4/5 ★ – RawMetal's review of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

System: PlayStation 4 Started: January 6, 2016 Ended: March 2016 Flashback Review After finishing the first couple of missions of Ground Zeroes, I reached the point where the later missions felt like filler and trophy hunting. So, I booted up The Phantom Pain, and now I can finally get to the good stuff of Metal Gear Solid V. The fifth Metal Gear Solid game is bigger than Ground Zeroes and more fleshed out as its more of a step up on the base-building mechanics from Peace Walker and fully embracing sandbox gameplay. I can say I’ve gotten used to this new direction in the franchise. However, the whole new style of Metal Gear was cut short due to the incident between a famous developer and the company. But at least this game isn’t terrible, nor is it a perfect game like some of the other top Metal Gear titles. I remember the publicity surrounding the conflict between Hideo Kojima and Konami. It reached the point where Konami fired Kojima and removed the phrase “A Hideo Kojima Game” from the front cover of physical copies of The Phantom Pain. Admittedly, I initially sided with Kojima, but after doing some research, I believe nobody truly wins in this conflict. I blame Kojima for reportedly putting all his budget into this game, which was critical for Konami as they were on the verge of bankruptcy. This made The Phantom Pain a make-or-break scenario. Due to the lack of funds, we may never see another sequel from other IP’s like Castlevania, Gradius, or Silent Hill for some time, until Konami can break even or regain enough money to stay in business. It’s also confirmed that the CEO of Konami and Kojima did not get along, and Kojima was vice president at the time. Not only Kojima, but I also blame Konami, the company that wanted to shift its focus to pachinko and mobile games that generated more profit than their traditional video game business—and even started a health club venture, which I found pointless. I recently saw a Castlevania coin-pushing cabinet (marbles) at an arcade, which reminded me of Konami’s decision to jump into that trend. Now that Kojima has left and started his own studio with Death Stranding, Konami decided to rush The Phantom Pain out and then develop Metal Gear Survive, which was an unnecessary zombie game, and canceled P.T./Silent Hills, the tech demo project Kojima wanted to work on. Now, Big Boss is named Venom Snake after the events of Ground Zeroes, M.S.F. is now Diamond Dogs, referencing a David Bowie Album. Snake was more talkative in The Phantom Pain, which was a way to test the waters after the original voice actor, David Hayter, was replaced by Kiefer Sutherland, known for 24. At first, I was upset about the change; I liked Hayter’s cheesy, gruff voice as Snake. But eventually, I got used to Sutherland during my playthrough. I love the sandbox world, which gives you the freedom to approach missions however you want; whether you choose stealth or lethal force. You can see the transformation of Snake and characters like Quiet into bloody messes if you decide to just become a genocidal maniac. You can equip weapons, summon vehicles, and even recruit Quiet for sniping support. You can smoke a Phantom Cigar to make time pass faster during night missions, and you can upgrade Snake’s prosthetic arm, with my personal favorite being the Rocket Arm. Exploring Mother Base is a huge improvement over Peace Walker. You can even build your own zoo if you extract animals. Since Kojima is a music enthusiast, he would occasionally post songs on his social media. The Phantom Pain features licensed songs that you can find throughout the game, and I remember that was the first thing I did during my playthrough. The soundtrack includes great choices like Joy Division, Hall & Oates, The Cure, A-Ha, and Europe’s Final Countdown. Although that song was released in 1986, two years after the events of Metal Gear Solid V, which is set in 1984. After finishing the game, there’s a neat twist that has a significant impact on the classic MSX games, though I won’t spoil it. But it explains why you need to customize your character before the game begins. All these points show I wasn’t disappointed with the game. I love The Phantom Pain, but it does have its issues, notably its unfinished state. Story-wise, Kojima made the game adopt an episodic aesthetic when starting missions, which I’m not a big fan of. Skull Face is an interesting villain, but the lack of character background that I did not care for him that much especially for Quiet, whom we never see again and it was disappointing too because she just leaves without explanation. The final act of the game feels incomplete and there was leaked concept art from the Internet and it depicted Snake on an island controlled by children, where he had to recover the stolen Metal Gear Sahelanthropus while evading traps. It was reminiscent of Lord of the Flies. Sounds cool but that content was ultimately scrapped. I even predict it would have been DLC content anyway, as it would have taken place in a new sandbox. It was close to being a 5-star Metal Gear game and might have been ranked high in my top five titles. I wish Konami had allowed Kojima to finish it, but it probably would have taken another two years to reach gold. Still, The Phantom Pain remains popular thanks to internet memes and social media. I recommend playing it for the memes, and it is canonical within the Metal Gear timeline. Personally, I consider it to be in the middle of my list of favorite Metal Gear games, and it was definitely a step up from Peace Walker, especially with the return of base building. Be sure to play this after finishing Peace Walker and the classic Metal Gear games for the MSX.