Except that's not the "point" of this game at all, just something a few people in denial have conjured out of thin air as a meagre defense. This game does nothing to explain any of Big Boss' actual recorded acts, such as his stints in Kuwait (Sniper Wolf) or Mozambique (Gray Fox).
MGS4, Portable Ops and Peace Walker showcased the man as the legend. He did all the things he was hyped up for, thus making him legendary. He still does all these things. The Phantom Pain just suddenly throws in an unnecessary and nonsensical detour that neither adds or explains anything. He isn't any less of a legend. He just suddenly has a doppleganger who did things nobody knew or cared about before. The status quo is the exact same, nothing is changed or even tipped slightly to one side or another. Big Boss was already a legend after MGS3. First in the black ops world, and then to the public at large.
We have Venom Snake in Afghanistan, Africa and Outer Heaven... so? The real Big Boss is still running around in other nations when he's supposedly trying to hide from the world--- even though he stated he would face the world at the end of Peace Walker. Why did he need a new passport? Did his old one just say "Big Boss"? If he was using his real name on his old passport, how was he not caught sooner? Why does he even need a new passport when he has a private army and can just hop in any number of fucking choppers or planes? He was still active not only as a mercenary, but also as commander of FOXHOUND, a high-profile role. He was also closely followed by the mass media and his face was widely known around the world. Anyone that saw or scanned his new passport would instantly recognize him. And don't give me that "he changed his face" shit because he didn't.
Trying to defend this nonsense is an exercise in futility. Kojima is just the M. Night Shyamalan of video games. The stories he's written by himself aren't even decent pulp. They're nonsensical. He cares more about tits than any concrete narrative and he'll achieve tits by any means necessary, even if it means undermining or outright disregarding his own writing. He's a great game designer but an absolutely abysmal writer. Every indication points to Fukushima being where the heart and soul was in MGS1-MGS3, and even the sub-par Portable Ops is better than any of what Kojima shat out afterwards. There's a stark contrast between the games pre-MGS4 and post. It's an incredible difference.
Also what is even the point in having two Outer Heaven logos? Couldn't just retcon with the Venom Snake one like everything else was retconned?
This is all so true and brilliantly articulated. As well as this, here are some of my not so greatly articulated criticisms.
What the fuck happened to proper boss fights? MGS1, 2, 3 and 4 and even Portable Ops had proper boss fights. This game as well as PW didn't bother. It had so much potential. How are so few critics pointing this out? Bizarre boss fights are a staple of the series.
Also, only 2 settings? We already saw a substantial amount of those settings in gameplay videos so it started to look stale pretty quickly.
Speaking of things we already saw, most of the games cutscenes were teased through trailers so it all felt really underwhelming when there was hardly anything new shown.
Also, random medic as Big Boss' body double? I do feel incredibly cheated, Kojima advertised we'd be seeing Big Boss' descent into madness, I expected to see him doing taboo shit without remorse. The reveal also came out of nowhere. It was all of a sudden. HERE. ENDING. TAKE. FIN. You want detail HERE AUDIO CLIP. I kept trying to complete repeat missions in an attempt to progress the story because I thought there were more chapters left. It was only after completing a few of them and googling I found there were only 50 missions. On that note, I felt that repeating missions on a greater difficulty was a cheap mechanic to extend the length of the game.
Also Kiefer's voice acting could have been the best in the world, it doesn't change the fact that the lack of Hayter made feel I wasn't playing as Snake. Also terrible script at times with the repeated mentioning words related to the theme. REVENGE. CIPHER. REVENGE. LANGUAGE. Also that tape with Kaz asking Ocelot what the point of it all is, and Ocelot just summarizing the future that the clones are fated to go against each other and they are just there to facilitate the conditions that will allow that... wtf, where did that even come from? How does that explain Kaz's question?
I expected to see the beginnings of popular characters from the series like Grey Fox, Sniper Wolf and Vulcan Raven make an appearance as they were said to have joined Big Boss. Would also have been nice to see Big Boss happily recruiting some of the nuts from Metal Gear. But it was all just forgotten it seems. Maybe it was not shown as as Venom Snake was not the Snake involved with these characters. In that case that's incredibly disappointing, I would have much rather had a story with the real Big Boss with those characters than this medic turned Big Boss character.
This was far from a true Metal Gear Solid title, what happened.