Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes/The Phantom Pain

[Bjorn Lucas]

How can you blame Konami for Kojima and his team's awful story direction and writing in the Phantom Pain? The fact that they weren't able to finish the game in the time given to them, says more about them, than it does Konami.

Metal Gear 1 to 4 had sublime storytelling!!!
5 fails in that department hard,... something went wrong during putting this game together, if you played the other metal gears then it should be obvious!!

and what neema says he is a overrated storyteller, but if you like the way he is telling it, he is 1 of the best.
and this should be his ultimate moment supreme, and it isn't

 

[Lain]

That said, I personally don't blame Konami for the plot because Kojima has always been a hack and I can totally believe he was given free reign over that department. He's a totally overrated storyteller but easily one of the best, if not the best, game designers ever. I do blame Konami for the complete collapse of the game after the first act, though; of course there's no proof but I get the feeling Kojima prepared three full acts, Konami gave it the green light and then, late into development, said "Actually sorry Hideo, mate, you've only got half the time we agreed on and you're already out of cash, deal w/it lol ;D" which forced him to bring the story to an abrupt "end" then just add some padding so that it wasn't embarrassingly short.

Aside from PT which has brilliant storytelling for what it is, my only experience with Kojima's storytelling is with MGS4/5. I think people who criticize Kojima's ability as a storyteller based on MGS are maybe missing the point... to me, it seems that MGS's story is intentionally bad/cheesy/ridiculous for comedic effect... at least to an extent. Kind of like the videogame equivalent of, say, Sharknado.

But to be fair, I'm also of the opinion that some of the people who praise Kojima's storytelling in MGS are probably also missing this point and legitimately think that these game's stories are Shakespearean.

 

[NLxAROSA]

I've said it a couple of times before, but they should have just made an act 1, then add the remaining real missions as an epilogue. Have the extreme/subsistence/total stealth option as an option for every mission. Game would have been perfect. Short maybe, but perfect. And I honestly don't understand why Konami caved in to self-entitled games and brought back Quiet. She's supposed to be dead/left, why bring her back? Unless there was some additional story explaining why she came back, but this is not the case. I totally loved the fact that this game did the not so obviousy thing and let your companion die/leave. But apparently that was too much for today faint-hearted kiddies.

 

[Bjorn Lucas]

Aside from PT which has brilliant storytelling for what it is, my only experience with Kojima's storytelling is with MGS4/5. I think people who criticize Kojima's ability as a storyteller based on MGS are maybe missing the point... to me, it seems that MGS's story is intentionally bad/cheesy/ridiculous for comedic effect... at least to an extent. Kind of like the videogame equivalent of, say, Sharknado.

But to be fair, I'm also of the opinion that some of the people who praise Kojima's storytelling in MGS are probably also missing this point and legitimately think that these game's stories are Shakespearean.

Dude,... mgs 1 3 en 4 have awesome stories with bad guys you will remember forever, a bit absurd, with a joke here and there, but if you compair it too sharknado you are compairing a school fight with 2 kids involved with World war 2

 

[Lain]

Sharknado was maybe a bad example, because it's both intentionally ridiculous and intentionally bad. MGS just carries the "intentionally ridiculous" Sharknado genes.

Maybe a more apt example would be Fooly Cooly. That 🤬 is all kinds of crazy bananas, but it's also got semi-serious moments and interesting characters you care about. It's great, but it doesn't click for everybody.

 

[Bjorn Lucas]

Sharknado was maybe a bad example, because it's both intentionally ridiculous and intentionally bad. MGS just carries the "intentionally ridiculous" Sharknado genes.

Maybe a more apt example would be Fooly Cooly. That 🤬 is all kinds of crazy bananas, but it's also got semi-serious moments and interesting characters you care about. It's great, but it doesn't click for everybody.

never heard of it,... gonna be on my to see list

 

[prisonermonkeys]

How can you blame Konami for Kojima and his team's awful story direction and writing in the Phantom Pain?

Because you never, EVER blame the autere.

 

[Bjorn Lucas]

Because you never, EVER blame the autere.

if you played the previous metal gears, you know the storytelling in this game is the worst in the series.
its a shame because the gameplay has never been beter

 

[Jawehawk]

I liked the story in MGS4 a lot. Yeah, it was a bit convoluted at times, and the writing wasn't always great, but overall, I really enjoyed it. Bear in mind that that was my first game in the franchise. MGS2 was pretty interesting as well, but can't say I enjoyed the story in MGS3, aside from anything involving Ocelot.

But The Phantom Pain just takes it to new lows. I genuinely can't find a single part of the story that I don't find awful.

While it's fair to consider the possibility that Konami are the ones to blame, I don't think we should completely rule out that Kojima and his team lacked a sense of direction for the game. Frankly, I'm not seeing at least 3 years of development time in the actual story part of MGS V. And I find it hard to believe that Konami would suddenly impose all kinds of limitations on the script and so on, when that does not seem to have been the case in earlier games.

 

[Bjorn Lucas]

probably we will never know,....

but as grumpy cat says:

 

[prisonermonkeys]

But The Phantom Pain just takes it to new lows. I genuinely can't find a single part of the story that I don't find awful.

I think that the core plot is actually pretty fascinating:

Spoiler

The idea of eradicating languages to create a unified world in line with The Boss' vision is brilliant. And the whole idea of "revenge parasitising the mind" is pretty compelling and a nice change in pace compared to the rest of popular culture, where the hero inevitably discovers that taking revenge will bring no satisfaction.

The problem is that Kojima tried to make Zero a tragic villain. Large parts of the story revolve around characters who were once fighting for a noble cause getting so carried away that they strayed from their original path, and now they are simply fighting for a place in history. It's no longer about ideology, but recognition. All of that is pretty confronting, high-end stuff to deal with, but Kojima's solution was to have Skull Face wrest control of Cipher away from Zero, and that's how we got into the convoluted mess metallic archaea and Sahelanthropus as both provocation and deterrent. If Kojima has just kept Zero as the villain, stayed with the vocal chord parasites and left the metallic archaea out of it, it would have been fine.

 

[VEXD]

I think that discounting this story as poor is akin to saying that Star Wars episode two was a poor chapter in the saga.
Let's not forget that this is a small part of a large story arc.
And while I too did not like discovering that some missions are repeated later in the game for padding, I think overall this chapter of the story of the snakes fits in well and therefore the game seats itself nicely into the lore of MGS.

I do think that having the option to do every mission In a subsistence fashion should be there though.
But there truly is nothing to stop you attempting that if you turn reflex off and go in empty handed....

👍

 

[TenEightyOne]

I do think that having the option to do every mission In a subsistence fashion should be there though.
But there truly is nothing to stop you attempting that if you turn reflex off and go in empty handed....

I agree, and I agree. I rather wonder if that's the point in a way, to show players the most fun way to approach a mission. That said, I wouldn't fancy fighting Sahelanthropus in just my shreddies with half-a-mag I stole from some stunned dude.

To encourage that it would be good if points/GMP/whatever also reflected the armour level you send a character in with like FOB missions do with crap characters.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I rather wonder if that's the point in a way, to show players the most fun way to approach a mission.

Some of the missions would be incredibly difficult to do that way - like "To Know Too Much"; if you rescue the XOF agent at Da Shago Kallai, the Soviets will find the CIA agent in the desert and escort him to Lamar Khaate Palace. Once he's there, an invisible countdown timer begins, and he will be executed if you're too slow. To make matters worse, you trip an event whereby an officer will be called to the prison, which will in turn slash the remaining time allowed. It's hard enough with a full loadout; doing a Subsistence run would be nigh on impossible.

Of course, you could just sprint or ride D-Horse to the CIA agent in the desert and extract him before the Soviets can find him, but where's the fun in that?

 

[TenEightyOne]

Some of the missions would be incredibly difficult to do that way...

True... I should have said "some" rather than implying that they all would.

 

[Jawehawk]

I think that the core plot is actually pretty fascinating:

Spoiler

The idea of eradicating languages to create a unified world in line with The Boss' vision is brilliant. And the whole idea of "revenge parasitising the mind" is pretty compelling and a nice change in pace compared to the rest of popular culture, where the hero inevitably discovers that taking revenge will bring no satisfaction.

The problem is that Kojima tried to make Zero a tragic villain. Large parts of the story revolve around characters who were once fighting for a noble cause getting so carried away that they strayed from their original path, and now they are simply fighting for a place in history. It's no longer about ideology, but recognition. All of that is pretty confronting, high-end stuff to deal with, but Kojima's solution was to have Skull Face wrest control of Cipher away from Zero, and that's how we got into the convoluted mess metallic archaea and Sahelanthropus as both provocation and deterrent. If Kojima has just kept Zero as the villain, stayed with the vocal chord parasites and left the metallic archaea out of it, it would have been fine.

Sorry for the late reply, but here goes.

Spoiler

See, the problems I have with the whole language thing is A, what exactly is the purpose of getting rid of certain languages, and B, the thought that you could activate a virus, or whatever the hell it was, by speaking a certain language. It was just plain stupid to me. The nano machines in MGS4 might be way ahead of their time, but they're not completely unreasonable in their application. The virus in MGS V is just silly. And what would really be accomplished by eliminating a language, as well as most, if not all, who speak it? You're not creating a unified world, you are destroying massive parts of it, to leave a certain segment behind. And why did Skullface want to do this in the first place? I also never understood what Zero's objective was. He trained Paz and sent her on her mission, but he also kept Big Boss safe after the events in Cuba.

And we've been over this before, but wow, Skullface is such an underused and boring antagonist. The ride in the 4X4 with him was super awkward, and made zero sense. Big Boss is like the worst operator ever, literally putting his life at the mercy of the incompetence of whoever has a gun.

The metallic archaea was the stuff that was supposed to disable the nuclear bombs that Skullface sold, right? I don't even know how his dealings with various PMC's fit into the storyline. Nor do I understand why he sold equipment such as Walker Gears to PMC's in Africa, or why the Soviets were working with him, and did nothing when he started selling off their equipment, or killing Soviet soldiers.

Quiet is an enigma to me as well. She is kept alive by the virus thingy and her thirst for revenge. What revenge? On Big Boss? Why? She tried to kill him when she was part of Cipher, and he defended himself. Hardly seems fair to hold a grudge on him after that. The whole photosynthesis was also just plain stupid, not to mention I don't think it was ever explained why only she had that ability, or flaw, depending on how you look at it. Considering the things she'd done, without really having done anything to redeem herself, I felt no pity for her towards the end of the game.

In short, I don't think I ahve a reasonable grasp on the story, because it was poorly told. A lot of info is in the casette tapes, but for the most part, I'm doing other things while listening to them, which means I'm no doubt missing some important stuff. MGS4 might have had long cut scenes, but for me, most of the dialogue and the movie like excecution of them, held my interest enough for me to fully understand the story and the universe. Dispite it being my very first MGS game.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Spoiler

See, the problems I have with the whole language thing is A, what exactly is the purpose of getting rid of certain languages, and B, the thought that you could activate a virus, or whatever the hell it was, by speaking a certain language.

Spoiler

By getting rid of all of the languages except English, Cipher would force people to adopt a common tongue in order to survive. It would then be easier for them to share ideas and reconcile their differences, thus ending conflict.

The parasites would be activated by speech. The vocal chords resonate and vibrate as air passes over them; that's how we produce speech. As different languages have different pronunciations, the resonant frequency would be different for each family of languages. These vibrations would stimulate the parasites, who would be attuned to them; as there was (to Cipher's knowledge) no English-language strain, no speaker of English could be infected.

Spoiler

You're not creating a unified world, you are destroying massive parts of it, to leave a certain segment behind. And why did Skullface want to do this in the first place?

Spoiler

Once it became obvious that certain languages were not safe to speak, people would adopt safe languages. Over time, the old languages would be forgotten.

As for Skull Face, he didn't want to destroy all languages - just English. He saw the adoption of a common language as tantamount to cultural imperialism, and the root of all conflict. His plan was to revive the vocal chord parasite project to covertly develop the English-language strain. He planned to release it and destroy English, and then as a means of safeguarding individual cultures, make nuclear weapons available to every group that wanted them, creating a state of unilateral deterrence. But in order to prevent a full-scale conflict, he would use the metallic archaea to retain control over nuclear weapons so that no conflict could ever start - no culture could ever try and impose itself over another (unless Skull Face wanted it to).

As for supplying the private forces in Africa, it was a means of raising funds to pay for his scheme without arousing Zero's suspicions.

 

[sesselpupser]

Kojima completely lost me with the Resident Evil crap, I have to say. I know it's supposed to be a B-movie plot but even a well-written B-movie is still just trash. I'm not saying I want MGS to be a straight-faced Call of Duty style thing where one man saves the world, but there's MGS silliness that I love and then there's missing the mark. The recurring Johnny Sasaki character, Genolla, the Snake Tales, the Marines in their underwear, that's all good silly. A man with no face and a silly hat using

Spoiler

parasites that like the English language, then something about nuclear weapons and a naked woman who breathes through her skin?

Please. It's just dreadful.

MGS 4 wasn't far off with the B&B unit, but on the whole IF you're ok with the nanomachine thing it wasn't too laughable. Peace Walker was pretty dumb - a walking nuclear missile silo killed itself because of reasons, great, also a tiny girl was a spy who stole my Metal Gear or something, who even cares? MGS 2 with the whole thing of it being a reskin of MGS was quite galling, too. I mean, what, an AI developed a training programme to see if you could make a boyband into someone with crazy skills, I'm getting bored even just trying to remember the sheer nonsense of it all.

And yet the gameplay is so good I'll happily sit there and skip every cutscene and CODEC call (sadly I can't remember which ones are entertaining so I skip the lot) to carry on playing.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Kojima's problem isn't so much the story he is telling, but the way that he goes about telling it. MGS V has some really challenging, compelling ideas if you're paying attention, but they are let down by clumsy story-telling.

 

[JR98]

Got this yesterday and currently 6.5 hours into it, got 5 missions and 2 side ops done and am at the end of Mission 10 currently. Really liking it so far however mission 5 was a pain in the 🤬 for me as it took 4 attempts just to fulton the prisoner without him dying. This is easily the best game I've played this year so far.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

took 4 attempts just to fulton the prisoner without him dying

Fulton isn't your only option. It's quick, but risky, especially early in the game. You can carry him out on your back, put him in a jeep and drive out, or take him to a landing zone and call Pequod. If losing people to Fulton is still a problem, try upgrading your Fulton system or raising the level of the support unit (if you have it).

One of the bonus objectives for that mission is to Fulton him through the hole in the roof. If you move him to the large storeroom opposite the cell, you can send him out that way. The advantage is that the guards are unlikely to spot him and shoot him down.

 

[TayeezSA]

Just finished Mission 31, I had fun with MGSV up to now. Quiet is a bomb, as the hype is with her.

But low and behold the missions after 31 are 🤬 hard. Subsistence, Extreme and Total Stealh are just way too difficult and I agree with the sentiments of having the final story missions as an epilogue and have those other crazy missions as a side. Could have been executed way better than that.

I'm resorting to a Walkthrough for the crazy missions now. This is just too much.

 

[Ettick]

My problem with MGSV is that the whole point of the story was to

Spoiler

set up why/how Big Boss created Venom Snake, which is who you play as in MGSV and who later appears in Metal Gear 1 so it's actually pretty insignificant in terms of the whole series imo. It still doesn't explain a lot about how Big Boss became "evil" later on. And there's also just a lot of other stuff left unfinished but I guess that's a general fault of the game.

Overall I liked the game I just wish they would have had more story driven missions. Not my favorite MGS game by far but it was pretty good. At least it wasn't just a massive cutscene like 4 was.

 

[TayeezSA]

After a quick Google Search, I just found out that I don't have to do those ridiculously hard rehash missions just to progress through to the true ending. OH MY GIDDY-YOD that is such a relief.

Gonna try finish this soon so I can see what the fuss is about with the story.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I just found out that I don't have to do those ridiculously hard rehash missions just to progress through to the true ending

You do, however, have to do some really hard "original" missions.

 

[JR98]

About 20% through it now and finally got a silenced sniper rifle for Quiet and also upgraded my M2000-D so it has a silencer as well. I've also upgraded my Fulton so now it's actually able to lift containers and vehicles.

How many missions are there in this game? Also how many different locations are there as well?

 

[Tired Tyres]

This game is £29.99 in the 12 days of Christmas sale on the PSN today.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

How many missions are there in this game? Also how many different locations are there as well?

Regarding missions:

Spoiler

There are 50 missions in the game. After Episode 31, you do the post-game missions, many of which are retreads of previous missions, but with higher difficulty settings - "Extreme", which lowers your health and increases the damage you take while rasing enemy health and decreasing the damage you deal; "Total Stealth", which creates an instant mission fail upon being spotted; and "Subsistence", which takes away all of your weapons and items so that you have to procure everything in the field. There are also some additional "original" missions which continue the story.

There are also 150 Side Ops.

As for locations:

Spoiler

There are four:

- Cyprus, which is only used for revounting the events at the hospital.
- Afghanistan, where the first set of missions take place.
- Angola-Zaire, which you will unlock with Episode 13.
- Mother Base, where a few Side Ops and story missions take place.

Both Afghanistan and Africa have about a dozen individual locations (like Da Wialo Kallai) within them.

Also, silenced and tranquilised sniper rifles are massively overpowered.

 

[JR98]

Spoiler

Just did Episode 31 and that final boss fight was a lot easier than I expected. took 3 tries but all Ireally had to do was get a supply drop for RPG & Grenade Launcher and keep calling in Pequod for air support. The missile launcher at the start took out half of the boss' health alone. The Skull boss fight on Mission 29 was a lot harder. Also did 2 of the rehash missions. An extreme mission (Rehash of Mission 9) and one where I had no weapons which hadme blow up Soviet comms. Pretty easy for both of them actually but I expect them to get alot tougher.

Also, can anyone guide me to the location of Huey's AI Pod at the Base Camp? I've looked in all the big buildings and can't find it.

 

[TayeezSA]

Spoiler

Just did Episode 31 and that final boss fight was a lot easier than I expected. took 3 tries but all Ireally had to do was get a supply drop for RPG & Grenade Launcher and keep calling in Pequod for air support. The missile launcher at the start took out half of the boss' health alone. The Skull boss fight on Mission 29 was a lot harder. Also did 2 of the rehash missions. An extreme mission (Rehash of Mission 9) and one where I had no weapons which hadme blow up Soviet comms. Pretty easy for both of them actually but I expect them to get alot tougher.

Also, can anyone guide me to the location of Huey's AI Pod at the Base Camp? I've looked in all the big buildings and can't find it.

Spoiler: Er

It's in one of the hangars like in the original mission where you had to extracy Huey.