KGB, CIA, Sandinistas, communism in Latin America, nuclear deterrence. Oh wait, I forgot this game isn't political because there's no black people or women with purple hair.

  • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
    ·
    6 months ago

    I'd still take PW over 4 and 5 any day just on the story and characterisation, but boy would I love to see Peace Walker done with MGSV's gameplay. MGSV was in many ways a big next gen home console version of Peace Walker but with a boring chopped up story and bland characters

    • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      6 months ago

      Yeah you can really tell that Konami stopped the funding for MGSV halfway through. Still salty Kojima picked Kiefer Sutherland over David Hayter.

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
      ·
      6 months ago

      Same. Pw made me think 4 was an acknowledged mis-step and the trailers for V and playing ground zeroes made me think Phantom Pain would be amazing, and nope. Gameplay is great but there's only 2 things to do with it, extract/kill a guy(s) or get a thing. The story was an absolutely pathetic cop-out. The only story point I saw in doing more Big Boss was to destroy the fan reverence he got after mgs3. The man was a fucking monster and showing his big evil thing as having an unaware body double is weak sauce. It should have shattered the illusion built by Peace Walker, cause your hero runs an unaligned for profit private military who I guess recruits via kidnapping with a nuke by the end of that game, road to perdition good intentions etc. Phantom Pain should have been the next logical step to Outer Heaven to the Big Boss from MG2 on the MSX who said 'Start a war, fan the flames, create victims, then save them, train them, and feed them back onto the battlefield. I've been doing this a long time.'. He already recruited a child soldier in Peace Walker and look where that got Chico in GZ. Generally I don't want full edge in my games and prefer my vidya games light and fluffy-ish but this is Metal Gear and it's the last Big Boss game and it promised grime and darkness that did apparently need to be depicted to get fans off Big Boss's dick and instead made it the story of someone who rode Big Boss's dick long enough to become Big Boss. Remember when Raiden threw away the dog tags at the end of MGS2? Here's the same ending but the character doesn't decide to become their own person and doesn't elaborate on the contrast because it's the end of the game now. The Hospital part was good, I was hoping that was gonna be the tone of the whole game.

      • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
        ·
        6 months ago

        Considering how bleak Ground Zeroes was I was expecting some stomach-churning shit out of Phantom Pain, but nope, that didn't happen. I was really looking forward to seeing Big Boss getting tangled in some actual 80s conflicts in a fun and interesting way after how 3 and especially PW weaved in real history but nope, the entire game is about tracking down Cypher who are a completely boring and generic all-powerful organisation in the Hydra mould. I mean yes, there is the Soviet invasion of Afganistan going on but it feels like a complete background event. There are no Soviet characters and no Afghan characters and neither faction factors into the plot at all. After characters like Amanda and Chico in PW I was expecting some interesting side characters but no, all you get is fucking Code Talker. Whatever's going on in the Africa portions and the generic mercs that patrol the map like giant spiders in an MMORPG is even less well defined

        Also, I was fuming when I realised Kojima had brought back all the infuriatingly stupid nanomachine handweave magic bullshit from 4 and just find-replaced "nanomachine" with "parasite" while also somehow making it even dumber. My pet theory is that PW wasn't even actually written by Kojima or he delegated most of it to an intern while he was busy dreamily staring at pictures of Kiefer Sutherland and Norman Reedus

        • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
          ·
          edit-2
          6 months ago

          The Cipher thing is weird too cause they're acrually going after XOF who is also opposed to Cipher and they become aware of this pretty early on and still keep calling them Cipher. It could have been done better sooooo much easier too, cause now it also leaves questions in the backstory of other characters. Cause apparently Vulcan Raven was at Outer Heaven during the first game and Snake just didn't run into them according to Mgs1, same with Ocelot having been in Zanzibar land during Mg2. Ocelot's nickname Shalashaska was given to him when he was eith the soviets in Afghanistan, he says so when you get tortured. Sniper Wolf being an orphaned Kurd who Big Boss finds. Grey FUCKING FOX'S entire backstory now makes no sense and he used to be a really major character. Big Boss was a sympathetic villain but by the end of his day an absolutely unforgivable piece of shit and Solid Snake is the hero of the story. I resent the Big Boss mythologizing thst was done within canon and by fans he became what the stsr wars prequels made Darth Vader.