Ending Discussion (Huge Spoilers)

[PSNQuinnMcLeod]

I'm not even that against the idea that what happened in GZ is what pushes him over the edge, the main problem I have with the game is the fact there isn't near enough exposition on it. There's a couple of tapes and that's it.

Although it does mess with the other games somewhat each one has been retconed so much at this point I expect retcons in a new Kojima game. I like the fact with this new revelation it was in actual fact the real Big Boss who sent Solid Snake to kill Venom. I'm not mad at the ending like most.

I don't expect conventional story telling from Kojima so to expect a 'traditional' way of telling it is naive. I do however expect an indepth exploration into it. I'm sure even you cann't deny we didn't get that. Kojima picked a bad time to shelve the story for gameplay.

 

That's actually pretty much how I see it too. I don't think the idea of a "fake" Big Boss that was actually behind the "first" Outer Heaven is bad. It's actually a neat idea. I am just disappointed that the whole MGSV game is about this decoys story. I'm missing the much more interesting story of the real Big Boss. We just did not get enough of that. This game would have been perfect if we would have gotten a third chapter centered around the real Big Boss and explaining a little bit more in detail his feelings, his change of mind, his motivation to be more "evil". Kojima is normally great in showing such things, and we just did not get to see it here. I would be okay with the events of Ground Zeroes being the main reason for Big Boss to change, but I just did not get to see that in this game. I think it's not made very clear by Kojima.

Edited September 16, 2015 by PSNQuinnMcLeod

[damon8r351]

I find it amusing what Kojima did. As he was leaving his life's work behind, he rolled a hand grenade into it and quietly shut the door behind him, leaving everyone else to figure it out. Reminds me of all the times I've wanted to set something ablaze and watch it get smaller into the rearview mirror.

[PSNQuinnMcLeod]

Question guys. I don't remember this scene from one of the trailers being in the game. Was this even in the game?

Edited September 18, 2015 by PSNQuinnMcLeod

[MrManBuz]

Question guys. I don't remember this scene from one of the trailers being in the game. Was this even in the game?

Nope. Just example 9000 of cut content from this unfinished disappointment.

[Redgrave]

Metal Gear has never been about good or bad, it's all based on perception (e.g The Boss). Hot Coldman in Peace Walker didn't want to destroy the world, and neither did Big Boss in MG. Solid Snake was a gun guided by people telling him who was bad in the early days. When I say I wanted to see Big Bosses decent, I wanted him to slowly start to use or justify the children as soldiers, and have a changed view on nuclear deterrence.

Instead, we're left with the body double twist that doesn't explain the transition to Metal Gear or even hint at it. We know Venom dies at Outer Heaven, but we don't know his motivations, goals or relationship with Big Boss at the time, the same with Big Boss. Some people say that the Outer Heaven uprising was Venom snapping and the real Big Boss sending Solid Snake to stop him, others say he is following Big Bosses command, gaining the eye of the world while BB creates the real outer heaven in secret. This didn't tie up loose ends, it threw one last curveball at us and laughed as we'll never get the answers from Kojima.

 

This. Seeing the child soldiers in the trailer I was expecting Big Boss to be open to the idea of using them, and his methods of fighting Cipher at whatever the cost. With the way Miller was acting throughout most of it I would have expected Miller to be one of the main reasons he takes a fall. I also felt like Miller kept switching back and forth between being mad with revenge to where he would rather kill Quiet and at one point it sounded like he was open to killing the kids in the prison, to suddenly just not really wanting to argue. This felt like a thing that kept happening back and forth. I don't know, Miller just felt weird to me throughout it.

 

The part where you have to shoot your own infected soldiers kind of worked, but again, it's all ruined when Big Boss wasn't the one who did it. For all we know the real Big Boss didn't really do anything all that bad, and the stories of Big Boss being the bad guy was actually just rumors and stories passed down as fact. There was that part where they release Huey after all, and Miller talks about Huey telling his story being accepted as truth while Diamond Dogs look like the villains. But I think that's a cheap handwave. Never mind the fact you're told Zero visited Big Boss while he was in a coma to make amends and the only reason he didn't was because he got infected by the parasites.

 

Speaking of, am I the only one who felt like the vocal cord parasites that somehow detect languages was dumb even for Metal Gear? I might have bought it if they just detected vocal cords, or it did something else. But detecting specific languages makes no sense. And this is a universe where "Nanomachines, son!" is a well accepted explanation.

 

Question guys. I don't remember this scene from one of the trailers being in the game. Was this even in the game?

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that was missing. I thought you would have to do something specific to get it.

[LeetWolf2]

Looks like it would be from Episode 52, considering it takes place on an Island , there's palm trees and what looks to be wreckage in the image.

I'm definitely disappointed in the game as a whole. I've been a fan of Metal Gear since MGS1, which I played when I was 5 and this game just doesn't feel like an MGS game to me. There are definitely moments where it does, but most of it doesn't and even before finding out about the cut content the ending felt abrupt.

I believe someone posted in this thread saying that "the open world is empty and Afghanistan feels like corridors connecting outposts", and I completely agree. For the first 15 hours of the game, doing all the side content that became available as I went along I felt the exact same way and (yes, this probably sounds a bit crazy) but I questioned whether there was something wrong with me. I was playing an MGS game that I wasn't enjoying. Riding from outpost to outpost, trying to get past unnoticed just so I could get to the side op I wanted to do was boring. It was actually getting me pretty upset because, like I just said I was questioning whether I had a problem. Then I discovered the fact that you could just press select and go back to the ACC whenever you wanted. From that point on the game felt like Camp Omega from Ground Zeroes, since I was just being transported exactly where I wanted to go and could focus on exactly what I wanted to do.

There are still things that bug me about the game though and there are quite a few so I'm gonna put them in list form:
-  Cracks you can climb only appear in very specific places.
-  Rocks can make you slide down them continuously when trying to climb or run over them, but can be traversed easily by going at a very different angle.
-  Afghanistan not feeling open at all since you're blocked by unclimbable mountains everywhere.
-  The FOB system is still active even if you're offline. (meaning people can attack your base and take your stuff while you're sleeping)
-  The staff management system not needing any micromanagement whatsoever. (which I always loved doing it myself in PW)
-  Fuel resources being needed for everything despite being incredibly scarce.
-  S-Ranks can be obtained regardless of how badly you mess up.
-  Limit on the amount of things that can be developed at once.
-  Difficulty in obtaining a consistent amount of legendary status soldiers as opposed to PW.
-  Certain staff members can never be dismissed.
-  Quiet leaving for good after I spent well over 2 million GMP on her. God damn golddigger, gimme my money back. T_T
-  Hidden cutscenes locked out after progressing past a certain part of the game.
-  Custom music being available in GZ but not TPP.
-  Aside from 2 rooms, being unable to go inside Mother Base and truly interact and bond with your soldiers.
-  Cassette tapes needing more comical ones like "The Hamburgers of Kazuhira Miller".
-  Cassette tapes needing more David Bowie...okay, that's just me being picky.
-  Most of the story missions just feeling like Side Ops with bits of story forced in.
-  Lack of variety in Side Ops....This game seriously needed some PooYan.
-  Padding the game out with replaying older missions but under different settings. Should have been a challenge mode or something.
-  The Truth being literally the same gameplay mission with only 2 altered cutscenes. Playing as Ishmael instead would have been awesome.
-  No Skull Face fight.
-  No true Burning Man/Volgin fight.
-  No Psycho Mantis fight.
-  The Boss fights were good but not up to MGS standards.
-  Best scene in the game is the intro. It was also the only one spoiled by pre-release footage. Nothing else in the game reaches that high note.
-  No secret ending, even though this and GZ are sequels to Peace Walker...which had an awesome secret ending.
-  Animal reserve is pointless, just an excuse to extract animals. Why not do something with them?
-  Being unable to fulton Helicopters even though you could capture them in Peace Walker.
-  Phantom Boss' optic nerve hallucinations never come into play. They mention it at the beginning and do nothing with it besides that Paz exploding scene.
-  That Paz exploding scene. Was she ever there? If she was, did she really explode or leave? Either way, it really amounted to nothing but nods to Peace Walker.
-  Being able to win Deployment missions with okay staff at 51% chance of completing it. What's the point of altering the teams to increase the percentage then?
-  Altering a Deployment team only lasts for that mission and is reverted back afterwards, so you have to continuously edit it after each mission.

That's all I can remember right now, and yeah it is a lot without even going into the story. Makes me wonder how its getting 10/10. Great game but incredibly flawed :/

Edited September 19, 2015 by LeetWolf2

[MrManBuz]

Now that I've given that image some thought I'd say it happens after mission 51. They were going to cover the whole island in napalm to kill the parasites and all the infected children. It'd explain why everything is a cinder and why Big Medic screams in insanity after seeing the destruction he caused. (assuming he returned afterwards to assess the damage and to make sure it's been contained and cleanup etc)

If that's actually what it is it pisses me off even more that it was cut.

Looks like it would be from Episode 52, considering it takes place on an Island , there's palm trees and what looks to be wreckage in the image.

I'm definitely disappointed in the game as a whole. I've been a fan of Metal Gear since MGS1, which I played when I was 5 and this game just doesn't feel like an MGS game to me. There are definitely moments where it does, but most of it doesn't and even before finding out about the cut content the ending felt abrupt.

I believe someone posted in this thread saying that "the open world is empty and Afghanistan feels like corridors connecting outposts", and I completely agree. For the first 15 hours of the game, doing all the side content that became available as I went along I felt the exact same way and (yes, this probably sounds a bit crazy) but I questioned whether there was something wrong with me. I was playing an MGS game that I wasn't enjoying. Riding from outpost to outpost, trying to get past unnoticed just so I could get to the side op I wanted to do was boring. It was actually getting me pretty upset because, like I just said I was questioning whether I had a problem. Then I discovered the fact that you could just press select and go back to the ACC whenever you wanted. From that point on the game felt like Camp Omega from Ground Zeroes, since I was just being transported exactly where I wanted to go and could focus on exactly what I wanted to do.

There are still things that bug me about the game though and there are quite a few so I'm gonna put them in list form:

- Cracks you can climb only appear in very specific places

- Rocks can make you slide down them continuously when trying to climb or run over them, but can be traversed easily by going at a very different angle

- Afghanistan not feeling open at all since you're blocked by unclimbable mountains everywhere

- The FOB system is still active even if you're offline (meaning people can attack your base and take your stuff while you're sleeping)

- The staff management system not needing any micromanagement whatsoever (which I always loved doing it myself in PW)

- Fuel resources being needed for everything despite being incredibly scarce

- S-Ranks can be obtained regardless of how badly you mess up

- Limit on the amount of things that can be developed at once

- Difficulty in obtaining a consistent amount of legendary status soldiers as opposed to PW

- Certain staff members can never be dismissed

- Quiet leaving for good after I spent well over 2 million GMP on her. God damn golddigger, gimme my money back T_T

- Hidden cutscenes locked out after progressing past a certain part of the game

- Custom music being available in GZ but not TPP

- Aside from 2 rooms, being unable to go inside Mother Base and truly interact and bond with your soldiers

- Cassette tapes needing more comical ones like "The Hamburgers of Kazuhira Miller"

- Cassette tapes needing more David Bowie...okay, that's just me being picky

- Most of the story missions just feeling like Side Ops with bits of story forced in

- Lack of variety in Side Ops....This game seriously needed some PooYan

- Padding the game out with replaying older missions but under different settings. Should have been a challenge mode or something.

- The Truth being literally the same gameplay mission with only 2 altered cutscenes. Playing as Ishmael instead would have been awesome

- No Skullface fight

- No true Burning Man/Volgin fight

- No Psycho Mantis fight

- The Boss fights were good but not up to MGS standards

- Best scene in the game is the intro. It was also the only one spoiled by pre-release footage. Nothing else in the game reaches that high note.

- No secret ending, even though this and GZ are sequels to Peace Walker...which had an awesome secret ending

- Animal reserve is pointless, just an excuse to extract animals. Why not do something with them?

That's all I can remember right now, and yeah it is a lot without even going into the story. Makes me wonder how its getting 10/10. Great game but incredibly flawed :/

There is not a single point I don't agree with there. Even down to the questioning of oneself.

Edited September 19, 2015 by MrManBuz

[HaSoOoN-MHD]

How the hell are those scenes cheapened by it not being Big Boss?

And Big Boss is evil. We get this information not from second hand sources, but from him directly in MG2. Anyone remember that little speech of his? fucked up.

 

The more I replay the ending the more I like it. Venom Snake definitely rebels against Big boss in the end.

[Confon]

The more I think about the ending, the more I like it, now I accept it as one of my favorite endings ever, for real. I read this and made me think about maybe the whole idea Kojima wanted to show. 

 

Moving ahead. The Mirror scene. 

So now we know the truth. We are not Big Boss. Venom Snake than listens to cassette tape number 46 as the real Big Boss reveals his plan…they are both Big Boss and they both need to keep the legend alive. However there are a few interesting things going around here other than the monologue.

During the monologue, you can clearly see Diamond Dogs’ insignia in the back door through the mirror.

 

The monologue ends and then Big Medic turns over the cassette tape, only to find Operation Intrude N313 written. He inserts it into what seems like MSX which is placed besides MSX 2, the original platforms on which Metal Gear [1987] and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake were released on.

 

 

The tape plays but it seems like that the message is decoded [for the player], something that only Big Boss and Venom Snake can understand. My assumption here is that there was a time skip of 11 years. How? See the image below. The Diamond insignia has changed into Outer Heaven’s.

 

Another point to note is that Venom is apparently not happy with whatever Big Boss told him in that decoded message which makes him a demon [big horn indicates that] as he smashes the mirror only to reveal the real Big Boss on the other side in a metaphoric sense. See how the mirror reflection does not have the horn and bionic arm. That tape had something on it which completely annoyed the hell out of Big Medic. My assumption here is that Big Boss has revealed to him that he will die at the hands of Solid Snake during the Outer Heaven events of 1995.

 

His smashing of mirror indicates a couple of things:

He IS Big Boss now. The mirror shows that there are actually 2 persons standing on the opposite sides and Venom feels cheated after whatever he heard in that decoded message.

There is smoke and mirrors, which is is a metaphor for a deception, lies and even in some cases inadequate explanation. The funny thing is all of these three words apply to the ending of The Phantom Pain. Maybe Venom was lied by Big Boss leading him to unleash his inner demon or maybe all of The Phantom Pain was a deception plan by Big Boss…to deceive the player a.k.a. Venom Snake…or perhaps there is no explanation at all and the smoke and mirror scene is left to the imagination of the player. Things become more interesting when we consider the 4th ending of the game, where Venom Snake delivers a monologue speech to Big Boss, expressing his agreement to Big Boss’ vision. However it’s safe to assume that the 4th ending takes place in the same time setting i.e. 1984 and the mirror smashing scene takes place in 1995.

The big question though, what was that decoded message?

 

Truth be told, I don’t know. However in Ground Zeroes, the player finds a cassette tape titled Classified Intel Data with an instruction that states: Do Not Play In Music Player. Do you know what it contains? It contains the same sound file that Venom plays in the ending. Some users at MSX forums tried to decode the tape found in Ground Zeroes and have managed to find CLOAD header and filename out of it: “VOL2”. If am not wrong, VOL2 indicates Volume 2, which possibly means there is a Volume 1 possibly floating around in The Phantom Pain or Ground Zeroes. If this is really a thing, it could possibly decode that message.

Perhaps there is a secret message in there. Who knows really and we may never know.

Source: http://gamingbolt.com/metal-gear-solid-5-the-phantom-pains-ending-is-bizarre-and-possibly-beyond-anyones-imagination

Edited September 20, 2015 by Confon

[PSNQuinnMcLeod]

The more I think about the ending, the more I like it, now I accept it as one of my favorite endings ever, for real. I read this and made me think about maybe the whole idea Kojima wanted to show. 

 

Most of the things you point out are pretty obvious and nothing new to me at least. The problem most people have with the ending is not really the fact that there are two Big Bosses, that IMO is a cool idea. The problem is that we did not get the real Big Boss' story. We did not see how exactly Diamond Dogs turned into Outer Heaven. Instead we get a time jump to 11 years later? And a short scene showing how Venom Snake is mad? Ehm... ok. Not great I think.

[Happy]

Some more analysis worth looking into.

[PSNQuinnMcLeod]

Some more analysis worth looking into.

 

Interesting, and I agree with many of the things he says, although I hate BunnyHop. Unsubscribed to him months ago. I just can't listen to him anymore. He sounds like a guy who loves to hear himself talk. And he is overreacting over many of the gameplay "flaws". The helicopter waiting was never a problem for me. Maybe he should call them sooner?

The gameplay is great. The good points definitely are overshadowing the bad points. Even the twist is good, just not good enough to rob us of the whole real Big Boss story. One of his best points though: Personality of the characters! Big Boss and Ocelot turned into boring people just for this game, I don't know how or why. (Well at least for Ocelot I don't know why)

Edited September 22, 2015 by PSNQuinnMcLeod

[Happy]

Interesting, although I hate BunnyHop. Unsubscribed to him months ago. I just can't listen to him anymore. He sounds like a guy who loves to hear himself talk.

 

He can get extremely full of himself. His recent E3 video suggests that he truly believes himself to be the greatest video game journalist the world has ever seen and everyone else is his sheep. That arrogance does come from the fact that he does know a whole lot about videogames though.

[PSNQuinnMcLeod]

He can get extremely full of himself. His recent E3 video suggests that he truly believes himself to be the greatest video game journalist the world has ever seen and everyone else is his sheep. That arrogance does come from the fact that he does know a whole lot about videogames though.

 

Not more than most other gamers. No reason to be arrogant.

Edited September 22, 2015 by PSNQuinnMcLeod

[TheHuNTEDgUy6]

The ending to mgsv was not what mattered at all but i still felt a bit pissed off when eli just fucks off with a world ending metal gear and snake, ocelot and miller are just like "huh whatever" and completely forget about it! WHAT! you can't be telling me that they just forgot without a peep from miler or ocelot! If they bring this out as DLC i'm gona be so pissed. Konami leaching off the fans , though i highly doubt they could do it in 4 months whilst they're company is slowly crumbling away. But i don't really care the gameplay is superb and addicting, i've already clocked over 200 hours which is a 2 thirds of my total skyrim playtime in only 3 weeksand i still haven't finished the game to 100% yet!

[HaSoOoN-MHD]

Ocelot isn't boring he's just genuine and its great seeing that side of his character when interacting with Boss. 

 

The mirror scene is rejection, not acceptance.

 

Also an interesting idea is all of the Big boss games are one big link. MGS3 is about his rejection of countries, foundation of his ideology, PO is all about him becoming a leader, PW has him extending his philosophy to children [iMHO this was gimped because its a game marketed for fucking otaku or some bullshit like that, and it could have been done better in V but we do see some of it in his treatment of Chico. Not quite Zanzibar Land kids yet, but not moral either], GZ has him hiding nukes and TPP is his final moral slink where we just see him do the outright morally appalling, where his manipulative side starts showing.

 

Everything else in BB's life is just details that would be cool to see but nothing that really harm the game. I didn't lose on anything by not seeing Sniper Wolf or Fox or whatever, and the foundation of OH is also much of a detail in itself.

 

To me, I got what I really wanted. Big Boss losing his morality.

Edited September 23, 2015 by HaSoOoN-MHD

[Zeltorkid]

Before I state my opinion I just want to clarify that I agree that the story hasn't been handled the way it could have been. There are a lot of missed opportunities and I also would have like to see mission 51.

 

Having said that, I don't agree with the people who are saying we haven't seen Big Boss descent into madness. The problem is, we haven't seen it openly in this game but if you read between lines into Big Boss' complete story line you will see a thread.

 

  I'm not sure if this point was discussed (read only the first four pages) on any post but there is something that I think it wasn't touched. We have all become used to seeing Big Boss as a good person after Metal Gear Solid 3 but there is one point that has been introduced in Portable Ops that we have all ignored as its part of a gameplay mechanic. I'm talking about the "recruiting" of soldiers.

  I can't recall if this conversation happened in Peace Walker or Portable Ops but I remember that in one of those games, when the recruiting mechanic was introduced, one of the secondary characters stated that after taking these soldiers into the base, they would convince them on joining their ranks. The way it was worded implied that the convincing would be by torture and now knowing that Ocelot can wipe their minds we have heavy hints that Big Boss is actually not only kidnapping soldiers but also enlisting them into a sort of cult. All these soldiers worship Big Boss into a point where they give him the power over their own lifes (we see this in the missions "Shining Lights, Even in Death") like if he was their god.

 

  What I'm going at is, Big Boss might have some noble idea (Solid Snake even agrees with him in the ending of MGS 4) but his methods stopped being good after how he was betrayed in Snake Eater. The thing is that since we are seeing everything from a his point of view, he doesn't see himself as a villain. In this game he even goes as far as stealing a man's life and transform him into a decoy just so that he can go ahead and continue with his grand scheme.

  But I don't believe that something else needs to happen for him to become "more" evil, he already is becoming evil gradually just having his vision of right or wrong blurred with each decission he takes.

Edited September 23, 2015 by Zeltorkid

[My_Name_Is_Age]

MAYBE, just MAYBE, Kojimas plan was to basically say, "Big Boss isn't as bad as we've been led to believe.." Instead, all what we know, or are told throughout the games, that can be interpreted as bad, was actually Venom Snake all along ..

I dunno, highly unlikely, but it's a thought.

[Happy]

MAYBE, just MAYBE, Kojimas plan was to basically say, "Big Boss isn't as bad as we've been led to believe.." Instead, all what we know, or are told throughout the games, that can be interpreted as bad, was actually Venom Snake all along ..

I dunno, highly unlikely, but it's a thought.

I've thought about that possibility. How somehow Big Boss's reputation is just a result of the patriots controlling the media, but i can't make his appearance in MG2 fit in. He's clearly a villain in that game.

[PSNQuinnMcLeod]

I just started playing MGS4 again and I was shocked at how different the presenation really is. And how much more I like it in MGS4. Sure, it was way too much cutscenes, but those scenes were all done so well. The music by Harry Gregson Williams, also something that is missing in MGSV. Just so much of what makes Metal Gear Metal Gear is missing in this new game. I love the gameplay, but there just needed to be more scenes in the game like the Hospital scene.

 

And like I said, I think the music also had so much influence and HGW was only a producer in this game. I just played the scene in MGS4 where you meet Meryls team and that combat unit is coming into the building and you have to get out together with Meryls team and a really cool intense music is starting.
It's something I never expierienced in MGSV. And that's really sad.

It's like... imagine Uncharted without all the cinematic scenes, it's like you take the core element away.

 

 

EDIT: I also kinda miss the names of the characters when they first appear. You can clearly see in MGSV that it was originally planned to still have this in the game (you can see it in early trailers) but I guess they removed it and went for credits before each mission instead.

Edited September 27, 2015 by PSNQuinnMcLeod

[No_Heart_Wesley]

Personally I did not like the ending reveal that you are phantom boss. This was supposed to be Big Boss and his decent into becoming a villain. I feel the fans didn't get that. But again that's just my feelings on the matter.

[PolarPhantom]

The ending to this game is like if Breaking Bad ended at Season 4.

 

And for those saying BB didn't cross the line, consider this: He agreed to a plan that rewrote one of his most loyal men into a phantom. He sacrificed his life to further his agenda, even if he didn't do it himself, even if it was Zero and Ocelot (both of whom are very much an ends justify the means type) he still went along with it, he never told Venom what was really going on in the hospital.

 

Now, think of this: Is what Big Boss did to Venom all that different to what the Us government, the CIA, Hot Coldman did to his mentor, The Boss?

Edited September 27, 2015 by PolarPhantom

[schicic]

Even though Kojima has said that Metal Gear Ghost Babel (Game boy color) is not cannon, I believe that the ending of MGSV is connected to it. Reasons:

 

-In Ghost Babel, the main villan is a man with a cybernetic left arm that can be fired like a remote control rocker

 

-His name is "V"iper (Viper, a venomous snake)

 

-He tells Solid Snake that he wants revenge of a "Fox" unit for killing his team

 

 

I also think he mentions Big Boss but I don't remember, I haven't played it in over 5 years. I can't seem to find it :/

 

 

[MrJordaaany]

Looks like it would be from Episode 52, considering it takes place on an Island , there's palm trees and what looks to be wreckage in the image.

I'm definitely disappointed in the game as a whole. I've been a fan of Metal Gear since MGS1, which I played when I was 5 and this game just doesn't feel like an MGS game to me. There are definitely moments where it does, but most of it doesn't and even before finding out about the cut content the ending felt abrupt.

I believe someone posted in this thread saying that "the open world is empty and Afghanistan feels like corridors connecting outposts", and I completely agree. For the first 15 hours of the game, doing all the side content that became available as I went along I felt the exact same way and (yes, this probably sounds a bit crazy) but I questioned whether there was something wrong with me. I was playing an MGS game that I wasn't enjoying. Riding from outpost to outpost, trying to get past unnoticed just so I could get to the side op I wanted to do was boring. It was actually getting me pretty upset because, like I just said I was questioning whether I had a problem. Then I discovered the fact that you could just press select and go back to the ACC whenever you wanted. From that point on the game felt like Camp Omega from Ground Zeroes, since I was just being transported exactly where I wanted to go and could focus on exactly what I wanted to do.

 

There are still things that bug me about the game though and there are quite a few so I'm gonna put them in list form:

-  Cracks you can climb only appear in very specific places.

-  Rocks can make you slide down them continuously when trying to climb or run over them, but can be traversed easily by going at a very different angle.

-  Afghanistan not feeling open at all since you're blocked by unclimbable mountains everywhere.

-  The FOB system is still active even if you're offline. (meaning people can attack your base and take your stuff while you're sleeping)

-  The staff management system not needing any micromanagement whatsoever. (which I always loved doing it myself in PW)

-  Fuel resources being needed for everything despite being incredibly scarce.

-  S-Ranks can be obtained regardless of how badly you mess up.

-  Limit on the amount of things that can be developed at once.

-  Difficulty in obtaining a consistent amount of legendary status soldiers as opposed to PW.

-  Certain staff members can never be dismissed.

-  Quiet leaving for good after I spent well over 2 million GMP on her. God damn golddigger, gimme my money back. T_T

-  Hidden cutscenes locked out after progressing past a certain part of the game.

-  Custom music being available in GZ but not TPP.

-  Aside from 2 rooms, being unable to go inside Mother Base and truly interact and bond with your soldiers.

-  Cassette tapes needing more comical ones like "The Hamburgers of Kazuhira Miller".

-  Cassette tapes needing more David Bowie...okay, that's just me being picky.

-  Most of the story missions just feeling like Side Ops with bits of story forced in.

-  Lack of variety in Side Ops....This game seriously needed some PooYan.

-  Padding the game out with replaying older missions but under different settings. Should have been a challenge mode or something.

-  The Truth being literally the same gameplay mission with only 2 altered cutscenes. Playing as Ishmael instead would have been awesome.

-  No Skull Face fight.

-  No true Burning Man/Volgin fight.

-  No Psycho Mantis fight.

-  The Boss fights were good but not up to MGS standards.

-  Best scene in the game is the intro. It was also the only one spoiled by pre-release footage. Nothing else in the game reaches that high note.

-  No secret ending, even though this and GZ are sequels to Peace Walker...which had an awesome secret ending.

-  Animal reserve is pointless, just an excuse to extract animals. Why not do something with them?

-  Being unable to fulton Helicopters even though you could capture them in Peace Walker.

-  Phantom Boss' optic nerve hallucinations never come into play. They mention it at the beginning and do nothing with it besides that Paz exploding scene.

-  That Paz exploding scene. Was she ever there? If she was, did she really explode or leave? Either way, it really amounted to nothing but nods to Peace Walker.

-  Being able to win Deployment missions with okay staff at 51% chance of completing it. What's the point of altering the teams to increase the percentage then?

-  Altering a Deployment team only lasts for that mission and is reverted back afterwards, so you have to continuously edit it after each mission.

That's all I can remember right now, and yeah it is a lot without even going into the story. Makes me wonder how its getting 10/10. Great game but incredibly flawed :/

 

 

First of all, I love Metal Gear to pieces, and I've put in over 100 hours into MGSV, so these thoughts are honest and im not firing shots for the sake of it.

 

 

LeetWolf, it's like you read my mind. All your points in that list are spot on. I too was heavily comparing this game to Peace Walker, and don't understand how it can be less complete, less polished, and have less content than a PSP game.

 

 

"The staff management system not needing any micromanagement whatsoever" I am so glad I am not the only one who thought this. It disconnects you from taking interest in the staff you obtain. There profiles are also less lacking, no quotes or anything, so there is never really any reason to look at them. And their ranks are purely there just to level up your teams.

 

In Peace Walker, staff you obtained were ranked across a variety of traits, including reload speed, walking speed, aiming, CQC strength, psyche, Health etc. You had reason to take out another staff member over Snake because they were better than him or gave an advantage he didn't have. In MGSV there is literally no difference, other than appearance, for each staff member you take out plays the same (as far as I can tell). In fact, you are at a disadvantage because if you upgrade Phantom Bosses arm all the way, you can run fast, draw your weapon faster, climb fast etc. Not to mention that fact you have no radar if you take out any other member. Why there is no radar equipment to research is beyond me.

 

Also the tools available to sort through all your staff was lacking compared to Peace Walker. In Peace Walker you could arrange staff based off their ranking in whatever unit they were good at. So you could easily sort the waiting room by top combat members, then move them, then sort by medical, and move them etc. You could also have over flow in each unit while you were moving units around as long as you sorted it out again. You can't do that in MGSV so its a pain to have to drag people out of one unit into the waiting room just to assign X amount of decent folk back into that unit.

 

Plus once teams were full (and Im not sure this is a bug) it wouldn't auto assign staff properly. Many times I had better staff in the awaiting room than in my teams, and even when I used the auto assign option it wouldn't move them. Frustrating and half-assed.

 

 

I also agree with Mother Base being practically empty. Compared to how all the trailers sold it, MB was shit empty with nothing to do. Even Peace Walker had a decent shooting range, they missed opportunity for an awesome big shooting range on Mother Base in V.

 

No variety in side ops, less weapons (Where’s my fulton gustav rocket launcher?), empty world for the most part, no decent boss fights, the list goes on. All your points are exactly my thoughts and it's been a bummer coming to terms with how lacking this game is.

 

Apart from top-notch gameplay and controls, Peace Walker was a better game in literally every way and for me is the last decent Metal Gear game.

 

I find my closure in being not the only one who feels like this.

Edited October 2, 2015 by Grey__Ghost67

[RHGSniperFox]

I've thought about that possibility. How somehow Big Boss's reputation is just a result of the patriots controlling the media, but i can't make his appearance in MG2 fit in. He's clearly a villain in that game.

Is he really, though?

Or was he just misguidedly doing what he thought was neccesary, like so many of the other "villains" in the series? His final speech to Solid Snake, for instance, doesn't sound any more evil than Solidus' speech to Raiden, when he starts explaining what his ultimate goal was. And it's difficult to convey any actual emotion when all you have is text and a static image to go by. We don't really know how he was really conveying his thoughts - we just assume they're in a threatening manner because we're told "Hey, that's the bad guy. He's bad."

We were also told Solidus was the bad guy - but when we learn of his goals, we realize that he's really not, and that The Patriots are the real evil. Solidus did bad things - but so has everyone else in the Metal Gear universe. None of the characters really have a clean backstory.

Think back to The Boss in MGS3. How she went down as a war criminal - one of the worst in that universe's history. We know she wasn't. We know that she was literally only doing what she was actually told to do. Everything she did - giving Volgin the Davy Crockett, etc. - was all part of her actual mission - to get into Volgin's ranks and steal the Philosopher's Legacy for America. Operation: Snake Eater was nothing but a BS story, covering up what they really wanted to do.

The CIA was AFRAID of The Boss. They were afraid of what she was capable of - her message of making the world whole? They didn't like that. So they had her killed. And they had her killed by Naked Snake.

My thoughts are this - people were expecting a "downfall" or a "Darth Vader" moment. Big Boss bloody and beaten, screaming in rage at Miller over something.

But what if that moment already occurred for Big Boss?

The moment he pulls the trigger and essentially murders the only person he likely loved, or trusted. All the way back in 1964.

What could possibly be worse for him than that moment? What could possibly give him more of a reason to turn against his country and the world as a whole - that wouldn't come off as petty, thus ruining the idea of his revenge?

Going back to The Boss - the CIA was afraid of her, and had her killed. Cipher is afraid of Big Boss - and Cipher is not Zero. Metal Gear is a series that epitomizes the lesson of "history repeats itself". The whole Big Boss/Solid Snake trope has been repeated throughout the ages, and it started in 1964.

 

What if, instead of Big Boss being a villain...he was villainized in the same way The Boss was? Think about it. Up until MGS3, we always thought Big Boss was just evil. Evil for the sake of evil. We didn't know the real story behind him.

Much like the world didn't know the real story behind The Boss. Metal Gear 1 and 2 were our history books - and they depicted Big Boss as a monster. Yet from what we've seen - he never was.

There are 2 ways I think this plays out.

Either Venom Snake serves as a full on decoy, and sacrifices himself so that Big Boss can build Outer Heaven in peace, until he's ready to actually retaliate against Cipher once and for all.

Or Venom Snake loses his grip on reality and goes insane, becoming an actual threat - which forces Big Boss to put him down, at the risk of exposing himself to Cipher.

Remember, Big Boss was the leader of Foxhound in MG1, and your commanding officer - Campbell was your commanding officer in MG2.

In version 1 - Venom Snake is calling all the shots, and is the Big Boss you talk to at any given time, whether he's giving you actual advice, or trying to kill you. Foxhound is possibly a Cipher front, and Big Boss knows it [Thus putting Venom Snake in charge of it] - so they stage an uprising at "Outer Heaven" [Which could possibly be Mother Base - it's never said where it actually is, that I know of. And Solid Snake did have to enter by water.] to get Cipher to send someone - that someone being Solid Snake - to take out who they think is the real Big Boss, keeping them off of the real Big Boss' tail, at least for a little while. It turns out to be a decoy, and they replace Big Boss with Campbell. Big Boss starts his real uprising in Zanzibarland, where Cipher attempts to kill him again.

In version 2, Venom Snake goes mad, and can't cope with being 2 people. He becomes an unstable threat that needs to be dealt with [i mean, the guy likely has a nuke, and a Metal Gear]. Foxhound is actually run by the real Big Boss, and he sends in Solid Snake. The helpful advice you receive during the game is the real Big Boss - the advice that tries to kill you is Venom Snake screwing around with you. Venom Snake is killed, and Big Boss tries to go back into hiding, leaving Foxhound behind. Cipher takes it over, and puts Campbell in Big Boss' place. They find Big Boss, but not before he's able to stage his real uprising at Zanzibarland. They attempt to kill him again.

The Miller/Big Boss seperation? The fact that Big Boss would even work with Zero in something like this decoy operation. He feels betrayed by his friend - despite the fact that Zero never really had any ties to what happened to Mother Base originally, he still didn't trust him since he did start Cipher. And Zero was the one that had Big Boss cloned without his consent.

In MG2, Miller refers to Big Boss as "a monster" at one point. Maybe he feels that way because Big Boss sided with who Miller felt was the enemy. We see how he acts when he even suspects a person of working with Cipher. Just look at how he treats Quiet. And Huey. Hell, even the arms dealer if you extract him from the mission "The War Economy" - he gets thrown in the brig, while the soldier gets placed within Diamond Dogs. He's got a blind rage towards Cipher, and anyone that even remotely is connected to them, in his eyes, is the enemy.

 

Both Peace Walker and Phantom Pain claim to bridge the game between MGS3 and MG1. And in a way, they do. Not in the way I think a lot of people maybe expected - but they do. And they do actually answer some questions that people had - like how the hell did Big Boss manage to survive between MG1 and 2 [He never died]? And why the hell would Gray Fox want to work with a guy who was literally JUST holding him hostage as a prisoner of war [He didn't]?

Miller seeing Big Boss side with Zero could easily be taken as a monstrous move to him.

 

I honestly feel like people are having the same problem they did with Metal Gear Solid 2 - in that they're taking it literally. MGS2, when it came out, was meant to be abstract. It was meant for players to question and decide for themselves what really happened there, and if any of the events that transpired were real. [THAT'S what makes MGS4 a fairly bad entry in the series, storywise. It ruins MGS2's appeal by making those events, real. It's not the callbacks and reveals of old characters being connected - that's all neccesary for a story that tries to wrap up 20+ years of plot that was never meant to go past the 4th entry in the series [MGS2].]

MGSV could be the same way. Maybe it's not a literal transformation into a villain. Maybe there is no downfall, other than the one we saw already in MGS3. Big Boss didn't become a demon.

He was demonized.

He and The Boss suffer the same fate, ultimately.

Edited October 2, 2015 by Venom Fox