• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

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

Status
Not open for further replies.
The scene where you give the war children their friends dying memento was another. Watching them just silently accept his fate was one of the few moments that really tied into the theme of losing one's voice/words well. Though it was somewhat undermined by Venom taking out a cigar to smoke afterwards. Seriously, what the hell Venom?

Shame that they later spoiled that scene with quiet deciding that she just HAD to take a chlorine bath at that exact moment because reasons.

This timeline says that Major Zero goes into a coma in 2001 whereas MGSV retcons all of that, saying Skullface used the Pin of Doom to send send him into a coma.
ahm

2001

Major Zero, growing old, starts developing a lack of trust in people, and doesn't want anyone to take control of the Patriots.

Major Zero commissions the development of an advanced AI (called The System) to take control of the Patriots. The System consists of four different AI cores controlled by a fifth -master- one.

Solidus Snake orchestrates the forthcoming Shadow Moses incident.
 
the people who think that 30+ Missions were cut and 5+ Chapters were originally planned don't know what they're talking about and are just piling on Konami out of some misguided loyalty to Hideo Kojima...it seems like Kojima was wildly overspending on MGS and they had to curtail it...$200 million+ on a video game is insane
 
the people who think that 30+ Missions were cut and 5+ Chapters were originally planned don't know what they're talking about and are just piling on Konami out of some misguided loyalty to Hideo Kojima...it seems like Kojima was wildly overspending on MGS and they had to curtail it...$200 million+ on a video game is insane

Thought it was 80?
 
I wish lines like that didn't get cut. I really didn't like how skullface died. He was so helpless and died pathetically

Ummm, he was a genocidal maniac who presided over Mengele-esque experiments on children in Africa... He got exactly the end he deserved.
 
Are there any shinkawa art of the Skulls?

I only found this

W5MHav6.jpg


I love it, reminds me of meryl and snake
 
Man, too bad none of that was competently conveyed in the game itself, it sounds pretty cool.
It's conveyed just fine, IMO. Kaz talks to Venom about how killing Skull Face didn't give them peace, and Venom even sees Skull Face still shadowing him on Mother Base. It's not hit over the head with the same heavy-handed lack of subtlety you get in past MGS titles, but it's there. I mean, the characters are all pretty goddamn miserable in Ch. 2. The threat is gone but the pain remains.
 
Man, fuck this stupid fucking horn and blood.

Ooh, he's covered in blood and his horn is really big. He really is a demon. Wow. So deep, such subtlety. Masterful.

Give me an option to remove this stupid shit, ffs. I guarantee this stupid fucking horn and blood bullshit is going to ruin the MGS3 costume dlc.

Get visually punished by the game for wanting to complete everything. Get visually punished for playing how you want. Get visually punished because Kojima.

They're going for the Oni reference

9ff26edd4366e52d6b415979fd362ecf.jpg


But yeah, you just look unclean.
 
It's conveyed just fine, IMO. Kaz talks to Venom about how killing Skull Face didn't give them peace, and Venom even sees Skull Face still shadowing him on Mother Base. It's not hit over the head with the same heavy-handed lack of subtlety you get in past MGS titles, but it's there. I mean, the characters are all pretty goddamn miserable in Ch. 2. The threat is gone but the pain remains.

They act exactly the same in Ch. 2 as they did in Ch. 1. All of this stuff is in your head. Just having a character blatantly say: "Revenge didn't make me feel better" isn't a good way to convey a theme. It's not subtle, it's borderline non-existent, and it is absolutely lazy writing.
 
Skull Face's ending is perfect, IMO. A recurring theme in the game is the restlessness you feel when you've had your revenge but you still feel unfulfilled. It's one of the many forms that "phantom pain" takes in the game. Skull Face's unceremonious death lacks a certain drama and works better for it. They quietly leave him to suffer, since that's how they want to imagine him — forever suffering. They don't even give him the decency of a mercy killing. But then Huey steps in and, being the spineless lil' shit he is, kicks a man while he's down. If it had been Big Boss trapped under the girder, Huey would've done the same thing.

Either way, the end result is the same for the Diamond Dogs. They've achieved peace in the sense that the threat is gone, but they have not achieved personal peace. Far from it. Instead they have a perpetual state of unease, with paranoia and witch-hunts, punctuated by the occasional tragedy. I see Ch. 2 as a short story collection of life at Mother Base after Skull Face is gone and they no longer have a "face" to focus their anger. Ch. 2 is the life Venom achieved for himself after Skull Face and prior to learning the "truth" and the folly of his entire struggle.

Yes, this describes it perfectly and is in fact what I believe Kojima wants us to take away from Skull Face's death. He doesn't get a boss fight because if he did then the player would feel "accomplished" rather than any despair or disappointment like he achieved here by having Skull Face die in a rather... unsatisfying way.

Those lines could have easily been part of the jeep ride for all we know and for whatever reason they put Sins of the Father and cut those lines out or some not-boss-like moment similar to when you fight Eli CQC or something.

Undoubtedly it feels like they could have done more with Skull Face but a boss fight was not it.
 
It's incredibly sad and weird that we have gotten to the point of justifying being disappointed in a game and its plot because "it was intentional".

Oh yeah, Skull Face sucked balls as a villain and his death and exit to the story were half assed and lame. But it's cool, because that was intentional!
 
They act exactly the same in Ch. 2 as they did in Ch. 1. All of this stuff is in your head. Just having a character blatantly say: "Revenge didn't make me feel better" isn't a good way to convey a theme. It's not subtle, it's borderline non-existent, and it is absolutely lazy writing.

Actually if you listen to the soldier's conversations on mother base late in the game, you'll hear this spelled out explicitly.
 
It's incredibly sad and weird that we have gotten to the point of justifying being disappointed in a game and its plot because "it was intentional".

Oh yeah, Skull Face sucked balls as a villain and his death and exit to the story were half assed and lame. But it's cool, because that was intentional!
"it was intentional" is the last gasp at trying to find meaning in a shit story
 
It's incredibly sad and weird that we have gotten to the point of justifying being disappointed in a game and its plot because "it was intentional".

Oh yeah, Skull Face sucked balls as a villain and his death and exit to the story were half assed and lame. But it's cool, because that was intentional!

Skull Face was brilliant. He has given us more joy than any other character from the game.
 
They act exactly the same in Ch. 2 as they did in Ch. 1. All of this stuff is in your head. Just having a character blatantly say: "Revenge didn't make me feel better" isn't a good way to convey a theme. It's not subtle, it's borderline non-existent, and it is absolutely lazy writing.
I actually do think the characters' discussions about their feelings are relevant, so we might just have to agree to disagree. The restless tone is set from the start of Ch. 2 with the speech about spies on Mother Base (which Kaz later regrets — he feels the staff and rescue team killed each other in the QZ because they no longer trusted each other), and increasing trends toward Big Brother-esque government, witch-hunts, etc. There's a distinct sense of the leadership (Kaz in partcular) having a "splinter in their mind's eye," so to speak. Picking fights trying to pick it out. The villain is dead, but in a way that works against them.

I'm not saying it couldn't be better, mind you. Some notes fall flatter than others. I just think it works at a core level. And of course it's open to interpretation. That's how it goes with any work. Whether it matches the original intent is another matter entirely. I just enjoy that this game allows us to have conversations like this.
 
I think Kojima would explain how any flaw is intentional if you give him the opportunity to.

I can tolerate, accept and even enjoy a lot of stupid stuff that Kojima does "on purpose". I can laugh at a scene that was supid on purpose.

But accepting a game that has a story that was disappointing on purpose? Like: "I wanted the fans to feel empty, angry and asking for more" on purpose? Screw that.
 
It's incredibly sad and weird that we have gotten to the point of justifying being disappointed in a game and its plot because "it was intentional".

Oh yeah, Skull Face sucked balls as a villain and his death and exit to the story were half assed and lame. But it's cool, because that was intentional!

I don't think a forced boss fight would have fixed his ultimate demise -- if he was going to have a boss fight, he was probably going to die the same way anyway. Just as Volgin in MGS3 dies from a lightning bolt and not anything the player does directly (other than damaging him to bring him to that point).

Skull Face was going to end up in some lame death anyway.

Also he didn't "suck balls", IMO. I liked him, certainly way more than Volgin in MGS3 who was just some idiot and typical action movie villain.
 
I don't think a forced boss fight would have fixed his ultimate demise -- if he was going to have a boss fight, he was probably going to die the same way anyway. Just as Volgin in MGS3 dies from a lightning bolt and not anything the player does directly (other than damaging him to bring him to that point).

Skull Face was going to end up in some lame death anyway.

Also he didn't "suck balls", IMO. I liked him, certainly way more than Volgin in MGS3 who was just some idiot and typical action movie villain.

Then how would you describe Skull Face?
 
In MGS6, it'll be revealed that Skull Face and Ocelot belonged to an organization beyond the Patriots and Cipher, a.k.a. The Secret Society of Hand Talkers
 
I kinda liked that Skull Face was borderline Disney villain, I was just hoping it would amount to more than him being stomped out like a lit cigarette. His conversations with Zero and Code Talker in the Truth tapes were his best stints, and he wasn't even on camera for it.
 
by the way it sounds this game needed one more year of development, it pisses/saddens me that this was his last game and it went down like this. So much cut content, not only was Kojima robbed but his fans more importantly were robbed because we spent our money on this unfinished product.

i think the game as kojima originally envisioned it would've taken who knows how much more time, effort, & money, & that he'd already realized this by the time konami began pulling the plug...

& afa 'unfinished product' goes, i think this one beats handily any number of finished products when it comes to just having a good time :) ...
 
I kinda liked Skull Face. Perhaps because he looked ridiculous and James Horan was PERFECT. But the way Skully went out..... Huh...

I love how the game's main theme was supposed to be "revenge" and yet the only revenge you got was shooting Skull Face in the fucking face after Sahelanthropus basically accidentally trapped him underneath some rubble.

"O gee he's stuck, better take my crippled friend with me while we shoot off his limbs. Such revenge, many satisfaction."

How the FUCK do you not have a bossfight with Skull Face? That's the entire point of the game up until that moment.
 
I love how the game's main theme was supposed to be "revenge" and yet the only revenge you got was shooting Skull Face in the fucking face after Sahelanthropus basically accidentally trapped him underneath some rubble.

How the FUCK do you not have a bossfight with Skull Face? That's the entire point of the game up until that moment.

Dude. But you clearly don't get it.

cIJt2rz.png
 
I don't think a forced boss fight would have fixed his ultimate demise -- if he was going to have a boss fight, he was probably going to die the same way anyway. Just as Volgin in MGS3 dies from a lightning bolt and not anything the player does directly (other than damaging him to bring him to that point).

Skull Face was going to end up in some lame death anyway.

Also he didn't "suck balls", IMO. I liked him, certainly way more than Volgin in MGS3 who was just some idiot and typical action movie villain.

Wasn't that the whole point? MGS3 is basically a bond film and the Volgin being a one dimensional bad guy just reinforces it.
 
Apparently Skull Face's fight was cut for a reason (per Metal Gear Wiki):

But I didn't feel any phantom pain. I didn't even feel like I needed revenge on skull face. He was just ... there.

He had a long awkward car ride, screamed about lust, and then got crushed and shot. He left no impression as a villain. Only, at best, a sort of cartoon goofball.

Hell, Huey was a better villain. He felt like a real threat because I never knew what he was planning, or which next move of his would destroy Mother Base.
 
I actually do think the characters' discussions about their feelings are relevant, so we might just have to agree to disagree. The restless tone is set from the start of Ch. 2 with the speech about spies on Mother Base (which Kaz later regrets — he feels the staff and rescue team killed each other in the QZ because they no longer trusted each other), and increasing trends toward Big Brother-esque government, witch-hunts, etc. There's a distinct sense of the leadership (Kaz in partcular) having a "splinter in their mind's eye," so to speak. Picking fights trying to pick it out. The villain is dead, but in a way that works against them.

I'm not saying it couldn't be better, mind you. Some notes fall flatter than others. I just think it works at a core level. And of course it's open to interpretation. That's how it goes with any work. Whether it matches the original intent is another matter entirely. I just enjoy that this game allows us to have conversations like this.

Oh, I would definitely agree that characters discussing their feelings are relevant. It's just that, in this game, it's presented in a very flat manner. What I mean by that is, when characters do talk about the themes, it feels more like they're doing literally just that, talking about themes. It doesn't come across as real, human interactions or expressions.

In MGS3 we see the theme of "loyalty" woven into the plot frequently, but it feels organic, and despite MGS3 having far, far more dialogue it's also more subtle. You only really hear the Boss talk explicitly about loyalty twice in the game, the rest is conveyed through double meanings or actions. It's a theme that is intrinsic to the plot, and is expressed in various, interesting ways.

Compare that to MGSV's theme of revenge. We know Kaz is obsessed with revenge because he's angry, and he's always talking about getting revenge. The theme sort of stops there. You could make some sort of argument about it showing the after effects of getting that revenge, but chapter 2 is far too thin on story content to really back that up, and regardless, it's completely overshadowed by the twist, which damn near invalidates the whole thing.
 
i think the game as kojima originally envisioned it would've taken who knows how much more time, effort, & money, & that he'd already realized this by the time konami began pulling the plug...

& afa 'unfinished product' goes, i think this one beats handily any number of finished products when it comes to just having a good time :) ...

I totally agree the gameplay is great but it is also a metal gear game and the story needs to be satisfying and it wasnt. The cut content ruins the game story wise, gameplay is all it has going for it, its great but it is missing that "metal gear" feel
 
But I didn't feel any phantom pain. I didn't even feel like I needed revenge on skull face. He was just ... there.

He had a long awkward car ride, screamed about lust, and then got crushed and shot. He left no impression as a villain. Only as sort of a cartoon goofball.

yep. there's what you were supposed to be feeling, & what the story's progression actually left you feeling. not really the same thing :) ...
 
I just love this game, story included, which I wasn't expecting after MGS4. With MGS4, I liked certain concepts (including the ridiculous Ocelot twist — I thought that was convoluted but clever), but the delivery was either mind-numbingly drawn out (PowerPoints everywhere!) or cringe-inducing in its melodrama (I never want to hear Otacon cry again). Please note, I still find MGS4 endearing overall, but its story gets in the way.

MGSV just feels like it respects your time and intelligence more by not spelling everything out explicitly, and while I'm sure there was cut content that changed the flow of the story, I think it was sufficiently altered for the finished product to work in its own weird way. I mean, it's a really unconventional narrative structure where the conflict is resolved in the middle and the second half is like falling action showing the life they earned for themselves, ending with a final note at some point in the future where Venom learns the truth. It's a stark departure from how stories of this sort are usually told, but I find that more interesting.

Understand that I do wish there were extra story beats here and there, to make certain arcs and developments more organic, but all in all I don't see it as a disappointment compared to the series' past. But then again I wasn't looking for more of the same. I came onboard when I learned it was something different.

SJRB said:
I love how the game's main theme was supposed to be "revenge" and yet the only revenge you got was shooting Skull Face in the fucking face after Sahelanthropus basically accidentally trapped him underneath some rubble.

"O gee he's stuck, better take my crippled friend with me while we shoot off his limbs. Such revenge, many satisfaction."

How the FUCK do you not have a bossfight with Skull Face? That's the entire point of the game up until that moment.
It's not about revenge. It's about the folly of revenge.

This game is not endorsing "an eye for an eye." It's criticizing it. It's saying revenge only leaves you feeling empty.
 
I totally agree the gameplay is great but it is also a metal gear game and the story needs to be satisfying and it wasnt. The cut content ruins the game story wise, gameplay is all it has going for it, its great but it is missing that "metal gear" feel

completely agree. i was left, after spending 3 weeks with it, still waiting somewhere inside to play a metal gear game :) ...
 
the people who think that 30+ Missions were cut and 5+ Chapters were originally planned don't know what they're talking about and are just piling on Konami out of some misguided loyalty to Hideo Kojima...it seems like Kojima was wildly overspending on MGS and they had to curtail it...$200 million+ on a video game is insane

First off it was 80 million

Second, did you play Peace Walker? Same exact structure as MGSV. No one makes a story with only 2 chapters. I won't say there was going to absolutely be 5, but you don't start a story with a Prologue, Ch1 and end it on Ch2 (1/2 a chapter). There is evidence that there was more missions and a chapter 3. And usually when someone throws a prologue, you get an epilogue. To think we are crazy when the evidence and common sense proves otherwise is you want to focus on your emotions. It's cool we all are but not all of us are just shouting for the sake of some fantasy.


Also some of that 80 million went to the creation of the Fox Engine which in tern would have been a great investment considering it would have saved them money on developing other Konami titles like PES, Silent Hills, and possibly a new Castlevania.
Let's not forget, this is the first multi platform MGS game that launched simultaneously giving it a far better chance of making the money back. I think in an earlier post someone said the PS3 only MGS4 costed 70 million. But Konami in all its wisdom decided it was better to save money by throwing away money. Who knows maybe it will work with sell phones.


Either way we got the game we got, and Kojima spent them obey he spent, but we aren't crazy for believing the game had more content, when content in the trailers that didn't make it in the game, leaks of actual cut content surface, as well as standard story structure tell us otherwise. The game was cut plain and simple, don't let Konami's forced Sept 1 release date make you believe that was when the game was supposed to come out.


Hideo Kojima quote from IGN
Hideo Kojima said:
The Phantom Pain has the risk that people won’t be able to finish the story as it will be "more than 200x bigger than Ground Zeroes.
I cannot disclose the amount of missions [in The Phantom Pain], but we’ll have a lot of missions in there.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/05/kojima-worried-the-phantom-pain-is-too-big-to-finish
 
I have two problems with Skull Face:

1) The scene in "Where do the bees sleep?" MAKES NO SENSE. How did he get there with Sahaelanthropus without anyone noticing? Why did he have the Skulls attack the Soviets when they were still working together at the time? Why did Skull Face, who has absolutely no reason to keep Snake alive, capture him with Sahaley and then just let him go and then sent the skulls after him? This wasn't a situation like Ocelot double-crossing Liquid or Boss preventing Volgin from killing Snake, Skull Face had no reason not to kill him.

2) The jeep ride. My lord, what a terrible scene. What a way to make the character totally farcical.
 
Everything Skull Face did to Chico and Paz was so obviously intended for me to hate him that I refused to, it didn't help that it was through cassette tapes. And then he had so much fun being dramatic it was hard for me to really want the lust for revenge.

Like, ideally, to get me to want to blast away his limbs, there should have been a mission to save Chico that ends with you powerless to do anything as Skull Face shoots him execution style.

Still exploitative and unoriginal, but it would light a better fire in me.
 
The story tried to be about revenge, by its own admission. But shouldn't I... feel that too? How was Kojima trying to make us feel it? Revenge is a feeling of anger and a desire for violence towards an agent that has taken something precious. I didn't care about anything on that level.

Shit, SNAKE didn't care about anything on that level. His own men were torturing his buddy, Quiet, right in front of him and he just stood there and watched like "lol ok"

Maybe the only thing that actually pissed me off like it was supposed to was Liquid suddenly making off with Sehelanthropus. But perhaps what actually made me mad was that it was so sudden and I wasn't allowed to be part of it in gameplay.
 
Everything Skull Face did to Chico and Paz was so obviously intended for me to hate him that I refused to, it didn't help that it was through cassette tapes. And then he had so much fun being dramatic it was hard for me to really want the lust for revenge.

Like, ideally, to get me to want to blast away his limbs, there should have been a mission to save Chico that ends with you powerless to do anything as Skull Face shoots him execution style.

Still exploitative and unoriginal, but it would light a better fire in me.

After hearing the Paz Diary tapes, then the Chico tapes the day before the games release

I wanted his ass dead.

Felt good.

I didn't know about Paz showing up on the Medical base until Chapter 2
 
I love how the game's main theme was supposed to be "revenge" and yet the only revenge you got was shooting Skull Face in the fucking face after Sahelanthropus basically accidentally trapped him underneath some rubble.

"O gee he's stuck, better take my crippled friend with me while we shoot off his limbs. Such revenge, many satisfaction."

How the FUCK do you not have a bossfight with Skull Face? That's the entire point of the game up until that moment.

It's no supposed to be satisfying. The scene right after it with Huey shooting a pretty much dead Skullface highlights how empty and silly it is. And then when you get back to Mother Base, you see that the spectre of Skull Face still looms over Diamond Dogs, with Kaz going crazy paranoid thinking that there has to more to it and more bluntly with Venom seeing Skull Face.
 
I have two problems with Skull Face:

1) The scene in "Where do the bees sleep?" MAKES NO SENSE. How did he get there with Sahaelanthropus without anyone noticing? Why did he have the Skulls attack the Soviets when they were still working together at the time? Why did Skull Face, who has absolutely no reason to keep Snake alive, capture him with Sahaley and then just let him go and then sent the skulls after him? This wasn't a situation like Ocelot double-crossing Liquid or Boss preventing Volgin from killing Snake, Skull Face had no reason not to kill him.

2) The jeep ride. My lord, what a terrible scene. What a way to make the character totally farcical.
Here's my take, fwiw.

I see where you're coming from, and I don't disagree. It didn't make sense at the time, either. But looking back, maybe it was one of those weird "I'm your shadow and I have a certain relationship with you, so we're going to work this out on our own terms" type of deal. I'm reminded of the villains in just about every Bond movie. It doesn't make practical sense from the villain's standpoint, but for whatever reason it's a trope that keeps coming back.

Like, yeah, Skull Face could've killed Snake just by having Sahelanthropus squeeze him. He didn't need to leave him to the Skulls, but he did. We can only assume that like the various madmen who don't shoot Bond when they have the chance, it's cathartic for Skull Face to deal with his foe in this way.

I think there's a yin and yang factor to Skull Face and Snake (maybe that was the intent of the upside-down scene) where they're diametrically opposed but still understand each other in a way that only people from that walk of life could.

For that reason, while the jeep scene is silly, it still worked for me in a way. I also didn't just stare at the back of the jeep. When that music kicked in, I moved the camera dramatically. :-P
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom