This review contains spoilers
“Who knows? Not me
We never lost control
You're face to face
With the man who sold the world"
It’s difficult to talk about Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain without acknowledging the elephant in the room. This is the most awkward Metal Gear entry to sit down and pick apart because it’s the only one where the troubled development and behind-the-scenes drama between Kojima and Konami has bled into the game. It’s where you can really feel Kojima’s vision, storytelling and gameplay wise, has just been compromised into a stitchwork pattern of some of the best moments in the entire franchise that shows how much Kojima and his team has evolved with some of the most unsatisfying parts that make you step back and question a bit. There’s an argument to be had on if MGSV is truly ‘unfinished’. Kojima and company nowadays seem content with the state of the game as it is. There exists tangible proof of cut content during production that wasn’t given enough funding by Konami to make it fully realized and in the actual game. Mission 51 is baffling because regardless of what Kojima or Konami says, this is clearly something very important story-wise, especially with who the mission is centered on, that I cannot understand why it wasn’t deemed worth keeping in. If I was to agree to the level of, yeah, maybe this wasn’t technically ‘unfinished’, this was roughly meant to be what it is in the end of the day, but it gives truth to the fact that there was so much that felt lacking and missing to make MGSV feel like the best possible version of itself that we’ll never get.
I dunno about you but ‘Open World Metal Gear Solid’ sounds like the tackiest idea I’ve ever heard. It does scream like a series very set in what it does uniquely, selling away its own creative freedom in favor of mindless mass consumption trying to give you a depthless version of freedom. 8th Gen, looking back at it now, is also mostly just creatively tunneled vision into sprawling, massive open worlds with resource gathering, crafting, and base management being the real grind to keep your runtime hitting the 80 hour mark. Like, it’s funny how people generalize all RPGs as being 100+ long grind fests when that’s more rare than you’d even care to look at in actuality, and that stigma feels much more deserving for the open world genre. MGSV is admittedly one of the better 8th Gen open world games from this period. This is where doubting Kojima proves futile because he knows how to take these design staples and make it feel fun. The Metal Gear Solid formula, though undergoing so many levels of evolution, bounces back at the core gameplay idea of handling obstacles with a wide variety of different solutions that typically draws the least amount of attention to you. Or, you could just say ‘fuck it’, and just go full explosive guns blazing on enemy guards and outposts with no regard for being sneaky or quiet. Not quite how I imagine you get the best experience for why these games excel hard in game design but it’s not like it’s ever discouraged too much since you’re still given weapon and tool options to choose and play with. Dropping this into the sandbox of an open world is surprisingly a natural step for Metal Gear’s continuing evolution and shakeup. It takes cues from MGS3, MGS4, and Peacewalker to deliver a solid playground where you can ride your horse, travel Afghanistan or Africa, vibe with your radio cassette set to some banger licensed tunes, scout out enemy outposts to infiltrate/assault, and maybe even kidnap the enemy soldiers and send them flying to your Mother Base to force them to serve under you! Fulton Extraction and the Mother Base system, first introduced in Peacewalker, feels fully conceptualized, though not refined, as something worth engaging with. The first dozen hours of the game I was immediately impressed by all of this. The prologue especially is some of Kojima’s greatest work, showing off how unbelievably ahead of its time the Fox Engine is graphically, while being a prime showcase of how ready Kojima is to tackle survival horror in what could’ve been Silent Hills. I don’t normally let expectations, especially from what’s been said surrounding this game, really get to me much when I play something. Here, I was willing to be this game’s strongest soldier…until it becomes very clear why MGSV: The Phantom Pain is unfortunately deserving of its status as being messy, woefully underdeveloped, and confusing but not because of the story but because of what it tries to pull itself together creatively as a Metal Gear game.
This is a roughly 60+ hour game to try to complete, yet throughout my extensive playthrough I felt like I only experienced maybe 4 hours worth of story material that’s stretched thinly yet offered sparingly. What’s frustrating isn’t that the story material itself is ‘bad’, as I feel some might easily write it off as because of how it’s presented and executed, I think it’s actually quite strong for the most part. I appreciate how it contributes to the larger Metal Gear Saga with how it puts the characters introduced in Peacewalker into a radical new dramatic context, exploring incredible themes that makes me appreciate some of the past entries in a better light through juxtaposition. Take Huey Emmerich; originating from MGS2 but properly introduced in Peacewalker, who more or less served as this cheeky wink to the fans over how Solid Snake and Otacon’s dad share the same voice actors and baseline dynamic their sons inherited later down the timeline. Aside from how seeds were planted to see how his character withers into here, there wasn’t a lot to Huey than that. I didn’t expect Huey Emmerich to wind up becoming one of my favorite villains in the whole franchise. Metal Gear has a roster of memorable villains embodying different philosophies and beliefs about the status quo. Though, you can argue many of them are at least understandable, misguided, ‘human’ I dare say, in why they’re driven this way. You can’t say the same for Huey Emmerich. He’s just the worst. An actual insufferable, petty, cowardly, hypocrite with no moral responsibilities for anything he’s done which caused indirect or direct pain and loss to the characters, not just in this game, but throughout the rest of the series. Having him share Otacon’s likeness, demeanor, and voice actor was a brilliant creative decision because we of course associate Huey with Hal, the most genuinely endearing character, only to see how that’s betrayed and subverted once his true colors became ugly and plain to see. Every single detestable thing about Huey is just further ammo for why we absolutely adore Otacon since he could’ve easily been just as low as his father but he chose not to. It’s the way they’re both broadly similar but meaningfully different in the finger details that enriches the Metal Gear Saga in close reflection. It’s not even just Huey who gets this treatment. Revolver Ocelot has been a recurring character who we’ve seen through different stages of his life that paint an interesting picture of who he really is and this is no exception. Skull Face is an underappreciated main antagonist who could’ve benefited from more screen time but once you’ve cracked who he is deep down, he makes for a surprisingly effective foil for Venom Snake for, uh, spoilery reasons I don’t want to dive into. To keep it brief; his motivation regarding his loss of identity and taking revenge on a world that took it away feels oddly resonant when you remember what this series, especially by MGS2, is all about.
It’s only too bad that most of these character beats are just not frequent enough to chew into. You have to slog through so many repetitive missions and side-ops to get even a nugget of a cool cinematic or story moment. The Mother Base management system reveals itself to be shallow as no matter how much you upgrade or develop it, the actual Mother Base you can return to see your progress of building up an army is severely uninteresting to witness. You can…drive around to platforms you just built? There’s maybe a few more generic guards who greet you autonomously and maybe have conversations you could overhear? You might even come across a cutscene that happens with certain important characters stationed there when you make enough mission progress, but, uh, that’s it. It’s quite unrewarding and boring which made me feel like I was playing through some of the most tedious excess of an 8th Gen open world game again and all its warts. Chapter 2 is the worst offender for this because it’s framed as the “postgame” or “epilogue” even though that’s where you’ll get some proper closure for loose story threads that haven’t been resolved yet. To get access to these story related missions, however, you have to play through a bulk of ‘new’ missions which are just older ones you’ve already gone through but at a higher challenge level. Keep in mind, the missions have mostly been repetitive as hell, devolving to the same “find outpost, infiltrate/assault, and eliminate/capture target” formula for hours on end. You don’t technically need to finish these missions to unlock the ones that actually matter, doing leftover side ops does the job kinda, but this is still egregious busywork to have some semblance of finality with a story hinting at incredible themes that just doesn’t pan out well.
This is the only Metal Gear game that I had trouble rating for. Rising should be shot into the sun for how it irreparably damaged the cultural perception of the series, so there were no hardships there, believe me. Peacewalker was interesting, had some fun, but clearly too limited by its design to amaze me in any way that broadened my love for these games. But Metal Gear Solid V, severe flaws and all, emboldened my passion for this franchise with what Kojima tried to tackle, only to get crushed through the grinder of Konami. I guess this game was my own Phantom Pain after all.
We never lost control
You're face to face
With the man who sold the world"
It’s difficult to talk about Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain without acknowledging the elephant in the room. This is the most awkward Metal Gear entry to sit down and pick apart because it’s the only one where the troubled development and behind-the-scenes drama between Kojima and Konami has bled into the game. It’s where you can really feel Kojima’s vision, storytelling and gameplay wise, has just been compromised into a stitchwork pattern of some of the best moments in the entire franchise that shows how much Kojima and his team has evolved with some of the most unsatisfying parts that make you step back and question a bit. There’s an argument to be had on if MGSV is truly ‘unfinished’. Kojima and company nowadays seem content with the state of the game as it is. There exists tangible proof of cut content during production that wasn’t given enough funding by Konami to make it fully realized and in the actual game. Mission 51 is baffling because regardless of what Kojima or Konami says, this is clearly something very important story-wise, especially with who the mission is centered on, that I cannot understand why it wasn’t deemed worth keeping in. If I was to agree to the level of, yeah, maybe this wasn’t technically ‘unfinished’, this was roughly meant to be what it is in the end of the day, but it gives truth to the fact that there was so much that felt lacking and missing to make MGSV feel like the best possible version of itself that we’ll never get.
I dunno about you but ‘Open World Metal Gear Solid’ sounds like the tackiest idea I’ve ever heard. It does scream like a series very set in what it does uniquely, selling away its own creative freedom in favor of mindless mass consumption trying to give you a depthless version of freedom. 8th Gen, looking back at it now, is also mostly just creatively tunneled vision into sprawling, massive open worlds with resource gathering, crafting, and base management being the real grind to keep your runtime hitting the 80 hour mark. Like, it’s funny how people generalize all RPGs as being 100+ long grind fests when that’s more rare than you’d even care to look at in actuality, and that stigma feels much more deserving for the open world genre. MGSV is admittedly one of the better 8th Gen open world games from this period. This is where doubting Kojima proves futile because he knows how to take these design staples and make it feel fun. The Metal Gear Solid formula, though undergoing so many levels of evolution, bounces back at the core gameplay idea of handling obstacles with a wide variety of different solutions that typically draws the least amount of attention to you. Or, you could just say ‘fuck it’, and just go full explosive guns blazing on enemy guards and outposts with no regard for being sneaky or quiet. Not quite how I imagine you get the best experience for why these games excel hard in game design but it’s not like it’s ever discouraged too much since you’re still given weapon and tool options to choose and play with. Dropping this into the sandbox of an open world is surprisingly a natural step for Metal Gear’s continuing evolution and shakeup. It takes cues from MGS3, MGS4, and Peacewalker to deliver a solid playground where you can ride your horse, travel Afghanistan or Africa, vibe with your radio cassette set to some banger licensed tunes, scout out enemy outposts to infiltrate/assault, and maybe even kidnap the enemy soldiers and send them flying to your Mother Base to force them to serve under you! Fulton Extraction and the Mother Base system, first introduced in Peacewalker, feels fully conceptualized, though not refined, as something worth engaging with. The first dozen hours of the game I was immediately impressed by all of this. The prologue especially is some of Kojima’s greatest work, showing off how unbelievably ahead of its time the Fox Engine is graphically, while being a prime showcase of how ready Kojima is to tackle survival horror in what could’ve been Silent Hills. I don’t normally let expectations, especially from what’s been said surrounding this game, really get to me much when I play something. Here, I was willing to be this game’s strongest soldier…until it becomes very clear why MGSV: The Phantom Pain is unfortunately deserving of its status as being messy, woefully underdeveloped, and confusing but not because of the story but because of what it tries to pull itself together creatively as a Metal Gear game.
This is a roughly 60+ hour game to try to complete, yet throughout my extensive playthrough I felt like I only experienced maybe 4 hours worth of story material that’s stretched thinly yet offered sparingly. What’s frustrating isn’t that the story material itself is ‘bad’, as I feel some might easily write it off as because of how it’s presented and executed, I think it’s actually quite strong for the most part. I appreciate how it contributes to the larger Metal Gear Saga with how it puts the characters introduced in Peacewalker into a radical new dramatic context, exploring incredible themes that makes me appreciate some of the past entries in a better light through juxtaposition. Take Huey Emmerich; originating from MGS2 but properly introduced in Peacewalker, who more or less served as this cheeky wink to the fans over how Solid Snake and Otacon’s dad share the same voice actors and baseline dynamic their sons inherited later down the timeline. Aside from how seeds were planted to see how his character withers into here, there wasn’t a lot to Huey than that. I didn’t expect Huey Emmerich to wind up becoming one of my favorite villains in the whole franchise. Metal Gear has a roster of memorable villains embodying different philosophies and beliefs about the status quo. Though, you can argue many of them are at least understandable, misguided, ‘human’ I dare say, in why they’re driven this way. You can’t say the same for Huey Emmerich. He’s just the worst. An actual insufferable, petty, cowardly, hypocrite with no moral responsibilities for anything he’s done which caused indirect or direct pain and loss to the characters, not just in this game, but throughout the rest of the series. Having him share Otacon’s likeness, demeanor, and voice actor was a brilliant creative decision because we of course associate Huey with Hal, the most genuinely endearing character, only to see how that’s betrayed and subverted once his true colors became ugly and plain to see. Every single detestable thing about Huey is just further ammo for why we absolutely adore Otacon since he could’ve easily been just as low as his father but he chose not to. It’s the way they’re both broadly similar but meaningfully different in the finger details that enriches the Metal Gear Saga in close reflection. It’s not even just Huey who gets this treatment. Revolver Ocelot has been a recurring character who we’ve seen through different stages of his life that paint an interesting picture of who he really is and this is no exception. Skull Face is an underappreciated main antagonist who could’ve benefited from more screen time but once you’ve cracked who he is deep down, he makes for a surprisingly effective foil for Venom Snake for, uh, spoilery reasons I don’t want to dive into. To keep it brief; his motivation regarding his loss of identity and taking revenge on a world that took it away feels oddly resonant when you remember what this series, especially by MGS2, is all about.
It’s only too bad that most of these character beats are just not frequent enough to chew into. You have to slog through so many repetitive missions and side-ops to get even a nugget of a cool cinematic or story moment. The Mother Base management system reveals itself to be shallow as no matter how much you upgrade or develop it, the actual Mother Base you can return to see your progress of building up an army is severely uninteresting to witness. You can…drive around to platforms you just built? There’s maybe a few more generic guards who greet you autonomously and maybe have conversations you could overhear? You might even come across a cutscene that happens with certain important characters stationed there when you make enough mission progress, but, uh, that’s it. It’s quite unrewarding and boring which made me feel like I was playing through some of the most tedious excess of an 8th Gen open world game again and all its warts. Chapter 2 is the worst offender for this because it’s framed as the “postgame” or “epilogue” even though that’s where you’ll get some proper closure for loose story threads that haven’t been resolved yet. To get access to these story related missions, however, you have to play through a bulk of ‘new’ missions which are just older ones you’ve already gone through but at a higher challenge level. Keep in mind, the missions have mostly been repetitive as hell, devolving to the same “find outpost, infiltrate/assault, and eliminate/capture target” formula for hours on end. You don’t technically need to finish these missions to unlock the ones that actually matter, doing leftover side ops does the job kinda, but this is still egregious busywork to have some semblance of finality with a story hinting at incredible themes that just doesn’t pan out well.
This is the only Metal Gear game that I had trouble rating for. Rising should be shot into the sun for how it irreparably damaged the cultural perception of the series, so there were no hardships there, believe me. Peacewalker was interesting, had some fun, but clearly too limited by its design to amaze me in any way that broadened my love for these games. But Metal Gear Solid V, severe flaws and all, emboldened my passion for this franchise with what Kojima tried to tackle, only to get crushed through the grinder of Konami. I guess this game was my own Phantom Pain after all.