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SPOILER: Metal Gear Solid V Spoiler Thread | Such a lust for conclusion, T-WHHOOOO

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Kojima tends to make up things on the spot to defend whatever someone is asking him.

"Hey, you seem to write Big Boss a lot more."
"Well Snake is an unemotional biodroid so of course I do."
 
Salaadin said:
What Kojima said doesn't line up with how Kojima writes Solid Snake either. It has nothing to do with Fukushima.
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Yeah, I guess it's unfair to say that considering he did write MG1 and 2 and MGS4 where Solid Snake was pretty fucking human. But it makes me wonder how much of a hand he actually has in writing the stories when he says that. The man loves writing radio dramas, that much I know.
 
Spaghetti said:
if i remember right those bits about cyborg big boss were a joke about snake's revenge actually.
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Maybe they were. Most of all they were a reference to Snatcher though, Dr. Madnar being involved and everything.

That being said, MGS4's database changed this from "Silly inside joke" to "No, seriously, this really happened!".

I guess now it really didn't.
 
Alienous said:
I'd say it has a few more issues than that. Things like not mattering in the continuity, having a villain who doesn't have much presence in the story, characters coming out of the events of the game in much the same way as they entered.
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I disagree about Skull Face not having much presence -- he has as much presence as any previous main MGS villain does, really. It just seems like it's less because now you're spending more time actually playing than watching. You just have to go back and look at MGS3 with Volgin as an example:

You encounter Volgin for the first time during the Virtuous Mission and he has one long cutscene that starts from the bridge and then on the chopper.

Then in the Operation Snake Eater part of the game, the next time you see Volgin is after beating Ocelot/The Pain, which is also when you first see The End.

Next time after that is a scene after you've beaten The Fury and Volgin is beating up Granin in a barrel.

Then there's the time Snake gets caught in Groznyj Grad and the subsequent torture scene encounter

And finally everything from his first phase boss fight (after you've planted the C3) to an insanely long on-rails section all the way to the second phase of the Shagohod. The near-end of MGS3 is where you see Volgin the most and comparatively I can see why you would remember Volgin more than Skull Face but the amount of times you encounter each villain is about the same -- minus Volgin clearly having slightly more screen-time than Skull Face at the end (because Volgin actually has two whole boss fights unlike Skull Face who you never even fight).

Just for the sake of it, let's go over Skull Face's appearances (including GZ because MGSV isn't just TPP, let's face it GZ was intended to be part of TPP Konami just forced Kojima to sell it as a separate product):

First encounter is during the Ground Zeroes mission where he is leaving Camp Omega.

Second encounter is Mission 6 in TPP, where you are trying to get the Honey Bee.

Third encounter is Mission 12 when Sahelanthropus is first revealed and you've rescued Huey.

Fourth encounter is Mission 20 at the Devil's House

And finally, the last encounter is mission 30/31 where he gives his big monologue like every MGS villain does before they die (even Volgin has a big monologue in MGS3 before he dies, explaining the Philosopher's Legacy and all).

So, five whole scenes (six if you want to separate 31 where he dies after you've beaten Sahelanthropus). And this isn't even including all the tapes Skull Face has in GZ and TPP, which is quite a lot.

He had about as much screen time he needed. Maybe not what you expected (and certainly not what I expected either) or wanted (because Skull Face is a very interesting villain they could have done more with -- I certainly liked his voice, demeanor, and manner of dress) but it's on-par with previous main villains of the series for the most part. This game just has more gameplay between those bits of villain scenes unlike the previous games, especially if you play side-ops between main missions.
 
Revven said:
.
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I'm not talking about screen time, I'm talking about 'presence'.

To give Skull Face credit it's probably due to Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain being split. Like, consider Volgin. You meet him, his this hulking individual. What's the first notable thing he does? Nuke his own men.

Well shit, I'm looking forward to taking this guy down.

So I sort of take that back. Skull Face doesn't have much of a presence considering The Phantom Pain alone. When you consider Ground Zeroes he's a lot more interesting.
 
NotTheGuyYouKill said:
fallen-walter-white.jpg


He lied.
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Cranston would've whupped ass as big boss.
 
SomTervo said:
I think (and hope) it might be a grower for a lot of people. It certainly made an impact on me.
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It gets more flaccid the more I play it. 50ish hours in.

The MGS2 vr missions could get pretty repetitive but you could pretty much finish everything in 10-12 hours.

These side ops take like double that and are even more repetitive. It's a true blue GRIND.
 
Kojima already made similiar comments about Solid Snake when MGS3 came out.

http://www.tentenpro.com/muni_shinobu/mgs3/commentary1.html

Hideo Kojima said:
It is kind of a cheap setting, the clone thing. To make the main character Naked Snake, who Solid is cloned from.
The human-made clones, Solid Snake and Liquid Snake. It's like the story of Frankenstein, of man-made man (人造人間), not a living creature that happened in the world naturally. A man-made monster, and that's Solid Snake. On a character perspective, Naked Snake is more full of human feel (人間味) to him. At the time of the Snake Eater mission, he's still too pure, like The Boss said, still filled with the sense of justice. We made his movements and actions, his dialogues and the voice portrayal, more human like, as compared to Solid Snake. He's more sensitive to feelings and pain. Solid Snake is not like that. He is a created monster. Feelings are against his character and personality. He just follows orders. There is this kind of difference in character between the two of them.
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Doesn't this basically invalidate everything Snake has learned and done in the first two games?
 
I think if the game ended at Chapter 1, and a fully fleshed Chapter 2 was released as paid DLC, people wouldn't mind so much overall. It's not exactly a yearly franchise, and well, that lust for conclusion.
 
SuperStiltzkin said:
Yeah, I guess it's unfair to say that considering he did write MG1 and 2 and MGS4 where Solid Snake was pretty fucking human. But it makes me wonder how much of a hand he actually has in writing the stories when he says that. The man loves writing radio dramas, that much I know.
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He's Kojima. He's inconsistent.


These things are all group efforts. We also know that the opinion of the entire staff can greatly affect the story of the game. We will never really know for sure how much each persons contributions mattered in the end.

The only thing I can say for certain is that mgs1 and 3, written by kojima and fukushima, were better stories than any other mgs game so, for me, fukushimas contributions are definitely noted. But I'm also not going to rip away Kojimas influence either as he was still involved.

Charlouie Jonesman said:
Kojima already made similiar comments about Solid Snake when MGS3 came out.

http://www.tentenpro.com/muni_shinobu/mgs3/commentary1.html



Doesn't this basically invalidate everything Snake has learned and done in the first two games?
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Which first two games? Metal gear or metal gear solid?

Because in MGS1, Liquid specifically calls Solid out for his weird habit of following orders blindly with no questions asked while his superiors betray him.
 
Alienous said:
I'm not talking about screen time, I'm talking about 'presence'.

To give Skull Face credit it's probably due to Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain being split. Like, consider Volgin. You meet him, his this hulking individual. What's the first notable thing he does? Nuke his own men.

Well shit, I'm looking forward to taking this guy down.

So I sort of take that back. Skull Face doesn't have much of a presence considering The Phantom Pain alone. When you consider Ground Zeroes he's a lot more interesting.
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Oh I see, I get you now. But yeah, you really need to include GZ when talking about Skull Face -- lots of juicy stuff from that and it's such a shame it was released separately as it does dampen these discussions a bit because it's so easy to forget GZ is part of MGSV and was intended to be part of TPP.

I assume if you play GZ first and then TPP straight after Skull Face likely comes off better, especially because of the tapes he has in GZ.
 
Yeah the difference between Skullface and Volgin is a lot of Volgin's scenes he's doing something. There's also a huge difference between the two in terms of memorability due to Volgin having a boss fight (well, two boss fights) and Skullface who you never really fight. But Skullface likes to show up at the end of a mission, utter something cryptic, and leave. Volgin got the Boss to defect and nuked his own country. Later Snake disguises himself as his lover and then he tortures Snake. Volgin comes into contact with nearly all of the main characters and moves the plot forward without doing so offscreen in tapes. Regardless of which character shows up more, Volgin simply does more.
 
The fact that the Mujahdeen are not in the game feels bizarre. You could make up so many interesting stories about how they fit into this universe.
 
Wouldve loved to see a cutscene of thr skullface and codetalker tape scene where he rings the bell.

I love skullface's design and voice acting, just wanted more scenes of hom being an evil bastard.
 
Revven said:
I disagree about Skull Face not having much presence -- he has as much presence as any previous main MGS villain does, really. It just seems like it's less because now you're spending more time actually playing than watching. You just have to go back and look at MGS3 with Volgin as an example:

You encounter Volgin for the first time during the Virtuous Mission and he has one long cutscene that starts from the bridge and then on the chopper.

Then in the Operation Snake Eater part of the game, the next time you see Volgin is after beating Ocelot/The Pain, which is also when you first see The End.

Next time after that is a scene after you've beaten The Fury and Volgin is beating up Granin in a barrel.

Then there's the time Snake gets caught in Groznyj Grad and the subsequent torture scene encounter

And finally everything from his first phase boss fight (after you've planted the C3) to an insanely long on-rails section all the way to the second phase of the Shagohod. The near-end of MGS3 is where you see Volgin the most and comparatively I can see why you would remember Volgin more than Skull Face but the amount of times you encounter each villain is about the same -- minus Volgin clearly having slightly more screen-time than Skull Face at the end (because Volgin actually has two whole boss fights unlike Skull Face who you never even fight).

Just for the sake of it, let's go over Skull Face's appearances (including GZ because MGSV isn't just TPP, let's face it GZ was intended to be part of TPP Konami just forced Kojima to sell it as a separate product):

First encounter is during the Ground Zeroes mission where he is leaving Camp Omega.

Second encounter is Mission 6 in TPP, where you are trying to get the Honey Bee.

Third encounter is Mission 12 when Sahelanthropus is first revealed and you've rescued Huey.

Fourth encounter is Mission 20 at the Devil's House

And finally, the last encounter is mission 30/31 where he gives his big monologue like every MGS villain does before they die (even Volgin has a big monologue in MGS3 before he dies, explaining the Philosopher's Legacy and all).

So, five whole scenes (six if you want to separate 31 where he dies after you've beaten Sahelanthropus). And this isn't even including all the tapes Skull Face has in GZ and TPP, which is quite a lot.

He had about as much screen time he needed. Maybe not what you expected (and certainly not what I expected either) or wanted (because Skull Face is a very interesting villain they could have done more with -- I certainly liked his voice, demeanor, and manner of dress) but it's on-par with previous main villains of the series for the most part. This game just has more gameplay between those bits of villain scenes unlike the previous games, especially if you play side-ops between main missions.
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The thing about Volgin is that he is a Bond villain to fit with the Bond motif and era. He wants power for the sake of power. He is a very one dimensional, though fun, villain. But he wasn't the true antagonist of the game. The Boss was. She was Snake's biggest obstacle, not Volgin. And while Solidus is one of the series most developed villains in terms of motives, even Raiden's real antagonist was AI Colonel/GW.

Skull Face has no Boss equivalent. It's just him and his quest for revenge. I was expecting Zero or Kaz to be the phantom menace who Venom would ultimately have to face off against and has a real emotional investment in. But they never come in to play. I guess you could argue that Huey was secretly the biggest threat? Which I kinda like other than the fact that Huey is totally not the Huey we met in PW. Part of me kinda likes that the real villain who ultimately wrought he most destruction was this sniveling, cowardly weasel character who had no motivation other than fear and self preservation.
 
Charlouie Jonesman said:
Kojima already made similiar comments about Solid Snake when MGS3 came out.

http://www.tentenpro.com/muni_shinobu/mgs3/commentary1.html



Doesn't this basically invalidate everything Snake has learned and done in the first two games?
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Yeah. It's bullshit and doesn't even make sense considering how he is and develops as a character through all the games.

ShockingAlberto said:
Like the entire arc of Solid Snake is him coming to grips and surpassing his genetic fate. He decided he's not a gun.

Meanwhile, Big Boss' entire arc was "Hey I'm a super good gun, pew pew pew"
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SnakeLinkSonic said:
I can recall Snake throughout 1, 2, and 4 voicing his feelings and ideals towards his friends and enemies.

I can barely recall Big Boss doing anything other than crying about The Boss across PO, PW and SE.
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Exactly
 
Hellwarden said:
The fact that the Mujahdeen are not in the game feels bizarre. You could make up so many interesting stories about how they fit into this universe.
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They're mentioned in multiple tapes too. The closest you come to interacting with them is where you have to destroy a bunch of vehicles while the rebels (hint hint) carry out their offensive.

The Russian guards in this game are essentially guarding ghost towns. Now I can understand game development realities. There was never ever going to be living, breathing towns. That's too ambitious and would be hard to integrate with the game design. But there is just you and the guards. Its empty. Even MGS4 had multiple sides. The Act 3 town's lack of civllians was explained by martial law and curfew. You at least some them in cutscenes.
 
Salaadin said:
Because in MGS1, Liquid specifically calls Solid out for his weird habit of following orders blindly with no questions asked while his superiors betray him.
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Sure, and he learned from that mistake and followed his own goals in MGS2. He lied to Naomi about Fox's last words to spare her more grief, became best buddies with Otacon, etc.

I dunno, I always felt Naked Snake in MGS3 was a lot more stoic and had trouble reading people's feelings. Maybe if you count the comic relief codec conversations, which make him out to be a giant buffoon, but that doesn't really mesh with his character during the main narrative.
 
Getting played like a fiddle does put a person on the path to changing sides.

You know what the whole exposition-via-tapes thing reminds me of? Doctor Who
The Silence Arc specifically. Most of the story that was vaguely built up over two plus years was explained in a single, easily missable conversation (info dump) during one of the specials. Well, most of it.
 
Sub_Level said:
They're mentioned in multiple tapes too. The closest you come to interacting with them is where you have to destroy a bunch of vehicles while the rebels (hint hint) carry out their offensive.

The Russian guards in this game are essentially guarding ghost towns. Now I can understand game development realities. There was never ever going to be living, breathing towns. That's too ambitious and would be hard to integrate with the game design. But there is just you and the guards. Its empty. Even MGS4 had multiple sides. The Act 3 town's lack of civllians was explained by martial law and curfew. You at least some them in cutscenes.
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Yeah its super weird, there's a lot of set up for their appearance and then nothing.

I chalk it up to another casualty of the extensive cuts.
 
Hellwarden said:
The fact that the Mujahdeen are not in the game feels bizarre. You could make up so many interesting stories about how they fit into this universe.
Click to expand...

Would have been so cool to see the stuff from MGS4 worked into this game. At the start both sides are hostile to you but depending on the missions/side-ops you take and stuff you do in the free roam tilts the sides so you might get free intel from one side about enemy emplacements they've scouted etc.
 
Zomba13 said:
Would have been so cool to see the stuff from MGS4 worked into this game. At the start both sides are hostile to you but depending on the missions/side-ops you take and stuff you do in the free roam tilts the sides so you might get free intel from one side about enemy emplacements they've scouted etc.
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I would have been more interested in a game like that, where you gain followers with your actions and support of different sides, instead of stealing them with balloons.

But we gotta Pokémon now.
 
JackelZXA said:
That whole scene was so full of metaphors though. I never got a sense of "And then they had their armies fight eachother abunch" from that.
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But, I mean, a 'war' should at least have the two sides be at odds.

Big Boss wasn't opposed to Zero until the end of Peace Walker, maybe disliked him for a year, and the two had reconciled their differences by the time he woke up. So they were maybe pitted against each-other for a year, and never actually did any fighting.
 
JackelZXA said:
That whole scene was so full of metaphors though. I never got a sense of "And then they had their armies fight eachother abunch" from that.
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I got the impression that it was a shadow war. Not one fought by armies on a battlefield, but still just as heated as a hot war . It was a war fought by schemes and espionage. Hence EVA and Ocelot plotting to kill Para Medic and Sigint.
 
NotTheGuyYouKill said:
Snip Boss
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I absolutely agree that we should have got some warped memories sort of deal with Venom/BB. Reliving parts of MGS3/Peace Walker again with certain details feeling off-maybe introduce elements from the medic's pre-DD life into it leaving the player wondering who or what they're watching (dead wife & kids, for example). Maybe even subtly seeing OUR medic from the real Big Boss's POV hours before the big reveal to see if people are paying attention. Then again there's nothing the current version of TPP could have done to make that twist work. It's clear the final story is the product of rushed development and was not intended to unfold the way it does when Kojima thought it up.

Despite the masking of the medic's identity all the way back in Ground Zeroes the reveal in TPP feels so out of place. Like I said earlier it's the answer to a question that nobody was asking.
 
News Bot said:
A twist unconcerned with its story ramifications is not a good twist. It makes the entire experience more jarring than anything. People don't pursue fiction to have the rug sweeped out from under them for no reason other than to say "haha got you!"

MGS2 handled its twist masterfully because it was embedded into the lore and crafted in such a way that it would make sense in that world with every aspect written and then tweaked and refined to make sense within the context of the story. None of this happened for MGSV, the twist is just there for the sake of a twist and a half-assed attempt at addressing the player that goes completely over most player's heads.
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I second this.

Furthermore, considering that the idea behind this twist is to empower the player and to make them feel like they are as much in charge of creating the legend behind Big Boss as Big Boss himself (or even as Kojima himself), it fails miserably at that purpose. If anything, I felt the most empowered in this regard with MGS1, precisely when the character still hadn't been explored enough. At that time, the player is truly allowed to conceive all possible scenarios in which Big Boss came to be the man that he was, or hell, even to characterize him at the most basic of levels, given that he wouldn't even be given a voice or more of a personality until years later in MGS3. The minute that Kojima started actually exploring and fleshing out the character of Big Boss was precisely when the player was not allowed any longer to create in their minds their own Big Boss.

Now, this is obviously not a problem with MGSV alone (and whether this is even a "problem" to begin with is debatable, of course). But it's hugely irritating to see that the very game that claims that I am in charge of the creation of Big Boss' character as much as the author himself, is coming out after three full games where the character's personality, traits and history have had more than enough time to be established and solidified. Furthermore, MGSV itself, despite of its implied message to the players, is just as guilty as any other game in the series of retconning things left and right regarding Big Boss' character. Others have already talked about how the so-called "bitter struggle" between Zero and Big Boss that MGS4 talked about does not ever happen according to the new canon. Personally, something that irks me is the notion that the true Big Boss never even met Liquid, let alone traumatized and psychologically abused him as a kid thus turning him into the villain that he would be in MGS1.

If us players had any part in the creation of Big Boss' character, we would still be allowed at the very least to continue playing in our heads events as we've always pictured them based on the exposition of the games that came before MGSV. When the game doesn't even allow the player to retain the things that they know about characters and events, in what mind exactly do they have the slightest amount of participation in the creation of any given character? Make no mistake, MGSV's ending is not empowering; quite the contrary, really.
 
I still don't know what Kojima was going for with making Venom a player avatar, its just so poorly executed. He's just an awkward mute for most of the game and then at the very it goes, "HEY THAT GUY IS YOU!!".

Putting the twist near the start would have greatly served to make you feel like Venom is supposed to be you and not feel like Big Boss has suddenly gone silent for some reason.

You could have been given a lot more agency in the game. Like you could choose if you're "nice" to Liquid or not. Are Liquid's feelings the product of a tragic misunderstanding or was he justified in his hate towards BB? It's up to you. It tried to do something like this with the demon points and stuff but it didn't go far enough, it never effected things that actually matter to someone really invested in the series.
 
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