Board 8 > Which one is the better game, MGS 4 or MGS 5?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Topic. I'm interested in getting them eventually.

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MGS4 by a lot

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I enjoy 4's story (and every other MGS's story) a LOT more than 5's, but I don't think there's any denying that 5 is the smoothest MGS to play by a country mile.

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It's 5

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4 is not bad, 5 I never played

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MrSmartGuy posted...

I enjoy 4's story (and every other MGS's story) a LOT more than 5's, but I don't think there's any denying that 5 is the smoothest MGS to play by a country mile.

Yep. 4 was a wonderful capstone to the series, but especially in a vacuum 5 is more fun.

4 requires nostalgia for 1, 2 and 3 to work at all

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MGS4 for sure.

MGS5 was fun but it was lacking in the story department, IMO

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4

I love V too but 4 was so satisfying to me, even with the amount of gameplay being quite small

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banananor posted...

Yep. 4 was a wonderful capstone to the series, but especially in a vacuum 5 is more fun.

4 requires nostalgia for 1, 2 and 3 to work at all

yeah but I'm not playing these games in a vacuum

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I've played like 70% of MGS3 and the first level (the ship) of MGS2, for some background.

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MGS4 really needs you to at least have played MGS1 in order to get much out of it. MGS2 and MGS3 are also pretty heavily tied in, but 1 is an ABSOLUTE must.

MGS5 is actually a direct sequel to Peace Walker, which is itself a direct sequel to MGS3. My recommendation would be to watch some Peace Walker stuff on Youtube and then try out MGS5.

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Easily MGS4!

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MGS4 is still one of the best games ever made. One of the greatest emotional roller coasters I have experienced in a video game. Shame everyone has jumped on the hate bandwagon now.

MGS1 > MGS4 > MGS3 > MGS2 > MGSV > Metal Gear 2 > Peace Walker > Rising: Revengeance > Metal Gear > Metal Gear Solid GBC > Portable Ops

Gameplay > Story so MGS5 is better.

But 4 obviously has better story and payoffs. If only it had more gameplay.

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MGS4 (Story-Driven) Vs MG5 (Gameplay-Driven)

CassandraCain posted...

Gameplay > Story so MGS5 is better.

But 4 obviously has better story and payoffs. If only it had more gameplay.

I think MGSV is a prime example of why just good gameplay isn't enough.

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There is no MGS5 (yet)

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Here's the secret: MGSV's gameplay isn't even that good. How many times have you replayed it since?

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Raka_Putra posted...

I've played like 70% of MGS3 and the first level (the ship) of MGS2, for some background.

Definitely play 1 and 2 before 4, it makes no sense otherwise. 3 is also important but not as much. But 3 is the best on its own so it's worth finishing.

You can play the lettered ones after if you reallyyyy want more to do with these characters, especially if you wished MGS was more like those Japanese mobile RPG games.

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foolm0r0n posted...

Here's the secret: MGSV's gameplay isn't even that good. How many times have you replayed it since?

Well zero, but that was because I put hundreds of hours into it and I dont want to be that swept up every again.

MgsV really is one of the best games ever. Mgs4 was less a game and more an interactive build up to one kickass scene.

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SantaRPidgey posted...

Well zero, but that was because I put hundreds of hours into it and I dont want to be that swept up every again.

You can frame it however you like, but that's what it comes down to - you never want to play it again. You're just lucky you got that feeling after you were done and not at hour 20 or 30.

But we're gonna be replaying the numbered MGSes the rest of our lives. 4 in particular is the most fun to play in arcadey style, doing the challenges etc (except chap 3... but even that one has some fun optimizations).

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I just wish MGSV had some more structure and variety to it.

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5 had better moment to moment gameplay.

4 had a satisfying conclusion to a great story.

I play MGS for story.

4

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Im going to go ahead and say I never have any desire to play 4 again, and if I did I would just watch a cutscene video on youtube and feel I got most of the experience

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The justification for foolmo's stance of V having "bad gameplay" is that the game doesn't the proper scenarios/settings to utilize it's mechanics to the fullest extent.

Dont get me wrong, this is true to a large extent. But to say that 4 doesn't underutilize its game mechanics is laughable. It just keeps you on rails while it does it.

Obviously 4 does a better job with boss fights, but excepting the 2 that are great but basically give you a completely different game to play, they're pretty lackluster themselves compared to everything that came before.
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Im going to go ahead and say I never have any desire to play V again because it wasn't that great the first time and some of the story beats are down right offensive in a MGS game

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I have big issues with both of them, but 4 still has David Hayter so it's superior

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Having said all that, if I had to choose one to replay start to finish right now it would be 4 no contest. But it would be with all my unlocks because fuck if I'm ever fighting Raging Raven again without a rail gun to just end that awful excuse of a boss.
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4 has a lot of problems, but it at least feels like a complete experience.

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4 has some better moments overall, like the bosses (I enjoy Raging Raven but fuck Screaming Mantis) and environment of decrepit Shadow Moses is enough to carry the game -- though I'm a sucker for snow/ice levels.

Don't actually care as much for deserts either... but yeah I still prefer MGS5. The gameplay is just so smooth.

Going back to previous games, even my favorite 3, has proven to be a challenge bc the controls don't feel as nice.

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MGSV has god tier mechanics and absolutely nothing else of value. That also means it has no meaningful/thoughtful ways to use its mechanics. It's a sandbox - not a deliberately designed "sandbox" game where every design decision is made to evoke as much fun as possible, but a literal barren expanse of dirt where the only fun you'll have lasts as long as you can be entertained by repetitive, generic "content."

MGS4 is actually in a very similar boat of not having proper spaces/situations to showboat its surprisingly good mechanics, but it does have actual structure and a kickass story. MGS4 wins and it's not even close.

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LeonhartFour posted...

MGS4 by a lot

^^^

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MgsIV

You have absolutely no business playing any MGS games out of order.

Stated as someone who bitched an whined about having to play old MGS games when I first got into the series after Revengeance came out.

So the answer is MGS1.

Haven't played 4 in over ten years but I already kinda want to play some of V again.

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I do agree arcadey short challenge mgs is a lot of fun

but thats why I would play VR missions instead of 4

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MGS Vs gameplay is like...perfection in a stealth action game.

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I think many people consider mgs3 the best game in the series now. That game was EPIC.

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SantaRPidgey posted...

Im going to go ahead and say I never have any desire to play 4 again, and if I did I would just watch a cutscene video on youtube and feel I got most of the experience

You will get most of your first experience yes. But I am telling you that you will get a 100% brand new experience when you play it again skipping the cutscenes. And again when doing no kill/no alert etc. That's what a well designed MGS is like and you are completely missing out if you haven't tried it.

kevwaffles posted...

But to say that 4 doesn't underutilize its game mechanics is laughable

No one said this. Underutilized is definitely a good way to describe it, though it doesn't really suffer for it. But V is not underutilized, more like non-existent. It's not even like FFXV where you can see where they were going, and given a magic wand to finish development, the game would've been incredible. There's just absolutely nothing in V even after 100 hours. Maybe the base building aspect, but that's only like 1/20th as good as Suikoden on the god damn PS1. It does lead to that 1 incredible mission, which gives a hint as to the true feeling of Big Boss that Kojima was going for. But nothing else in the game cared about that feeling at all. It was too busy focusing on its super smooth controls and the fulton grind and all the RPG systems.

That's why I disagree that MGSV had great gameplay that just wasn't used well. It would often detract from the thematic/emotional goals of the game as a whole. If they put more stuff in the game to utilize it, it would just become some action shooter and stray even farther from the themes. Can't really call that great even though some mechanics and loops were good. It might even be lots of fun, especially compared to like Death Stranding (which is Kojima's open world gameplay fully focused on the theme). But design wise it just doesn't make sense.

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metaIslug posted...

I'd love to replay it, I just don't have the time

My point is you can't. What, are you gonna go around picking flowers and fultoning all your soldiers all over again? The grindy skinner box loop just doesn't work the 2nd time, even after you've forgotten all about the game. (i.e. there is no intrinsic motivation, only extrinsic)

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Is MGS1 still worth playing? Not saying I'll do it, but maybe if this lockdown extends to 3 years I'll get to it!

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Raka_Putra posted...

Is MGS1 still worth playing? Not saying I'll do it, but maybe if this lockdown extends to 3 years I'll get to it!

I love MGS1, but I acknowledge it has the weakest gameplay. I love the story and characters in it. Don't play the GCN remake, though.

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Twin Snakes is fine.

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LeonhartFour posted...

Twin Snakes is fine.

I mean, it's MGS1, so if you're playing it for the first time you'll likely think it's fine

But it's not a good remake and it gets worse every year. While in the mid 00s the difference between TTS and MGS1 would seem more like a chasm, nowadays the differences between them aren't that big. And the further we get away from them the smaller the gap appears, so you're just left with a slightly-better-looking game with weird cutscenes and massively inferior music

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Anagram posted...

I love MGS1, but I acknowledge it has the weakest gameplay. I love the story and characters in it. Don't play the GCN remake, though.

Weakest gameplay? Yes but it is still works and is still a lot of fun. Just think of it as a different style of stealth game than its sequels.

But it literally has best everything else.

Best story, best cast, best boss fights, best setting, best codec conversations (yeah MGS3 a distant 2nd place), and the best one to replay (by far)

Best to replay? Would massively disagree given the controls, the lack of options to screw around compared to 2/3, and the tedious backtracking sections later on in the game. Best to replay are...2/3. Probably 3.

And 3 has better codecs too imo though I like 1's bigger team and how they all brought something different. Like Nastasha is mostly unnecessary as a character but she has some fun calls.

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Axl_Rose_85 posted...

best codec conversations (yeah MGS3 a distant 2nd place)

yeah no

MGS3 blows every other game out of the water in that department

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LeonhartFour posted...

MGS3 blows every other game out of the water in that department

Not really no. Not unless you have a crush on Para-medic. It has more optional conversations definitely and more volume but it doesn't match how every time you get the codec call ringtone in MGS1, there is this feeling of unpredictability and urgency. And why wouldn't it? A lot of the important revelations are done in the codec conversations. MGS3 has good codec conversations don't get me wrong but it has never quite captured that same feeling nor has any other game after MGS1.