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Time for an update! I'm 32 hours in now, just completed Chapter 20 and have 40 Side-Ops under my belt, so according to the % in the ACC I'm currently at 31% completion. Don't necessarily think I'm going for 100% completion, but just to give a sense of where I'm up to. Anyways, game freaking rules. I'm having an absolute blast with it Before digging into what's been good, the bad or so-so...I just don't really care for whatever the overarching narrative is supposed to be yet, which is a bit wild considering I'd guess I'm somewhere in the game's second act with how it's all going. It felt connected to Ground Zeroes and Peace Walker at the start but has done barrel rolls and cartwheels to avoid broaching those topics too much, and The Man On Fire and the Skulls aren't really interesting or fun so far in terms of story or gameplay. Honestly, the game reminds me of my experience so far with the Final Fastest VII Remake project at times, where it's great when it's grounded and hitting the marks you'd expect (i.e. sticking to the script), and just goes a bit sideways for me when all of these fantastical elements start turning up. Other MGS games have similar things, though, but because there's such a greater emphasis on linearity and story in those games than there is here - just due to its open world nature and Side-Op and Mission mission structure - you can go so long without touching those elements here that it lacks the natural ping-pong between wacky and grounded that other MGS games had. It really, really doesn't help that Snake has said all of about two pages worth of dialogue the entire game up to this point (okay, I'm exaggerating a little there, but you catch my drift) and it results in a serious lack of characterisation here compared to past iterations of a playable Snake (be it Naked or Solid). Another sticking point for me, granted likely down to the tech at the time of development, is the lack of cohesion between the open world and mission structure – you can fly between Landing Points at Mother Base (albeit with some unnecessary showboating from the pilot) but can't fly in the chopper between Landing Points in the open world, and because it's so incredibly rare that Missions and Side-Ops are clustered together, I basically drop in, complete a Mission or Side-Op, call my chopper in to evac, load up the ACC, search for the next Mission/Side-Op I'm going to tackle, and then fly there from the ACC. It just feels so disjointed and, again, probably down to tech at the time and wanting a loading screen between some Missions/Side-Ops so that you can't clear the area first/it can spawn back in, but whatever, it just feels like such an odd choice Because, to talk about the good now – sweet mercy is this game so damn hard to put down! While the overarching narrative is a pretty big miss for me so far, there have been beats in the story which have had me absolutely hooked. There's one scene when freeing some kids in a Mission where my instinct was "cool, so I'll just make the choice to free them when the game gives me contr–" and Snake raises his gun, takes aim...and starts firing. I felt like the rug had been pulled from under me completely, left audibly gasping, and that Kaz - who has been a hothead the entire game so far, by the way - had got one over on me. It was such a powerful use of tension and making the player feel like they'd lost control for a second that when I had my hands back on the proverbial "wheel" as Snake next, I let out a sigh of relief. This game feels like it has something important to say in these smaller and more focused beats. While my average rating is an A/B, I've also picked up a few S-ranks along the way – just the three, but I was well chuffed with two of them, and the third was born of incredulous frustration because it involved those damn Skulls. The first S-rank I got was against Quiet – driving over to check in on Huey, the last thing I expected was to get sidelined into another task, and the first time around I tried to bob and weave but she quickly shot me down. The second time I played her like a damn fiddle, drawing her fire from the opposite end of the ruins to get a visual, going prone, marking her with my iDroid, before calling in a Fulton/Ammo resupply to see if it would take her out...did it a couple of times and she was knocked out this has become my go-to tactic for snipers and I love that it was something I just thought of and discovered worked through playing around with the systems the game presented (Emergent Gameplay™). I will say that her handling in her cutscenes and in her cage is a bit much - a lot of gratuitous angles, which doesn't really add much for me - but popping in every time at Mother Base and hearing an excellent array of licensed songs (Kojima has seriously good and varied taste) and some awesome MGS music never fails to put a grin on my face. And the instrumental for Heavens Divide just turning up out of the blue the way it did legitimately choked me up. My second S-rank was actually for Caravan of Traitors, which I spent a few hours on. Tried a bunch of weapons against the Skulls, had no real luck, every time I went to Fulton out the mark for the mission they were on it (and me) with a moment's hesitation, and yeah, it wasn't remotely fun. Tried to climb into the marked truck and drive away, no luck. The first time I dropped in I noted that the route seemed to originate around the Airport, so figured if they're delivering something it's getting dropped off there before they go and attempt delivery...and so I staked out the airport and found the exact spot and this gap in the fence I could hop over. It then took like 5 more tries but basically I gave up on the slow and steady approach I prefer in these games and full on sprinted in before the cutscene came in and RNG'd the Skulls popping in, not noticing me in a nanosecond, and getting my Fulton off on the mark in a spot they couldn't reach before running the hell away and Fultoning out atop a nearby material crate. It was brilliant that it all came together for an S-rank, but good lord do I hate those guys Last one was for Chapter 18, honestly I spent over an hour on that mission taking my time because I really liked the structure of the "level", Fulton'd every enemy out, and naturally did all but one of the tasks to land an S-rank My typical loadout at the moment, unless a rocket launcher is needed for a helicopter or something, is a silenced assault rifle, silenced tranq. sniper rifle, and silenced tranq. pistol; been playing around with the different types of grenades and got to a point I can pretty effectively clear a room or two out with a Smoke Grenade and Snake's bare hands, which has been fun to get a hang of! Also donning the Sneaking Suit always (because why wouldn't I?) and have D-Dog tagging along with a knife – the main thing which slowed me down on missions was taking things super slow and marking every single enemy before going in, whereas having D-Dog around allows me to be much bolder in my approach. D-Dog and D-Horse I believe I've maxed out affection for, only took Quiet out into the field and just didn't gel with my gameplay style for now, but I'm sure I'll circle back around to her. I was non-lethal 99% of the time prior to unlocking the second map, at which point the AI seemed to spike in difficulty a bit, and so now I'm just careful to use my iDroid to mark anyone with A+ or higher stats, and don't mind too much if I'm killing otherwise in the name of efficiency. I also go absolutely all-out lethal if some enemy douchebags start to shoot D-Dog or my chopper and wipe everyone off the face of the planet if they push me too far – my Snake... ...is a vengeful one. Got pretty handy at getting headshots in this game too, which has been great fun. To circle back around to something I've mentioned before, the Mother Base stuff: I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Command Platform is currently developed to 3/4 (just a few thousand units of Fuel from developing to 4/4), the rest are 2/4 (next priority will be Base Development for the additional material refinement). It depending on an in-game clock rather than a real-world clock means I'd need to leave the game on to do some of these ridiculously long online events, so I've just been picking away at the events which are 90 minutes or less which I have available to me anyways. Collecting resources to upgrade platforms can be a bit of a pain, I feel like I'm always low on Fuel, but oh well, it is what it is. And to answer what exactly that is, is a realisation I had a few sessions in but wanted to give a few more sessions to see if it played out, and honestly my thoughts remain the same: this isn't V...it's Peace Walker 2. And as someone who really enjoyed Peace Walker last year and is playing V now close to a decade removed from its original launch, having heard through the grapevine about how the story is a mess and getting a mix of opinions on how the game wasn't complete and needs a Director's Cut, and so was going in with lowered expectations vs, say, a continuation of Metal Gear Solid proper (i.e. the numbered entries), I'm having a splendid time with it and don't mind that at all. But considering it's called what it is and that it is a bit messy when it comes to the story so far, I can understand why people went into this and came away disappointed – but perhaps it's more accurate to say not getting what they had expected? This is all to say that I'm not going to guess where this could end up in my own MGS rankings just yet considering how much of the journey still lies ahead, but in terms of gameplay, this is by far the best Metal Gear Solid of the bunch, and considering that the MGS gameplay loop of Tactical Espionage Action has become one of my favourites in all of gaming, it's safe to say that it'll be up there for me even if the main narrative comes up short. Hopefully the best is yet to come
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I think something similarly weird is happening with "random" select on custom stages, it seems to love my DK barrels and Pokéball of doom stages.
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