Not true, it's based off countering other melee attacks by enemies and works on the same principle, besides, once you get the hang of it, it makes the battle like 100x more fun and interesting. Sniping her to death just feels weak and cheesy compared to beating her at her own game and it really sends home the message that Big Boss has surpassed her. Technically it wasn't even new as you have to often pull similar "counters" in order to CQC some of the other bosses like The Fear and Volgin.

Generally Metal Gear has some of the most fun battles in gaming and while I may get some flak for this, I also feel Zelda is pretty damn good too since it's usually requires a combination of exploiting a weak point and learning a boss pattern to pull off. The battle against Fyrus in the Goron Mines in Twilight Princess was a pretty clever fight with link having to trip the guy up on his chains and the fight required using several tools in tandem to win instead of the typical "wait til it's weak point opens".

When I created this thread the game I had in mind was Shin Megami Tensei III, because it has some of the most ingenious boss battles to grace a JRPG and I love the fact many of them are based on thinking outside of the box or making a tough choice about a fight that is nearly impossible to go into without being handicapped. The game really showed me how much the JRPG has fallen as an engaging experience for the player and how modern games coddle the player far too much as some of the crap the game pulls is stuff more common in older games. I still feel the optional boss battle against Ongyo-Ki was just incredibly clever even if some people might whine about how it doesn't seem fair because winning involves thinking outside of the box. Games should being teaching us to not have to rely on instruction and instead look at a problem at every possible angle, not just with the information handed to us. It's why I love this game.