I absolutely would've hated being a Metal Gear fan when this game first came out, but with the price drop, this is now worth the price it's at very much. It's quite strange to see an entire prequel game, basically a demo of the main game, be sold separately and still be vital to the plot. Regardless, what's here is a very solid, if short, definitive Metal Gear experience.
I actually think I like this type of stealth gameplay the best out of every game. It's not completely linear like in the first four MGS titles, but it's not completely open world like MGSV. What you have is a prison camp that you're free to roam around in and complete objectives with whatever means you see fit. Take any route, use any weapons you find, it's up to you. This isn't saying that the other MGS styles of stealth are bad, not at all, but I think this open world type gameplay contained in a decently large map is perfect.
There's a surprising amount of content beyond face value. You've got your main mission, which shouldn't take you much longer than an hour if you just want to play it for the story, five shorter missions, and two non canon missions. I want to address the elephant in the room now with the main missions and the story present within it. The story is simple and is as follows: Paz is still alive after the events of Peace Walker and is being held at the prison camp, along with Chico, who attempted to rescue her on his own. Big Boss rescues them both, but unfortunately, Mother Base is attacked and brought down by Cipher in the process, resulting in only a few soldiers, Big Boss, and Miller surviving. A helicopter crash results in the death of the remaining survivors except for Big Boss and Miller. The story is then continued in TPP. Nothing crazy, but provides good setup and is interesting enough for a short game.
There's some uproar online about the depiction of Paz being incredibly misogynistic, and while I can see where the arguments are coming from, I can't say I completely agree. For those unaware, there are some cassette tapes you can find which depict interrogations between Skull Face (the main villain), Chico, and Paz. One such interrogation depicts stuff that I'm probably not allowed to spell out here, so I'll redirect you to this screenshot of Paz's page on the Metal Gear wiki so you can read for yourself. Yes, what happens to her is horrible, but also, this is a series where horrible things happen to good people all the time. One of the main themes throughout the whole series is that war is fucking awful, and its depicted here in its fullest.
I can see why people think this is misogynistic, but make no mistake, not every instance of something bad happening to a woman is misogynistic. Compared to previous torture sequences, (which are literally minigames) this is treated as dead serious. What happens to Paz could be argued as the worst thing happening to anyone in this series, but similar things happen to other characters (namely Hal, whose stepmother seduced him when he was just a kid). But just because the worst thing happens to a female character does not make the game misogynistic. What if something even worse happened to a male character? Would it be sexist then? Of course not, that's stupid. It should also be noted that in these games, men and women are treated equal on the battlefield. Female characters save male characters just as much as the other way around.
Another argument I see is that this is only done to "develop" the villain, Skull Face, in a very lazy way. This is also wrong. This is not done as a replacement to his development, it's done in tandem with it. We understand him much better in TPP, most notably the jeep scene, so no, this torture sequence does not attempt to develop his character in any meaningful way. If anything, it pushes the extent of his cruelty, as a similar situation happens with him and Code Talker later on. He interrogates Code Talker by using a bell to ring every time Code Talker refuses to give him info. At the ring of this bell, he essentially kills one of Code Talker's people, which is the last thing he wants because he wants his bloodline to endure. He's basically playing with human lives, even throwing the bell down the stairs once he's done. And, in the end, he wasn't actually killing any of Code Talker's people, showing that simple interrogations like these mean nothing to him in the grand scheme of things and are a simple game for him to play. In short, this scene alone does not attempt to develop Skull Face, and if it did, there's other similar scenes that work with it to show us the extent of his cruelty.
Feel free to disagree with me, that's just my take on it. Maybe I'm wrong, but the cool thing about art is that I'm allowed to interpret it however I want. Anyway, the actual missions do depict another interesting side to Big Boss' escapades. They're all set before Ground Zeroes' main mission. Each mission shows Big Boss and Miller being played for fools repeatedly, which is similar to the ultimate downfall of Mother Base. A sniper duo that apaprently terrorized the warzone are actually two men haunted by their past. Most notably, after destroying anti-air crafts to help an outsider take control of the camp, the whole camp ends up getting bombed due to a coverup by the US. Not the most interesting of stories, but it adds some insight into the fate of the main cast.
Two extra missions are unlocked if you find all the XOF patches in the main mission, which isn't the hardest thing ever, but you will probably need a guide. I found quite a few on my own, but there's only so much ground I'm willing to cover to find a needle in a haystack. The first of these is Deja Vu, where Big Boss is set to recreate scenes from the first MGS. This mission is way more fun than it should be. Each time you recreate a scene, Robin Atkin Downes (Miller's voice actor) does an impression of a character from the first game, including Meryl, which had me dying. What's crazy is his impersonations aren't even bad. You could easily fool me with his Psycho Mantis and Liquid Snake voice lines. What's also funny is Kiefer Sutherland basically talks more in this mission than he does in the entirety of TPP.
This isn't as simple as just running up to an object and looking at it a certain way, either. Some of these require some extra footwork on your part. Like the car scene, where you have to take a car underneath a bridge, similar to the escape sequence in MGS which took place in a tunnel. As a reward for getting every scene, you'll be faced with an MGS quiz at the end of the mission. If you get all the questions right, you'll unlock a PS1 Solid Snake skin in all of its polygonal glory. Using it during the Deja Vu mission will also have certain other characters in PS1 models. Overall, a nice nod back to the series' breakout.
Jamais Vu is the other mission and it had me pissing myself with excitement. In this mission, you play as Raiden, who traveled from the future to help Big Boss exterminate some body snatchers, who attached themselves to soldiers at the base and could spread if not dealt with. Raiden (unfortunately) refuses to use his sword and instead uses basic firearms. The main difference between him and Big Boss is that he runs WAY faster. It's insane how much ground you can cover, and you'll need it because of the constant swarms of enemies that show up. I found it funny they didn't change his run animation to fit MGR so it looks goofy as hell. They also swap out the music for Metal Gear Rising tracks. Sadly, none of the lyrical ones are present, but you still love to see it.
This mission is just to eliminate enemies and not die, but playing as Raiden is fun enough on its own. I wish the mission was a bit more deep than it is. Running as fast as possible around the base makes doing any other missions somewhat of a slog. I also love how it's portrayed as an actual story, just not canon. Raiden just traveled from the future and is here to help. I wish Metal Gear did more wacky shit like this. I know there's a costume of him you can use in TPP, but it's not the same as when you actually get to play as the character.
I went into this expecting it to be a short tech demo of TPP, and that's all I got on my first playthrough. Revisiting a couple months later showed me that there's quite a bit to this game hidden underneath the surface. A decent story that flows into TPP pretty well, combined with what I think is the best stealth gameplay to date. The missions are pretty basic and easy all things considered, but they're enjoyable enough. Deja Vu and Jamais Vu are two stupid fun missions and I wish the series did more fun stuff like this. It's still basically just a demo of TPP, but it's a pretty good one at that, and I'm glad I gave it a more fair chance going in again. Despite its shortcomings, I think I enjoyed this more than Peace Walker.
I actually think I like this type of stealth gameplay the best out of every game. It's not completely linear like in the first four MGS titles, but it's not completely open world like MGSV. What you have is a prison camp that you're free to roam around in and complete objectives with whatever means you see fit. Take any route, use any weapons you find, it's up to you. This isn't saying that the other MGS styles of stealth are bad, not at all, but I think this open world type gameplay contained in a decently large map is perfect.
There's a surprising amount of content beyond face value. You've got your main mission, which shouldn't take you much longer than an hour if you just want to play it for the story, five shorter missions, and two non canon missions. I want to address the elephant in the room now with the main missions and the story present within it. The story is simple and is as follows: Paz is still alive after the events of Peace Walker and is being held at the prison camp, along with Chico, who attempted to rescue her on his own. Big Boss rescues them both, but unfortunately, Mother Base is attacked and brought down by Cipher in the process, resulting in only a few soldiers, Big Boss, and Miller surviving. A helicopter crash results in the death of the remaining survivors except for Big Boss and Miller. The story is then continued in TPP. Nothing crazy, but provides good setup and is interesting enough for a short game.
There's some uproar online about the depiction of Paz being incredibly misogynistic, and while I can see where the arguments are coming from, I can't say I completely agree. For those unaware, there are some cassette tapes you can find which depict interrogations between Skull Face (the main villain), Chico, and Paz. One such interrogation depicts stuff that I'm probably not allowed to spell out here, so I'll redirect you to this screenshot of Paz's page on the Metal Gear wiki so you can read for yourself. Yes, what happens to her is horrible, but also, this is a series where horrible things happen to good people all the time. One of the main themes throughout the whole series is that war is fucking awful, and its depicted here in its fullest.
I can see why people think this is misogynistic, but make no mistake, not every instance of something bad happening to a woman is misogynistic. Compared to previous torture sequences, (which are literally minigames) this is treated as dead serious. What happens to Paz could be argued as the worst thing happening to anyone in this series, but similar things happen to other characters (namely Hal, whose stepmother seduced him when he was just a kid). But just because the worst thing happens to a female character does not make the game misogynistic. What if something even worse happened to a male character? Would it be sexist then? Of course not, that's stupid. It should also be noted that in these games, men and women are treated equal on the battlefield. Female characters save male characters just as much as the other way around.
Another argument I see is that this is only done to "develop" the villain, Skull Face, in a very lazy way. This is also wrong. This is not done as a replacement to his development, it's done in tandem with it. We understand him much better in TPP, most notably the jeep scene, so no, this torture sequence does not attempt to develop his character in any meaningful way. If anything, it pushes the extent of his cruelty, as a similar situation happens with him and Code Talker later on. He interrogates Code Talker by using a bell to ring every time Code Talker refuses to give him info. At the ring of this bell, he essentially kills one of Code Talker's people, which is the last thing he wants because he wants his bloodline to endure. He's basically playing with human lives, even throwing the bell down the stairs once he's done. And, in the end, he wasn't actually killing any of Code Talker's people, showing that simple interrogations like these mean nothing to him in the grand scheme of things and are a simple game for him to play. In short, this scene alone does not attempt to develop Skull Face, and if it did, there's other similar scenes that work with it to show us the extent of his cruelty.
Feel free to disagree with me, that's just my take on it. Maybe I'm wrong, but the cool thing about art is that I'm allowed to interpret it however I want. Anyway, the actual missions do depict another interesting side to Big Boss' escapades. They're all set before Ground Zeroes' main mission. Each mission shows Big Boss and Miller being played for fools repeatedly, which is similar to the ultimate downfall of Mother Base. A sniper duo that apaprently terrorized the warzone are actually two men haunted by their past. Most notably, after destroying anti-air crafts to help an outsider take control of the camp, the whole camp ends up getting bombed due to a coverup by the US. Not the most interesting of stories, but it adds some insight into the fate of the main cast.
Two extra missions are unlocked if you find all the XOF patches in the main mission, which isn't the hardest thing ever, but you will probably need a guide. I found quite a few on my own, but there's only so much ground I'm willing to cover to find a needle in a haystack. The first of these is Deja Vu, where Big Boss is set to recreate scenes from the first MGS. This mission is way more fun than it should be. Each time you recreate a scene, Robin Atkin Downes (Miller's voice actor) does an impression of a character from the first game, including Meryl, which had me dying. What's crazy is his impersonations aren't even bad. You could easily fool me with his Psycho Mantis and Liquid Snake voice lines. What's also funny is Kiefer Sutherland basically talks more in this mission than he does in the entirety of TPP.
This isn't as simple as just running up to an object and looking at it a certain way, either. Some of these require some extra footwork on your part. Like the car scene, where you have to take a car underneath a bridge, similar to the escape sequence in MGS which took place in a tunnel. As a reward for getting every scene, you'll be faced with an MGS quiz at the end of the mission. If you get all the questions right, you'll unlock a PS1 Solid Snake skin in all of its polygonal glory. Using it during the Deja Vu mission will also have certain other characters in PS1 models. Overall, a nice nod back to the series' breakout.
Jamais Vu is the other mission and it had me pissing myself with excitement. In this mission, you play as Raiden, who traveled from the future to help Big Boss exterminate some body snatchers, who attached themselves to soldiers at the base and could spread if not dealt with. Raiden (unfortunately) refuses to use his sword and instead uses basic firearms. The main difference between him and Big Boss is that he runs WAY faster. It's insane how much ground you can cover, and you'll need it because of the constant swarms of enemies that show up. I found it funny they didn't change his run animation to fit MGR so it looks goofy as hell. They also swap out the music for Metal Gear Rising tracks. Sadly, none of the lyrical ones are present, but you still love to see it.
This mission is just to eliminate enemies and not die, but playing as Raiden is fun enough on its own. I wish the mission was a bit more deep than it is. Running as fast as possible around the base makes doing any other missions somewhat of a slog. I also love how it's portrayed as an actual story, just not canon. Raiden just traveled from the future and is here to help. I wish Metal Gear did more wacky shit like this. I know there's a costume of him you can use in TPP, but it's not the same as when you actually get to play as the character.
I went into this expecting it to be a short tech demo of TPP, and that's all I got on my first playthrough. Revisiting a couple months later showed me that there's quite a bit to this game hidden underneath the surface. A decent story that flows into TPP pretty well, combined with what I think is the best stealth gameplay to date. The missions are pretty basic and easy all things considered, but they're enjoyable enough. Deja Vu and Jamais Vu are two stupid fun missions and I wish the series did more fun stuff like this. It's still basically just a demo of TPP, but it's a pretty good one at that, and I'm glad I gave it a more fair chance going in again. Despite its shortcomings, I think I enjoyed this more than Peace Walker.
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