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[Alec S.]

So I beat the game yesterday, so here are some of my thoughts about the plot and the ending.

Ultimately, despite the evident cutbacks, I still really liked the plot of this game.  Although the stated theme of the game is Revenge, I don't think that's exactly accurate.  The game is about loss, and revenge happens to be there as a result of that.  Loss of body parts, loss of friends and family, loss of culture and language and loss of identity. 

All the revenge in the game ends up feeling really hollow and unsatisfying (as it should).  The moment where they don't kill Skullface comes off less as "We're not going to put you out of your missery" but as a sad realization that killing him won't do anything to ease the pain they're in. 

The theme of loss and not being able to cope with it is explored effectively throughout the game, and without as much of the on-the-nose explanation as is standard for an MGS game.  The whole second infection sequence was really well done.  Big Boss turning the dead soldier's ashes into diamonds pretty much sums of the game.  It isn't so much a grant honorary gesture to the dead, but an inability to let go. 

The ending was, well, about right.  Not a surprising twist, but it worked with the plot, was foreshadowed effectively (Eli's DNA doesn't match your.  I wonder why that is?).  I'm not sure why it made me play through the entire prologue a second time when the only new information was at the beginning and after the ending (although certain things re contextualized about Psycho mantis were interesting to watch). 

I'm still kind of taking in the last scene and can't quite decide how bullshit or brilliant it is.  I have to admit the way it uses your name was pretty effective.  Like, when it turned out the medic was named "Alec", I was like "okay, good job Kojima, you did the kinda 4th wall breaking audience insert thing.  But then when it turned around and had Big Boss steal your identity in exchange, I honestly found it a bit unsettling. 

I'll need some time to decompress the final scene in the bathroom, there seemed to be a lot going on and I'm not sure what each element meant, or if they meant anything at all. 

Also, how did the the logistics of the two Big Bosses work.  Big Boss Prime was building Outer Heaven in Africa and then handed the keys over to The Phantom so that he could run it and get killed by Solid Snake? 

Lastly, I'll mention that I thought the characterization, especially of Ocelot and Kaz, was really fantastic.  And the final scene where Kaz finds out about the deception, his reaction was perfectly in character.  Destroying the myth of Big Boss means he's finally lost everything, and, of course, he wants revenge, but deep down knows it won't do any good.

People expected MGSV to document Big Bosses turn towards evil, but what it did I think was more important than that.  It put you in (or at least, near) big Bosses shoes, and basically made you understand his side of things.  In that final phone call, I had the thought "Oh, yeah, this perfectly explains Kaz's Heel Turn," and then had to remind myself that his heel turn consisted of going to work for the "good guys".

[gimymblert]

And the amazing coincidence that it's meta to the thing that happen to kojima, teh game and the budget at konami, making the theme of loss even more ...

[gimymblert]

also metal gear online sound great

[s0]

honestly, the "good guys" in this game pretty much act like complete dicks throughout. miller in particular mainly just seems extremely bitter (understandably so ofc).

[Alec S.]

Oh, no doubt.  But the game does a good job of making you sympathize with these characters.

And, on the subject of Miller, his character arc more than any other can be viewed as a descent.  And it's interesting that the end of that descent makes him a "good guy" in the context of MGS1. 

Also, The relationship between Miller and Ocelot is probably one of the most interesting parts of this game. Ocelot is kind of the angel on your shoulder, and Miller is the devil on your shoulder, but Miller is far more humanized.  You learn more about his motivations, he doesn't want to give Eli up to Ocelot, he wants to give the child soldiers a better life, and is basically a patsy in all of this... Meanwhile Ocelot is less paranoid, more level-headed, more friendly, but, again, actually enjoys torturing people and is conspiring behind everyone's back.

[s0]

There's an official MGS5 boardgame coming out

[gimymblert]

is it about pachinko?

[Türbo Bröther]

Is it designed by janitors?

[s0]

btw this game has a really nice soundtrack (this coming from someone who dislikes 99% of all gam soundtracks). it's great how they went for a john carpenter synth arpeggio vibe rather than the generic string orchestra pap you hear in most AAA games. very fitting esp because metal gear is pretty *strongly inspired* by escape from new york. the skull snipers boss music (mission 28) in particular is so carpenter it hurts.

[Türbo Bröther]

Just like something you'd put on a cassette.

[Alec S.]

So, I realized something, why I think the twist in this was a lot less satisfying than the similar twist in MGS2.  The twist didn't really have anything to do with anything other than A) to explain away a bit of videogame logic from the MSX games, and B) with how it tied into Kaz's arc.  Other than what the revelation meant to Kaz, the twist didn't have anything to do with loss, pain, revenge, or even the secondary theme of language-as-nation.  Meanwhile, everything about Raiden/the Solid Snake Simulation was essential to the point of MGS2.  It feels like Kojima wrote the plot to the game, realized he had made a classic character study and decided he needed to post-modern it up a bit to protect his reputation.

[s0]

welp that's kinda the problem when you've written yourself into a corner and are forced to make interquels but still want to have lots of "twists" and "surprises" in them.

[gimymblert]

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain earned twice as much in its first day on sale as Avengers: Age of Ultron did on its debut.

So much for the budget

Ultron Budget: $250 000 000 (estimated)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2395427/

[Dragonmaw]

every mgs game has some big game-changing twist, most of them kinda stupid

mgs1  BIG BOSS UR DAD, LIQUID UR BRO, FOXDIE
mgs2  COLONEL IS AI, SOLIDUS, UR A WAR ORPHAN
mgs3  UR BIG BOSS LOL, THE BOSS ACTUALLY GOOD
mgs4  BIG BOSS STILL ALIVE, LIQUID OCELOT JUST PRETENDIN 2BE NUTS
mgspw PAZ WORKS FOR CIPHER GOLLY
mgs5  ONO UR NOT BIGGUS BOSSUS

the mgs series is one of constant retconning, random twists, and needless sequels, haha

[s0]

twists in general are stupid for the most part

[Alec S.]

But, I mean, leaving MGS4 and PW aside (Since I haven't played them and so don't have proper context), the twists of 1-3 were pretty core to the themes of those games.  The theme of genetic determinism in MGS 1, the theme of access to information shaping who we are in 2 (plus the general Philip K. Dick-esque paranoid tone), and the theme of trust/allegiance in 3.  They had a point within the plot.  

[s0]

btw i sometimes play mgs5 as an idle game. i just leave the game running, do something else and react to dispatches and development and other mother base stuff when i need to.

not because i "have" to but bc i like it. i would probably play a mother base mobile gam if such a thing existed.

[Raptor85]

While i overall like it I think i'd like it a lot more if I didn't have to grind money/items for upgrades, most of the side missions and base building just feels like filler to extend the gameplay length without actually adding any story or new areas. 

The game is also ridiculously easy once you get guns with supressors, the AI actually feels like it's even DUMBER than it was in mgs3 and mgs4, i can stand up in broad daylight and noscope snipe people from outside their visual range. It's definitely designed for console and using a mouse and keyboard makes the aiming so fast it effectively breaks the game (i don't think i've failed a reflex shot in the entire game so far, even if i was looking the entire opposite way 400 yards away when noticed). 

Overall I'd say going to the open world gameplay type it gained a lot of playtime but kinda dulled everything down in the process to accomidate it, It just doesn't have the charm of the older games, and all the locations kinda feel exactly the same, especially on your 20th mission to the same guard outpost in the middle of the desert.

By end game I was really only using a handful of tactics

1. If on a prisoner rescue or extraction mission, bring D-Dog, run directly for target, slam to ground and fulton extract, leave hot zone.
2. If on a combat/clearing mission, bring quiet, mast Q+2 (order to fire) while she's equipped with a supressed rifle over and over, eat burrito while she kills everything on the map.
3. If anything mentions mist or sounds like i'll be fighting tanks/metal gear, bring a launcher and use my tactic of "circle strafe" that was apparently not thought of by konami where i run in circles around it firing rockets and tossing supply grenades every once in a while if needed.  Seriously as cool as the fight was the metal gear fights were EASY.

In the end I'd say it's a 6/10 game, really good but I kinda wish i'd waited for it to go on sale, not really what i was expecting out of a MGS main series game, and definitely nowhere near as good as MGS3 or even MGS4

[Alec S.]

So I decided to go back and do another play through of Ground Zeroes now that I've beaten Phantom Pain.  There were some interesting things I noticed:

-There were quite a few small changes and tweaks that made it really weird to go back.  No knock command.  When you did a dive, you automatically get up afterwards rather than going prone.  When you dive off a ledge, you don't do that roll animation, so there ends up being a really awkward falling animation.  Different interrogation options (soldier positions are now standard intel, and not a special option that you can ask them about, and there was an option to have guards call over nearby guards, since this didn't have the knock command). 
-It's hard to think of any area in Phantom Pain as expansive as Camp Omega.  OKB Zero, The Soviet Base Camp, and the Oil Processing Plant are probably the only one's that come anywhere close, but I think they're still a fair amount smaller.  As much as I like the bite-sized missions of Phantom Pain, it would have been nice to have at least a few that were the size and scope of Ground Zeroes.
-Another thing missing from this that was in Phantom Pain is that there were a lot of doors that you couldn't open, and they weren't boarded up or anything. 

Definitely makes me wish that they had gone through with revisiting Camp Omega in Phantom Pain.  It would be nice to be able to go through it with the changes/expanded toy-set of Phantom Pain (plus I would get to go inside all the buildings).

[Superb Joe]

to me, the most important part of this game is that the bad guy spent 9 years preparing his big speech, then delivered it to the wrong guy, who didn't care