4.5/5 ★ – jdraco's review of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

I don’t know how to start this review Because I’m really struggling to find the right words to describe just how good the gameplay in MSGV is Like, how do you even describe something so perfect, so pristine, so evergreen, so spotless Genuinely, what words even are there in the English dictionary that could possibly do MGSV’s gameplay justice Because I don’t think there are any But I’m still going to try to break down to everyone reading this why it’s so unbelievably good And hopefully my breakdown doesn’t go on for, like, an hour, but it probably will because I’ve got a lot to say So if you’ve got to, take a bathroom break, grab a snack, grab some lotion, and let’s dive in … Chapter 1: The Gameplay… I don’t really know why I’m doing chapters for this specific review, but I guess I am, so just go with it Regardless, though, like I said just a second ago, the gameplay in this game is amazing It is just perfectly fine-tuned to be as fun and as fluid and feel as satisfying to play as possible Running, crouch-walking, crawling, shooting, diving, rolling, fighting, everything, again just feels so satisfying and smooth to control And there truly is no stone left unturned in terms of stealth gameplay; everything that you could ever want to do is right at your disposal in this game Knocking on walls or throwing a empty magazine to lure enemies, luring them with a decoy of yourself, putting a poster of a swimsuit model on a cardboard box to distract enemies, These are all things that you can do in this game in terms of stealth gameplay, and those three examples don’t even come close to scratching the surface of all the other things that you can do And the thing is, your gameplay doesn’t even have to be stealthy if you don’t want it to be I mean, you can just go into outposts and start gunning everyone down, albeit it makes things much more difficult for you if you do that, but regardless, if that’s how you want to play the game, you can Although, I will say, the people who play like that are little baby bitches; the true alpha way to play this game is to try and be as stealthy as possible That’s always been the most fun to me and the absolute most satisfying There really is no better feeling in this game than knowing that the enemies fear you You know what I mean? Like after you take out a few enemies and they start to discover the bodies, and you can hear them over their radios freaking out That feeling of panic in their voice is what I live for in this game; that fear is what drives the player to keep sneaking and keep picking the enemies off one by one It’s un-fucking-believable, again, just how satisfying this gameplay is It’s really not even fair I can’t even fathom why any other game company would even try to make a stealth game after this because there really is no point The gameplay will just never ever be as good as MGSV’s gameplay… Ever. And its excellent gameplay is truly brought to the forefront by the missions in this game Now, while usually the missions are nothing that special, except for a few story missions, in every single one of these missions, there are about 500 trillion different ways to tackle them Take mission 14, for example Now this mission traditionally is pretty annoying You have to discover the whereabouts of a prisoner by following a bunch of guards and listening to multiple conversations And then once you do that, you find the prisoner, Fulton, extract him, and then the mission is over with Now you can do it this way if you’re a little pee-pee baby bitch who still needs Mom to hold your hand at the grocery store However, if you’re an absolute alpha specimen like me, then when you drop into the mission, you can just go directly to where the prisoner is immediately and just end it in 2 seconds It’s fucking beautiful And like I said, usually every mission in the game is like this Everyone and everything starts where they’re supposed to start for the missions in this game And sometimes they’ll be moved within the mission, but if you’re fast enough, then you can get to them first, like the prisoner in mission 14, for example, as well as countless other examples in these missions Another example of a mission having multiple ways to beat it, as well, is mission 21 Where you have to take out an arms dealer and a commander at an airport in the game Now basically the way the game wants you to do it, I believe, is for the arms dealer to land in the helicopter, then you have to listen to all the conversations between the arms dealer and commander, and then take both of them out and leave… But you could also… Immediately fucking shoot down the chopper before it lands at the airport, and then go track down and kill the commander Attach C4 to the helicopter when it lands and then blow it up right when the arms dealer is leaving and the commander is up there as well Plant a bunch of decoys in the doorway of the room that they’re about to enter and then have them all go off at the same time, knocking out the two of them and then extracting them back to Mother Base Again, the possibilities are just fucking endless No two missions that anyone plays will ever be exactly the same; it’s impossible Because everyone who plays this game is different, with different play styles, who prefers using different weapons And it’s this idea of that singular experience that you get from this game and its gameplay that is so important to me and is the reason why no other game will ever touch MGSV in terms of gameplay for me And something else that enhances the gameplay even further are all the buddies that MGSV has to offer as well D-Horse, D-Dog, D-Walker, and Quiet Are all “buddies” that you can take with you on missions that all help you in some way D-Horse is basically just a speed boost, but you can sneak around a little with him as well by sort of falling down to the side of him And then D-Dog gives you the location of any guards that are nearby to you, marking them with a red triangle and letting you know how far away they are You can also give him commands to attack enemies, stun them, Fulton them, bark And then for D-Horse I forgot to mention that you can command him to take a shit, which I didn’t even have to bring up, but it’s just funny as hell to me But, anyway, then there’s D-Walker, who’s basically just this vehicle that you can customize; he’s barely even a buddy, to be honest And then there’s Quiet, who’s this sniper that’ll obviously help you take out enemies, but she’ll also scout for you and then also hum the entire time while she’s sniping So yeah, those are all the buddies, and I’ve got to say all of these buddies are pretty good, and I definitely made pretty good use of all of them (except maybe D-Walker) Easily the best buddy in the whole entire game, though, is D-Dog He’s just such a good boy; he scouts for you, attacks whoever you need him to, and you can pet him, which, thank God, they put that in the game because if they didn’t, then there would be actual riots spearheaded by me But yeah, he genuinely is the best buddy in this game Just revealing where the enemies are alone is such a useful tool that makes sneaking around and remaining hidden so much more manageable and satisfying I love D-Dog Quiet is definitely a close second for best buddy, though; her sniping can be incredibly helpful, and her scouting can be useful as well, although it’s nowhere near as good as D-Dog’s, but I digress But now I want to talk about something else that makes sneaking more manageable, and it's reflex mode Reflex mode is essentially where, if you’ve been spotted, the gameplay will immediately be slowed down, giving you time to react so that you can pull out a weapon to try and kill/knock out the guard who saw you so that you don’t get an alert And this is a very helpful tool because so many times in this game you will be blindsided by a guard just coming out of fucking nowhere Yeah, even though I said that D-Dog pretty much negates this, he doesn’t just fully stop it from happening, and it still will happen a lot where a guard will just be around a corner and catch you by surprise, or his line of sight will be stronger than you thought it was, and then BAM, you’ve got an alert now But the reflex mode makes it so if the bullshit I just described does happen to you, then you can try to swiftly react to it to make sure that you get no alert It’s genius, and I really do love this mechanic, and I’m glad that it’s in the game And even if you’re someone who doesn’t like it, then I believe that there’s a way for you to just turn it off, so it works out for everyone And actually, those two words are exactly how I’d describe the gameplay of MGSV: “for everyone” Everyone, no matter their age, race, weight, or mental capacity—it doesn’t matter—can still play this game and have an unbelievable time with it The gameplay of MGSV is like this universal language that speaks of nothing but pure love and fun and joy So with all that being said, you may be asking yourself, why is jdraco giving this game a 4.5/5? He just did nothing but glaze it for, like, 2 hours straight Well… Chapter 2: The Story… The story of this game is weird; that’s really the best way to describe it Because in a lot of ways it’s really not that bad I like the characters, the voice acting is good for the most part, and there’s a giant fucking Metal Gear robot in this one just like in all the other games So what exactly is missing? — It wasn’t finished… It just isn’t a finished game Konami just put so much pressure on Kojima and basically turned his office into a prison cell and put him and all his staff to work tirelessly for multiple hours every single day just to get this game out quickly And honestly, it’s a miracle that this game is as good as it is, based on all the things Kojima and his staff had to endure But, again, the game isn’t finished The story has plot beats that just don’t really reach a conclusion Like there’s one in particular that I’m thinking of where they establish it, build it up more and more, and then eventually when it all blows up and gets left on a cliffhanger and it seems like it’ll reach its conclusion soon, it just never does Which, the one I’m thinking of in particular, actually does have a conclusion, and they did plan to have a mission wrapping it all up But it just isn’t in the final game because they were rushed when making it, and it’s just so disappointing And that’s not the only instance of rushed elements as well Going back to gameplay for a second, even though I know that this is an entirely different chapter, a handful of the missions in this game, out of the 50 missions that are in the game, are just more difficult repeats of past missions They even play all the same cutscenes as the previous mission as well For example, in one of the duplicate missions called “[Extreme] Metallic Archea” (which is a very late-game mission), I beat the entire mission, and then afterwards it played the shitload of cutscenes that it did after you beat the original mission, including an interrogation of Huey (one of your “allies”) Which was hilarious because at that point I had already exiled him from Mother Base So for a second it seemed like we brought him back to Mother Base just to interrogate him again for shits and giggles Oh, and also, while I’m on the topic of missions again, I completely forgot to bring up the side ops, which are a huge part of this game And basically they’re just these little bite-sized missions where you usually have to do the same mission tasks several times, over several missions, like extracting a soldier or eliminating a tank unit or whatever else it may be And most of these are pretty fun and are a good way of building up GMP (I’ll explain what that is later) Honestly, though, most of these side-ops aren’t that deep and can be somewhat repetitive, but I really don’t care, because just any excuse to get in more of that stealth gameplay is perfectly fine with me But anyway, what was I talking about a little bit ago… oh right, the story Yeah, so much like I just did, this game's story feels like it gets sidetracked a lot of the time Because it introduces so many things and characters and so much happens, but then, again, so many things don’t conclude in a satisfying way, and then there are multiple other things as well in the story that don’t really make sense until you listen to further cassette tapes explaining them, and it’s just a whole mess Speaking of the cassette tapes, though, this is actually where my main problems with the story for the game lie Because at its core, again, the story for the game isn’t terrible It’s a story about Snake teaming up with 2 other soldiers to try and build up a new military organization named Diamond Dogs while also trying to stop a new villain named “Skullface” However, this base story is never really presented that well, and almost all of the elements and things that you encounter across this story are, again, almost always explained in the cassette tapes and never really within the story itself Instead, you have to go in and listen to a million different interrogation cassette tapes, or briefing cassette tapes, or just cassette tapes of Kaz & Ocelot (2 main characters) literally just talking about something that they could’ve just talked about in a main story cutscene So yeah, I don’t know; the story just didn’t really do anything for me And then the big twist of this game was also just kind of lame, even though I guess it does make sense for the series and helps tie things together with the other games Still, though, something about it was just kind of goofy to me, which is saying something because it’s the Metal Gear series Anyway, though, I know that I sound like I don’t like the story whatsoever, but it actually does have some legitimately great moments Like the entirety of mission 43, mission 45 as well is a great sendoff to a character in the story Obviously the character (Huey) that I mentioned getting exiled earlier was a great story moment The entire cutscene of the giant metal-gear robot (I’m not even going to try to spell its name) breaking loose and attacking everyone is awesome Yeah, this game has a lot of great moments, I will say But it’s just the story that’s weaving it together that just kind of loses me Also, there are these enemies in the game called parasites, which are the worst thing I’ve ever fought They take a million hits, do a million points of damage, they’re fast, they’re ugly, and they’re a prominent part of the story They can go fuck themselves And then parasites play another role in the story because the main villain's goal in the game is to wipe out the English language by releasing a parasite into the… water stream??? In order to infect everyone who speaks English, so that if they speak it, they die… See what I mean about the story? And this is where Skullface kind of fails as a villain for me, because he really has no motivation His only motivation really is that he thinks that this British guy that he used to work for (Zero) is a jerk, so now he wants to get revenge on him and on the world, I guess No joke, that is probably 98.7% accurate to what Skullface's legitimate motivations are He just doesn’t really feel like that great of a villain; he doesn’t do anything, he’s never menacing, he’s just there A villain in this game that does feel menacing, though, is “The Man on Fire”… Until you find out who he is. Yeah, the Man on Fire is this cool-ass flaming phantom who constantly walks towards you and whom you encounter multiple times throughout the game and even get to fight once Sadly, though, everything cool about him kind of goes out the window when the game shows you that the Man on Fire was somehow Colonel Volgin from MGS3… Why? Like, I don’t even doubt that he could’ve survived the shit that happened to him in MGS3 But then why would he turn into a flaming phantom man? And I’m pretty sure that this was actually explained in a cassette tape, saying that it was baby Psycho Mantis who gave Vulgan the powers to be the Man on Fire But if that’s the case, then why the fuck was that not conveyed in the actual story? Why do I have to listen to a fucking cassette tape in order to get this information? It’s just overall kind of lame how often they use the cassette tapes to convey crucial information Although, I will say, not all the cassette tapes are used for information, and some of them can actually be pretty funny Like “The Hamburgers for Kazuhira Miller” cassette tapes Which basically just consists of Kaz giving the character named Code Talker a bunch of burgers to try out until he finally attains that perfect burger It’s beautiful And then, obviously, there are the music tapes as well, which just play actual real-life songs and then songs from the Metal Gear series as well… I just realized that I’m all over the place with this fucking review. I was just talking about story, now I’m talking about music tapes, yet this is still under the “Story” chapter of the review So I don’t know what the hell is going on anymore Either way, the story is overall pretty disappointing, the villain isn’t great, not a lot of information is conveyed well, storylines are left unfinished, and some elements of the story are stupid Also, something else that’s pretty stupid yet funny that I want to add is how often slow motion is used in the cutscenes It is used in almost every fucking shot, like it’s a damn Zack Snyder movie And there’s so much to the point where, again, it’s actually funny, because it really was just every other shot there would be slow motion Even in moments where there didn’t need to be slow motion whatsoever And this isn’t even a bad thing; I really don’t mind it. I wanted to point it out because of just how abundant the slow motion is Anyway, though, next chapter… Chapter 3: Miscellaneous Shit… So in this chapter I’m basically just going to try to break down everything else that I haven’t talked about yet And for starters I want to talk about Mother Base, which is a huge topic that’ll definitely take a while, so if you have to piss, then go now, cause this is going to be a while Anyway, though, Mother Base is so fucking expansive in this game, there is so much to it, there are so many things to do with your Mother Base and with your military “organization.” I guess you’d call it So basically in this game you get to customize your own military group/organization with a logo and a name and all of that shit And your organization operates out of a place called “Mother Base” And on this base you can expand it by extracting more soldiers out on the field back to Mother Base via Fulton balloon, and then this will help you level up your various units Which comprise of an R&D unit, a combat unit, a medical unit, a security unit, a base development unit, and an intel unit And all of these units, once they’re leveled up further, help you in developing more weapons and materials that you can then use in missions and side ops or just when you’re free-roaming And then to buy all these weapons and items that these units help develop, you need to build up more GMP, which is your currency in this game And to build up more GMP, you can beat missions and side ops, send your soldiers on dispatch missions (which are just missions you send some of your soldiers on to earn rewards for you), and then you can also earn GMP by selling vehicles, weapons or resources that you gather through extracting small containers and large shipping containers… Dear god, hopefully I made that all clear enough to understand. Oh, and then there are also FOB missions and shit, but I don’t really know what those are or what they do, but I know that they have something to do with your base Either way, though, everything in this game and everything that I just described is so detailed and expansive and just so endlessly thought out, and it is so damn impressive and a joy to experience everything that this game has to offer I absolutely love customizing my Mother Base and my organization, building up and leveling up my units, and earning enough GMP to buy new weapons/items Everything in this game was just so fine-tuned to be so satisfying to play and to experience One thing I will say, though, that I don’t like about developing weapons/items is how long some of them take to develop I’m not even joking; some of them damn near take an actual day to develop Which is unbelievable; luckily, though, that’s only really for the rare-ass expensive weapons/items Shifting away from that, though, something else that I love about this game is how much you get to customize shit You can customize all of your vehicles, give them a paint job, and you can obviously customize Mother Base (the color of it specifically). You can customize Pequod (the best helicopter of all time), and best of all, you can customize weapons and add different scopes, barrels, muzzles, suppressors, you can change the color of the weapon, all kinds of shit And it’s amazing. I absolutely loved customizing all of my weapons, and I basically did it with every single weapon that I used Again, I love the customization. Now, though, this review will be reaching its conclusion very soon, because I just looked in my notes to see what else I want to talk about, and I think I covered pretty much everything Even though I definitely didn’t, and I’m probably going to remember something that I could’ve talked about right after posting this review But at the moment I really don’t think I have anything else to talk about, except for one last thing And it’s just how absolutely brutal this game is Like, seriously, it is fucked up There’s so much brutal, fucked-up, nasty shit in this game Child soldiers, deadly diseases, child soldiers with deadly diseases, mass murder, gore, a lady whose tits are always out and jiggling around (that one actually isn’t brutal, though; it’s just nice, and I wanted to point it out) But yeah, this game really does not hold anything back at all And nothing showed that to me more than in one instance after I beat a random side-op and I was told to come back to Mother Base Just to then see a cutscene of Eli (Liquid Snake) giving a dirty look to Snake And then immediately after that cutscene takes place, Ocelot then tells me that one of the child soldiers that we rescued got fucking crushed to death by a fucking giant metal pipe… What the fuck? Why does that shit just happen out of the blue? Ralph deserved better Rest in paradise. Anyway, though, I think the review is finally over now. I’m truly sorry if this review was bad or unfocused or I forgot to talk about 8 million things, which I probably did But I just had to get this done; it was hanging over my head for so long, and I beat this game probably a month ago and was procrastinating writing this review But now I finally wrote it And I had to type this out on an iPhone as well, because all my computers suck dick, and my internet sucks balls So yeah, I hope whoever’s reading this enjoyed the review, and thank you for reading it I love you, and God loves you, and your parents love you too, but they wish you would call them more Also, you still haven’t fixed that creaky floorboard on their back deck, so you better get on that God, I hope that these jokes work because my brain is running on empty at this point Regardless, though, I absolutely love this game I loved it when I was younger, I still love it now, and, I mean, it definitely has its issues But this game just holds a special place in my heart, and all those issues just cannot outweigh the immense amount of things that this game does right So, with all that being said, I’m giving this game a very strong 4.5/5