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I'm about an hour twenty in. Middle of the intro cut scene to Chapter 1. Everything I've played so far indicates that this is indeed a Hideo Kojima joint. It is delightfully mad and fun.

 

 

Is the character customization thing at the beginning really just customizing your online multiplayer avatar? Feels kinda weird having that be a big part of the single player campaign.

 

Edited by Mr. GOH!
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Welp, credits just rolled on the whole Skull Face thing. There's clearly more to go in the "post-game" or whatever you wanna call it, so I haven't completely beaten the game just yet. Peace Walker similarly locked its true ending behind a bunch of post-game stuff. But I'm not exactly holding my breath here.

 

The gameplay is fucking incredible, probably the best game I've ever played in that regard. And for an open-world game, some of the main missions actually had some pretty goddamn good level design. They would take place in isolated corners of the map in areas that felt more linear and designed than the rest of the game world. Some of them even had map design that was very reminiscent of some of the best areas from MGS4, so that was pretty damn great.

 

But the story? Absolute fucking garbage. It's not as stupid as Peace Walker but that's not saying much. As an hardcore MGS fan who was mainly anticipating MGSV for the story, that aspect was a massive disappointment. The trailers are literally more interesting than what actually happens in the game. :(

 

And speaking of the trailers, pretty much everything was in them. I'm not even exaggerating, it's fucking ridiculous. There were barely any surprises left in the actual game. You can pretty much piece the entire plot together just from watching them all. I know Kojima fancies himself a bit of a film director but he was clearly desperate for footage when editing those things. He didn't have much to work with so he just put everything in there. :/

 

I could probably rant some more but I think I'll hold off until I've fully completed the game. I don't wanna shit on it too much because it's still an incredible game. Hopefully something will happen to make me feel a little more positive about it overall...

Edited by FLD
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How many missions did it take you to roll credits??

And do you know what it takes to get the extra stuff? Hopefully not S ranking everything or completing every mission objective, that would get tiresome. 

Edited by The Cowboy Poet
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How many missions did it take you to roll credits??

And do you know what it takes to get the extra stuff? Hopefully not S ranking everything or completing every mission objective, that would get tiresome.

The Skull Face stuff ends on mission 31. Then you get a little "Coming next" preview, Chapter 2 starts and more missions unlock. Apparently, there's 50 main missions in total but it looks like some of the post-game ones are just going to be harder versions of previous missions. For example, mission 33 is a repeat of

 

 

the very early mission where you need to destroy 3 comms antenna, only this one has a "Subsistence" label on it and you start with no gear whatsoever. Everything had to be found on-site, old-school MGS style.

 

 

I don't think they'll all be like that though, since there's clearly more story stuff that hasn't happened yet.

 

I've read that the main mission that actually ties up the main story was cut from the game and that the "real" ending in the game leaves a lot of plot threads hanging.

Yeah, I saw something about that. Think it was a Kotaku piece or something. I avoided it because I wasn't done with the main story yet. Think I'll hold off a bit longer just in case it mentions post-game story content.

Edited by FLD
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What I've read is that there are a handful of post-game missions that flesh out the ending. However, there was story cut through development and that a blu-ray that came with the collector's edition has video that goes over that content.

 

I wasn't expecting anything huge because we're sandwiching a game between Big Boss and the events of Metal Gear. I don't know everything yet as I haven't finished the game. I just have my intuition about everything suspect about the beginning of the game. Not to mention that I had a feeling that all the trailers I've seen have revealed a lot of the story.

 

EDIT: I forgot to mention how ironic it is that we have a Metal Gear Solid game where people are itching for story and cutscenes. I still remember MGS4's launch and people going on about how it was X hours of cutscenes.

Edited by Atomsk88
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Had a look at that Kotaku article and quickly saw it mentioned the true ending so I fulton'd the hell out of there. I think I caught a glimpse of what it might be about, though. If I'm right, that's going to be yet another disappointment. Lol.

 

Also, apparently Kojima was super wasteful during the development of the game and stuff getting cut was as a result of Konami putting their foot down because the dude couldn't meet a deadline to save his life. Konami is still shit but if there's truth to this, I dunno, maybe I'm just still sour about the disappointing story but it's starting to sound like Kojima screwed up big time and was fired for a reason.

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I had one mission bug out on me. The guy that I was pose to follow started to go around in circles after I triggered caution with some missing prisoners and power outage. In a desperate attempt to get the mission going again, I interrogated and fulton him out. That didn't help that I found the key prisoner dead in the room the guy came from! Oh well since I nearly S ranked the mission in my retry. I just got caught coming out a building with the first guy I mentioned.

 

As for what I think of the game as a whole (without finishing the game): Mother Base is the problem. It's the damn reason why I'm at 45 hours of gameplay. I'm babying it by gathering resources for it so I can get better gear and performance. If I don't baby it, I'll easily go into the red with GMP deficit that can lead to people jumping ship from Mother Base that in turn lead to poorer performance. This babying is seriously diluting whatever story the game has. For the game's sake, I should just focus on the story missions. If this was like the previously MGS games, I would have gotten hit by the Skulls, Quiet and episode 12 chase in like a 2-3 hour block or less. It totally would also make up for the (maybe? I need to play more story missions) lack of memorable antagonists. We really only got the mysterious XOF and Cipher. We basically got no members (besides Quiet) of the those groups to deal with us. Eh... I didn't expect this...

 

Enough bitching though because the gameplay for sure deserve all the praise it gets.

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For the game's sake, I should just focus on the story missions. If this was like the previously MGS games, I would have gotten hit by the Skulls, Quiet and episode 12 chase in like a 2-3 hour block or less. It totally would also make up for the (maybe? I need to play more story missions) lack of memorable antagonists. We really only got the mysterious XOF and Cipher. We basically got no members (besides Quiet) of the those groups to deal with us. Eh... I didn't expect this...

Trust me, it's not you, it's the game. Since you're still early on, my advice to you is forget about the story. It's terrible and you'll only be disappointed by it. Focus on enjoying the gameplay, that's the only area where the game succeeds and holy shit does it ever. Take your time, build up Mother Base, do side ops. There's a handful of truly memorable story missions but there's also a few completely shit ones (basically any where you're fighting the Skulls) and there's way too many that feel like pointless filler. Essentially, most issues I had with Peace Walker carried over to The Phantom Pain.

 

 

Also, I've given it more thought, listened to more post-game tapes and what not, and I take back what I previously said. The story in TPP is every bit as retarded as the one in Peace Walker. Hell, at least Peace Walker had a fucking story. I'm not sure what Phantom Pain was even going for, especially given what's come to light regarding the lacking ending and cut content.

 

Oh and speaking of cut content, turns out the trailers were misleading as all hell, too. Plenty of scenes in them that simply aren't in the game at all. Even more infuriating, one bit in particular from the E3 2015 trailer had me super hyped because of the implication. And while it's in the game, what's actually going on at that particular moment is absolutely not what the trailer seemed to suggest. Incredibly misleading and shitty.

 

Also, remember how MGS4 went full retard using nanomachines to explain literally everything? Well...

 

 

parasites are the new nanomachines. I can't believe I didn't see that one right off the bat but it's true. And hell, there's even an implication that the supernatural abilities of the Cobras from MGS3 were due to parasites as well. Kojima has gone full George Lucas this time.

 

 

Honestly, all things considered, at this point I'm not sorry to see Kojima leave the MGS series for good. After Peace Walker and this, I kinda want to say that he simply doesn't know how to write these games anymore. At least, not in a way that makes me care about the story like I used to. I think his writing style just wasn't a good fit for the gameplay switch that happened after PW.

 

I certainly feel sorry for the shitty treatment he received from Konami but as far as the series is concerned I won't miss him if we get MGS6 in a few years. The MGS gameplay should be easy enough to replicate without him and his writing has gone to complete shit, so that certainly won't be missed.

Edited by FLD
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Well, just got the true ending. Fuck this game and fuck Hideo Kojima. I'm never getting hyped for a video game ever again. Going forward, my assumption is that all video games are going to be shit.

 

XCOM 2? Shit.

Mankind Divided? Double shit.

Dishonored 2? Super shit.

Persona 5? Maximum shit.

 

It's the only way to never be disappointed this profoundly ever again. 

 

 

On a more serious note, that final mission was a fucking joke. I mean, the way it was handled was completely stupid and every bit as half-assed as everything else in Chapter 2. But even beyond that, when your big twist/reveal has me laughing my ass off throughout the credits, you know something's very wrong. Oh well, now it's time to go read all about that cut ending.

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What? These games are all about the story. The gameplay being solid is a plus but the main focus is and has always been the narrative. It's hardly perfect and wasn't always elegantly told but yes, the series tells a good story. Good enough for fans to be invested in it, at least. 

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Well, yes, the games all indulged Kojima's lunacy to an extent that I could hardly believe it, even as a teenager playing MGS for PS1. But the story has always been hot nonsensical bullshit. The presentation was at least hilarious because it was so self-important and baroque, yet stupid as all get-out, and TPP is very much in keeping with that tradition. 

Edited by Mr. GOH!
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Sounds like it's just not for you, then. I'm not saying it's high art or Citizen Kane or anything like that but it is a compelling cheesy sci-fi action thriller. Most people who are into it embrace it for how nonsensical it is.

 

Besides, didn't you once say MGS3 was the only one you even played all the way through or something like that? If so, you're not exactly in a position to criticize or discuss the overall MGS story here. Lol.

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I only finished Snake Eater, but I played the one on Nintendo in the US, got about halfway through MGS, watched a buddy play MGS 2 a bunch, and I watched a Let's play of all of 4, to be specific. I have not played the other Raiden game, and I have zero idea of what Peacewalker was all about.

 

But even if I only had extensive experience of MGS 3, I think my points stand.

 

I do embrace the story for what it is; I just am not invested in taking it at all seriously, so it's relative weakness in TPP doesn't really affect my opinion of the game. I never expected the overarching plot to make sense or go anywhere, so the fact it doesn't in TPP doesn't bother me. It's par for the course.

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I played MGS1 to death. Bandanas, Tuxedos, the lot. Played MGS 2 till I had all Dog Tags on Euro Extreme completed MGS3, MGS4, Played some of Peace Walker and the main missions in Ground Zeroes. So hopefully FLD will give me permission to express an opinion on MGS story.

 

MGS lore is the most convoluted, hammy, retconned pile of nonsense anywhere. Half of it seems like fanfic of itself. The dialogue is corny as hell and some of the plot lines make bugger all sense.

 

None of that means that you shouldn't enjoy it, but I definitely agree with Mr. GOH! that you should not take it seriously.

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Wait, as a person who has only done a bit of MGS4 and found that the complaints weren't hyperbole: I always thought the point of the MGS series was the gameplay was some of the best. And really pushed some of the limits with likes of resetting system clock, swapping controller inputs, etc. Though I haven't really heard of much of this on the newer consoles. But the storage was always grade-a mumbo jumbo garbage spread across a variety of non-chronological games that requires 2hr long youtube videos to try and "explain" it when apparently "nanomachines", or "parasites" will apparently do.

 

But as I said that's from an outsiders viewpoint.

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