 movie.

s12a, s12b (Sniper Wolf Head Shot)

This is a pretty brutal texture of Sniper Wolf's head after being shot. It is never seen in-game because Snake covers her head with her own handkerchief.

Miscellaneous

s00aa (Natasha's Voice Actress billing)

A special billing that was intended to be placed alongside the name of Nastasha's voice actress in the opening credits. This was likely considered due to the fact that Nastasha's presence in the game is entirely optional. Unlike Snake's other contacts, such as Dr. Naomi and Mei-Ling, there are no mandatory codec calls involving her, making her an easy character to neglect.

opening (Opening Text Details)

The opening cut-scene was originally going to give viewers all sorts of details about where and when the operation began, in classic spy movie style, but they decided against it and keep the game's setting a bit more ambiguous. Despite this, there are still many hints of when the game is supposed to take place, from the fact that it's set six years after the events of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (which took place in 1999) to Snake mentioning in the briefing that he's training for the Iditarod (an annual dog sled race held at the first Saturday of every March) set to take place within a week. This pretty much just narrows it down to the specific time and date. Nastasha also says "as of 2005" in one of her codec calls.

selectvr (Face & "SOCOM Attack Mode")

A face-less variant of the first texture is inside every VR stage, and is seen in those little snake-like lights roaming around the blocks. Since this is the stage where you select VR missions, there is no environment model this texture can be used with. The second one is just an early name for the Gun Shooting Mode.

s01a, s03d ("COMING SOON")

This was used in the demos, where after completing the demo, the screen would have been filled with a "TO BE CONTINUED" using the game font, with the only selectable option being this "Coming Soon".

title, demosel (Demo Theater options)

These are unused options for the Demo Theater menu, which would have more than likely worked like the standard Demo Theater, but instead would use the alternate skins for Snake, the Ninja, and Meryl in Integral. These remained unused, even in Integral, the last release of the game.

These textures (along with the other Demo Theater content) are also found on the title level set, because in the original Japanese release, the (unfinished) Demo Theater was a sub-page of the SPECIAL menu. Check the Revisional Differences if you want to know more.

d00aa (Japanese Voice Cast billings)

Same as s00aa, but for d00aa the other unused level set taken from the very first English demo. This is where the game's first cut-scene was supposed to play, and would list all of the Japanese VA cast. This level, along with its supposedly playable counterpart, are simply broken when accessed in the final game. Most likely the data used in these levels are obsolete and incompatible with the current game engine. The Baker texture does not exist in the final version of the map.

(Texture Extracting Tool: Federico M.)

Unused Codec Data

Unused Memory Window Code

Even though there are only seven "official" Codec frequencies in the game, a fully functional routine for scrolling the Memory Window when you get past eight exists.

Unreachable Script Branches

Depending on the area you're in, certain general purpose Codec scripts are called instead of others, which will find the most appropriate branches to reflect your current situation.

Image	Translation	Comments
	Snake, you can't go north unless you defeat Mantis first.	In the case of the boss fight with Psycho Mantis, the game uses a special separate script for both Master Miller and Nastasha which is switched as soon as the fight starts, making the branch intended for Mantis in the "main" script completely unused.
	Metal Gear's maintenance base is located in the northern area, isn't it? You can't go ahead until you've defeated Mantis.	Same deal as Master Miller, but found in Nastasha's scripts. Since both of these don't have any VOX file attached, and access text in such an odd way, it's possible they could be ancient leftovers.
	Wrong flag.	This is found in the general purpose script for Meryl. Since it checks for story flags to start the appropriate conversation, this branch is never used, because it would mean the Codec is enabled contact with Meryl before the story allows you to do so.
	Flag is wrong.	Similar to the one above, but this branch is used if contact with Meryl is enabled after you become unable to contact her (which happens following the Ninja boss fight).
	Wrong flag.	This is displayed if the ability to contact Campbell is enabled after he's been placed under arrest. Later versions only have ”ふらぐ” in place of this.
	This empty message is for Otacon's conversations, if the story flags are set to a point where the player hasn't met him yet.
	This message would be used when something went wrong with Mei Ling's branches, after the initial greeting.
	Both of these fully dubbed dialogues are never accessed by the game: they were part of a scrapped scene before Liquid started his speech, where the player could enter the Codec to make a couple of calls. Campbell and Mei Ling are the only ones with actual new dialogue to share. You can get some of these working just by selecting the Before Liquid Demo subsection of the Var Init menu on certain versions, but most versions point to wrong/buggy scripts for the appropriate flags, resulting in a premature hang-up, or worse, a game crash.

It is interesting to note that the Japanese messages work in every version of the game, even those which don't have a Japanese font anymore. This is because a completely separate custom font is embedded into the scripts themselves.

Unused Animations

To do: A page chock-full of webms is in the works. These animations aren't really accessible on anything other than emulators with memory editing capabilities, unless you want to fiddle with compiled C code.

Various unused animation sequences for Solid Snake's character model are in the "Pilot Disk" demo versions of the game, and some still remain in the final product. The oddest ones in the bunch include a roundhouse kick that was apparently changed from its original incarnation in development, which looked more like the one you see in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Others having walking cycles for crouching, a feature that was only finalized in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, three sequels later.

Obsolete Item Behavior

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: This has nothing to do with the scrapped cardboard box, as a matter of fact it can also be found in the same builds that actually did have four boxes, except in those builds it's item 0x1B and 0x19's slot is taken by Wolf's handkerchief. It's probably a leftover for code testing, or something else entirely that was scrapped.

Equipping item id 0x19 causes Snake to adopt the box-crouch (see left).

Scrapped CardBoard Box Leftovers

At some point in development, there were four cardboard box items planned. The game's internal code for the snowfield box parts have names starting with cbox4, which was of course supposed to be the final snowfield one. There's unused dialogue for a truck driver referencing the intended destination for the missing box.

Controller 2 Debug Function

During the escape sequence, you can control the guards with the D-pad on the second controller.

(Source: https://twitter.com/MGSrunners/status/1431503754256388098)

Development TTY Console Text

To do: Get rid of the output below and dump all of the text strings found in the exe, unless the header output of the American version is somewhat encyclopedic, but it should deserve its own sub-page IMO. Too much clutter on the main one.

The game's executables still contain all the text logging arguments added by development staff but the printf-style function that would send it to the debug terminals has been removed. The following GameShark codes re-enable it, and the result can be seen in your emulator's std_io console output.

NTSC-U	PAL
800AE370 00A0 800AE372 240A 800AE374 0008 800AE376 0140 800AE378 003F 800AE37A 2409 8008E62C B8DC 8008E62E 0802 8008E634 B8DC 8008E636 0802	800ACC44 00A0 800ACC46 240A 800ACC48 0008 800ACC4A 0140 800ACC4C 003F 800ACC4E 2409 8008CCC0 B311 8008CCC2 0802

Some sample output is shown below.

mem:[R]TASK START: 11 8008CBA8
[R][R][R]pad:gv:fs:Change effective memory : 2 MBytes
TASK 10 START:addr=800a51c4
TASK START: 10 800226E0
MGS read_sector 202
FILE BRF.DAT : top 203 size 5724160 set 353
FILE DEMO.DAT : top 2998 size 247597056 set 3148
FILE FACE.DAT : top 123895 size 3508224 set 124045
FILE MGS1.EXE : top 125608 size 645120 set 660212864
FILE RADIO.DAT : top 125923 size 1777377 set 126073
FILE STAGE.DIR : top 126791 size 70025216 set 126941
FILE VOX.DAT : top 160983 size 196161536 set 161133
FILE ZMOVIE.STR : top 256765 size 47507456 set 256915
Position end
DISK 0
gcl:hzd:sound:TASK 5 START:TASK START: 5 80082BBC
Start Task:SdMain
sng_data 801E0000
wave_header 801E4000
voice_tbl 801E4000
se_header 801E5000
se_data 801E5800
CDLOAD_BUF 801E7800 18000 801FF800
str_header 801FF800
TASK 1 START:TASK START: 1 80082D80
RESIDENT TOP 80116B54
LoadReq
load init
start
unload 1824
LoadEnd
load complete time 95
-- Title MemCard Check Reult! --
save_flag = 0
photo_flag = 1
vr_flag = 0
spe_rank = 1
demo_rank = 0
START PCM 0
StartStream(e0000001:vol=3fff)
GM_StreamPlayStop
***BGM Terminate***

 Game Level = 0

[R][R]check1 = 0
check2 = 0
this memcard is OK
load_dir bu00:* start
TOTAL 5 FILES used 6 block
free = 9
this memcard is OK
load_dir bu10:* start
NO FILE
free = 15
error flag card1 = 0 card2 = 0
max flag card1 = 0 card2 = 0
command.c:  Where Is Snake ????
SngCode=1ffff21
SongSyukanMode Off
SngCode=1000001
SameSongHasAlreadyPlayed
set camera 5
SngCode=1ffff21
SongSyukanMode Off
[1719]cam in 5
[1719]change camera 5
[1809]cam out 5
[1809]change camera -1

Oddities

Hidden Door

Usually, the geometry for an adjacent area is loaded just before the door to it opens. In the case of the Mantis battle however, going out of bounds to the rear shows the door to the caves floating in the void. While solid, you cannot interact with it. The red light is also out of place from where it ends up.

Unique Camera Angle

You can't get back to the first area after leaving it, but throwing Ocelot's timer bomb when the camera is in three-quarter mode changes it to a closeup of throwing the bomb away, an angle unique for that item. Throwing grenades leaves the camera in three-quarter view.

Regional/Revisional Differences

Japanese Version

The Japanese version, being the initial release of the game, lacks some of the content that was present in the later versions of the game. The most striking differences include:

• The obvious use of Japanese voice acting and text. A good number of cut dialogue files exist on the discs, including recycled takes of other lines. The font type used for captions and item descriptions is the same one previously used in the console versions of Policenauts.
• There is no difficulty selection when starting a new game - instead, it goes straight to the opening cutscene. The difficulty setting for the Japanese version would serve as the basis for the Easy setting in later versions.
• However, the option to start a new game with the radar turned off can be unlocked after completing the game once.
• There are only 13 possible codenames for the end-game result screen, instead of the 48 codenames present in the later versions. The 12 codenames that are normally available are the same ones used for the Hard difficulty setting in the later versions, with the best possible codename being Fox. The 13th codename, Big Boss, is only available by the playing the game with the radar off and meeting the same requirements for the Fox codename.
• Johnny Sasaki (the jail guard in Meryl's cell) wears shorts after he is knocked unconscious and stripped of his uniform. In the international versions, he is left completely naked instead, with a pixelated effect covering his buttocks.
• Demo Theater was not yet implemented in this version. However, the assets for its menu are present in the game's code (see below).

Exclusive Textures

There's quite a few textures that were scrapped from the later revisions:

title

These were used to enable or disable the radar from the SPECIAL menu, after unlocking this option by clearing the game once. This is necessary because there are no difficulty settings tied to use of the radar in the Japanese version.

rank

Instead of listing the "Cheat" items the player used by using the same font as your ranking, the game used these special textures. It also took note if you used the radar or not. "Mugen Bandana" means "Infinite Bandana".

Unfinished Demo Theater

To do: Final Japanese demo theater names from Integral.

While the Japanese version does not have the Demo Theater readily accessible, it still exists in an unfinished state. It seems the original method to access it (or perhaps just a temporary way) was as a sub-section of the SPECIAL Menu. The menu must have been close to completion; the coding supports all the available demo rolls, including the scrapped ROLL C and ROLL D ones, which were almost certainly intended to play through all of the cut-scenes in a mode internally known as a "Red Ninja" playthrough. These playthroughs, which are normally available after beating the game once, change up some texture models and play the Metal Gear Solid main theme during the ending staff roll. The text descriptions are different from the finalized Demo Theater featured in later versions:

	Image	Translation	International Text	Integral Exclusive Text
ROLL A		Blue's Love Song	Meryl	メリル Meryl
ROLL B		Blue Color's Youth	Otacon	オタコン Otacon
ROLL C		Crimson Red's Love Song	Red Meryl	（赤忍者）メリル (Red Ninja) Meryl
ROLL D		Crimson Red Color's Youth	Red Otacon	（赤忍者）オタコン (Red Ninja) Otacon

The coding is incomplete; selecting any option will load the very first dock area (d00a) with a fixed camera and no player character (or out of bounds) with possibly debug init routine parameters. This appears to be a completely "null" start which suggests no work has been done outside of the menu.

The color-themed subtitles are references to two Tokimeki Memorial adventure games that were also developed by KCE Japan: Nijiiro no Seishun (虹色の青春, "Rainbow's Youth") and Irodori no Love Song (彩のラブソング, "Colorful Love Song").

Psycho Mantis Memory Card Scans

The catalog of Konami games that can be detected by Psycho Mantis in the cutscene prior to his boss battle is much greater in the Japanese version compared to the later international versions, due to Konami naturally releasing more games for their native market. As a result, many of Psycho Mantis' lines in which he makes references to games that were released only in Japan, such as Tokimeki Memorial (a dating sim that was popular at the time and had numerous spinoffs), were cut and replaced with references to localized games for the international versions. This included a special voice-only cameo from Kojima triggered by having save data from both, Snatcher and Policenauts.

Contrary to popular belief, Psycho Mantis does not have a specific line when he detects a Snatcher save file like he does with Policenauts, despite being a requirement to trigger Kojima's cameo. Mantis will simply treat it as any other Konami game and will only pay special attention to it if it's detected alongside Policenauts. This was likely due to the fact that the PlayStation version of Snatcher was developed by KCE Tokyo and not by KCE Japan. The following are the Psycho Mantis lines exclusive to the Japanese version and the conditions to trigger them.

Vox number	Japanese	Translation	Condition
00139	ときメモが好きなようだな	You seem to like Tokimeki Memorial.	Have save data from at least two Tokimeki Memorial games.
00140	ポリスノーツが好きなようだな	You seem to like Policenauts.	Have save data from Policenauts. Simple enough.
00142	恋愛シミュレーションが好きなようだな	You seem to like dating sims.	Have save data from at least two dating sims by Konami (e.g. Tokimeki Memorial: Forever With You, Mitsumete Knight).
00148	KCEジャパンの創るゲームが好きなようだな	You seem to like games made by KCE Japan.	Have save data from at least two other games developed by KCE Japan (e.g. Policenauts, the Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series).
00158	小島作品が好きな様だな？ いつも応援してくれてありがとう…	So you like Kojima games? Thank you for your support...	Have save data from both, Snatcher and Policenauts. This will trigger a voice-only cameo by Kojima himself.

North American Version

To do: Differences in the camera work of the game's cutscenes across versions will probably be documented on yet another sub-page.

The North American version was released only a month after the Japanese original. Thus, it is much closer to that version than the later European versions released several months later.

Additions

• A difficulty selection screen was added when starting a new game with three initially available settings (Easy, Normal and Hard) and an unlockable fourth one (Extreme) available after completing the game once. Easy mode is based on the difficulty level of the Japanese version, while Hard and Extreme turns off the radar.
• Demo Theater was fully implemented. It is unlocked after completing the game.
• An alternate skin for Snake, showing him wearing a Tuxedo, on the Red playthroughs.
• Because of the addition of difficulty settings, there are now 48 codenames for the end-game result screen, 12 for each setting. The codenames that were used to grade the player's performance in the Japanese version are used for the Hard mode, while the Big Boss codename can only be achieved on Extreme. Achieving the Big Boss codename will also change the background of the result screen.
• A 43rd ghost photograph was added in addition to the 42 photographs featured in the Japanese version. This features the ghost of Jeremy Blaustein, the game's translator, who can be captured by reaching Disc 2 and then going back to the snowfield where Sniper Wolf was. His ghost can be found by taking a photograph of a certain tree. The Metal Gear Solid Official Mission Handbook incorrectly states that his ghost is found by on Sniper Wolf's corpse.

Removals

• Some VOX files (which went unused in the original Japanese version anyway) were removed.
• Since the availability of the radar is now tied to the difficulty settings, the option to turn it on or off was removed from the SPECIAL menu.

Changes

• The alert modes were changed from "DANGER" (in sight of a guard) and "ESCAPE" (the cooldown after leaving sight of a guard) to "ALERT" and "EVASION", respectively. This change was retained in all versions of later games in the series.
• Cases of Engrish and incorrect text were fixed, such as the OCEROT label in the Ocelot boss fight.
• Several items were renamed, also to fix Engrish or strange naming schemes:

CIGARET -> CIGS
SCARF -> HANDKERCHIEF

• Johnny Sasaki's naked model and its censor from the Japanese prototypes was restored.
• VOX file vc084030 ("Where are you looking?") from the original Japanese version was replaced with vc084028 ("I'm here, Snake.").
• A new, skinnier font for cutscenes and Codec calls.
• Buggier Debug Var Init options.
• This texture inside the opening stage:

Japan	US and later

• All of the cut game detection lines from the Japanese version prior to the Psycho Mantis boss battles were replaced with explicit references to Konami games that were actually published in the west (namely Suikoden, Azure Dreams, Vandal Hearts and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night). There is also a general line for detecting "fighting games".

European Versions

The game was released in five different languages, each with its own voice acting in addition to the usual text localizations. The U.K. version uses the same voice acting as the American version with some further changes, while the other versions were dubbed in their own native languages.

U.K. Changes

• The camera work in some cutscenes received notable revisions.
• vc308021 was superseded by the (up until then) unused vc308023 on executed Codec branches, and then totally excluded in later revisions.
• The conversation between Snake and Ocelot prior to the first torture session originally contained a bit in which Ocelot describes the origin of electric torture in France, which can be heard at voice file vc131011. This version of the conversation went unused and was replaced with an edited version (voice file vc131013) that omitted said portion. However, it cuts the dialogue at an unnatural point, with Snake responding to Ocelot "But I've never heard that before" for no reason. In the European version, the now unnecessary line was muted instead.

Unused Original	North American	European/Integral
vc131011	vc131013
Ocelot: I'm going to run a high voltage electric current through your body. Ocelot: If it's just for a short time, it won't kill you. Ocelot: Did you know that it was the French Ocelot: who first thought of using electrical shocks Ocelot: as a means of torture? Snake: I've seen lots of French films, but I never heard that before. Ocelot: You're a tough guy, Snake.	Ocelot: I'm going to run a high voltage electric current through your body. Ocelot: If it's just for a short time, it won't kill you. Snake: But I never heard that before. Ocelot: You're a tough guy, Snake.	Ocelot: I'm going to run a high voltage electric current through your body. Ocelot: If it's just for a short time, it won't kill you. Ocelot: You're a tough guy, Snake.

German Changes

• The font was changed yet again, this time with an almost complete list of ASCII characters.

Italian Changes

• There is a change in the item description for the "Ketchup". While in all other versions there is a reference to the fact that the sauce is of Italian origin, in the Italian version this detail is omitted.

• At the beginning of the first fight against Vulcan Raven, in the English version Raven attacks saying "Send him a message" which in Italian translates as "Mandiamogli un messaggio". In the Italian version the voice has been modified and says instead "Comitato d'accoglienza!" which means "Welcome Committee!"

• When Sniper Wolf shoots Meryl, the Colonel calls Snake saying "Snake! Meryl has been shot!". However, this line was mistranslated in the Italian version as "Snake! Meryl é stata sparata!", since the verb "sparare" in Italian is intransitive, the phrase is completely wrong because the equivalent meaning in English would be "Snake! Meryl has been shot away".

Metal Gear Solid: Integral

Released nine months after the original version, Integral is an expanded edition of Metal Gear Solid exclusive to Japan that has all the additional features from the international releases with further additions. This includes:

• A "Very Easy" difficulty setting was added when starting a new game. This difficulty setting starts the player off with a silenced MP5 with unlimited ammunition. The MP5 weapon substitutes the FAMAS rifle in the player's inventory, which doesn't appear in this mode (the room containing it will be empty). Completing the game on this difficulty setting will not display a result screen after the end credits, nor will it allow you to save your data after completion.
• A "1P View Mode" is unlocked on the Special menu when the game detects a completed save file. This mode starts the regular story mode on the Normal difficulty setting, but enables shooting and moving in first-person by pressing the Triangle button twice, allowing the game to be played similarly to a first-person shooter (controlling very similarly to the game's intrusion mode). This feature would be implemented to the main game in the later PC version.
• Alternate placement and patrol routes for enemy soldiers. This is unlocked by having a completed save file from either the original Metal Gear Solid or Integral itself. In either case, the words "alternate round" will be displayed on top of the difficulty select screen when starting a new game.
• The English voice acting from the American version is used instead of the original Japanese voice acting. Subtitles for cut-scenes and CODEC conversations can be set to Japanese or English, but other text (such as mission logs and item descriptions) will still be displayed in Japanese.

Other Changes

• Like Snake's tuxedo and the red Cyborg Ninja, Meryl's outfit changes to a sneaking suit when starting a game from a complete save file written in red. This change was carried over to Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.
• Two new secret Codec frequencies are present in the main game:
  • 140.66 - plays a selection of previously unused music tracks in three different areas of the game, including arranged renditions of the opening credits and prologue theme from Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
  • 140.07 - plays developer commentary for the current area.
• Johnny Sasaki's shorts when he is stripped of his uniform by Meryl were restored.
• vc084030 was restored, meaning vc084028 sort of had to go, in a consistent logic with the original Japanese. This makes it the only English VOX exclusive to Integral.
• Since the English dialogue doesn't match up entirely with their Japanese equivalent, due to the differences in Mei-Ling's pool of proverbs and the save files detected by Psycho Mantis, some of the lines had to be retranslated back to Japanese to avoid dubtitles.
• HANDKERCHIEF became SCARF again for some reason (the katakana for the item refers to it as "handkerchief" anyway).
• The electric torture sequence with Ocelot was made easier on all difficulty levels. On the international versions, the number of rounds per session increases on each setting by increments of one, going from three rounds per session on Easy and up to six rounds per session on Extreme. On Integral, they always last three rounds per session on all difficulty levels, with the rounds lasting a bit longer to balance things out. This change was also carried over to The Twin Snakes.
• An application for the PocketStation (a peripheral released only in Japan) can be downloaded after completing the main game and acquiring a codename. This application is a minigame in which the player must help Dr. Naomi create a vaccine for the FOX DIE virus by trading codenames with other users for a certain time period. After completing the objective, the player can then upload the data into the VR-DISC, which will unlock the Ninja missions if the requirements had been met.

Removed Content

• VR Training mode is no longer accessible on the main game discs; instead the mode is relegated into a separate VR-DISC. The content of this disc would be released as a stand-alone game titled Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions in North America and as a data disc titled Metal Gear Solid: Special Missions in Europe.
• Integral also removed many options from the Debug Menu (although some buggy stage selects are still there). Some of the unused content is also gone.
• vc409010 (a Mei-Ling quote used when saving the game) received some smart editing to get rid of the first line about the Chinese proverb "A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar", and starts straight from Mei-ling quoting Einstein's version of it.

Here's the affected line. Only the parts in bold are retained in the Integral release:

"Einstein said it another way. He said that only a life lived for others is worth living."

While this version served as the base for the Windows 95 port of the game, some of the Integral-specific content (such as Meryl's sneaking suit outfit and the extra CODEC frequencies) were removed.

European Spanish Version

Supposedly the Spanish version was ready since April 1999, but it was only mastered in July, two full months after Integral was finished (and a full year after the original Japanese version). This makes it the last actual revision of the game.

VOX Changes and censorship

There is a discrepancy between some of the file dates, such as DEMO.DAT being three months earlier than VOX.DAT, RADIO.DAT and STAGE.DAT. For some reason, certain lines were censored or even completely removed for the Spanish translation.

• The ambiguous vc052007 (the "long silver bullet in a well greased chamber" line) file was completely wiped out from VOX.DAT, along with any reference of it in the code.
• In the revised 1.1 release (SLES-11734), every reference to the Diazepam being a "droga" ("drug") was replaced with the more socially acceptable "fármaco", which refers to pharmaceutical drugs; "droga" more specifically refers to illegal narcotics. Since they could not get the VAs to re-dub the lines, every instance of the word "droga" inside vc312040 was (often poorly) covered by radio static. This was in response to an ongoing controversy in the country in which they accused the game of promoting drug consumption.

Since the revised VOX.DAT is largely based on Integral, that means vc084030 is found in place of vc084028 making the Spanish version the only PAL release that features this dialogue.

Master Collection Vol. 1

To do: More research would be appreciated!

• The version of Metal Gear Solid in Master Collection Vol. 1 is an emulated version of the PS1 game. It includes the version specific to each region (for example, the US version of the collection has the North American MGS 1 on the disc/game card/download). Any other regional versions, VR Missions disk(s) and MGS Integral are available as free DLC. Interestingly, the North American version is an unaltered Rev 0 copy, minus BIOS verification files. This makes it unplayable on emulators unless some modifications are made in hex editing.
• This version uses an on-the-fly patching method to patch in text and images relating to the different controllers being used, as well as patching out the ghost pictures of Yoji Shinkawa and Ichiru Kotome. It is unknown why those two images have been replaced, as other Kojima Productions staff's ghost pictures, notably Hideo Kojima, are still present in this version. This patching method may have also been used to restore Johnny Sasaki's shorts from the Japanese releases, with one slight change - they're now brown, which is perhaps appropriate considering his stomach problems...
• Furthermore, the Key Config menu in the options screen now opens a separate menu (that can also be accessed from a pause menu by pressing L1+R1/LB+RB/L+R), allowing the controls and up/down invert to be changed at any time, as opposed to only on the title screen. The pause menu also allows the changing of controller ports for the Psycho Mantis boss fight.
• This version has an option to "insert" a save file from various Konami games into the Virtual Memory Card, which would trigger the lines that play during the encounter with Psycho Mantis.