Finished everything. The biggest problem with the narrative is that there is zero character agency in the narrative. It's hard to care for anyone in the story when they're just people who force their way into the plot because you picked them up somewhere. No rhythm to the plot arc at all. Pretty much nothing is ever built up, so there's no satisfaction of it developing into a climax. For all the complaints that the game has "no ending" or is "unfinished" I don't think it's even possible to have a satisfying ending which will make the game feel finished given the structure it has.
The only time I felt a character arc was actually developed and concluded in an effective way is ironically Quiet's story. She's a bad design, with really embarrassing elements throughout the entire game, but she's also the only character who was introduced from the start of the game in a way the player might not immediately recognize, and returns later as an ambiguous ally. After all the crap about vocal cord parasites, language, the English strain, I felt that tying it all up with her being the carrier and not wanting to speak because of that, made a lot of sense. Having a mission where you team with her "one last time" to take out a ton of vehicles was pretty fun, and while the way it ends might be sort of predictable, I was glad that she didn't just take a bullet for you, but had to actually speak English to save you, before exiling herself forever. For someone as hamfisted as Kojima, I was also happy to see her ending left open, where no one knows if the words she spoke to save you was enough to cause the parasites to react.
The rest of the story though, was pretty hot garbage. Huey is a pointlessly detestable character, Miller overreacts to everything, and by the time they play the "you're not Big Boss" card, it's more like a "who the fuck cares" thing. There's really no need to try so hard to fit everything into continuity and rationalize shit. But whatever. The funniest thing about Eli as a kid getting away with the most advanced Metal Gear in the entire series, is that we really have to wonder now why the fuck he would just settle for Rex in MGS. Otacon is a shit engineer! Lol.
