The Paz subplot was great and is probably the best story moment of the game (and sadly isn't actually part of the campaign and is easily missed).
But it's not on par with moments like Gray Fox sacrificing himself to save Solid Snake and prove to him that they aren't tools and pawns to those in charge, Big Boss having to fight and kill the Boss and the aftermath in MGS3 and Old Snake's last fight with Ocelot and reconciling with Big Boss in his last moments in MGS4. At least not to me.
This. Not both that it is the only scene with real impact, while not being too contrived (hallucinations were a major implied plot point, the game actually under delivers on it and this the only real use of it). I really think it was the best thing in the entire game, though it being an entirely missable plot and relying on a really vague method of progression, plus some repetitive dialogues at times was another failing entirely on Kojima.
Whereas the prologue is linear and feels more like a sequel to the main games, the rest of the Phantom Pain does indeed feel like Peacewalker 2. Yet, Ground Zeroes feels like it's an amalgamation of a Main game and Peacewalker.
This. I really feel like the lesson to learn, if one were to follow in this games foot steps is that openness is great and all, but tight level design is very important. Traversing anywhere in Ground Zeroes is usually a real true stealth struggle, you have to watch you corners and keep on your toes, better without marking so you can't be sure what's coming up, but with reflex to give you a chance in unexpected emergencies.
I feel like if one shaved down the progression system to just have just enough weapons and items to be a real good solid
toolset like how previous games before MGS4 had it, and made the world a large number of diverse (in country, side objectives, and obstacles) with just enough freedom to provide multiple approaches, but not just open spaces to snipe far away guards with ease, TPP would be a lot better, at least in the gameplay department.
Openness is nice, but it got in the way of challenge when one didn't even have to worry about hiding bodies very much at all because of the fulton system and lack of hallways, corners and tight interior environments. Guards could see people being fultoned, sometimes too well as it seemed like they'd sometimes see it it happen through walls, but other times they'd be pretty oblivious, and despite their inconsistencies, their existed so much open space that simply running a body over a retalively short distance away wouldn't be too hard of a trouble to remove any worries about having knocked out or dead bodies to be spotted when considering one's approach.
I feel that if I were to make a spiritual successor to Metal Gear (something I would like to do someday, wish me luck), taking inspiration from Ground Zeroes is a much better idea in my opinion than TPP. There's just too much space to avoid guards in TPP, often times it came down to a matter of "make things hard for myself by trying to sneak in the most heavily guarded front entrance, or simply do a circle around all the guards from a distance until I can make a straight line entry and exit to my objective".
This is why the best missions in TPP IMO were ones that were "funneled" and had no clear objective that could be seen from a distance and remained interior to prevent a quick "ID the objective, circle around to vulnerable point of entry, sneak in-and-out while taking out any guards from a distance" solution (like 6, 12, 28 and a few others).
Y'know what? Hot Coldman is probably the biggest hero of the series, if only for this scene.
This. Though "no facts only interpretations", so I like to think of Huey as not being such a spineless murderer. I really don't understand how wanting to use Hal as a test pilot is enough motivation to kill Strangelove and his apparent "self deception" makes no sense to me. I prefer to write that out of my "V canon", since Kojima gave everyone an out anways.
RIght?! You would think it would've been obvious. But I guess nothing ever really is...
lol Peace Walker had a better story then what we got here, too. It had a hell of a climax and a fun twist and a very "Metal Gear" finale battle, even if you did have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get to it.
Indeed, soon after I finished V, I went back to Peace Walker and its astounding how much we took for granted like set-up, pacing, foreshadowing, sensible plans and motivations, emotional connection between the player and characters, etc. etc. It's crazy how much better it is, its really why I was so surprised that Kojima apparently couldn't deliver on the story of revenge and Outer Heaven we had been promised. I truly believed Kojima had the chops to make interesting new characters that were more than simple boring plot devices and fan service vessels, and to make another dramatic tale about Big Boss, but I guess not.
Another reason Ground Zeroes was better than TPP, it actually feels like a true narrative, nothing is chopped up into chunks that don't even fit together properly, but I guess that's because it really was just one of those chunks, a single perfect piece of an imperfect puzzle, the others of which were lost or damaged before being given to us.
Yerp. restarted ground zeroes after finishing mgs5. Nothing in the main game comes close to that level. Cutscenes blend in very well. Whole different level of polish.
GZx5/10/15 is what mgs5 should've been.
I'd say as long as the side-ops were as good as GZ's (read: actually had a deep connection to the plot through cassette tapes and prisoner and voiced guard and character dialogue), and they kept the pace of at least 4 story relevant side ops per main op, plus 2 silly non canonical Metal Gear fun in the form of 2 extra ops per hub, 15 main ops would have been excellent. They could even have a parody version of the plot play out in those extra ops as an unlock post game, and we wouldn't have the majority of "main ops" actually have less to do with the story than GZ's "side ops", it could have been so good..
The biggest problem is the story though, and having hub mission design wouldn't fix that. I still have no idea why Kojima thought it'd be better to have this train wreck of a story instead of anything resembling what the trailer's implied (simply a true fall of Diamond Dogs between a schism between Kaz and BB would have been enough to get some real feeling for why BB made Outer Heaven later). Why were the child soldiers not even given
any development.
I re-did the mission with the child soldiers who had the "No. 2" of a general as a hostage recently, and his dialogue the second (maybe third) time around really delivered the feels. He talked about how he actually killed the general because that general had kidnapped him, he talks about how he was blindfolded and forced to pull a trigger, and then saw he had been forced to kill his parents. He was forced to work for the general as his "little brother" but secretly vowed vengeance, and finally took it one day.
Why was this given to some no name guy? Give this dialogue to one of the child soldiers on motherbase, and have them explain it in a cutscene focused on showing the horrors of war to the player! Have them have some kind of arc, geez! That was actually one of the demubest things about Episode 51 in my opinion, that they focused on dumb Eli who had in the game long ago forsaken any kind of meaningful character development, and didn't give any kind of ethos to the children Boss saved back at the mine. They simply,
existed in the game. I was sure they had a large part to play, the game didn't have to go full "2taboo4u" and have them die as was
heavily implies by trailers.
Just have then have some ethos and perhaps build up an attachment to BB that he eventually becomes corrupted by, one day giving him justification in his head that he is "saving all the orphans of war from being caught up in Cipher's eventual war economy".
"I won't let them die an honorless death when they became adults, I'll train them to at a young age to give them a better chance at life than they ever would have gotten without me. I'll deploy them when they're of age to kill and fight against Cipher's tyranny!"
That kind of twisted reasoning is what I wanted Kojima to explore with all of his comparisons to Breaking Bad. A plausible descent into evil, brought on by a justification that starts well enough "save the kids from dying on the battlefield TODAY" and warping into "take war orphans under my wing and train them to be loyal and fight the EVIL Cipher that would have them killed for nothing when they become adults".
My only issue with Huey is how weirdly paced everything is.
- Extract him
- Miller: He's lying, we just need proof.
- Huey: Snake here's a D-Walker
- Ocelot: Let's having him build a small Metal Gear because that always works out.
- Snake: I went to Africa to find out where Skullface is. Turns out he's in Afghanistan. Hi-larious, right Kaz?
Huey: Oh yeah he's right there, I don't know why I didn't mention that.
- Huey: I'm in this helicopter to give you tips about my Metal Gear! But we didn't record any tips, so, uh, good luck.
- Snake: Let's bring Huey's Metal Gear back.
Kaz: Why
Snake: For a symbol.
Kaz: Couldn't we, like, just bring the head or something?
Snake: Symbol
Kaz: But this clearly isn't a good idea, why are we--
Snake: Sssssssssssssssyyyyyyyymmmmmmm
Kaz: Okay fine
- Ocelot: Hey Huey is working Sahaelanthropus even though we told him not to and keep him in a brig with almost no security.
- Eli: I stole the giant mech that Huey let me repair even though none of that should really matter because it's being controlled by a ghost so it really shouldn't be relevant if it's repaired or not but woooo thanks Huey
- Miller: Go get Huey's AI Pod, we can use it for evidence that he's betraying us.
Snake: ...
- Miller: There's a radiation leak, but Huey said it's oaky
Snake: ...
- Miller: The radiation leak was a trap, Huey betrayed us!
Snake: ...
- Miller: Okay we're going to have a trial to use all this proof against Huey that we have
Snake: ...
- Miller: He's guilty, let's kill him!
Snake: NO WAIT
Notnmy only issue, as stated above, but this really is a big one. Same as with Quiet's story concluding with "awkward rain scene where BB and her look dtf", "torture and tits while BB just stands there without helping her", and then "guess I'll leave now and die alone instead of just following through with my vow and ridding myself of the parasites by voluntarily becoming a true mute". It's so weird, I can't believe how badly it was done. As I already said in my above post, why didn't she go through with becoming a true mute by explaining the situation to everyone through Codetalker and volunteering for the operation to remove her vocal cords? She had already chosen being mute over being dead, so why when she was worried about the mutation did she choose exile and eventual lonely death over becoming truly mute but also being able to communicate through learning sign language and
fucking writing.