isiolia wrote:I don't think it's really much of a contest there. Metal Gear Solid has a lot of similarities to Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. There's definitely the shift to 3D and push towards cinematic presentation, but relative to some other 2D to 3D jumps like Mario, Metroid, etc... it's not really reinventing itself. Especially with the relatively limited 3D implementation in the original release, and MGS kinda-sorta reusing some characters and setups from MG2.
Additionally, you're looking at around 8 years between MG2 and MGS. For as great a return as MGS was, quite a lot of series were jumping to 3D in that generation. So, that sort of transition was almost going to be expected. What impresses me more there is just how ahead of its time MG2 was, and in turn how odd it was we didn't see it localized at the time (or even later in the 16-bit era).
GTA, on the other hand, had a far more compressed time scale. Figure, the first game came out in '97, second in '99, and then 2001 for GTAIII. Going from a sort of odd 2D overhead view (odd for the PS1 era at least) to practically defining (or redefining) the sandbox game two years later. I'd say it was a more dramatic change in style.
I see what you are saying, but I just can't ignore the fact that MGS was a main system seller for PSX and turned into a mainstream title. Its extremely iconic of PSX and that era. Was the 2D Metal Gear games as popular or successful? They seem a little bit obscure to me being released on MSX and not sure if ever released on the popular consoles of the time (SNES, Genesis, or DOS)