"You know what they say about peace...
It costs an arm and a leg.
Get well
."Vic Boss
SPOILER: Metal Gear Solid V Spoiler Thread | Such a lust for conclusion, T-WHHOOOO
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"You know what they say about peace...
It costs an arm and a leg.
Get well
."Vic Boss
I hate to say it but I'm coming around on this view.
That the moments I took as 'knowing wackiness' were just poor writing, and that MGS3 is so perfectly paced because he was just aping Spy Thrillers / Bond Movies for that one.
Either that or he has undergone an M. Night Shyamalan loss in ability. Shyamalan's name was the one I kept coming up with as I watched bad scene after bad scene during the game. Just an unfathomable fall from grace / botch job from someone who previously appeared to have command of his craft.
I don't think it was a lack of time, either. Much of what's wrong with the game is baked into the core design, story choices and cinematic decisions.
I think they were afraid of upsetting MGS fans. They though "I've never got this story, so I'm guessing this is more of the same and will be well-received..."
That's a good analogy seeing as back in the day I used to consider Big Shell the only real weak point from MGS's 1-4. Hated Big Shell so much.
Yeah it really is. The reason he kept coming back is because he didn't trust the team to make a good MGS. It's really disrespectful if you ask me. Like I said, his ego was his own downfall.
PensivePen
Member
Well, I can't say for sure how much influence the other writers had on the story. But even going back to MGS1 other people besides Kojima have been influencing the game's storylines in big ways.
http://metagearsolid.org/reports_mgs1_thanksshinkawa.html
I think Skull Face had the potential to be a good villain but they couldn't do jack shit with him. character development being in tapes instead of cutscenes, almost no screen time - you basically only see him in chapter 31 and after 10 minutes he dies because "oh no the kid has gone mad, who could have ever predicted this WHOOOOOOOOOO". really really dumb. GZ almost had more about him in the game than the actual fucking game.
then you get chapter 2, villains here are a bunch of kids + 10 y old liquid, which are actually worse than what you see in chapter 1. you don't even get to kill/stop them because the game has no ending.
give eli and stupid kids less time (or more tapes) and then properly develop and finish Skull Face arc in chapter 2. that would have been so much better.
take notes kojima&writers
then you get chapter 2, villains here are a bunch of kids + 10 y old liquid, which are actually worse than what you see in chapter 1. you don't even get to kill/stop them because the game has no ending.
give eli and stupid kids less time (or more tapes) and then properly develop and finish Skull Face arc in chapter 2. that would have been so much better.
take notes kojima&writers
I blame both, but mostly kojima. there is no way that this game is a mess just because "konami fucked up" and kojima surely planned to make the game like this way before the konami drama started.
brianmcdoogle
Member
Out of curiosity, how many of you had to go read a story FAQ or wiki about the plot after finishing the game? There were so many hidden or potentially missable cutscenes and so much missing and unresolved in the story that I felt like I missed a lot, and this is the only time I experienced this in a Metal Gear game (or any game, probably). Even at the time MGS2's plot was crystal clear (and brilliant) to me, but this just was frustratingly opaque.
I still don't understand any of this.
Beginning of game: Mantis and Man on Fire attacking both XOF and Ishmael / Ahab.
Middle game: Mantis and Man on Fire working for XOF and Skullface.
Late game: Mantis kills Man on Fire and turns on Skullface for some reason, possibly because of how fucking funny it was as it happened. (So glad that became a meme, it really was astonishing...)
End game: Mantis seems to fall in love with Eli for some reason.
And if the answer is in one of the 75 tapes they dumped on me in Chapter 2, of which I listened to around half by now (ridiculous amount) then fuck off Kojima. Major story beats should make sense as it's happening or the story is dull. Leave the twists and intrigue where they belong.
The Silver
Member
Well I'm sure he probably felt pretty validated in that feeling after the Rising fiasco
Makoto Yuki
Banned
From a gameplay perspective, Big Shell got really annoying at times. Particularly finding bombs and having to backtrack, from a story standpoint Big Shell is my favorite part of the series. Playing as Raiden was truly shocking, but it worked for the story he was telling. It was a twist that felt earned by the end of it.
The Phantom Pain, and Ground Zeroes for that matter, all felt like the twists are just there for shock value, they didn't really do anything for me. They just made me sad knowing that Big Boss was a sham.
I saw every cutscene on my first play through. I just went back to mother base to trigger pretty much every one.
KOMANI
KOMANI
The first Solid Games are near perfect for me. After the first three, the series never maintained its charm or its "oh shit factor", with the exception of Big Boss's appearance in 4.
In those first three games, Kojima had a good team, but during 4, he was elevated to super star status,... And it's hurt the franchise honestly.
In those first three games, Kojima had a good team, but during 4, he was elevated to super star status,... And it's hurt the franchise honestly.
mission 45 ending.
but I'd also consider the cutscenes "Quiet&Boss lovestruggle under the rain" and "let's shower with Queit at base" to be part of the ending. as a whole, makes more sense.
Yep, his earlier games are fucking good, in my book they just got shittier and shittier after MGS3, don't get me wrong, I still love MGS4 today but that was his real foot slipping off the edge. His actual downfall happened when PW and MGSV happened. I love the gameplay of MGSV but fuck me, I haven't EVER been this depressed at a lack of story before. Seriously my reaction to the story in the game was and is literally.
Seriously, I was mega, super, nuclear excited for MGSV'S story and now I've completed it I have no urge to play anymore, when I do I just fuck about killing sheep with petrol bombs and wonder what the fuck happened.
Fotheringay
Member
I finished the game 3 hours ago and I'm still sifting through all the cut content and shit I missed. This game is the worst case of narrative blue balls I've ever experienced.
it was in the tapes
Mantis was with Man on Fire(Volgin) whose hate for boss led them both to the hospital at the same time as XOF. Met Skullface there, his lust for revenge enticed Mantis who took Man on Fire along, Eli's lust for revenge against Venom enticed Mantis yet again and allowed him to control Sahalanthropus
Explained in the tapes. Mantis basically joins with whoever has the strongest emotions at the time.
Quiet didn't have sex with Venom in that ending, she literally was about to be raped by 3 dudes, I doubt she would have had Venoms dick in her mind
I absolutely hated Raiden's story in MGS2, and as it was my first MGS it had nothing to do with subverted expectations. That said, I still recognise why people like it, and it is a proper narrative the whole way through.
That's leagues ahead of what we get in MGSV, just streets ahead.
For me, it was the mix of a story (and two characters - Jack and Rose) that I couldn't stand plus a setting I didn't like plus gameplay I wasn't fond of and boss fights I disliked that made Big Shell a misery for me. One I would never have finished if I wasn't in college at the time, with tons of spare time and friends telling me how amazing it was.
So Mantis is a magical Deus ex Machina whose character is the most important in the game but never once explored, and all of these massive story beats are explained in one of a ton of tapes dumped on you in late-game, after the scenes which they would have made sense of.
Completely undefendable, honestly. Completely undefendable.
brianmcdoogle
Member
Did you know ahead of time you had to go back every time? I never got a "shower" cutscene, but I got the rain one by chance...
And I mentioned this in the official thread, but I got the rain cutscene with Quiet, did a Side Ops, returned to Mother Base, and immediately got the Quiet torture cutscene which made zero sense at that point in the game.
Tying so many of these character and story cutscenes by returning to Mother Bases seems so stupid and broken.
SolVanderlyn
Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
Was Skull Face really dumb enough to take Mantis with him after he killed his entire strike force plus summoned a giant whale to take out an XOF helicopter?
WHOOOOOOOOOO indeed, Skull Face. You did this to yourself.
WHOOOOOOOOOO indeed, Skull Face. You did this to yourself.
Big Boss did send him a card but he couldn't read it because he's blind. Big Boss is so insensitive.
But if Chico was Mantis... who the hell was Quiet?
MetroidPrimeRib
Banned
On the last level (Truth - The Man Who Sold the World) how much of this can be skipped? Cutscenes? Shitty gameplay?
the answer is yes and no in the tapes. I mean, they only say that the kid / Mantis probably likes eli because they're both kids (lol) and they share the same hard life of struggle, pain, sorrow etc. edit/ I thought you knew already about Mantis power as someone else already explained, but I'm pretty sure they say that he keeps staying with eli because he's a kid like him and he likes that.
basically, what you should think is that Mantis decides he has had enough and goes for the kill on Skull Face after he finds eli on that plane and after making FireVolgin suicide. or, at least, that's what I got out of it.
/edit 2 no wait, I might be wrong there, iirc in one tape they say that Mantis is basically just a tool. he does whatever ''the host'' wants (by giving them powers or something) and in this case he goes to eli who apparently wanted to just kill everyone along with BB by using a big mech.
makes some sort of sense when Skull Face says "such a lust for revenge WHOOOO" probably meaning that mantis switched to someone who had a much bigger lust than him.
still I doubt any explanation could ever make that less stupid.
what's actually more stupid is that Skull Face didn't do anything in order to prevent that (or just, you know, in order to escape), considering he knew perfectly how his powers worked.
it's really not healthy to think about this too much.
Cutscenes just like every other part of the game.
Just cutscenes but most of the chapter is cutscenes. Pretty much anytime you have control you need to play. Just hit back/esc/whatever every time you can to check.
I just noticed that I got cut scenes when I returned every now and then, so I went back often.
His plan relied on Mantis, someone who killed his forces mercilessly weeks ago.
Skull Face's villainy is poo.
Darkangel
Member
Tacked on in the sense that it had no impact on the story. With or without the twist, nothing that happened in the game would have changed.
It just seems weird how the game rarely acknowledges the twist considering Kojima had it all planned out from the beginning. I keep finding myself thinking that it might have been added late in development, but then I quickly remember that the very first trailer gave it away.
MetroidPrimeRib
Banned
you mean you didn't see the cutscene where mantis reads your harddrive and tells you all the konami ps4 games you've played?
Skip as much as you can.
This plus the fact he got fucked up by a controller slot in MGS1 when he was literally the most powerful man on the earth when he was 12 is stupid.
Why did Kojima have to sour my opinion on everything? I bet he's sat there in his office right now laughing and rolling around on the floor knowing he's fucked up the reputation of a highly regarded franchise.
He probably did this on purpose, knowing that when Konami make another MGS, they'll be celebrating les than 100k sale in the first month. Those sales will probably be newcomers.
The Silver
Member
Mantis is a straight up, no frills, plot device character; nothing more to him.
Any hints of the guy he becomes in MGS1 is nowhere to be seen, Kojima just needed some magic character to do things and went "oh Mantis, I'll just use that guy".
only part that matters (the rest is the same as it was in the prologue) is the last one after you crash with your car. just skip the cutscenes until then
After you gain control I think the only new scene comes from after the ambulance crash? The rest is the same I think
Kids being incredibly strong psychics isn't really anything unheard of.
Hands of Stone
Member
He's fucking losing it
There are some slight differences surrounding the moments when you went into the character creator initially obviously but the major thing is at the very end, after the crash.
brianmcdoogle
Member
Very true. As a kid, Uri Geller could bend Buicks!
The beginning, there's some differences with the photos and such, but nothing much. Most of the content is at the end.
Lys Skygge
Member
Konami should patch Quiet back in. I miss her as my buddy 
KOMANI
KOMANI
Mantis, nano machines, parasites are all deus ex machina devices. I don't understand why we need explanations for everything. For example, Code Breaker is called Code Breaker for 3 different reasons. Why? Whooooooo cares ?
He does?
You do know MGS isn't a documentary right? You can't use real world stuff as an argument against a franchise in which everything is Nanomachines, Wolbachia, Parasites, Hypnotherapy and eyeballs popping out all over the show.
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