Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

[Jockney]

Did you complete all the Side Ops, Jockney? I want to push on with the Main Ops, I've still only completed 14 of them, but I'm not sure if the Side Ops are still playable once the story is completed.

Also, what's this about having to re-do earlier missions on a harder difficulty? How many do you have to go through again? I was thinking of going through them again anyway to achieve all of the objectives and extract some of the specialist soldiers but if you have to do it anyway I might as well wait.

Not completed all the side-ops but completed a good fair few of them. I haven't noticed any going missing but then there are so many I can't keep track. I would recommend completing all the yellow ones as they come in, because they're story related. Also do the Legendary Gunsmith side op thread, cos when you -eventually- get the legendary gunsmith you can customise your weapons for the rest of the game.

After the end of Chapter 1, Chapter 2 starts. Ch 2 is roughly half new missions, half repeated missions but on a much harder difficulty (some are total stealth and no reflex, i.e. you get caught it's mission failure, others are just boss battles ramped up to extreme difficulty). Those repeated missions are counted as new installments, separate from their originals, even though they're the same fucking missions, so you'd have to do the additional objectives again anyway.

 

[Stevencc]

Not completed all the side-ops but completed a good fair few of them. I haven't noticed any going missing but then there are so many I can't keep track. I would recommend completing all the yellow ones as they come in, because they're story related. Also do the Legendary Gunsmith side op thread, cos when you -eventually- get the legendary gunsmith you can customise your weapons for the rest of the game.

After the end of Chapter 1, Chapter 2 starts. Ch 2 is roughly half new missions, half repeated missions but on a much harder difficulty (some are total stealth and no reflex, i.e. you get caught it's mission failure, others are just boss battles ramped up to extreme difficulty). Those repeated missions are counted as new installments, separate from their originals, even though they're the same fucking missions, so you'd have to do the additional objectives again anyway.

I've only had two yellow Side Ops so far but, yeah, I completed those as soon as I got them. I did the Legendary Gun Smith one too - the way they dragged that out was so cheap!

Chapter two sounds like a very strange way of doing things. Perhaps Kojima was proud of the variety of ways the player could complete each mission and wanted to force them into having to approach it in another way with some of settings changed and difficulties adjusted. Maybe it's just to do with the cutting of content and the problems within Konami, which you mentioned earlier, that made them decide to pad things out.

 

[Jockney]

I've only had two yellow Side Ops so far but, yeah, I completed those as soon as I got them. I did the Legendary Gun Smith one too - the way they dragged that out was so cheap!

Chapter two sounds like a very strange way of doing things. Perhaps Kojima was proud of the variety of ways the player could complete each mission and wanted to force them into having to approach it in another way with some of settings changed and difficulties adjusted. Maybe it's just to do with the cutting of content and the problems within Konami, which you mentioned earlier, that made them decide to pad things out.

I honestly think it was just padded out because they ran out of support/funding. The third secret ending was cut for the same reason. Still, the game shouldn't be as long as it is anyway. I can't help but feel the experience would have been more satisfying if its length was cut in half and they focused on diversifying their content and fleshing out the story in cut-scenes more.

 

[Oaf]

Also, check out the door with the blue neon horizontal strip just above it in Medical for a secret cutscene with a fairly big plot twist. It's on the same deck as quiet's cell, a couple of levels above I think. You can do that now.

I did that earlier after seeing this...

Spoiler

Nah man, I ain't buying that shit So wait, what, they suddenly decided that they actually did get that second bomb out of her? They actually changed their mind on a pretty damned big narrative decision and just decided to basically say "nah, Big Boss remembered it wrong" or something? Good Christ.

 

[Jockney]

I did that earlier after seeing this...

Spoiler

Nah man, I ain't buying that shit So wait, what, they suddenly decided that they actually did get that second bomb out of her? They actually changed their mind on a pretty damned big narrative decision and just decided to basically say "nah, Big Boss remembered it wrong" or something? Good Christ.

It goes absolutely fucking nowhere as well. Completing the 'recapture the missing Motherbase soldiers' side-ops earns you photographs that you can bring to that character, but otherwise it's a totally fucking pointless twist. Extremely fucking cheap and kind of disgusting, as well, considering what they put that character through just to get to that point.

 

[Jockney]

PS. Such a lust for revenge? WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!?

 

[Hurrikeen]

Whilst I think this looks and plays brilliantly, I’m a touch disappointed with the boss battles. I mean, what were the true boss-type missions?

Spoiler

- Extracting Quiet (very easy to do. 3 shots with your sniper and a couple of ammo-drops on her bonce courtesy of your chopper and it’s done)

- Fighting off the female sniper skulls (IMO the hardest of the lot, but I had Quiet in tow so did it fairly easily)

- Just after extracting Codetalker, fighting the skulls off with a rocket launcher – again, just get behind a wall and it’s fairly easy

- Sahelanthropus – Comfortably the easiest of the lot. For some reason, despite being blackpool tower tall, it couldn’t peer over a rock that I was hid by and I just blasted him to pieces time and time again.

No real challenges in those at all. I miss the days of fighting off Psycho Mantis et al.

 

[Megaclyde]

Finally got to play it over the weekend, and tbh haven't been doing much else since.

On the whole really enjoying it,
Since PW on the PSP I really loved the whole base and army building stuff so I'm loving that (although atm people are constantly fighting and ending up in the sickbay, any way to stop that?)

Buddy system is a cool idea, haven't tried D-Walker yet, but of the other 3 I think I like horse the best.
D-Dog makes it too easy and honestly breeds bad habits of not being careful ect
Quiet doesn't seem to do much for me and only ever seems to turn up to kill the guy I've just spent a minute trying to stun for extraction, although a bit of staff management manipulation to push med bay up to lvl 15 means I now have her tranq rifle.
D-Horse is great, works as a temporary roadblock and stays put until I call for him (looking at you D-Dog).

My only gripe is not being able to fly from one place on the map to the other without going into the mission prep area, as walking I sometimes find too slow and there's not enough shortcuts to bypass bases I cba to deal with, at least in Afghanistan.

All in all though, loving it.

 

[Jockney]

Finally got to play it over the weekend, and tbh haven't been doing much else since.

On the whole really enjoying it,
Since PW on the PSP I really loved the whole base and army building stuff so I'm loving that (although atm people are constantly fighting and ending up in the sickbay, any way to stop that?)

Buddy system is a cool idea, haven't tried D-Walker yet, but of the other 3 I think I like horse the best.
D-Dog makes it too easy and honestly breeds bad habits of not being careful ect
Quiet doesn't seem to do much for me and only ever seems to turn up to kill the guy I've just spent a minute trying to stun for extraction, although a bit of staff management manipulation to push med bay up to lvl 15 means I now have her tranq rifle.
D-Horse is great, works as a temporary roadblock and stays put until I call for him (looking at you D-Dog).

My only gripe is not being able to fly from one place on the map to the other without going into the mission prep area, as walking I sometimes find too slow and there's not enough shortcuts to bypass bases I cba to deal with, at least in Afghanistan.

All in all though, loving it.

You need to pair certain types of troublemakers together by unit to stop fighting. It will say what kind of troublemaker they are on their profile -- unsanitary, violent, etc. Honestly I don't truck with them fuckers: fire them as soon as they come in, cos it's not worth the hassle.

Quiet is very useful after Chapter 1 and you've got to redo certain missions at a much higher difficulty level. I'd still not have completed it if it wasn't for her, as Metallic Archea on Extreme borders on impossible.

 

[Stevencc]

So they found liquid on Mars...

 

[Megaclyde]

You need to pair certain types of troublemakers together by unit to stop fighting. It will say what kind of troublemaker they are on their profile -- unsanitary, violent, etc. Honestly I don't truck with them fuckers: fire them as soon as they come in, cos it's not worth the hassle.

Quiet is very useful after Chapter 1 and you've got to redo certain missions at a much higher difficulty level. I'd still not have completed it if it wasn't for her, as Metallic Archea on Extreme borders on impossible.

Yeah i went through and purged all the ones without an A stat, also got Quiet a tranq rifle now, so shes becoming quite useful. I figured out how to get her to scout and stuff as well.
Haven't really enjoyed whats been the supposed boss fights so far. 2 skulls encounters and the thing with Quiet.

 

[Relentless]

MGO's live.

 

[Oaf]

Remember that day all those months ago when I got MGS V like 5713 days early and all that?

Well, I finally got around to finishing it off last night.

Spoiler

So I've been through this thread and read back through all of the spoilered comments, and I have to say, completely tend to agree with Jockney on the most of it.

Firstly, that mission 45. Fuck. Right. Off. One of the most infuriating missions I've ever played on the video game, I was at it for nearly an hour but having looked around online it seems as if there were some stuck on it for upwards of 3 or 4 hours, or gave up on the game entirely out of frustration. Tank after tank, each one taking a seemingly random amount of rockets to bring down (sometimes about 6 or 7 per tank, when the launcher I had could only hold 8 before needing to wait on a resupply) and you can get absolutely fucking SNIPED and killed in one if it hits anywhere near you. Plus there's the added possibility of Quiet dying to fail the mission as well.

And in the end, I spent the last real mission of the game (I say real mission, because Jesus Christ that last one... more on that later) hiding in a room calling in aerial bombardments and shooting a non suppressed gun at nothing to take the heat off of quiet. So for the last mission of the game I spent it hiding in a room as a distraction, letting the game controlled characters in quiet and the air strike team, basically, finish the game. Which SUCKS.

Good final scenes though with Quiet. But at that point I was so pissed off at that mission that I couldn't really enjoy it.

And then that final mission. How fucking lazy was that. I genuinely spent most of it on my phone rather than actually watching it, because I've already done that sodding part. I don't understand why it had to do the opening fully like that. They could have just editted it down, made it short and sweet, and had the big reveal of the phantom Big Boss done a lot better. Horrible execution of an ok idea.

I don't mind the twist with two Big Bosses. It's fine. And I guess it explains how Big Boss can seemingly die in Metal Gear and then show up at the end of MGS 4. Just my god. Did I really need to play all of the opening again to get it?

Overall then, MGS V. On it's own merits and by itself, to me, the best game this generation has given us so far by a fair distance. So much about it is so damned good. If you believe that 10/10 should exist as a score, and I do, to me it's a 10/10 type of game.

However, I'm not sure I like it as a Metal Gear fan. Echoing back to that first post I made in here after playing it, it's just so radically different. And again, most of that is in the layout of it. It's not bad, just different. But to me, an MGS game is sort of like a long movie, a story to be taken in over a 10 or so hour spell... spread out across about 60 hours, it's just... I guess to me it just doesn't feel like proper Metal Gear Solid.

And I just didn't dig the story all that much, nor the way a lot of it was told via cassettes. I have to admit, I did try to listen to most of the tapes... but any time Code Walkers slow, plodding, dull, boring ass voice popped up in a tape and he started banging on about parasites, I tended to skip it and get on with the next one. My GOD does that man have a dull as fuck voice.

In fact, on the topic of voices, yeah I agree, Ocelot and Miller were pretty much identical. I have to admit, even after 60+ hours of playing, I couldn't distinguish one of them from the other.

But yeah, that story. Eh. Some great moments, don't get me wrong... but where I've loved every single Metal Gear story before (yeah, even 4) MGS V's was just about on par with your average video game story... as in, I was playing it more because of the great game play than because I wanted to see where it was going.

I don't know if I've ever been so torn on a game. On the one hand seeing it as one of the best game play experiences I've ever had, but on the other seeing so much about it I disliked. Overall, the positives in the gameplay well outweight the negatives in the layout and story for me. So yeah. I still fucking love the game overall. I mean, it's rare that a game will have me playing it for 60+ hours over 2 month and still totally into it. But gah. That story. Those last mission. That lack of... Metal Gearness.

 

[Pyeman]

I picked this up yesterday now that it's a bit cheaper and I'm really enjoying it. Never really played much MGS before so not too clued in on he story, but the gameplay is really enjoyable.

I'm currently about 5 main missions in and I've done a couple of side quests too. One thing I am noticing though is that on each mission I'm usually only completing one or two mission tasks (ie the main objectives). Is it a big deal that I'm not doing all the tasks? I'm only achieving a rank of C on most missions. Is this a problem?

 

[Oaf]

I picked this up yesterday now that it's a bit cheaper and I'm really enjoying it. Never really played much MGS before so not too clued in on he story, but the gameplay is really enjoyable.

I'm currently about 5 main missions in and I've done a couple of side quests too. One thing I am noticing though is that on each mission I'm usually only completing one or two mission tasks (ie the main objectives). Is it a big deal that I'm not doing all the tasks? I'm only achieving a rank of C on most missions. Is this a problem?

Not really, the rating doesn't really change anything. It's purely there for like replay value or whatever... like, if you wanted to try to replay it and get an S rating on every mission or what not. I never really gave a fuck about all that.

 

[Pyeman]

Not really, the rating doesn't really change anything. It's purely there for like replay value or whatever... like, if you wanted to try to replay it and get an S rating on every mission or what not. I never really gave a fuck about all that.

That's good because I didn't really want to have to care, but equally I didn't want to get to the end and find out that not doing mission task 4 on mission 7 fucks up the end or whatever.

Cheers!

 

[Pyeman]

Is there a way to increase staff morale without having to visit every platform at mother base?

It's terribly dull just running round the entire base just to see all my soldiers, but if I don't they keep fighting each other.

 

[Oaf]

Sounds like you have a lot of trouble makers and such in your ranks. Go through your soldiers and look for people with "Trouble maker" or whatever it is in their description and release the pricks. I never really had any problems with morale when playing it and made sure I kept these people to a minimum, only keeping them on if they were particularly great.

I can't say I ever once ran around my base looking for soldiers to boost morale... and like I said, I never had any infighting and such.

 

[Pyeman]

Thanks for the advice. I've cleansed my staff of troublemakers, hopefully that'll do the trick.

Cheers.

 

[Libertine]

Just finally finished the story now. Wow, okay...

Not entirely sure how I feel about it but didn't hate it. Think some of the criticism is a little harsh but I do agree with points too. It was too padded out with the whole replay missions in chapter 2 (great idea, but put them in side ops or a different section). The game (certainly the story) does feel a bit unfinished too which is disappointing. It never really got as dark as I was expecting either to be honest.

Still need to do a lot of reading up to piece the whole thing together in my head but have listened to most of the cassette tapes. Completely agree with Oaf on how it doesn't quite 'feel' like MGS. It was lacking a bit of that quirky charm, but I did love the tone it created with the soundtrack etc.

 

[Oaf]

Yeah, I remember that was my feeling too. It felt to me that if it wasn't called Metal Gear Solid, I'd have liked it more. If it were just a new IP made by the same people but without the MGS stuff in it (take out the boxes, the ! when spotted, and the story links to the other MGS games ect) I'd have loved it... but the overall feeling that it just didn't feel like it fit in with the universe of MGS1-4, in terms of its tone, made me feel a little dissapointed.