Roy Campbell

For the playable Fire Emblem character, see Roy.

Roy Campbell announces to Solid Snake that he's been invited to join Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Colonel Roy Campbell is a character from the third-party Konami stealth game series Metal Gear, first appearing in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, who makes background appearances communicating with Solid Snake through his Codec device in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Referred to simply as "Colonel", Roy Campbell appears in the first SSBB trailer, during which Snake is officially announced as a playable character. Like Otacon and Mei Ling, he also appears in a number of Snake's Shadow Moses Island Smash Taunts.

Description

Roy Campbell is a US army colonel and, after the apparent death of the traitorous Big Boss in 1995, becomes the formal leader of the FOXHOUND squad. Campbell serves as Snake's commanding officer during the 1999 Zanzibar Land Disturbance, where Snake is sent in to rescue the kidnapped biologist Kio Marv, recover the revolutionary OILIX formula and shut down the mercenary nation of Zanzibar Land. In the end, Snake, Campbell and Holly White discover the OILIX formula that Marv hid inside an MSX2 game cartridge, though Snake runs off afterward, with Campbell remarking that Snake had elsewhere to go.

In Metal Gear Solid, Campbell once more serves as Snake's CO, pulling him out of retirement to stop the now rogue FOXHOUND, who have taken control of a nuclear disposal facility on Shadow Moses Island. Campbell also asks a personal favour of Snake: rescue Campbell's captive niece Meryl Silverburgh, a transferred US soldier serving on Shadow Moses at the time (in reality, Meryl is Roy's daughter, a fact that, in a moment of tragic irony, is only revealed in the ending where Meryl dies.) Throughout, Campbell is forced by outside forces (including Jim Houseman, US Defense Secretary) to withhold information from, double-cross and lie to Snake, in order to satisfy the Patriots' interests, eroding their friendship, although Campbell redeems himself in the end by arranging the rogue Secretary of Defense's arrest.

A Patriot-created AI copy of Campbell serves as Raiden's CO in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, as part of the Patriots' re-enactment of the Shadow Moses incident. The AI Colonel is cobbled together from Raiden's expectations and experience, though Raiden admits he'd never met Roy in person. A virus uploaded onto Arsenal Gear by Emma Emmerich causes the AI Colonel to heavily glitch out and blurt out increasingly random and fourth-wall breaking non-sequiturs.

Roy also appears in the dubiosly-canon prequel Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops as a prisoner that Big Boss encounters in the San Hieronymo Peninsula, which had been taken over by the rogue FOX group. Roy assists Big Boss in forming his own army, which would become the genesis for both FOXHOUND and Outer Heaven.

His final canon appearance is Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, supporting Snake and Otacon's efforts and hiring Snake to eliminate the increasingly dangerous Liquid Ocelot, whose insurrection threatens the world at large. Roy was also part of a fake marriage plot with Raiden's fiancee Rosemary, in order to protect both her and Rose and Raiden's child from the Patriots. This plot forced the two to lie to Raiden, as well as causing friction between Roy and his daughter Meryl. When the crisis finally ends with Ocelot's defeat and the world saved from Patriot influence, Roy attends Meryl's wedding with Johnny Sasaki, patching things up with her.

In Brawl

During the first official SSBB trailer, which has Japanese dialogue, Solid Snake is shown receiving a Codec message from Roy Campbell. The trailer contains the following English subtitles during the codec:

Roy: "Snake! Sorry to bother you, but I've got big news!"

Snake: "What? Not another absurd objective, I hope."

Roy: "Are you familiar with Super Smash Bros.?"

Snake: "Ah... That Nintendo thing..."

Roy: "Yes. Actually, we've received an invitation for you to join."

Snake: [Oh-]

Roy: "[Snake,] are you up for it?"

Snake: "..."

Roy: "Where are you right now, anyway?"

Snake: "I'm on reconnaissance duty."

Roy: "Reconnaissance?! Of what kind?!"

Snake: "Knowing your enemy is the quickest path to victory."

On the stage Shadow Moses Island, players using Snake can activate a Smash Taunt that displays a Codec message in which Snake speaks with Otacon, Mei Ling or Colonel Roy Campbell about a character he is fighting during the match. He speaks with Roy Campbell about Bowser, Fox, Ike, Jigglypuff, King Dedede, Luigi, Mario, Ness, Pokémon Trainer, Wario, Wolf, Zelda, and Snake when he fights another player who is also using Snake. Snake talks to Slippy Toad when discussing Falco, and the number "140.85", Roy Campbell's Codec number, appears in the Codec screen, implying that Snake intended to call Roy.

When talking about Luigi, Colonel insults Luigi, much to Snake's chagrin, before suddenly mindlessly chanting "La li lu le lo", hinting that for that conversation, it was the Colonel AI from MGS2 that Snake was talking with, referencing the closing stages of the game when the Colonel begins to talk very erratically.

Hacked data shows that a character named "ROY" had been planned to appear in Brawl. No further information is known, but it has been speculated that "ROY" refers to the Fire Emblem character.

External Links

• Metal Gear Wiki's article on Roy Campbell

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