Maybe the real golden yacht was the friend (Alan) we remembered along the way.
With the combination of a snake and collecting gold I was expecting to turn into a dragon, but I suppose a cerebral awakening to the beauty of every day life is fine as well!
I'm actually pretty terrible at Snake, so I appreciated that this version doesn't let you fail, since I was invested in the story unfolding but would have had to restart at least once otherwise.
The snake's slithering animation in the cutscenes is especially nice, as is seeing the collected gold rain down into a big, overflowing pile.