After MGS3 is when it went from "A little Anime with your Hollywood" to "A little Hollywood with your anime." MGS4 was the point where you knew whatever force was keeping MGS from being contaminated by the worst parts of Japanese Otaku culture had been crushed under the series' weight.
The fact that the guys at platinum noticed this and made a nod to it with that Solaris Security guard proves to me that the franchise would probably be better off in their hands going forward.
This was from a few pages back - I haven't played MG:R yet (have it sitting waiting, just haven't had the opportunity). What was the context of this "nod"? I'm just curious.
That stream will NOT play for me. I hope someone can upload the stream somewhere lol
For anyone having trouble with the stream - if you have a VPN, try switching it to a Russian server. I was barely able to load the thing and it stuttered terribly, but enabling and setting my VPN to Russia fixed everything.
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Narrative
So a buddy gave me a heads up about the streamer playing through Mission 46. I just finished watching it, and from a narrative standpoint it's basically what I had feared - there's no buildup to the Medic's character or history (aside from a couple superficial breadcrumbs) to indicate or give weight to the big twist. It's the opposite of the Sixth Sense example I mentioned a dozen pages ago - where all the histories, actions, and personalities of the characters are well established over the entire story and meshed together in such a way that big twist not only surprises viewers but still comes across as 'earned'.
In contrast, this one is just a big unearned "gotcha!" - there's nothing in place to support how this unimportant side character you've never met in any meaningful way turns out to be the biggest, most important character after all! Not to mention that it turns out Medic was in a coma for those 9 years (not secretly training - his skinny atrophied muscles are obvious when compared to Ishmael's athletic build in the hostpital section). To top it off, it wasn't his choice at all (Ocelot confirms that he will work to keep Medic fooled) which removes any heroic aspect on his own part.
I was hoping it wouldn't be so blunt, heavy handed, and out of left field as this.
It's like a jump scare in a bad horror film - sure it surprised you, but it's a far cry from a well done piece of horror that can build suspense and dread artfully over the course of the film.
It's also another example of Metal Gear characters arbitrarily changing their entire personalities in order to suit the twist/theme. While Zero may have come up with the plan, the real Big Boss was totally complicit and even mentions having stuck around to watch over the Medic during his 9 year coma because
he needed Medic to save him (this last bit comes from the tape when Medic/Venom is looking in the mirror), which is completely at odds with Big Boss's character development through MGS3 and Peace Walker.
But at the end of the day, can anyone really explain why this character was given so much importance? Of all the eccentric, fleshed out named characters with their own special histories available in the Metal Gear franchise, why this random background non-character would possibly be given the crown and scepter and proclaimed the end-all-be-all most important in the kingdom? It would be a bit like if an unnamed inn-keeper Arya bumps into early in Game of Thrones/ASOIAF was revealed to be an amnesiac dragon whisperer from ancient legend and the key to ending the entire series. From a purely story/narrative-driven perspective, it's weird at best and atrocious at worst.
Theme
So from a narrative standpoint, I think it's a big swing and a miss. From a macro 'theme' standpoint as it relates to the player (which Kojima is all about), it's sort of interesting, but not really as ballsy as what MGS2 attempted. The player creates the face of Medic, and
Medic is ultimately supposed to the player's personal avatar in the MGS5 universe. What does this mean? Well both the player and Medic obviously thought they were the original, true Big Boss, and the revelation is supposed to allow both the player and Medic/Venom to share the same surprise and emotional resentment (maybe? Venom clearly smiles when the real Big Boss tells him that
he is now the new Big Boss during the mirror cassette scene).
Personally, I still find it kind of weak. Sure the Medic/player are caught off guard, but does it really change anything you had just played? Unlike what MGS2 did, where the theme of failed expectations and the failure of emulating the past was built into the fiber of the game - revealing itself during every boss encounter and cut scene - this twist just caps off the very ending and retcons MG1.
It's also a bit strange because it seems to contradict what Kojima was doing in MGS2 in the first place. MGS2 was about the need to find individuality and distance one's self from cultural landmark heroes - about how Raiden needed to find his unique voice and not simply emulate Snake - and how his (and the player's) former training in MGS1 was ultimately not a suitable template for completing MGS2's scenarios despite looking superficially similar. The ending monologues in MGS2 make this abundantly clear, and the rest of the game design + cutscenes support that notion as well.
MGS5 on the other hand is basically the opposite - that mimicry of landmark cultural heroes is paramount and anyone can step into the shoes of a legend, even if unwittingly.
Miscellaneous Alternate Ideas
Just spitballing ideas off the top of my head - this twist would have had much more impact for me if my personal Medic avatar were introduced and made personally important to me much earlier.
He should have been player created back in Ground Zeroes with the red herring explanation being that he would carry into Metal Gear Online as the player's permanent character. In Ground Zeroes, he could have been involved in tutorial missions and Side-Ops (again, under the guise that he's really for MG:O, but that universe sort of shares the single player one for Side-Ops). If the buddy system were ready as well, it would have been perfect to have a special GZ Side Op mission in which you get to "experience the new MGS5 buddy system by teaming up with your MG:O avatar" to complete the mission together (the player as Big Boss with their Medic avatar as the buddy).
Something along those lines, where enough misdirection is provided that players wouldn't think the character would really intersect the 'true' story in any meaningful way, but still establishes the character (player) within the MGS5 universe and his interaction with Big Boss - even if the player thought it was in a non-canon alternate universe type of side op scenario. With something like this,
when the revelation came, the player would have a solid understanding that the Medic was not simply some random guy, but rather their own reflection personified in the game's world. The player would have possibly developed a personal connection with their own avatar, and would have recognized that "hey, I was running missions with Big Boss, we learned to fight and sneak together, and I just hadn't realized how important it was way back then."
_/¯
