So i just finished the story in Metal Gear Solid 5 The Phantom Pain… I have some mixed opinions but like… i kinda love love it alot. Like i had such a great time with it despite its flaws it's almost flawless gameplay design wise so just on that level its 100% worth it and amazing. The gameplay is just is so versatile and has amazing game feel. I really just felt control over everything almost all the time and it helped to engage me alot and make the possibilities endless. It's practically perfect in that accept and it is a game i still feel like i can explore for a long while more (and i've played it 69 hours (yes just checked and it happened to be the funny number! EPIC RIGHT!) and i'm usually not someone who loves to sink a lot of hours into a game, but this game was just so addicting. It does such a good way to allow the player to do anything they want but still incentivising you to go a stealth rout in really clever subtle ways with how it rewards you and it really allows you to regulate the game's difficulty (for the most part, will get to that) and shape your own experience for you.

But that's not generally why people doesn't have a positive view of this game and are pretty harsh against it. The main point where people are mad at this game is its story. What do i think of the story? While not as present in other mgs games, the story that we get to see i actually quite liked. I didn't think the problem with the story was with what that is in the game, but the more what story we didn't have. There is something super effective about this sort of sour sad atmosphere. Our characters are just so bitter just fueled by revenge. There is this false hope and heroism, where i feel like is this false bravado to avoid the clear unethical aspects of their “pure” ideology. I feel like this feeling fits perfectly well in the context of this game in the whole MGS chronology, how this is right before Big Boss battle against snake and such. It paints the Diamonds Dogs as these pretty hypocritical opportunities in denial hiding behind their philosophies. I think this shines specifically well with how Huey, instead of Snakes and Hals wonderful cute love relationship, Snake and the rest of Diamond Dogs constantly don't trust him and are just generally really sour and mean towards him. Also while Huey clearly isn't in the right or perfect, his big rant against the Diamond Dogs clearly has a lot of truth to it and i think is emblematic of the problematic aspects of Diamond Dogs false bravado. Also i did actually really liked Skullface story, his backstory was really interesting. Him losing his ethnicity and native tongue was a really poignant and direct criticism of imperialism and the war and killing of languages and cultures as a political weapon. But it is undeniably messy and how the story is delivered is really flawed with how its just peppered without the regard for the whole like Kojima has shown with the other MGS games.

But where the biggest flaw in this game really stands out is the huge mess of chapter 2. I never understood why people always called this game unfinished as when i played the chapter 1 i feel like it was consistently pretty great. But then chapter 2 dropped and my frustrations started growing. Reusing missions but with obituary harder difficulty as main missions and making it esoteric how to progress made for a needlessly frustration experience. It's also more frustrating as a lot of these issues could have been improved a lot if they were just managed a lot better. Also lets just say Silent was just so poorly handled. Like i love aspects of her, but got how the game constantly frames her is so obnoxious and dumb. Like ignoring the outfit, the camera stopping everything at her boobs just get obnoxious.

But over all, i felt this had more good than bad. But I have only played two other Metal Gear games, the first one and the second one and i only played them for the first time this year. This mixed with me having lower expectations due to mostly just hearing really negative opinions of this mightve lead to me having a lower expectation and made it easier for me to have a different take on this game. I certainly understand how the people playing this right when it was hyped up as much as it was left them with a real sour taste in their mouths. It has this sort of sad air about it, which with hindsight is very obviously was due to Kojima's relationship with Konami and their incredibly mismanaging and unforgivable way they dealt with the wrapping up and aftermath of the game. Understand how they felt ripped off, disappointed and left with their own phantom pain. But i was a happy customer, i came in with low expectations and came out with a experience that was certainly flawed but had me thinking and had aspects that i really loved and gameplay that was frankly almost perfect. I loved this amazingly wonderfully flawed unfinished mess of a game.