MGRR Speedrun Basics
List of abbreviations
| Abbreviation | Meaning |
|---|---|
| BM | Blade Mode. You can cut watermelons with this one. |
| RM | Ripper Mode - Unlocked after beating Monsoon, but in NG+ can be used anywhere. Gives one hit kills, more resistance, slows down the game on activation. |
| bHop | Bunnyhopping, one of the core movement techniques in the game. |
| NR | Ninja Run. Hold it down to sprint fast. |
| Light / Heavy | Light or Heavy attacks |
| LSC | Lightning Strike Cancel - Use Lightning Strike, then use Blade Mode at the end of the animation to cancel the recovery |
| SHC | Sky High Cancel - Use Sky High, then Jump + Blade Mode to cancel the recovery |
| PJ | Polearm Jump - Utilizing Ripper Mode with a 2nd Polearm Heavy attack allows Raiden to jump very high. FPS dependant. |
| Dodge | Defensive Offense. Gives a lot of i-frames, allows the player to do offsets. |
| P / CP | (Charged) Pincer attack. P1 means you use Pincer once, CP1 means you have to charge the first attack and then release it. |
List of requirements
| Type | Requirement | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Health | preference | 4 are available at Shop, rest has to be collected in the game. You need to tank some attacks later in the run to skip the 2nd phase of Armstrong. |
| Energy | Wig B | Collect 20 Left Arms, then hit a checkpoint. Equipping Wig B gives infinite Fuel Cells. |
| Weapons | FOX Blade | Fully upgraded sword OHKOs on most (unless the enemy blocks the attack with a rifle, in this case it might not cut the enemy down) of the enemies. |
| HF Murasama Blade | Given automatically at the end of the game. | |
| HF Machete | Has a slightly faster attack speed, making Polearm Jumps much easier to perform. | |
| Pincer Blades, Sai, Polearm | Self-explanatory. | |
| Body | Custom Body Red | Increases damage, reduces defense. To unlock it, get Bronze Medal in 30% of VR missions. |
| Equipment | 5x EM + 5x RP Grenades | You need these for cycles later. |
| Sensitivity (options) | Horizontal + Vertical: set to 7-10 | Increased sensivity makes Blade Mode spin in X/Y-axis much faster. |
Save Files
Or you can use pre-made savefile by Zefie to avoid setting up a save for yourself (on PC). The save is available from SRDC MGR Resources page.
If you are a console player and do not have the luxury of replacing saves, you can grind EM Grenades in Monsoon fight, and RP Grenades by repeating R04 (?). Nanopastes can easily be found anywhere in the game. Rest of the things can be done by following the strategy guides or YouTube videos.
The best way to run the game would be on Xbox Series X. It loads the game the fastest and on console you can skip Monsoon's meme speech. Most modern runners run on PC for convenience. Don’t forget to backup your pre-made saves to different save-slots or a separate folder on a PC, in case something goes terribly wrong.
Console vs Keyboard/Mouse differences
| Keyboard | Gamepad | |
| General | Slower against a gamepad in a lot of ways (movement, SHC’s). | Preferable way of running the game. |
| Sensitivity | Blade Mode cuts are much slower, as high sensitivity screws up the movement. | High sensitivity has little-to-no effect on the gameplay. |
| Movement | Movement can only go 4/8 directions. | Unrestricted movement. |
| SHC | Slower SHC’s by a large margin. | Faster SHC’s. |
| Polearm Jumps | Polearm Jumps are much easier, due to the grip and the “feel” of it. | Polearm Jumps can potentially make you learn claw-gripping. |
Important techniques and basic knowledge
Dodge Offset
A mechanic most of the players know about, but still needs a mention in this guide. During any combo, use Defensive Offense (aka Dodge) to skip the next part of your combo-string. This allows you to reposition yourself in the fight without losing the tempo, or, most importantly, to skip certain attacks inside the string. This can be done indefinitely with any weapon string in the game, notably - Pincer Blades.
Z-Dodge
If you were to run on a PC, there are two key points where said technique is being used. You see, KB players can use a macro that is set to a default Z-button, which triggers a dodge inside the cutscene. Can be used in R01 Bridge skip, and Sundowner setup.
Polearm Jumping
Polearm Jump, or PJ, is a technique that combines the Ripper Mode slowdown with the upwards momentum that you gain by using 2nd Heavy Polearm attack. If done correctly, PJ allows you to launch Raiden out of bounds in various places. All PJ’s require no less than 58 FPS to work properly.
Types of Polearm Jumping
| Type | Early PJ (EPJ) | Perfect PJ (PPJ) | Late PJ (LPJ) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Demonstration | Demo1 | Demo2 | Demo3 |
| Explanation | EPJ happens when you use Ripper Mode way too early, so the slowdown increases little-to-no momentum. | PPJ happens, when you time your Ripper Mode just in time, where Raiden gets most of the momentum of the attack. | LPJ happens when you use Ripper Mode during the attack itself. |
Ripper Mode
Long story short, Ripper Mode (RM) allows the player to enter the state of berserk. In this run, we use Wig B to negate the energy drain. There are two aspects of RM that make it extremely important in a run. RM, on activation, heavily slows down the game, increasing the momentum gained from attacks. Including Falling Lightning (R03, Armstrong Phase 3), Polearm height gain (for Polearm Jumps), and many other attacks that profit from slowdown. During RM, Raiden gets OHKO’s against most of the enemies, more damage, more “stamina”, and more ways to break the game apart.
Blade Mode Cancels
Blade Mode Cancel is a technique that allows Raiden to cancel out of most attacks you can do in MGR. This is done by tapping Blade Mode before, or right after the attack connects, it doesn’t have to land on the enemy for the technique to work. This technique is mandatory for advanced movement.
Blade Mode Cancel applications in a speedrun
Lightning Strike Cancels
Lightning Strike is a bread and butter for movement. It’s fast, it goes in a straight line, it can be canceled at the end of every attack. Consistently canceling these is one of the first things that will shave a lot of time off your run.
Sky High Cancels
Sky High is a unique example of Blade Mode Cancel. You see, not a single man has managed to cancel a Sky High attack with a Blade Mode, because the attack lasts for an extremely long amount of time. But what you can do, is canceling a Sky High with a Jump, and then canceling your Jump with a Blade Mode. If done fast enough, Raiden won’t even jump, allowing you to do SHC’s until you mess up the timings, which leads to an extreme amount of damage.
Despawning via Blade Mode cuts
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a wonderful game, that is being quite true to the players input. Cutting specific places of specific types of enemies with different angles lends different results. Cutting arms makes the enemies less aggressive, cutting legs makes them less mobile and later despawns them, cutting the body gives Zandatsu prompt, etc. These rules are also applied to Blade Mode cuts that you perform while Ninja Running, and since you can actually do some precise cuts there, you have to learn two important angles to not bleed time throughout the run.
- Metal Gear - Sky High solves all the problems, as long as you stand to the right side.
Movement inside Blade Mode
Raiden can walk inside Blade Mode by holding the Ninja Run button. There are some limitations to what you can do in it, such as moving in a specific directions, rotating your camera and many other things, but it’ll be better if you’ll figure these out yourself. Reminder, that Blade Mode slows down time, and if you combine RM and BM activations, you can get ultra-slowdown, which is the reason we do not use IGT as a timing method.