Here I am, dirty and faceless
Waiting to heed your instruction
On my own, invisible warrior
I am a Wind of Destruction!
As many of you might now, I’m a huge fan of the Metal Gear series. What you probably don’t know is that, despite the series having a penchant for squads of quirky bosses, I’m not really a huge fan of many of them. FOXHOUND? I mean I like Mantis and Ocelot. The Sons of Liberty? I guess Vamp is alright. B&B Corps? I barely remember any of them. I love the Cobra Unit, but that’s because all of them are batshit insane and weird. I’m not saying they’re bad boss fights or anything—far from it, they all offer fantastic boss fights—but as characters I’m not really big on many of these villains.
The Winds of Destruction, on the other hand? I fucking love these guys (and girl).
Metal Gear Rising is what happens when you turn the insane anime action of the main series up to 11, and so it should be no shock the squad of bosses is cranked up as well. Each and every one of these guys is nuttier than the last, and the whole lot of them are some of the most memorable and memetic characters in the franchise. Also Khamsin exists.
Motivation/Goals: So besides the obvious way they tie into the plot because they’re working for Armstrong, each of these villains has a theme song which pretty much details what makes them tick, what they’re about, and expands upon them once you get their health low enough during their boss battles.
Mistral’s theme, “A Stranger I Remain,” details how she has come to this land to sate her bloodlust, and how she truly feels most at home on the battlefield; Monsoon’s theme, “Stains of Time,” acts as a reinforcement of his nihilistic outlook; Sundowner’s theme, “Red Sun,” expounds on his nature as a card-carrying villain and how he revels in the violence and bloodshed he causes; Sam’s theme, “The Only Thing I Know for Real,” lays out his desire for a one-on-one duel with Raiden, his foil, to see who is truly worthy to stand up and continue fighting for their ideals; and Khamsin’s song, “The Hot Wind Blowing,” showcases his patriotic nature as well as just generally acting as a badass boast. Most of these songs act more as thematic seasoning for the characters, adding on to what is already established in their cutscenes, but for some like Khamsin and to a lesser extent Mistral, it’s pretty much the extent of their development.
Performance: Every single one of these actors really brings their all to make these characters memorable.
Sundowner is the ham and cheese of the group, working alongside Armstrong to ensure that all the scenerey is well and truly chewed. And who better to bring on the ham than Crispin Freeman? Salli Saffioti is Mistral, and is it any shock she’s also played Black Widow before? And also Hilda from Fire Emblem, I guess? Then we have Monsoon, played by John “The Crypt Keeper” Kassir, who delivers everything with gusto as always. Phillip-Anthony Rodriguez makes Sam just as smarmy and charming as a rival should be, and Benito Martinez puts in his all to his brief role of Khamsin. Not a weak vocal performance here, I’d say.
Final Fate: Seeing as they are video game bosses, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Raiden slices each and every one of them into confetti. Special mention to the absolutely brutal death of Mistral, where she gets frozen in liquid nitrogen before you get to shatter her.
Best Scene: For most of them, they only get the one scene followed by their boss battle, with the exception of Sundowner and Sam. Mistral and Khamsin’s boss battles are obviously their finest hours, though Mistral’s takes the cake between the two seeing how explosive and exciting it is, living up to the promise of that first battle with Metal Gear RAY, while Khamsin’s is the finale of a DLC featuring the game’s ultimate jobber, Blade Wolf.
Monsoon has a lot more going for him, because before his boss fight he gives off one of the most amazing monologues ever put into a Metal Gear game, as he lectures Raiden on memes (“The DNA of the soul!”) and his nihilistic philosophy. Then you get to have a kickass boss fight where, if you do well enough, you will make this nihilistic bastard beg for his life as you hack him to pieces.
Best Quote: Monsoon has the honor of dropping the most iconic bit of dialogue in the entire game (outside of everything out of Armstrong’s mouth, of course):
"Free will is a myth. Religion is a joke. We are all pawns, controlled by something far greater: Memes. The DNA of the soul. They shape our will. They are the culture — they are everything — we pass on."
Sundowner, being the massive slab of ham that he is, is no slouch in the memetic lines himself. Two stand out, and that’s his battle cry of “I’M FUCKIN’ INVINCIBLE!” and his proclamation that he wants things to go back to the old ways of war, specifically “IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS AFTER 9/11!” This is hilarious because even with confirming that 9/11 happened in the Metal Gear universe, it still is probably only the second worst thing to happen to New York.
Sam doesn’t really have any great quotes that stand out, but this man is a master of reactions, from his shit-eating grin to his rousing applause. I figured I’d highlight that here.
Final Thoughts & Score: Let’s look at them from best to least best; I don’t think any of them are awful, though some are better than others obviously.
Monsoon
Outside of Armstrong and Sundowner, Monsoon is absolutely the best character in the game. I think part of it is because he so thoroughly represents everything the Metal Gear series is summed up in one character; he’s incredibly philosophical and legitimately fascinating while also being hilariously over-the-top and spouting off some of the most ridiculous and cheesy lines you will ever hear, all while being a bright red-and-black cyborg voiced by a guy famous for acting as the emcee of a horror show. Literally everything about him is the pure essence of the franchise, so even without Kojima’s direct involvement we still got a beautiful 10.5/10 character.
Sundowner
As far as the Winds of Destruction go, Sundowner is second only to Monsoon. He’s just over-the-top in ways I never could have even imagined for this series, and the only thing holding him back is he is almost immediately outdone by Armstrong two levels after you kill him. Still, this bloodthirsty butcher just revels so much in being a huge asshole and delivers all his lines with the Southern-fried charm that only an actor like Crispin Freeman could deliver, and you have a character I wish was around in the good old days after 9/11. He’s an easy 10/10.
Also he is literally just this image as a character, and that’s amazing:
Jetstream Sam
Sam is a really great character in the Cyborg Ninja tradition, easily following in the footsteps of characters like Gray Fox and Raiden himself. The sheer badassery of this man, a normal human whose only cyborg trait is a single arm and yet who is still capable of taking down a RAY by himself, cannot be overstated, and I think he gets a big boost from being playable. There’s an underlying tragedy to the character too, with how he’s something of a fallen hero whose sword was once a tool of justice but who became disillusioned due to his inability to make the world a better place all on his own and losing to Armstrong in a fight. He’s easily the most complex character besides Armstrong, and his boss battle and theme song are both top notch. I really can’t justify anything less than a 10/10.
Mistral
As much as I love Mistral, it’s hard to deny she is really the epitome of a one-scene wonder. She does not get nearly as much characterization as her compatriots and is very vague and ambiguous even after the DLC… but that might be the point. Her image song is “A Stranger I Remain,” and though we know of her bloodthirsty nature from that song, Mistral still remains a mystery to us to the bitter end. But hey, it’s hard to deny that what we do see of her is pretty impressive (and I’m not just talking about her boobs, I promise). She’s not quite as good as her fellow Winds I’d say, but considering she’s a 9.5/10 that’s not really a knock against her.
Khamsin
Despite having one of the best songs in the game to his name, as well as an intriguing personality and motivations, Khamsin really is incredibly forgettable, to the point his comrades don’t even bother to mention him in the main campaign. This is not something you should ever be saying about a dude who looks like Quaritch in his mech suit at the end of Avatar on steroids, and yet here we are. Of course, he’s certainly not awful by any means and he makes for a great boss fight, but he falls severely short of the main game’s enemies. Mistral managed to score as high as she did with only having one level to her, but Khamsin only manages a 5.5/10 with the same. Maybe it’s because he just feels so inconsequential… Eh, at least he looks cool.
Some evenings (like this one) I get in a mood where I have to pause Hellsing every three minutes because Alucard's deep, vibrating purr of a voice is just too much.
I mean, when he says, "And a good evening to you Miss Hellsing..." in episode 4 of Gonzo??????????????? And then later in the same episode tells that woman he's about to drain (on Integra's orders and under her watchful gaze), "But you're going to help me change that"???????????
February 9: Happy 52nd Birthday to Voice Actor Crispin Freeman, who provided the English voices of the characters of Itachi Uchiha, Rasa/the Fourth Kazekage, and Ebisu from the Naruto series and the voice of Connie’s Father, Doug Maheswaran, on Steven Universe.
There was a historical fantasy show called Da Vinci’s Demons that dealt with Leonardo Da Vinci and and in four of the episodes he has crossed paths with Vlad The Impaler, I swear Paul Rhys played a pretty damn good Vlad, It would have been interesting if Alucard (when he was alive) had actually meet a young Leonardo.
And personally I would love to hear Crispin Freeman (In his Vlad voice) say those lines;
“God? Well he sent many punishments for mankind, earthquakes, volcanoes, plagues and cancers, but worst than these he sent the Turks and the Tartars and the Mongols like you”
“Defeat these dogs and you will go free, and please don’t think me so inhuman that I wouldn’t give you a fighting chance… here’s a butter knife”
“I miss no opportunity in reminding the Turks of the childhood they provided, this is justice”
“You see my father, he taught me that cruelty is the only true currency of the universe and now I am the richest man in all of Christendom”
“I’ve endured every drug & poison known to man, Ive fought off the Ottoman Empire, and you really think I would die at the hands of fuckin Florentine?” (It was awesome yet funny to hear Alucard say fuck)
Here are some of my ideas for what to do with the Pocahontas characters in my hypothetical Disney superhero show-
Make it clear that this version of Pocahontas is not the same historical Pocahontas but rather an everyday teen who was named after her. Same with the Disney versions of John Smith and John Rolfe, but in their case, it’s an in-universe coincidence rather than their respective parents actively naming them after historical figures.
Have John Smith be voiced by Crispin Freeman. Also introduce John Smith working as a security guard working at a corporation run the Ratcliffe or another villain, then upon learning the true nature of his employer and the invention Smith has been hired to guard, acts as an inside man for the heroes.
Have John Rolfe turn out to be either the Beast long-lost half-brother OR Belle’s separated-at-birth twin brother (but not both, that’d be weird).
i love crispin freeman with all my heart but holy moly every livestream he starts, he like unflinchingly stares directly into the camera with the most electric blue eyes and he's so handsome, but it's so unnerving at the same time
February 9: Happy 51st Birthday to Voice Actor Crispin Freeman, who provided the English voices of the characters of Itachi Uchiha, Rasa/the Fourth Kazekage, and Ebisu from the Naruto series and the voice of Connie’s Father, Doug Maheswaran, on Steven Universe.