As stated in Danny’s impressions of Snake Eater 3D from last year’s Tokyo Game Show, the appearance of the Metal Gear series on Nintendo hardware is exceedingly rare and eccentric; aside from the NES version of the original game and its non-canonical sequel, Snake's Revenge, only two other titles from the inimitable stealth-action series (Metal Gear Solid on the Game Boy Color and MGS: The Twin Snakes on the GameCube) have made the jump.

Ostensibly driven by the multidimensional promise and graphical fidelity of the 3DS, Konami and Kojima Productions announced yet another reincarnation of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, specifically tailored for the handheld, at E3 in 2010. Since then, we’ve seen a handful of the ways the portable version differs from the others, with most relegated to taking advantage of the hardware.

In addition to the expected overlay of three-dimensional depth and the demoed gyroscope-based balance implementation, Snake Eater 3D lifts the aiming mechanic from 2010's MGS: Peace Walker, with basic movement assigned to the Circle pad and over-the-shoulder aiming done via the four face buttons (with the shoulder buttons handing aiming and shooting.) A Japanese retail listing for the game described an additional first-person mode; more recent screens show it as a standalone perspective option available on the fly from the touch screen that directly correlates to the first-person aiming from previous versions of Snake Eater. The game also supports the Circle Pad Pro, which provides another pad for aiming as well as weapon management via the add-on’s shoulder buttons.

Slinking through the dense Soviet jungle is further facilitated in the 3DS version by the inclusion of crouch walking, the intermediate movement position introduced in Metal Gear Solid 4 and perpetuated in Peace Walker, though the ability to go prone and crawl—which was absent from PW—remains. All action takes place on the HUD-less top screen, while the touch screen houses and handles health, stamina, and weapon and item management.

The strategic camouflage feature introduced in Snake Eater—in which your ability to blend into the environment and avoid enemy detection is bolstered by the pattern of Snake’s outfit—now includes a custom design option that imprints patterns based on photos taken via the 3DS’ camera. Though the examples shown thus far have skewed toward silly—the demo at TGS was accompanied by a polka-dotted bag—the functionality could feasibly have a practical application to Snake’s camo index given a proper player input.

While many of Snake Eater 3D's changes are purely cosmetic, a few mechanical tweaks—many of them from later games in the series—look to make the game somewhat more accessible to unfamiliar players. Snake Eater is one of the series’ strongest installments, and hopefully this version is worth the wait.