Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (spoilers)

[Johnnysaurus Rex]

Metal Gear is a series that hinges, at times, on some spoilery content so I am prefacing this thread for discussion about things that discuss all of the content contained in MGSV: Phantom Pain. I my slef haven't fully finished the game in it''s entirety. I am sitting at about 50% or so finsihed content and I am honestly kind of getting sick of the game.

Reviews of the game kind of touted and flaunted some sort of twist-y content in the game like it was a large part of the game and then has beeen followed up , admittedly in videos I have not watched for fear of spoilers, about how people NEEDED to plat MGSV. I stand, as a man who has spent at this point 65 hours in Steam on the game largely unsatisfied with the game and the current "twist".

For the uninitiated, and those who can't read the title of the thread. The big twist.... again WARNING FOR SPOILER....





AGAIN SPOILERS





you do not play the majority of the game as the actual Big Boss. Instead you are a soldier of the previous Militaries Sans Frontieres who has been hypnotized into believing they were Big Boss. Honestly, I guessed this from the first mission. So this "reveal" kind of cheapens the rest of the game for me especially since a lot of the missions of importance are "locked" behind a post credit advancement system that sort of makes the game lose a lot of momentum. It really betrays the meta in how it is presented and currently as someone whom doesn't want to spoil the rest of the game for themselves it is sort of hard to try and figure out just how much more they need to invest in this game to fully complete it and by proxy the rest of the Metal Gear series.

MGSV the gameplay is probably the best in the series, but honestly when it comes to story so far it is the worst in how much it artificially sort of lies to you and presents an unreliable narrative.

For those who have gained a comfortable foothold in the series please give your view and comment on the direction his title has taken.

 

[Grumpy_Duck]

I haven't played it and I'm not really sure about giving it a go (limited budget). A reviewer who's pretty good value (similar opinions to mine game-wise) played the start and it looks really boring. Admittedly the same guy said that when it picks up its got some of the best gameplay he's ever played.
So I know that it picks up after you get out of the hospital, but is it really basically an hour long interactive cut scene at the start? Because I'm honestly not that sure I have the patience for something like that. :/
(now that I've written it, it sounds very shallow. hmmm)

 

[Andrewza]

The twist did not bother me. It all so explians how big boss orderd snake to kill big boss while coming back in the next game.

No for me it was at the end i felt cheated. Like there was more. Sure i had fun and seeing how i got more hours of fun out of it than say CoD i cant say i am being ripped off. But still when it was all done i looked accross astan and thought "well now what"

 

[Johnnysaurus Rex]

I think the twist largely only covers a section of the lore that nobody had an objection to. Especially in a game series where you talk to a fake Campbell for an entire game. My gripe with the twist was that the game was billed as a sort of Revenge of the Sith for the Naked Snake storyline. It was going to show his full descent into a villain and wrap up the prequel games much as MGS4 wrapped up the entire series. To have this entire game be played by (Games been out for a while so spoilers follow) someone we've never heard of before and honestly never properly see is kind of a slap to the face.

I actually defend the Raiden switcheroo in MGS2 because they are fairly upfront about his character in the early parts is really intentional. Here we got an underacted and fairly silent facsimile of Snake who was apparently this soldier the real Snake trusted with his life and continuing his legacy... but we've never seen him before other than a scene involving a vagina bomb. I'd have been more okay with it had the reveal happened in a more appealing way and if there were more cues throughout the story than people being like "Snake? Is that you?" which is a totally reasonable response from people who haven't seen him in 9 years and he now has a piece of metal sticking out of his head. If we had gotten the reveal (and had the character at least been somewhat notable before) and then interacted or even fought the real Big Boss in a meaningful way then I'd be cooler with it. In concept the twist is an interesting and even very Metal Gear idea, but to have it happen where the only meaningful addition to the lore is "Big Boss was able to go against Big Boss and survive dying in MGX is because he was a body double the whole time." is kinda dumb.

As you said, yeah, the ending was bad. Chapter 2 was not aptly named since it was really a glorified epilogue that even had less resolution considering they cut the entire final mission where you raid Eli's island while fighting child soldiers, XOF, and then eventually securing/destroying the Metal Gear and putting an end to the voice parasite.
MGSV was a largely fun game with great mechanics and actual play with a few gripes (base economy, repetitive missions, and real time R&D), but as far as comparing it to other Metal Gear stories it may honestly be the worst.

 

[Andrewza]

Agrred. Story wise it was bad. Though funny enough even with the terrible story, cut story, ending that makes you feel empty and a tacked on MP. I still recomend it since it is game play wise the best open world stealth game. It a bad metal gear game but not a bad game.

 

[Johnnysaurus Rex]

It makes the game a curious item, yes. There was one popular fan theory I heard that people thought should Kojima had stayed his course that this game was not supposed to be the true 5. Instead it was a fake 5 hence the same way Venom (Metal Gear Solid V) was a fake Snake. Then Kojima would release an entire other game using a similar game design but different locales, characters, and story following Big Boss. That'd have been neat true or not.