Current Events > Metal Gear Solid should've ended at 4 >_>

(+) Yeah! (+)

MGS4 wrapped up pretty much everything and was still a good game inb4badopinions

Peace Walker and Phantom Pain were both unnecessary and didn't add anything to the story >_> Peace Walker was not fun to play and Phantom Pain gaves us way more questions than answers with the little story it even had.

Metal Gear 1 to Metal Gear Solid 4 is my headcanon for the whole series. Nothing else >_>
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I enjoyed the twist in Phantom Pain. And it makes sense. Also it has the best gameplay in the series.
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I do really like the way Kojima somehow found a way to (MGS5 spoilers) sort of explain the fact that Snake kills Big Boss twice by inventing Venom Snake. The overall arch of MGSV I think was alright but far FAR too little story spread across a massive game. It felt like it needed another year of dev time honestly.
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3
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You misspelled 3 (lol)
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MGS V story was fucking stupid from beginning to end. The twist was the shit cherry on top.

Besides the fact that suddenly Kojima fanboys act like Big Boss survival was a big mystery people wanted answered (it wasn't), an explanation was already given in Metal Gear 2 if any of them actually paid attention. That needing an explanation is like needing an explanation for how Liquid survives his multiple deaths in Metal Gear Solid.

On top of that, cutting out Kingdom of the Flies was stupid. I know everyone likes to blame Konami and say Kojima didn't have enough time to do it, but that's a crock of shit. Kojima Pro employees have flat out said he nixed it early to focus on the twist, and this is apparent with how all of the cutscenes were clearly finished very early in development based on the trailers.

Gameplay wise, it was fun but disappointing. There were way too many things that Kojima seemed to just miss out on with an open world environment. The fact that he kept all of the goofy overpowered future tech in the game, but decided to cut out Battle Gear because it would be "over powered" is just so fucking stupid.

I really would have preferred the series end with MGS 3, but no way people would be happy with no resolution to The Patriots. So it would have been okay to end at MGS 4 or even Peace Walker.
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D-Lo_BrownTown posted...

There were way too many things that Kojima seemed to just miss out on with an open world environment.

They tried to get Konami to let them scrap the PS3/Xbox 360 versions as it was holding back the game due to having to make sure the game was playable on all 4 platforms. That shit sucks.

The politics at Konami also turned real hard on Kojima real fast lol.
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D-Lo_BrownTown posted...

I honestly don't buy this as the reason why he missed out on so many open world opportunities to be honest. Kojima gets way too much slack just for the sake of "Fuck Konami".

I mean, if he didn't want to develop for PS3/Xbox 360, maybe he shouldn't start development on PS3/Xbox 360.

Konami pushed the issue forcing the PS3/360 versions due to their install bases, entirely missing the point that a new console is where everyone is at.

The PS3/360 versions are why there is pretty much nothing going on outside of the outposts or bases, because anything more complex wouldn't work on the older systems.
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Peace Walker is probably the best game in the series though

Gameplay that lasts dozens of hours without getting repetitive like MGS5 and a story that neatly tied up Big Boss's desent into villainy before MGS5 took a big shit on it and tried to do it again

Why do you think that was the original MGS5 hmm

Never forget y'all

http://pspmedia.ign.com/psp/image/article/107/1071606/metal-gear-solid-peace-walker-planned-as-mgs5-20100224005438714-000.jpg
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I don't buy the last gen excuse, GTA V was AMAZING on PS3/360.
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atleast 5 was fun..
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Dark_Spiret posted...

atleast 5 was fun..

No it wasn't

I have 90 hours played and most of that was busy work
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Maybe worst story, but definitely best games imo.

Out of the first four though, my favorite is MGS1. I think it's the simplicity of it; it's very easy and enjoyable to replay the game.
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MGSV is the best one in the series, IMO.

yea the *spoilers for four and five* twist about there being two Big Bosses might have seemed "unnecessary", but it played well into the whole "cult of Big Boss" thing that Eva went on about; the whole propaganda thing that Zero put into motion to make BB this whole charismatic, larger than life figure

and it also helped redeem Zero a bit
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MGSV should have been finished. 4 wasn't good
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Blaming it on last gen always felt like such a bs excuse to me because everyone acted like MGS V was a "next gen" game back when it came out, but then it seemed like they fell back onto the last gen excuse whenever people brought up criticism. You can't have it both ways.

It was Kojimas first open world game, and it feels like it in every single way. That doesn't make it "bad" (the fact it is as stable as it is is very impressive), cause it really isn't bad. But when you hear that he cut out that mini metal gear tank because it would have been overpowered, it makes you think he didn't really understand open world design at all.

And when you hear he nixed Kingdom of the Flies so it wouldn't take away from the twist, but still left all of the buildup to it with no resolution, it makes you start to question if he's really the genius storyteller that his fanboys would have you believe.

MGS V is still a ton of fun, even if it does get repetitive and seemingly missed a lot of opportunities.
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EffectAndCause posted...

I don't buy the last gen excuse, GTA V was AMAZING on PS3/360.

Yeah but wasn't development on GTAV for last gen and got ported to current gen/PC?
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oh yea, it was interesting how Big Boss turned Venom into a part for his own ends, like how The Boss was made into a pawn, that set the whole thing into motion
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DezCaughtIt posted...

Yeah but wasn't development on GTAV for last gen and got ported to current gen/PC?

It should also be noted that GTAV ran like a slideshow sometimes on 360, especially online.
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the idea that MGS V is empty and has nothing to do outside of stealth missions because it was developed for PS3/360 is fucking laughable.

That's pure Kojima game design. The game was not meant to be a GTA game with a bunch of shit to do. It was a MGS game in a big open map.

The problem is that MGS in a big open map just happens to get pretty repetitive really quick.
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boxington posted...

MGSV is the best one in the series, IMO.

yea the *spoilers for four and five* twist about there being two Big Bosses might have seemed "unnecessary", but it played well into the whole "cult of Big Boss" thing that Eva went on about; the whole propaganda thing that Zero put into motion to make BB this whole charismatic, larger than life figure

and it also helped redeem Zero a bit

It turned Big Boss into a complete wimp by manipulating Venom and abandoning MSF and Miller, turned Huey from a lovable Otacon expy into a literal mad scientist who deserved all his torture, and completely bait and switched the revengenance theme to some bullshit motif about language, then back to revengenance out of nowhere at the end. It was a train wreck that Konami had nothing to do with.
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Yeah, MGS V story is poorly written. Even the twist doesn't actually make sense under scrutiny.

I think it's pretty clear at that point that Kojima was sick and tired of MGS (he had been for the better part of 10 years by that point I think) and really just wanted to make an open world game without worrying about the story.

Even outside of the plot being bad, the themes of race, revenge and language are not even gotten across well.
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I finished MGS5 but I honestly remember almost nothing about the story including the twist people are talking about lol
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I don't know man, I never thought any of the MGS games were well written.

Maybe that's just me.
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Swagnificent119 posted...

Yeah, MGS V story is poorly written. Even the twist doesn't actually make sense under scrutiny.

I think it's pretty clear at that point that Kojima was sick and tired of MGS (he had been for the better part of 10 years by that point I think) and really just wanted to make an open world game without worrying about the story.

Even outside of the plot being bad, the themes of race, revenge and language are not even gotten across well.

It should also not be discounted that Tomokazu Fukushima, who co-wrote MGS1-3 and wrote the entirely of Ghost Babel left the company. From that moment on the series started to kinda get a bit more loopy than anything, with Peace Walker and MGSV having the most off-the wall story beats and character names.

I do think that Fukushima kept the story grounded a bit more and Kojima when left to entirely write it let kinda spiral out of control a bit. =P
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Jabodie posted...

I don't know man, I never thought any of the MGS games were well written.

Maybe that's just me.

Peace Walker had a lovely deterrence theme that fit the game, character dialogue, and script to a T.

MGSV dicks around with revenge before jumping extensively into language out of nowhere, all to replace nanomachines with Vocal cord parasites, one of the stupidest fucking plot devices in any video game ever.

Ugh, I'm recalling everything about that game in detail now. Even Portable Ops had a more sensible story in the overall lore.
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Jabodie posted...

I don't know man, I never thought any of the MGS games were well written.

Maybe that's just me.

They really are not.

Kojima is good at directing a cinematic experience, I think his co-writers were great with creating characters in the first few games.

The over arching stories are rather basic. Kojimas twists have never been very strong when put under scrutiny as well.

His over use of retcons also hurt the overall series lore the more they are done.

The problem with MGS V is that there is too much of a focus on gameplay, so the cinematic style isn't there to prop up the story.

That's not even getting into how he completely changed some of the personalities of the characters because he seems incapable of creating a story where you play anything but heroes.
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at post 22: I disagree, after seeing what they'd created destroyed after GZ, BB and Ocelot had to find a way to misdirect the world and their enemies from their goals.

it changed Big Boss from just another soldier (regardless of how capable he was) to someone manipulating things behind the scenes

the player was still guided towards vengeance, by way of Miller and Skull Face, who had legitimate beef against the powers that be, but the language thing was pretty compelling, too. I liked how this time around, the biggest threat was by way of biological warfare.

and with Huey, it was cool how they finally differentiated him from Otacon
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it's scary to think Kojima and his Death Stranding could end up like Inafune with Mighty #9.
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Ricemills posted...

it's scary to think Kojima and his Death Stranding could end up like Inafune with Mighty #9.

Nah, even if the story is off the walls insane and stupid Kojima seems to know how to get gameplay down right. Even if you dislike MGS5's story it's hard to argue with how fun it is to play.
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boxington posted...

at post 22: I disagree, after seeing what they'd created destroyed after GZ, BB and Ocelot had to find a way to misdirect the world and their enemies from their goals.

it changed Big Boss from just another soldier (regardless of how capable he was) to someone manipulating things behind the scenes

the player was still guided towards vengeance, by way of Miller and Skull Face, who had legitimate beef against the powers that be, but the language thing was pretty compelling, too. I liked how this time around, the biggest threat was by way of biological warfare.

and with Huey, it was cool how they finally differentiated him from Otacon

The problem with the whole diversion excuse is that you're pretty much doing the same things as before under the same identity as the guy who did it before, that's like the worst cover ever. Even then, there was quite some time before Venom woke up that Big Boss could've been planning instead.

Huey's new character details were infuriating and nonsensical, especially after how understanding his motives for helping MSF were in Peace Walker. Nothing about his MGSV personality added up.
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thompsontalker7 posted...

Peace Walker had a lovely deterrence theme that fit the game, character dialogue, and script to a T.

I guess. Tbh I thought the story was pretty forgettable, aside from BB dealing with his emotions.

What made PW really great was the gameplay loop of developing Mother Base and doing a large variety of missions, sometimes in coop.

That's what I personally think was missing from MGSV. MGS:PW mission variety, and a little more campiness. MGSV took itself too seriously at the cost of fun, in some ways.

Compared to PW where you fight a literal laser t rex in the bonus missions.
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Ricemills posted...

it's scary to think Kojima and his Death Stranding could end up like Inafune with Mighty #9.

I've said for a while it's going to be the real test of his supposed greatness.

He's not going to have the characters of MGS to prop up this story. On the other hand, he's actually creating something he wants to create for a change.

Of course, I feel that he has such a huge cult of personality with his fanboys at this point that no matter what they are going to see it as a masterpiece.
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Some about Death Stranding gives me a "it's never actually going to come out" sort of vibe.

Not sure why, but something tells me Kojima may have trouble actually finishing a project without some kind of overlord to watch him.
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Error1355 posted...

Ricemills posted...

it's scary to think Kojima and his Death Stranding could end up like Inafune with Mighty #9.

Nah, even if the story is off the walls insane and stupid Kojima seems to know how to get gameplay down right. Even if you dislike MGS5's story it's hard to argue with how fun it is to play.

do we even know anything about death stranding? gameplay, character, story?
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Nobody has ever actually explained to me how the diversion makes sense.

Big Boss creates Venom Snake to take the heat off him, even though he ends up just going around being Big Boss anyways. What was the fucking point?
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D-Lo_BrownTown posted...

Nobody has ever actually explained to me how the diversion makes sense.

Big Boss creates Venom Snake to take the heat off him, even though he ends up just going around being Big Boss anyways. What was the fucking point?

Not to mention that he created a whole new set of enemies with Diamond Dogs, after Miller found out.

Worst twist ever
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Ricemills posted...

Error1355 posted...

Ricemills posted...

it's scary to think Kojima and his Death Stranding could end up like Inafune with Mighty #9.

Nah, even if the story is off the walls insane and stupid Kojima seems to know how to get gameplay down right. Even if you dislike MGS5's story it's hard to argue with how fun it is to play.

do we even know anything about death stranding? gameplay, character, story?

They are using an engine known for open world gameplay and we know there are them skelingtons solders and weird bleeding tanks.
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Error1355 posted...

Ricemills posted...

Error1355 posted...

Ricemills posted...

it's scary to think Kojima and his Death Stranding could end up like Inafune with Mighty #9.

Nah, even if the story is off the walls insane and stupid Kojima seems to know how to get gameplay down right. Even if you dislike MGS5's story it's hard to argue with how fun it is to play.

do we even know anything about death stranding? gameplay, character, story?

They are using an engine known for open world gameplay and we know there are them skelingtons solders and weird bleeding tanks.

right.
so no gameplay/character/story yet.
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D-Lo_BrownTown posted...

Nobody has ever actually explained to me how the diversion makes sense.

Big Boss creates Venom Snake to take the heat off him, even though he ends up just going around being Big Boss anyways. What was the fucking point?

It's because there are a lot of contradictions in the twist. For one, in the actual mission and how the actual story goes down it's presented as being Big Bosses plan, but in the truth tapes, it's not his plan at all but Zeroes plan.

The best explanation, in my opinion of course, is that Big Boss went with the whole having a phantom since everything was already in motion, but didn't seem to actually give a shit and still just went and did what he wanted to do while also leaving Venom Snake to do what he wanted to do. Later on, they clearly pulled together to form the first Outer Heaven.

People can argue it but it's the only thing that makes any sense to me.
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I think the diversion was to hide the existence of OH, more than anything, and the outside world was ignorant to the existence of two Big Bosses


thompsontalker7 posted...

D-Lo_BrownTown posted...

Nobody has ever actually explained to me how the diversion makes sense.

Big Boss creates Venom Snake to take the heat off him, even though he ends up just going around being Big Boss anyways. What was the fucking point?

Not to mention that he created a whole new set of enemies with Diamond Dogs, after Miller found out.

Worst twist ever

Miller was against the OG Big Boss, but Venom wasn't, and IIRC, the Diamond Dogs were eventually absorbed into Outer Heaven.
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boxington posted...

I think the diversion was to hide the existence of OH, more than anything, and the outside world was ignorant to the existence of two Big Bosses

That still doesn't make sense since Mother Base was, for all intents and purposes and even in name, Outer Heaven at that point.

The outside world being ignorant of two big bosses causes this to make even less sense. What was the point of having two big bosses if they were both just doing the same exact thing? (mercenary work and building an Outer Heaven)

The fact is, MGS V's twist doesn't make any fucking sense when you actually look at it.

1. Zero visits both Big Boss and Venom Snake sometime before the events of the game. We're talking years. He can't tell which one is which, implying that they have already done the facial reconstruction. Yet during the actual Truth mission, you don't go under the facial reconstruction until after you wake up.

2. Venom Snake takes the brunt of the explosion, saving Big Boss. Yet, he's fully conscious to see Big Boss fall into a coma who was just kind of knocked back into a helicopter. Miller was also fully conscious to witness this event, even comment on Venom Snake (who would have clearly had a horn in his head, tons of shrapnel, a missing arm, etc. etc.) but later on seems to completely forget all of these things when he now meets "Snake" who also has a horn in his head, missing arm, etc. etc.

3. Venom and Ishmael crash their van when a helicopter is in direct pursuit of them. Venom is knocked out for a HALF HOUR while Big Boss escapes. After waking up a half hour later, the helicopter that was in HOT PURSUIT of them finally catches up to them even though it was less than a quarter mile away from them.

4. Big Boss and Ocelot give each other farewells in the morning, even though Big Boss was supposed to have escaped first and Venom Snake and Ocelot escaped immediately on a freighter at night.
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what I mean is that, as far as anyone else was concerned, while BB wasn't doing Foxhound stuff, he was operating from Mother Base.

and yea, like you said, MB was basically OH, but it was a feint; MB would always be a target, like the one that was bombed years before, so its purpose was to deflect any attention it would have received otherwise
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boxington posted...

what I mean is that, as far as anyone else was concerned, while BB wasn't doing Foxhound stuff, he was operating from Mother Base.

and yea, like you said, MB was basically OH, but it was a feint; MB would always be a target, like the one that was bombed years before, so its purpose was to deflect any attention it would have received otherwise

This was also addressed in the game.

They were constantly creating new PMC companies and shutting them down when things got too hot. This is literally the FOB system.

A second Big Boss was not needed for this.
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D-Lo_BrownTown posted...

1. Zero visits both Big Boss and Venom Snake sometime before the events of the game. We're talking years. He can't tell which one is which, implying that they have already done the facial reconstruction. Yet during the actual Truth mission, you don't go under the facial reconstruction until after you wake up.

I always figured this wasn't a literal representation of what happened. Either it's noncanon just for gameplay or there was some weird, MGS style drugged up hypnosis designed to convince him he is BB.


The other are things I never noticed, and makes it feel like the twist was thought up late in development for some reason.
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Jabodie posted...

I always figured this wasn't a literal representation of what happened. Either it's noncanon just for gameplay or there was some weird, MGS style drugged up hypnosis designed to convince him he is BB.

The problem is that this is literally presented as "the truth" in the game.

This is why I personally believe in the disassociation theory more than what was actually presented.
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D-Lo_BrownTown posted...

boxington posted...

what I mean is that, as far as anyone else was concerned, while BB wasn't doing Foxhound stuff, he was operating from Mother Base.

and yea, like you said, MB was basically OH, but it was a feint; MB would always be a target, like the one that was bombed years before, so its purpose was to deflect any attention it would have received otherwise

This was also addressed in the game.

They were constantly creating new PMC companies and shutting them down when things got too hot. This is literally the FOB system.

A second Big Boss was not needed for this.

for Outer Heaven, it was.

or maybe it wasn't, but from Zero and BB's perspective, they didn't wanna take any more gambles.
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I feel like I'm reading some classified government document >_>
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boxington posted...

for Outer Heaven, it was.

How though?

Your explanation explains why there needed to be a decoy Mother Base, not why there needed to be a decoy Big Boss.

Remember that it wasn't Venom Snake doing Diamond Dogs and Big Boss doing Fox Hound at this time. Big Boss was literally still doing mercenary work up until around 1989 or 1990 on top of everything Venom was doing.
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Having not delved too deep into the story, the ending and the follow up tapes had me feel something along the lines of this:

Big Boss uses the opportunity given to him by Zero to work in Zanzibar while Venom and Miller provide a high profile distraction. It also served as a convenient way to build a force at greater speeds. Of course, this leaves me with the question as to whether or not Liquid ever knew that the BB he met in MGSV wasn't his "father."

Eventually it just becomes a partnership where BB can exert his influence in two places at once, ultimately leaving Venom to directly lead his mercenary armies in secret while he operates with the US government to a) deflect their potential intervention as he tried to in Metal Gear, b) get information about the Patriots which he seems to have in MGS4 and c) take the best and brightest soldiers the US has to offer in FOXHOUND and convince them to be loyal to him, rather than his greatest potential enemy.

The greatest benefit seemed, to me, is that being in two places allowed him to be friends with his enemies and still have control over his army.
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