Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Review Thread.

[Ambient_Malice]

This is a thread for discussing the reviews of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. I will create a thread dedicated to the game when it releases on September 1. I'll update this OP as more reviews are released. I haven't listed every review, just ones that have crossed my path. If I've missed a quality review, please inform me and I'll add it.

Please do not post spoilers.

IGN Score 10/10:
Exceptional sandbox gameplay
Meaningful complexity
Stealth flexibility
Tons of gadgets and abilities
Sparse story

For their part, Phantom Pain's story elements are at least well produced, with beautiful cinematography, and workmanlike performances from everyone, including Keifer Sutherland, who sadly has practically nothing to do as Big Boss. His inexplicable silence through even the most crucial story beats towards the end go beyond mere stoicism, and were positively jarring. Almost gone are the off-topic codec convos, climactic boss battles, and memorable character moments of Metal Gears past. Everyone seems to exist solely to walk on screen, deliver information, and then stand there dramatically.

...

It's surprising, though, how little Phantom Pain's story woes actually impacted my experience with it. It takes an almost completely hands-off approach to both story and gameplay, which means that the lion's share of the takeaway moments will almost certainly be the ones of your own orchestration. But given how readily Phantom Pain facilitates the creation of those moments, it's difficult for me to feel bad about that. In a decade, I doubt there will be a single mission I'll be able to point to and say "remember when you had to do that," but I could fill a book with stories about how I dealt with a mission going south, or a brilliant plan I came up with that worked just like I thought it should. This is certainly the least "authored" Metal Gear, but it's also the most player-driven, and I'd gladly take the helicopter escape story I shared earlier over any scripted event or set-piece.

http://ign.com/articles/2015/08/24/metal-gear-solid-5-the-phantom-pain-review

Game Informer Score - 9.25/10.00

Graphics:
The visuals look great and run smoothly, with some occasional texture pop-in when your focus changes.

Sound:
Kiefer Sutherland does a good job, but speaks so rarely that the change from David Hayter in the lead role feels more like a PR stunt than a new direction for the character.

Entertainment:
Many missions feel like puzzles, forcing you to use your available resources to find one of many ways to complete your objective. Applying your rewards to building, expanding, and improving your base is an irresistible joy.

Replay:
High.

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/metal_gear_solid_v_the_phantom_pain/b/playstation4/archive/2015/08/23/metal-gear-solid-v-the-phantom-pain-review-game-informer.aspx

IGN Score 10/10

They note: "Pacing issues towards the end of the game momentarily halt your momentum."

After dozens of hours sneaking in the dirt, choking out enemies in silence, and bantering with madmen who wish to cleanse the world, The Phantom Pain delivers an impactful finale befitting the journey that preceded it. It punches you in the gut and tears open your heart. The high-caliber cutscenes, filled with breathtaking shots and rousing speeches, tease you along the way. Your fight in the vast, beautiful, and dangerous open world gives you a sense of purpose. The story is dished out in morsels, so you'll have to work for the full meal, but it's hard to call it "work" when controlling Big Boss feels so good, with so many possibilities at your fingertips.

http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/metal-gear-solid-v-the-phantom-pain-review/1900-6416224/

Destructoid's review (9/10):

Despite the fact that I hit a few snags along the way, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain feels like a simultaneous celebration of the series, and a decidedly new chapter. It's equal parts tough and flashy, and it's fitting that if this is Kojima's last Metal Gear, he goes on a high note.

http://www.destructoid.com/review-metal-gear-solid-v-the-phantom-pain-305699.phtml

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Can we created a thread about discussing threads discussing reviews? Like we won't actually discuss the threads about reviews, we'll discuss the idea of discussing threads discussing reviews.

I forsee it being completely productive, respectful, creative and just overall better than all other threads not discussing the idea of discussing about threads discussing reviews.

 

[Magicite Spring]

The reviews are pretty much as I expected, but it is always good to see when your expectations are matched by reality! I love Kojima as a game designer and I love Metal Gear so I'm very glad that Phantom Pain is getting the critical reputation. The Metal Gear legacy can end on a high note

Here's destructoid's review (9/10):

Despite the fact that I hit a few snags along the way, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain feels like a simultaneous celebration of the series, and a decidedly new chapter. It's equal parts tough and flashy, and it's fitting that if this is Kojima's last Metal Gear, he goes on a high note.

http://www.destructoid.com/review-metal-gear-solid-v-the-phantom-pain-305699.phtml

 

[stroopwafel]

Nice. Looking forward to playing it next week. Considering the development time and amazing production values in the footage they've shown there was never really any chance this game was going to be anything less than exceptional. Good to see MGS5 lives up to it's promise!

 

[Ambient_Malice]

A fairly consistent tone seems to be that the game's story is thin, but the emergent gameplay more than makes up for it.

Now one one hand, I can agree with this conceptually. The most powerful moment in Ground Zeroes, for me, was running through the camp with Paz slung over my back, deftly tranq-pistolling the guards who got in my way. The music was pulsing, Paz was deliriously laughing and crying and mumbling nonsense. The combination of elements came together into something that was, dare I say it, euphoric. I *was* going to escape. I was going to drag Paz out of this camp come hell or high water or APCs.

But on the other hand, I remember Mordor. Everyone was sooooo amazed by Mordor when it was released. It was SO NEXT GEN and the emergent gameplay was SO RAW AND RIVETING... but a while after the game's release, the hype died down. Quite brutally so. People started complaining about the game's lacklustre storyline and repetitive mechanics that weren't so impressive once the initial hype had worn off. I'm a bit concerned something similar may happen to Phantom Pain.

 

[EternallyBored]

I'll avoid posting an individual review as Reddit's r/metalgearsolid has done a good job at assembling them so far:

https://www.reddit.com/r/metalgearsolid/comments/3i5346/review_megathread/

Don't worry about spoilers, the mods are doing a good job at deleting them as long as you don't go into the spoiler thread.

Overall, the game looks like it'll be a good send off for Kojima, going out on a high note and all that. The negatives listed so far don't look like they'll bother me much, I was never super into the MGS storyline as it is, it works well enough, and the Kojima quirkiness is always appreciated, but the overall storyline never really grabbed me. So, the reported massive reduction of cutscenes and scripted sequences doesn't bother me if the rest of the gameplay is solid.

Really, I found MGS4's later acts to be way too light on gameplay and heavy on cutscenes, especially when they ditch most of the human enemies to spam Gekkos, they just weren't that fun to fight. So an MGS game that distills that stealth gameplay into a good open world setting is right up my alley.

Looking forward to September 1st, between this, Fallout 4, XCOM 2, Bloodborne, and Witcher 3, this year is shaping up to be one of the best years in gaming for me in a long time. If both XCOM 2 and Fallout 4 manage to hit it out of the park then this very well be my favorite single year since I started gaming in the 80's.

 

[stroopwafel]

The story of MGS was already way past it's prime in MGS4 and Phantom Pain had to be tucked somewhere late in the Big Boss timeline, so any story they could have made from here should have to be fairly low-key in order not to break the continuum(an already convoluted trash heap).

I think Kojima would have preferred an entire new IP but as always Konami didn't let him. A gameplay-focused MGS game sounds like a very good compromise though.

 

[EternallyBored]

The story of MGS was already way past it's prime in MGS4 and Phantom Pain had to be tucked somewhere late in the Big Boss timeline, so any story they could have made from here should have to be fairly low-key in order not to break the continuum(an already convoluted trash heap).

I think Kojima would have preferred an entire new IP but as always Konami didn't let him. A gameplay-focused MGS game sounds like a very good compromise though.

It does mean we likely won't get a lot of those epic set piece battles like Psycho Mantis from 1, the MG Ray gauntlet and subsequent sword battle on Arsenal gear from 2, the Shagohad chase scene from 3, or the Ray vs. Rex fight from 4. Everything in the reviews seems to indicate that the game rarely leaves the sneaky open world gameplay.

On the plus side, we also don't get shit like the entire last two chapters of MGS 4 basically being pathetically short gameplay sections padded out by 20 minute cutscenes.

 

[jhoroz]

Dissapointed in the fact that there will be less story and that all my fears of Big Boss being turned into a mime are coming true. I really don't understand what Kojima's obsession in turning the main characters into borderline silent protagonists is. He practically did the same thing with Old Snake in MGS 4, bar one or two scenes.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

I really don't understand what Kojima's obsession in turning the main characters into borderline silent protagonists is. He practically did the same thing with Old Snake in MGS 4, bar one or two scenes.

I wouldn't be surprised if we learn down the track that Kojima scrapped some dialogue and story beats after watching Mad Max: Fury Road a few months ago.

 

[jhoroz]

I really don't understand what Kojima's obsession in turning the main characters into borderline silent protagonists is. He practically did the same thing with Old Snake in MGS 4, bar one or two scenes.

I wouldn't be surprised if we learn down the track that Kojima scrapped some dialogue and story beats after watching Mad Max: Fury Road a few months ago.

I get the whole telling your story through actions and not words agenda, but what made Snake and Big Boss these awesome, charasmatic, bad-ass characters were all the inspiring and real talk they'd give to other characters in the games e.g. Snake's speeches to Raiden, Big Boss' gun advice to Ocelot etc. Taking that away from them just turns them into another modern, generic, silent gruff video game protagonist.

 

[EternallyBored]

I really don't understand what Kojima's obsession in turning the main characters into borderline silent protagonists is. He practically did the same thing with Old Snake in MGS 4, bar one or two scenes.

I wouldn't be surprised if we learn down the track that Kojima scrapped some dialogue and story beats after watching Mad Max: Fury Road a few months ago.

I get the whole telling your story through actions and not words agenda, but what made Snake and Big Boss these awesome, charasmatic, bad-ass characters were all the inspiring and real talk they'd give to other characters in the games e.g. Snake's speeches to Raiden, Big Boss' gun advice to Ocelot etc. Taking that away from them just turns them into another modern, generic, silent gruff video game protagonist.

MGS4, Peacewalker, and now Phantom Pain, Snake/Big Boss hasn't been very talkative for at least the last couple games, MGS 3 was the last MGS game where it felt like the main character had a lot to say.

Actually, MGS 3 might be the only game where Snake had a lot to say, in 1 his lines were sparse, even back then people joked that Snake just repeated other people way too much. In 2, once you get to the rig, he's got 1 or 2 speeches he gives to Raiden but tends to just fuck off and disappear after that outside of optional codec calls. 4 was just bad when it came to Snake's dialogue, although he gets some good lines in the opening cinematic and when talking to Big Mama/Eva, he also gets his lines at the very end.

It doesn't have anything to do with Kojima seeing Mad Max, Snake/ Big Boss has pretty much always been kind of silent while everyone talks around him, I remember noticing that in MGS 2 when I thought Raiden talked a hell of a lot more than Snake ever did in 1.

 

[gigastar]

Ok, stellar reviews as expected. Now all i need is PC version port report.

Waiting for next Teusday is going to be torture.

 

[jhoroz]

I really don't understand what Kojima's obsession in turning the main characters into borderline silent protagonists is. He practically did the same thing with Old Snake in MGS 4, bar one or two scenes.

I wouldn't be surprised if we learn down the track that Kojima scrapped some dialogue and story beats after watching Mad Max: Fury Road a few months ago.

I get the whole telling your story through actions and not words agenda, but what made Snake and Big Boss these awesome, charasmatic, bad-ass characters were all the inspiring and real talk they'd give to other characters in the games e.g. Snake's speeches to Raiden, Big Boss' gun advice to Ocelot etc. Taking that away from them just turns them into another modern, generic, silent gruff video game protagonist.

MGS4, Peacewalker, and now Phantom Pain, Snake/Big Boss hasn't been very talkative for at least the last couple games, MGS 3 was the last MGS game where it felt like the main character had a lot to say.

Actually, MGS 3 might be the only game where Snake had a lot to say, in 1 his lines were sparse, even back then people joked that Snake just repeated other people way too much. In 2, once you get to the rig, he's got 1 or 2 speeches he gives to Raiden but tends to just fuck off and disappear after that outside of optional codec calls. 4 was just bad when it came to Snake's dialogue, although he gets some good lines in the opening cinematic and when talking to Big Mama/Eva, he also gets his lines at the very end.

It doesn't have anything to do with Kojima seeing Mad Max, Snake/ Big Boss has pretty much always been kind of silent while everyone talks around him, I remember noticing that in MGS 2 when I thought Raiden talked a hell of a lot more than Snake ever did in 1.

I haven't played much after MGS 4, but your statement about Snake being a borderline silent character in the original games is pure bullshit (especially compared to what I've seen in recent games). He goes into plenty of long discussions with Meryl, Mei Ling and Otacon throughout MGS 1, the segments where he's repeating lines are only towards the end of the game with Liquid. While he isn't on screen a lot in MGS 2 (because he isn't the main character there) when he is, he's pretty much the most dominating presence in the scenes. I bet that he has more lines of dialogue in 2 than Big Boss will in the entirety of the Phantom Pain.

 

[EternallyBored]

I really don't understand what Kojima's obsession in turning the main characters into borderline silent protagonists is. He practically did the same thing with Old Snake in MGS 4, bar one or two scenes.

I wouldn't be surprised if we learn down the track that Kojima scrapped some dialogue and story beats after watching Mad Max: Fury Road a few months ago.

I get the whole telling your story through actions and not words agenda, but what made Snake and Big Boss these awesome, charasmatic, bad-ass characters were all the inspiring and real talk they'd give to other characters in the games e.g. Snake's speeches to Raiden, Big Boss' gun advice to Ocelot etc. Taking that away from them just turns them into another modern, generic, silent gruff video game protagonist.

MGS4, Peacewalker, and now Phantom Pain, Snake/Big Boss hasn't been very talkative for at least the last couple games, MGS 3 was the last MGS game where it felt like the main character had a lot to say.

Actually, MGS 3 might be the only game where Snake had a lot to say, in 1 his lines were sparse, even back then people joked that Snake just repeated other people way too much. In 2, once you get to the rig, he's got 1 or 2 speeches he gives to Raiden but tends to just fuck off and disappear after that outside of optional codec calls. 4 was just bad when it came to Snake's dialogue, although he gets some good lines in the opening cinematic and when talking to Big Mama/Eva, he also gets his lines at the very end.

It doesn't have anything to do with Kojima seeing Mad Max, Snake/ Big Boss has pretty much always been kind of silent while everyone talks around him, I remember noticing that in MGS 2 when I thought Raiden talked a hell of a lot more than Snake ever did in 1.

I haven't played much after MGS 4, but your statement about Snake being a borderline silent character in the original games is pure bullshit (especially compared to what I've seen in recent games). He goes into plenty of long discussions with Meryl, Mei Ling and Otacon throughout MGS 1, the segments where he's repeating lines are only towards the end of the game with Liquid. While he isn't on screen a lot in MGS 2 (because he isn't the main character there) when he is, he's pretty much the most dominating presence in the scenes. I bet that he has more lines of dialogue in 2 than Big Boss will in the entirety of the Phantom Pain.

I didn't say he was a borderline silent character, just that his lines were sparse (in comparison to most of the other characters), but maybe that just says more about the sheer number of lines everyone else has.

I've been rewatching the cutscenes from previous games over the last couple days, and his lines in MGS 1 really aren't that elaborate, when he isn't falling into the old joke where he just repeats the last words of whatever another character says to him, i.e.: "Metal Gear?", or just asking whatever gameplay related question he has, he doesn't have nearly as much to say as any of the other characters. His codec conversations with Mei ling outside the intro are largely composed of him just either parroting part of whatever proverb she gives him, or giving a single line about what he thought about the last 10 lines Mei Ling gives him. His conversations with Otacon are longer than 4 certainly, but hardly long involved conversations. He has more in optional codec calls, but so did snake in MGS 4, he had quite a few lines if you went through all the codec conversations. He also says quite a bit in the intro levels of the game, but his levels of speech drop off dramatically right after the revolver ocelot fight.

That's not to say he's anywhere near as bad as Snake in MGS 4 (outside of the epilogue anyway epilogue Snake talks a lot in 4), but 3 is still really the only one I can think of where Snake/ Big Boss tended to have a lot of lines throughout the whole game, Snake being really talkative and speechy seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

I don't know what it'll be like in 5, I doubt he'll have less lines than 2, Snake really had few lines in 2. I would likely think it has more to do with the open world nature of the game and not being required to actually play as Big Boss for a number of missions, so it's not that he doesn't talk, it's that he likely only talks in more than general commands in the cutscenes for main story missions, and in open world games those tend to be spaced a lot farther out.

Also, the line about Big Boss not talking all that much seems to come from the IGN review which also mentions a lack of side conversations and big boss battles, which both the Gamespot and GT review specifically contradict, both mentioning memorable boss battles and conversations, so you know, take it with a grain of salt, could go either way.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Too bad for the storyline. This will be my first Metal Gear game though (and the last too, as a PC player), so I probably wouldn't get what was going on either way.

Happy to hear that the gameplay holds up to the expectations, that's why I decided to pre-order the game.

 

[holdthephone]

Prologue was unreal. Best introduction to a videogame I've ever experienced. But as open world experiences tend to go in games, it isn't the cleanest of experiences or designs. At least it embraces its ridiculousness and makes it a fun time, though.

I've always felt Hideo's games were heavily flawed but incredibly interesting. MGS5 feel similar. Probably the most difficult game series to review, in that sense. Can we overlook the broken ideas and appreciate this man's imagination? Is that a 10/10? I would have a hard time justifying myself on that.