Back in the earlier days of this website’s existence, I reviewed a game by small Japanese developer Rainy Frog called Vaccine. It had a fantastic premise – a roguelike old-school Resident Evil – that was just perfect for my nostalgic needs, but man, was that game a tremendous disappointment, hampered by everything from excessively muddy visuals, poor controls, and an overall “cheap” vibe. That being said, I couldn’t not respect the idea that one could, in theory, grab other games from the PS1 era, and turn them into promising roguelikes, should they develop them with enough care. Enter Spy Drops.

If you squint, you’ll think it’s some forgotten section of Shadow Moses.

If Vaccine was a roguelike take on classic Resident Evil, Spy Drops ups the ante by being a roguelike take on old school Metal Gear Solid. Yep, the 1998 one. The one with muddy visuals, Shadow Moses, “just like one of my Japanese animes”. Imagine taking the gameplay loop, visuals, controls, the whole shebang from the PS1 game (and not a single improvement seen in The Twin Snakes), removing any visual or sound queue that would legally bind it to Konami’s franchise, and cutting its level structure into small mission chunks, a perfect fit for a portable like the Switch. Oh, and make those missions be randomly generated, thus turning it into a roguelike.

I have to say that, in theory, Spy Drops makes great usage of this formula. Mission-based structures in Metal Gear games aren’t a new concept – Portable Ops, Peace Walker and The Phantom Pain are mission-based, after all. What Spy Drops does differently is by simply using the simpler, more straightfoward, and vastly more nostalgic controls and presentation from the 1998 classic, and by making those missions randomly generated. Pick a mission, invest some money on your loadout, complete it, earn XP and money, and invest further on your character.

The AI isn’t particularly… spectacular…

In practice… well… there are some issues. More than “some”, I’d say that Spy Drops can be a pain to deal with at times, but it’s impossible not to admire its ambition, as well as the fact that, when it clicks, it’s actually an impressive little thing. But I guess that the game went too far in its “retro feel”. It looks excessvely blurry and hard to look at when you’re playing on a larger TV, as the game resembles its source of inspiration so much I wouldn’t doubt its visuals were stretched to resemble the 240p resolution of the original Playstation.

The controls are also an acquired taste. For some, the clunky visibility and forced top-down perspective will be a neat callback to their childhood, but I think Spy Drops is a bit too retro in this regard. The collision detection, control responsiveness, and bizarre button placement are all a bit too confusing. Furthermore, the camera work is clunky, with you never being properly able to notice your surroundings, leading to constant instances of guards discovering your position. Then again, the AI is so simplistic that you have a lot of time to knock them out, run away from the room, hide under a truck for like ten seconds, and revert back to normalcy. Sons of Liberty, this is not.

The camera work isn’t very good.

But if there’s something that made me feel conflicted as hell while playing Spy Drops, that thing was its sound design. The music is fine, sure, no major complaints about it. It does sound like Metal Gear Solid, so I suppose it does its job, even if it’s not particularly creative. The thing is that the game uses AI in its voice acting. Granted, voice actors lent their sounds to the studio, were paid for it, and Rainy Frog isn’t hiding anything away from the public, but you can notice every line of dialogue sounds artificial, as if you were listening to those AI-generated clips on Instagram.

And this is why I feel conflicted. Look, I get the point the game has a minuscule budget, and hiring voice actors to deliver a shocking amount of lines (in true MGS fashion, people don’t shut up in this game), but it sets a dangerous precedent. What if bigger publishers start doing the same? What if all games just start featuring AI-generated voicework, mutilating an industry all in the name of some silly (and, in the case of major labels, lazy) cost-cutting method? Maybe that’s just the cynic in me expecting the worst, but hey, it’s not like AAA companies have been proving me wrong as of late.

You know this game wants to be Metal Gear when it also has a colonel that won’t ever stop dumping tutorials and exposition at you.

The usage of AI voicework shouldn’t outshine some of Spy Drops‘ main appealing features. I gotta give the developers credit where credit is due: they promised us a roguelike take on classic Metal Gear Solid, and that’s exactly what they’ve delivered, despite its many, many, MANY shortcomings. That said, I can’t say I wasn’t having a bit of fun with it. The idea is sound; it’s the execution that felt half-baked, though I understand a chunk of it was a consequence of the game’s minuscule budget.

Spy Drops is available now on PC and Switch.

Reviewed on Switch.

A copy of Spy Drops was provided by the publisher.