Metal Gear Solid V has the weakest narrative in the series[Spoilers for the whole series]

BarryMcCociner

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So. I've beaten the game, seen the true ending (honestly most *gripping* part of the game, just dripping with trademarked Kojima tricks) and I have to say, this Metal Gear has an awful narrative in comparison to other Metal Gear games.

I find it odd that the game seemed to have no *real* conclusion, but that's not the only thing I find odd about this installment. Where's the THEME?

See, here's the thing. The game lost sight of it's "THEME(s)". In Metal Gear, each canon installment in the series has had a THEME that's really important because allcaps.

In Metal Gear Solid the THEME was GENE. It was all about biological determinism, is Snake any more than a weapon bred for war? His father was a super soldier and he was bred to be one, too.

In MGS2: Sons of Liberty, the THEME was MEME, the "element of human behaviors that are not passed on genetically" if Solid Snake was a genetic clone of Big Boss, then the S3 plan was put in place to turn Raiden into a memetic clone of Solid Snake. Or rather, that was the "proof of concept" for the S3 plan, which we later found out was put in place to control memetic information in order to guide the progress of human culture.

"The memes, Jack!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pLDrZQTf8

In MGS3: Snake Eater, the THEME was SCENE. The best way we can illustrate this theme is by pointing at The Boss (The most... well, Boss female character in video games.) The theme stipulates that nothing is set in stone and everything will change over time, our greatest enemies will become our best friends and out best friends will put a knife in our back somewhere down the line. EVA falls in love only to cause heartbreak, Naked Snake is forced to kill The Boss in a scene he cannot control. By the end of the game, Snake's perspective on life changed completely due to the nature of his experiences.

In MGS4: Guns of the Patriots, the THEME is SENSE, our understanding of the world that is lost when we die. I always thought this was a bad word to sum up MGS4, but I'll state it as the general consensus seems to be from the fanbase and Kojima. Misunderstanding is prominent within the story of MGS4. Snake attempts and fails to understand Naomi's actions, Zero attempts and fails to understand The Boss's will, JD attempts and fails once again to understand Zero's will. In all of these cases the original desire of the individual is questioned and deliberately left unclear and the burden is placed on the audience to answer these questions.

The main THEME of Peace Walker is PEACE, I've not played Peace Walker more than once so I won't try to get into explaining the theme, but it's a Cuban Missile Crisis story so Nuclear Deterrence as a means of maintaining peace is questioned heavily by the villain, Hot Coldman. If someone more familiar with Peace Walker wants to extrapolate the meaning then go right ahead.

MGSV is dual-THEME'd, RACE & REVENGE. Kojima had stated that the REVENGE that was to be present wouldn't be the typical vengeance between two people, but a never ending cycle of killing between RACEs.

Now, where is that theme? I've looked through the entire game, not seeing that brought up anywhere outside of Skull Face's plan but that idea is not fully explored Snake doesn't even bother trying to offer a contrarian view to Skull Face like the protagonists did in every other Metal Gear. Not only does the narrative not have an ending, but the story lost sight of itself before it truly began.

Seriously, I don't know if this was Konami's fuckup or Kojima's but this story was thoroughly disappointing.
 

BarryMcCociner

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And another thing, Skull Face was a perfectly good waste of a villain.

We have this character built up, "This is the guy that's gonna be so god damn evil that he's finally gonna turn Big Boss into that villain we all knew." What effect does he have on Big Boss? The most that happens Boss gives him a slow and bloody death, something he's never done before (cut short by Huey, just to add) and then he goes right back to business as usual supposedly, "effected" by Skull Face while showing no change visible in behavior whatsoever.

I'd even venture as far as to say he came out of that situation more heroic, with Kaz being the one who descends into villainy.

And VERY FUCKING MAJOR SPOILERS HERE, we go on to find out that the Big Boss we've been playing in Phantom Pain wasn't even the actual, real Big Boss. What the hell was all that buildup for? How will this effect the original Big Boss?
 

Foolery

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I agree that V is a hot mess, but it does have some interesting setups to the rest of the series. Like how Venom Snake can essentially be considered a prototype Solid Snake. Sadly, that's the best thing I can say about it.
 

BarryMcCociner

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Foolery said:
I agree that V is a hot mess, but it does have some interesting setups to the rest of the series. Like how Venom Snake can essentially be considered a prototype Solid Snake. Sadly, that's the best thing I can say about it.
Actually, when you look at it Venom is proof that the S3 plan can work as intended. He's a memetic clone of Big Boss.

I also find it a bit shaky that Boss hates his Genetic clones but is perfectly willing to share his identity with his only memetic clone.

And, and, and. Am I the only one who found that little smile, where Big Boss says "I'm Big Boss, and so are you." To be the creepiest fucking thing in the world? When you look at it, Venom Snake is smiling at his own complete and utter loss of identity.
 

stroopwafel

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Ehmmm..I actually quite like MGS5's story. I would say the central theme of the game is 'loss of identity' for all kind of spoilerific reasons. Even the game itself was the complete opposite of the previous games with their linear progression and more cutscene than actual gameplay set-up. Infact if the theme of MGS5 is loss of identity than than this can even be extended as a meta-narrative on the game itself(which given the postmodernism of MGS2 isn't a stretch). Also thank fuck MGS5 finally scaled back on the animoe garbage of the previous games.

Look, it's no secret Kojima was done with the Metal Gear franchise for quite a while and that Phantom Pain allowed him to tell a different story and make a different game. Yeah it's a Metal Gear game otherwise Konami would have never allowed him a budget. However within these restraints Kojima made one of the most amazing games ever made. Immaculately designed with a near flawless attention to detail.

Anyone who thinks Phantom Pain is a disappointment should really lower their standards.
 

BarryMcCociner

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stroopwafel said:
Ehmmm..I actually quite like MGS5's story. I would say the central theme of the game is 'loss of identity' for all kind of spoilerific reasons. Even the game itself was the complete opposite of the previous games with their linear progression and more cutscene than actual gameplay set-up. Infact if the theme of MGS5 is loss of identity than than this can even be extended as a meta-narrative on the game itself(which given the postmodernism of MGS2 isn't a stretch). Also thank fuck MGS5 finally scaled back on the animoe garbage of the previous games.

Look, it's no secret Kojima was done with the Metal Gear franchise for quite a while and that Phantom Pain allowed him to tell a different story and make a different game. Yeah it's a Metal Gear game otherwise Konami would have never allowed him a budget. However within these restraints Kojima made one of the most amazing games ever made. Immaculately designed with a near flawless attention to detail.

Anyone who thinks Phantom Pain is a disappointment should really lower their standards.
If the theme was loss of identity then Kojima failed when approaching his stated goal. Kojima can work on other games all he wants but that won't change the fact that in terms of narrative he dropped the ball here. It's not up to the baseline set by the other games.
 

Kopikatsu

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BarryMcCociner said:
And VERY FUCKING MAJOR SPOILERS HERE, we go on to find out that the Big Boss we've been playing in Phantom Pain wasn't even the actual, real Big Boss. What the hell was all that buildup for? How will this effect the original Big Boss?
It means that the person who died at the climax of Metal Gear was actually Venom Snake, not Big Boss. Hence the tape at the end of Truth. Which explains why Big Boss would sent Solid Snake to kill himself. It's because the guy in charge of FOXHOUND wasn't the same person as the guy in charge of Outer Heaven.

Also, Big Boss's descent into villainy was already shown. That was basically the entire point of Peace Walker. The moment Metal Gear ZEKE was created, Big Boss was pretty firmly into villain territory.
 

BarryMcCociner

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Kopikatsu said:
BarryMcCociner said:
And VERY FUCKING MAJOR SPOILERS HERE, we go on to find out that the Big Boss we've been playing in Phantom Pain wasn't even the actual, real Big Boss. What the hell was all that buildup for? How will this effect the original Big Boss?
It means that the person who died at the climax of Metal Gear was actually Venom Snake, not Big Boss. Hence the tape at the end of Truth. Which explains why Big Boss would sent Solid Snake to kill himself. It's because the guy in charge of FOXHOUND wasn't the same person as the guy in charge of Outer Heaven.

Also, Big Boss's descent into villainy was already shown. That was basically the entire point of Peace Walker. The moment Metal Gear ZEKE was created, Big Boss was pretty firmly into villain territory.
I understand the whole Two Big Boss thing and why it exists, which is as you explained. But that's not the point I was getting at.

Peace Walker still left Boss as a hero, It didn't really have him *do* anything morally objectionable. It left you feeling like you were a Big Damn Hero doing Big Damn Hero shit. I don't feel as if any game in the series has given Big Boss a viable reason to go full villain, which honestly is a bigger plot hole to me than Big Boss dying twice.

I just care a little more about smooth character development consistency than I care about logical discrepancies in old MSX games.

But if you feel Peace Walker portrayed Big Boss's decent into evil well enough, please explain why. I've only played it once and all I can really remember is that Hot Coldman was underwhelming and Big Boss believes in Santa.
 

Kopikatsu

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BarryMcCociner said:
Peace Walker still left Boss as a hero, It didn't really have him *do* anything morally objectionable. It left you feeling like you were a Big Damn Hero doing Big Damn Hero shit. I don't feel as if any game in the series has given Big Boss a viable reason to go full villain, which honestly is a bigger plot hole to me than Big Boss dying twice.

I just care a little more about smooth character development consistency than I care about logical discrepancies in old MSX games.

But if you feel Peace Walker portrayed Big Boss's decent into evil well enough, please explain why. I've only played it once and all I can really remember is that Hot Coldman was underwhelming and Big Boss believes in Santa.
By the end of Peace Walker, Big Boss established a terrorist organization that was holding the world hostage via MAD, readily employed child soldiers (Remember the whole "Children can develop into better soldiers so we can just raze a few villages to the ground then take the traumatized kids to turn them into soldiers" speech?), and had declared war against more or less every major government.

That's before getting into the fact that MSF was staffed by a bunch of soldiers that he kidnapped and had tortured until they agreed to join him. He also started the war economy and proliferation of PMCs, which basically permanently fucked the world judging by MGSV to Rising.

Big Boss seems like a hero because you're playing the game from his PoV. But consider the following. Imagine that one day, an American war hero defects from the US and goes off the grid for several years. Then he suddenly reappears as the commander of a massive PMC that operates as if it were it's own nation, is kidnapping notable soldiers and scientists from other countries, their soldiers are equipped with futuristic technology, and they have access to nuclear weapons as well as a self-contained means to rapidly deploy nukes almost anywhere in the world. Does that seem like a heroic organization? I'd be a little iffy.
 

BarryMcCociner

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Kopikatsu said:
BarryMcCociner said:
Peace Walker still left Boss as a hero, It didn't really have him *do* anything morally objectionable. It left you feeling like you were a Big Damn Hero doing Big Damn Hero shit. I don't feel as if any game in the series has given Big Boss a viable reason to go full villain, which honestly is a bigger plot hole to me than Big Boss dying twice.

I just care a little more about smooth character development consistency than I care about logical discrepancies in old MSX games.

But if you feel Peace Walker portrayed Big Boss's decent into evil well enough, please explain why. I've only played it once and all I can really remember is that Hot Coldman was underwhelming and Big Boss believes in Santa.
By the end of Peace Walker, Big Boss established a terrorist organization that was holding the world hostage via MAD, readily employed child soldiers (Remember the whole "Children can develop into better soldiers so we can just raze a few villages to the ground then take the traumatized kids to turn them into soldiers" speech?), and had declared war against more or less every major government.

That's before getting into the fact that MSF was staffed by a bunch of soldiers that he kidnapped and had tortured until they agreed to join him. He also started the war economy and proliferation of PMCs, which basically permanently fucked the world judging by MGSV to Rising.
Wait, wasn't the whole point of ZEKE to be a last line of defense? Only let the world know we have nuclear capabilities when they're getting ready to destroy us? That's what they seemed to be saying while building ZEKE.
 

Kopikatsu

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BarryMcCociner said:
Kopikatsu said:
BarryMcCociner said:
Peace Walker still left Boss as a hero, It didn't really have him *do* anything morally objectionable. It left you feeling like you were a Big Damn Hero doing Big Damn Hero shit. I don't feel as if any game in the series has given Big Boss a viable reason to go full villain, which honestly is a bigger plot hole to me than Big Boss dying twice.

I just care a little more about smooth character development consistency than I care about logical discrepancies in old MSX games.

But if you feel Peace Walker portrayed Big Boss's decent into evil well enough, please explain why. I've only played it once and all I can really remember is that Hot Coldman was underwhelming and Big Boss believes in Santa.
By the end of Peace Walker, Big Boss established a terrorist organization that was holding the world hostage via MAD, readily employed child soldiers (Remember the whole "Children can develop into better soldiers so we can just raze a few villages to the ground then take the traumatized kids to turn them into soldiers" speech?), and had declared war against more or less every major government.

That's before getting into the fact that MSF was staffed by a bunch of soldiers that he kidnapped and had tortured until they agreed to join him. He also started the war economy and proliferation of PMCs, which basically permanently fucked the world judging by MGSV to Rising.
Wait, wasn't the whole point of ZEKE to be a last line of defense? Only let the world know we have nuclear capabilities when they're getting ready to destroy us? That's what they seemed to be saying while building ZEKE.
That's how they justified it. But consider it from the view of other nations. This PMC is kidnapping notable scientists and soldiers, many nationals are becoming radicalized and leaving their countries in order to join MSF, and they have a state of the art nuclear weapon deployment system that far exceeds the strength of anything that even superpowers like the US or Russia have the ability to field. And their mission statement is 'We want a state of neverending war so that the world will always need soldiers'.

Imagine if ISIS had a functionally invincible tank that could take out entire platoons of soldiers by itself in addition to having the capability to launch nukes and threatened to wipe any nation that opposed them off the map. How well would that go over?
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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BarryMcCociner said:
I understand the whole Two Big Boss thing and why it exists, which is as you explained. But that's not the point I was getting at.

Peace Walker still left Boss as a hero, It didn't really have him *do* anything morally objectionable. It left you feeling like you were a Big Damn Hero doing Big Damn Hero shit. I don't feel as if any game in the series has given Big Boss a viable reason to go full villain, which honestly is a bigger plot hole to me than Big Boss dying twice.

I just care a little more about smooth character development consistency than I care about logical discrepancies in old MSX games.

But if you feel Peace Walker portrayed Big Boss's decent into evil well enough, please explain why. I've only played it once and all I can really remember is that Hot Coldman was underwhelming and Big Boss believes in Santa.
That is a problem; we already HAD a perfectly fine explanation for Big Boss' motivation for Outer Heaven with MGS3. Mentor dies due to needing to satisfy greedy, incompetent politicians and it leads him to want to make it so soldiers are no longer pawns in wars. There, done, Kojima didn't need to add anything else. If anything Phantom Pain and Peace Walker just meaninglessly overcomplicate things; this does not improve the series in any way. 1, 2, 3, and 4 were fine, they made a perfectly contained saga and adding anything more just creates a mess.
 

stroopwafel

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Wasn't the 'war economy' the result of the schism between Big Boss and Zero, who both interpreted The Boss' will differently? Zero wanted a world run by strict hierarchy and order while Big Boss wanted a world run by individual freedom where soldiers can be free from the control of nation states. Even the war economy itself was the result of a 'mutation' within the system AI's that Zero created(if I recall the jumbled mess of MGS4 correctly).

I don't know but Big Boss' plans never seemed as dark as that of Zero, they just became dark due to all the shit that's done to him over the course of the games(beginning with his government's betrayal in MGS3). Big Boss' character isn't really as clear-cut as being either hero or villain; but rather a product of circumstances.
 

josemlopes

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The only good moment in that entire story was Venom shooting Skullface, in there you could actually see him angry for what he had lost.

The rest was shit and forced. The infection stuff at mother base was bad since it was all Hueys fault and yet we had to take his shit and still have Venom (that in the end is just as much Big Boss then Big Boss himself) still being Jesus Christ meaning that in his next game he will still become Hitler for no fucking reason.

Even the master ruse plan wasnt made by Big Boss, he still does nothing that shows his villain side, he still fights for peace at the end of the day even though he has become a "demon", well, where is that demon?

"If you kill that kid its game over!"

Wow, so bold, really going places that no one ever went, Kojima.
 

stroopwafel

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I'm glad Kojima didn't forcibly retcon Big Boss for a 30-year old game none of you probably ever even played in the first place. Big Boss' character was consistent with that of MGS3 and PW, which Phantom Pain is more or less a direct sequel of story-wise. Yeah Phantom Pain is largely inconsistent with an MSX game from 1987 with hardly any story to speak of(the whole 'phantom' trick didn't really help either), but holding that against it is more than a little ridiculous. As far as open-world games go MGS5's story is way above most of it's competitors.
 

Ariseishirou

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I... honestly, the whole MGS series has been starting to lose me, and the only thing I was excited about V for was seeing Big Boss's descent into villainy. Between learning that that doesn't actually happen and that Quiet's "justification" for wearing next to nothing that would "make me feel ashamed" of my criticism (I'd thought the whole forcible sex-change for Chico was just zany enough for Kojima to do it) was made up horseshit, I might not actually buy this game after all.
 

Kopikatsu

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Ariseishirou said:
I... honestly, the whole MGS series has been starting to lose me, and the only thing I was excited about V for was seeing Big Boss's descent into villainy. Between learning that that doesn't actually happen and that Quiet's "justification" for wearing next to nothing that would "make me feel ashamed" of my criticism (I'd thought the whole forcible sex-change for Chico was just zany enough for Kojima to do it) was made up horseshit, I might not actually buy this game after all.
I don't see the problem people have with the explanation for Quiet's nudity. She wears about the same amount of clothing that the other Skulls do, both male and female. Male Skulls even have a huge bulge in their front. The 'feeling ashamed' part is probably that in the tapes it's revealed that Quiet actually hates not being able to wear clothes. But during a particular gameplay segment she ends up being forced to wear a certain uniform which completely prevents her from fighting.

It serves as a gameplay mechanic, too. Quiet's obsession with water is shared by the Skulls. If you shoot them with the water pistol, they'll stop attacking you and attempt to absorb the water.
 

Ariseishirou

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Kopikatsu said:
Ariseishirou said:
I... honestly, the whole MGS series has been starting to lose me, and the only thing I was excited about V for was seeing Big Boss's descent into villainy. Between learning that that doesn't actually happen and that Quiet's "justification" for wearing next to nothing that would "make me feel ashamed" of my criticism (I'd thought the whole forcible sex-change for Chico was just zany enough for Kojima to do it) was made up horseshit, I might not actually buy this game after all.
I don't see the problem people have with the explanation for Quiet's nudity. She wears about the same amount of clothing that the other Skulls do, both male and female. Male Skulls even have a huge bulge in their front. The 'feeling ashamed' part is probably that in the tapes it's revealed that Quiet actually hates not being able to wear clothes. But during a particular gameplay segment she ends up being forced to wear a certain uniform which completely prevents her from fighting.

It serves as a gameplay mechanic, too. Quiet's obsession with water is shared by the Skulls. If you shoot them with the water pistol, they'll stop attacking you and attempt to absorb the water.
Yeah... the fact that there are other characters with the same attribute or that it has gameplay relevance doesn't stop it from being cop-out horseshit to rationalize what should have been owned up to as simple pandering, friend.

Of course, Jim says it better than I could:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy-FhExTY9M
 

Kopikatsu

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Ariseishirou said:
Kopikatsu said:
Ariseishirou said:
I... honestly, the whole MGS series has been starting to lose me, and the only thing I was excited about V for was seeing Big Boss's descent into villainy. Between learning that that doesn't actually happen and that Quiet's "justification" for wearing next to nothing that would "make me feel ashamed" of my criticism (I'd thought the whole forcible sex-change for Chico was just zany enough for Kojima to do it) was made up horseshit, I might not actually buy this game after all.
I don't see the problem people have with the explanation for Quiet's nudity. She wears about the same amount of clothing that the other Skulls do, both male and female. Male Skulls even have a huge bulge in their front. The 'feeling ashamed' part is probably that in the tapes it's revealed that Quiet actually hates not being able to wear clothes. But during a particular gameplay segment she ends up being forced to wear a certain uniform which completely prevents her from fighting.

It serves as a gameplay mechanic, too. Quiet's obsession with water is shared by the Skulls. If you shoot them with the water pistol, they'll stop attacking you and attempt to absorb the water.
Yeah... the fact that there are other characters with the same attribute or that it has gameplay relevance doesn't stop it from being cop-out horseshit to rationalize what should have been owned up to as simple pandering, friend.

Of course, Jim says it better than I could:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy-FhExTY9M
The fact that the males wear the same revealing outfit as the females doesn't matter? Because it actually matters quite a bit.

Also, Kojima explicitly said he designed Quiet that way because he wanted to see women cosplay as her. I don't see how that isn't owning up' to it.
 

Ariseishirou

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Kopikatsu said:
Ariseishirou said:
Kopikatsu said:
Ariseishirou said:
I... honestly, the whole MGS series has been starting to lose me, and the only thing I was excited about V for was seeing Big Boss's descent into villainy. Between learning that that doesn't actually happen and that Quiet's "justification" for wearing next to nothing that would "make me feel ashamed" of my criticism (I'd thought the whole forcible sex-change for Chico was just zany enough for Kojima to do it) was made up horseshit, I might not actually buy this game after all.
I don't see the problem people have with the explanation for Quiet's nudity. She wears about the same amount of clothing that the other Skulls do, both male and female. Male Skulls even have a huge bulge in their front. The 'feeling ashamed' part is probably that in the tapes it's revealed that Quiet actually hates not being able to wear clothes. But during a particular gameplay segment she ends up being forced to wear a certain uniform which completely prevents her from fighting.

It serves as a gameplay mechanic, too. Quiet's obsession with water is shared by the Skulls. If you shoot them with the water pistol, they'll stop attacking you and attempt to absorb the water.
Yeah... the fact that there are other characters with the same attribute or that it has gameplay relevance doesn't stop it from being cop-out horseshit to rationalize what should have been owned up to as simple pandering, friend.

Of course, Jim says it better than I could:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy-FhExTY9M
The fact that the males wear the same revealing outfit as the females doesn't matter? Because it actually matters quite a bit.

Also, Kojima explicitly said he designed Quiet that way because he wanted to see women cosplay as her. I don't see how that isn't owning up' to it.
Sure, it matters, but that's not what I said, I said it "doesn't stop it from being cop-out horseshit". Which it still is.

Yes, he said that, and then he went back on it afterwards, saying that she was going to be the opposite of all of the other scantily dressed heroines of the past, and that we'd be ashamed of ourselves for lusting after her. Only... that turns out to not have been the case in the slightest, and Kojima was just being a shameless horndog all along. Sorry, Jim's right about this one.