Metal Gear Solid: V the Phantom Pain makes me angry.

[The Grimace]

Good gameplay, awful... practically everything else. I started writing a thread talking about everything I hate, but got to over five paragraphs before I realized I didn't exactly want to write a book about it.

I've got lots of great Metal Gear memories, but my experience with MGSV's story is 90% regret. People make the argument that "it's not supposed to be satisfying, just like having a real phantom pain! Something feels missing!" Most game developers don't go out of their way to purposely make a game with an unsatisfying plot, and it definitely did not work as intended here, if that was indeed Kojima Productions' goal.

Please tell me I am right, or please tell me that I am wrong so I can argue and vent about how frustrated this game makes me.

[Althena]

I wants to see the five paragraph-long rant!

[The Grimace]

Welp once I get home from work, I'll copy it down. I saved it to a text file because I had so much to complain about. Just thinking about it now makes me angry!!!

[Selbaek]

I refused to play it because of how Konami handled Kojima's exit, and then their own temporary exit from console games.

[The Grimace]

I don't blame you for sticking to your guns there. The whole situation is sloppy, and I'm still angry I wasn't able to re-download PT after that fiasco.

I can say a lot of things about MGSV, but one thing that most people will agree on is that the game did not live up to its full potential thanks to both Konami, Kojima, and their inability to see eye to eye. I will also say that though I think Konami is the most responsible party, Kojima is not blameless either- he's never exactly been one to do things "by the book," always going over budget and all. We as gamers benefit from it when things work out properly, but there do need to be regulations set behind the scenes. It feels like both parties had very different ideas on what Metal Gear Solid V should be.

[The Grimace]

I think my anger regarding the game is irrational in some places, but very legitimate in others. Note that this will contain unmarked spoilers for Peace Walker and MGSV because I don't know how to get spoiler tags to work.

Metal Gear Solid V's gameplay is fantastic. It takes the enjoyable upgraded sneaking and shooting mechanics of MGS: Peace Walker and compounds it into a far larger game not bound by zone lines. Controls feel better than Metal Gear Solid has ever felt, and as a player, I felt like I was in complete control of how I wanted to proceed in any situation, and any issues were often on my own side. The stealth and firearm aiming have been wonderfully adjusted for the Playstation 4 era, and I had a blast running around the base in its prologue, Ground Zeroes. Easter eggs for other Kojima titles like Snatcher and Policenauts are always welcome, so I loved playing as Raiden in one of the non-canon bonus missions the game offers. Setting 80's music to the background in the full game is fun.

And those are about the only things I like.

I was, of course, very despondent over Kojima's voice to recast Snake as Kiefer Sutherland. I have nothing against the actor, and I think that most characters need to be periodically recast with different actors for myriad reasons. There are a few cases where I just can't see certain characters being played by anyone but one person in specific, and for me, David Hayter will always be Snake. "Oh, but Kiefer Sutherland is Venom Snake," was a big argument, although you definitely play Big Boss/Naked Snake in Ground Zeroes, and he's still voiced by Kiefer. In the actual game, again, it has to do with plot points and spoilers, but it all still feels like a very uninspired excuse for Kojima to drop Hayter, who he didn't appreciate, and recast the role as one of his favorite Hollywood actors.

With Metal Gear Solid titles, players can always expect long story cutscenes to be broken up by fantastic tactical espionage action. Metal Gear Solid V mostly veers away from this to focus on its perfected gameplay. Instead, much of the plot is told through cassette tapes given to or found by the player. The reasoning is that the player puts on the tape in the background while playing the game and absorb the plot this way, but in actuality, I'd more often than not just completely pause what I was doing so my attention wouldn't be split, and then continue my mission after the tape finished. MGS has convoluted plotlines, especially Metal Gear Solid V. Trying to parse through the dense plot while hiding from enemies is not ideal.

The unfolding plot is underwhelming. There are lots of wonderful topics raised during the narrative pertaining to the importance of Language and its effects on humanity and factions- cool! But as the plot develops, I kept waiting for the entire game to feel some semblance of joy. Throughout, it's like the game's grinding my heart against a cheese grater with no relief. Other Metal Gear Solid games found ways to periodically add in some comedy to ease tension and ground the player, but MGSV is all serious all the time, in the worst ways.

In Ground Zeroes, Chico, a thirteen year old child soldier from Peacewalker who acted as a major plot point emphasizing the horrors of war but also acting as comic relief in moments not major to the plot, is captured at the beginning of the game. He's captured trying to rescue Paz, his crush and a traitor to Soldiers Without Borders. Snake's job is to rescue Chico and Paz, though if Paz is noncompliant, he has clearance to assassinate her to prevent information leaks. Okay, cool, we got the mission!

The antagonist forces Chico to rape Paz amidst torturing them both. What the fuck, Kojima? One of the cassettes has full audio of the rape and it is bar none the most uncomfortable I've ever been with a video game. "Oh, but it's trying for realism! War is hell!" Yeah, no shit, but did we really need this in Metal Gear? This would hardly be the first time extreme situations have been hinted at in Metal Gear, but this one overextended 500ft beyond the line.

You pick up Chico and Paz. On the way back to base, they find a bomb hidden in Paz's stomach. Under emergency, they perform an operation on the helicopter and remove the bomb, and throw it out the helicopter. And then they realize there's another bomb, and it's implied the antagonists planted it in her vagina.



Out the gate, everything about the narrative in Ground Zeroes makes me feel like a sleazeball. In about an hour, they take a bunch of the best parts of Peace Walker (an EXTREMELY different game tonally) and throw it out the window.

I have more to say about this game, but I need to give my brain a break. Just getting up to this point was harrowing.

[Random Encounter]

Christ, that's pretty rough. I think that's why I enjoyed the first MGS a great deal but had a hard time getting into later entries of the series: Kojima makes a mean game, but his world-building is just a little too wanky for me.

[The Grimace]

Death Stranding is really out there too, but its ridiculous plot points generally are in "so bad it's good" for me territory. That game made me throw up my hands and go "WHAT?" a billion times during its ending. Kojima is definitely no stranger to crazy concepts, but between MGSV and Death Stranding, I think it's very apparent that Kojima would benefit from having someone to tell him "no" sometimes.

Death Stranding looks even more batshit insane to me and I'll be there for it. Crazy as balls story with good gameplay? Yeah, sign me up!

Just so long as it doesn't go into uncomfortable territory again.