Mokinokaro posted:

As I said earlier, I'd find it hilarious if we play as Venom for part of the game but at some point switch over to the real Big Boss so the previews wouldn't be technically lying.

Mokinokaro posted:

There doesn't seem to be anything from the extra ending in that text dump though. Maybe it's something that's getting patched in? Or, as there's definitely not all the menu text, is hidden in another file?

I'm not questioning the legitimacy, but that text dump isn't "full"

Alain Post posted:

Mother Base in general is the place that was most obviously cut for time. I still like it but it's barely more functional than panning around the platforms in Peace Walker.



I think they wanted players to be able to customize the layout of the platforms at some point, too.

Full Battle Rattle posted:

The first half is so good, 10/10 game of the year. The second half is an 8.5. really good, but with flaws. This is the IGN rating system.

SyntheticPolygon posted:

I'm kind of fine with Kojima contradicting a theme from a previous game, because it wasn't something present throughout the entire series. They're both just some philosophical themes he put in to have some meta discussion, and they're both about as relevant as the other I suppose. Raiden is not Solid Snake and he is also not the player, Venom is basically BB and is a representation of the player. They're both things to discuss about the medium of videogames and I don't blame Kojima for pursuing another side of discussion rather than reiterating a theme he's already presented.

In It For The Tank posted:

So I finished the story last night and I have been mulling over it for all of today. I still need to get all my thoughts in order but it really ended up being disappointing. You can't fault the gameplay, although permanently losing Quiet and the limited number of Subsistence missions are both really fuckimg lame. The story is basically a mess, though.

I can dig the twist, kinda. I dislike it because it's aping MGS2's infinitely more interesting discussion of the player/character relationship but it could still have worked if they did more with it. As it is, the game dumps it on you really clumsily ("SURPRISE, now play through the railroaded prologue again so you can get frustrated and also see the entirety of the real Big Boss' role in the story) and it.... doesn't matter. It doesn't add anything to the game except to cheapen the entire experience.

This game was touted as the fall of Big Boss as he becomes the tyrannical nuclear warlord from MG1 and MG2 but it's not. Because the focus is on Venom, Big Boss' transformation either happened off screen or has yet to happen. The game ends basically in the same place as Peace Walker, with Big Boss creating Outer Heaven (but for totally real this time, guys) again. With this in mind, I'll echo others and ask if this story even needed to be told.

Not even Venom is monstrous. He doesn't even do anything evil in this game (relatively speaking, he kills and abducts people and is a warmongerer by virtue of his profession). The only monsters in this story are Skull Face and loving Huey of all people. Even Miller seems more overtly malevolent than Venom.

I've seen people pointing out that Big Boss manipulating Venom like he did is proof of his villainy but I'm not sure if the game supports that interpretation since Venom is cool with being turned into Big Boss (side note: I made my avatar a white guy but loving lol if you made your guy one of the big burly black dudes with tattoos on their faces and got to see the characters perform the reverseof the race-reassignment surgery from Tropic Thunder) and they don't really explore the interesting conflict that would arise from having your identity taken from you beyond the implications of the mirror smash. The weird thing is that Venom is basically the same as Skull Face in that his life and face were stripped away so you'd think the conclusion almost writes itself. Surely, the thematic endpoint of the game about revenge is Venom trying to take revenge on Big Boss, becoming the Skull Face to Big Boss' Zero. That would've been a cool loving ending.

But any ending would be better because we didn't even get one. Quiet's story ends and the second credits play and then the Truth happens and that's it. That should've marked the beginning of Chapter 3, which should've dealt with Eli and also shown more of the real Big Boss. You could've had a nice interplay between Eli and Venom, as they were both molded into Big Boss against their will. gently caress it, have them team up to kill Big Boss and you get to play as Big Boss to take them down.

In short, I don't think the story lived up to the hype of being the last Metal Gear game, nor do I think it adequetely closed the loop. Earlier in the thread someone mentioned that the conflict between Big Boss and Zero/the Patriots, which is central to the modern story, is completely absent and they're completely right. We got some really weak explanations toward explaining things like Miller being in Foxhound and hating Big Boss but it seemed like the story almost conciously avoided addressing what seem to be some of the big questions in the series in favour of an independent story about midichlorians parasites, which, while not as obnoxious as nanomachines in MGS4, still got pretty bad. On the plus side, I look forward to "PARASITES, SON" in Metal Gear Rising 2.

The trailers (all of which are amazing) are basically better than the actual story in the game.

Gortarius posted:

I think they could've easily made each map have the option of playing them with different rules, like 100% stealth and procure on site. Mostly because of how samey all the missions really are if you think about it. Every mission is either you kill/extract something OR you extract something.

Man, the more I think about this game the more disappointing it feels.

I really hope Konami goes bankrubt and someone else buys all their IPs. Silent Hills could've been so good and this game could've been absolutely fantastic too.

Mr. Fortitude posted:

More cut content.

More than anything in the game, I want to actually hear an interview from Kojima himself once his contract with Konami is up on just what the hell happened during development. I can make an educated guess given Konami's focus away from video games but still. It really sounds like both parties were at fault, Kojima's ego and publicity stunts eating up the budget while Konami ruled over what would be in the game and cut the budget with an iron fist but we'll probably never know for sure.

Discendo Vox posted:

Given the nature of the similarly interminable design and overambition of MGSIV, I'm much more inclined to lay this at the feet of Kojima than Konami. Huge multisystem structures that can't be completed and are reworked into a final project that barely hangs together. The dude is the Lucas of yideogames.

Gortarius posted:

Yeah, I like them too, up to a point, but then after a while you start to wonder when are they going to introduce something new to spice it up. I guess they would've introduced something new eventually if they didn't run out of money/time/whatever. Like guards patrolling with dogs which isn't a big stretch considering that you can already get attacked by wild animals. Or flamethrower guys like in MGS3, and again the mechanic seems to be there if you look at Volgin. Taking out a guard and then posing as him to get access to an area. Just stuff they've already done in previous games.

Mantis is such a deus ex machina though, not to mention how lame he and his backstory on the cassette is.

lovely Wizard posted:

They've already managed to sell 3 million units in less than a full week at full price. Even with whatever reduction in profit they get from the retailer's cut, they're sure to be profiting already.

It's not like they can simply go "pachinko machines and ios/android games make the most money because of the low cost of development vs the high rate of return, lets put it all in that", because it'd be like when THQ put all their production on 360/PS3 versions of that lovely drawing pad that was a success on Wii and they'd lose a bunch of money because just dumping all your development budget on one thing doesn't always jive. Has a single Metal Gear Solid game (or even some of the spinoffs) managed to not turn a profit?

Gortarius posted:

So I didn't really understand a word that Skull Face was saying during the jeep scene, which I guess tried to emulate the MGS3 ladder scene with the long transition and theme song. But from what I gather he wanted to kill all English speakers with a magic spell he found in Africa, and then sell nukes with off-switches that he had control over, and this would then somehow unite the world because everyone would have a nuclear deterrent.

Skull Face also hated Zero for some reason even though he worked for him as the cleanup crew and their relationship didn't seem to go any deeper than that, so all the team switching Skull Face had to do was in no part Zeros fault. So I guess he just wanted the XOF unit for himself.

Skull Face also wears that really goofy looking mask for whatever reason.


How far off am I?

blackguy32 posted:

I find it kind of funny that this is the thread where people are a lot more critical of the game. I am at the point where the game is pretty fun but at the same time, I am starting to notice a bunch of little flaws that annoy the poo poo out of me.

ThomasPaine posted:

e: I just watched the Episode 51 video. That seems really loving cool and exactly how I would have liked to see the game wrap up Mantis/Liquid. Why in the everlasting gently caress did it get cut. That's actually so annoying.

There was easily enough content to make a solid Chapter 2, and it looks like a lot of the work necessary to do so had already been done when it was cut out. WHY KOJIMA WHY? (I actually think this may have something to do with Konami tbh).

Full Battle Rattle posted:

The reason nobody talks in this goddamn game is that most of their conflicts with each other are so stupid if they talked it out for 20 minutes you could easily come up with a solution. You have to keep characters from talking to each other too much because their secrets are so obvious you'd have to be stupid to miss them. It's clear that Venom doesn't remember anything prior to Snake forming MSF (this is why he doesn't say 'kept you waiting, huh' to miller.) so he can't actually talk to any of his bros because it would become pretty evident that he's not Big Boss.

The 'player character is not who you think it is' is Kojima ripping off himself, it's not particularly original and it's a pretty big letdown, honestly. That being said, I kinda like the idea of the body double, I just wish that BB had shown up as a character in the second half to do some stuff.

EDIT: We even got a short prologue that starred the character most people 'wanted' that seemingly kills him at the end. This is basically the same twist from MGS2, and I was expecting better

Modest Mao posted:

MGSV, idk. Glad it didn't bring back all the characters like MGS4, but the ones it did include mostly don't really make sense. Another plot where someone, in some way, is a copy of another person. Miller makes way less sense.

Broken Cog posted:

Mantis basically gets heavily influenced by negative emotions, and especially children. He doesn't really have any agency of his own other than what whoever's influencing him at the moment is. It's noticeable in mission 20, where he's sending Volgin to attack Snake, but is stopped for a moment because the kid you're sent to save panics, and draws him away.

The reason Sahelanhropus goes berserk is because Eli is in one of the DD choppers, and Mantis abandons the influence of Skullface for Eli's.

Grizzled Patriarch posted:

As an aside, I really like the open world, but in my dream version of the game, there would be side-ops that take you to a few smaller, sub-GZ-sized for a couple fan service setpiece bits. The horror elements in TPP made me wish we got to walk into Mantis' village as he was burning it all down or something.

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:

Huey too.

Nakar posted:

Miller being a hardcore motherfucker was pretty much the best part of the game. Like that's the emotion of a man consumed entirely by revenge, you do not gently caress with him. And he didn't have all his limbs while doing it. The one-handed CQC disarm and stump-assisted weapon unloading was a high point of the cutscenes.

Bubba Smith posted:

nah that's what I've felt too. If instead of padding out all the Chapter 2 stuff with repeat missions and stuff, if they would have buried Chapter 2's content within Chapter 1 as like a 40 mission seamless playthrough I think people wouldn't have felt so disappointed. Instead you complete Chapter 1, can't wait to start Chapter 2, and it's barely anything at all and at times leaves you clueless how to progress the story.

And that list is 100% fake, come on peeps. One of the last missions is the Metallic Archaea -> Sahelanthropus fight sequence which would mean the game would be barely any different at all. if there were like 30 new make-believe missions after that I would have been like "whoa, we really missed out on a lot"

lovely Wizard posted:

It was sort of silly to have him and the child soldiers fly away with a super metal gear and a language parasite with no word from them again. That's two mega plot devices being stolen by a third.

Funky Valentine posted:

That's how he was in MGS1, I don't see the issue here.

Under the vegetable posted:

there are at least two other major female characters in the game with relevance to other games in the series and they're both well written, with emotional denouements to their stories, and not sexualized, so i don't appreciate your sexist erasure of women who don't support your goal of making an ideological point, thanks.

In It For The Tank posted:

On the subject though, the fan backlash from Mass Effect 3's ending was strong enough to get Bioware to offer a free DLC that greatly improved the ending, not by changing it but by adding to it, so there's precedent that if the controversy surrounding MGSV grows enough we may see so. Not likely, given the particular companies involved but you never know.

Alexander DeLarge posted:

Oh yeah, I forgot to add "Hey, we're getting really unhappy with the budget of The Phantom Pain, but go ahead and start development on the playable teaser that will reveal that you're working on another game after this one".

Remember, by the time that PT started development, the majority of The Phantom Pain's development was nearing completion, so when was this "falling out" supposed to take place? Either this whole thing is truly an emotional response, or it defies all logic.

Grizzled Patriarch posted:

Huey is probably the most well-written character in the game. His arc is just perfect and it makes you completely switch sides on him. It's also great because it manages to do it in a way that fits his character in PW really well, even though he's not even remotely as disgusting in that game. He's just such a slimy dude, and I think Christopher Randolph's voice might fit Huey's character even better than Otacon.

Grizzled Patriarch posted:

If the cut stuff had been included, I think Chapter 2 would have felt better. Skull Face is basically his own arc, and Chapter 2 is mostly dealing with the fallout of his death and threat posed by Eli, since he has both the English parasite and Sahelanthropus. Had we actually gotten a full third area of the game, I imagine it would have been more than one mission long. "Mission 51" has a lot of stuff going on, and most of the establishing information is told through slideshow concept art. It probably would have been more like 4-5 missions where you show up the island, scout for intel, figure out the situation, and then finally fight the metal gear. Apparently there was originally going to be a third chapter called "Peace," so it's hard to tell what the pacing would have felt like in the end. I doubt Chapter 2 was originally meant to be like a quarter the size of Chapter 1, but we will probably never know for sure.

In It For The Tank posted:

Mischitary posted:

The best thing PP does for the grand MGS mythos is turn Huey into a huge fucker. I don't think there's been a more hateable guy in MGS history than Huey in PP, at least in my experience. I love how in the beginning Miller is really hard on Huey and you're all like "give him a break man he's just a bro like otacon" but then at the end of the story when all the guys are screaming to put a bullet in his head I was basically right there with them.

Machinegunboyo posted:

So apparently there was meant to be a chapter 3?

http://m.windowscentral.com/data-miners-discover-entire-chapter-metal-gear-solid-v-phantom-pain-warning-possible-spoilers

CJacobs posted:

Peace Walker's story went on for much longer than MGS 5's does, and I feel like the goal was to basically make a story on as grand of a scale, but in console game form instead of portable. Unfortunately it seems to have not worked out in the slightest. I think Peace Walker's visual style and lack of 3D cutscenes definitely contributed to their ability to make the story go on for so long.

Mischitary posted:

I mean, it took Kojima Productions 3 years to do one chapter and like half of a chapter for the completed game.

Grizzled Patriarch posted:

Kojima probably isn't the best at managing his time, but his attention to detail and depth of gameplay is why his games are so different and good. Being able to actually do almost any crazy thing you can imagine, and having enemy AI that reacts to all those crazy things, is one of the big things separating his games from all the other sterile AAA titles. I love that Kojima will come in and make people retexture a doorknob because it didn't look right and gave an unflattering impression of his artists' hard work. People that wish he had cut down on the gameplay elements to add more story are crazy.

blackguy32 posted:

This is where I am at. poo poo like having to go back to Mother Base every once in a while just to shower just seems so unnecessary and time consuming. Mother base as a whole just feels pointless.

That being said, I am surprised how much I like Code Talker's character. I just know when I hear a cassette tape by him, that it will be a good one.