MGS V: Phantom Pain

[Julius]

Nearly 45 hours in, and Episode 31 complete, meaning that credits have finally rolled and–

I've been Peace Walker'd 

Quite enjoyed the boss fight in Episode 31, though the cliffhanger from Episode 30 and the actual content of the boss fight itself in Chapter 31 felt overwhelmingly like Peace Walker. Had to get D-Dog out of there though, poor guy kept getting trampled on! 

Looks like a few missions have unlocked post-credits already to pick up from the Chapter 2 tease, very curious to see how they play out, and obviously hoping that this isn't a Peace Walker situation where I'm about to be forced down the most pointless rabbit hole to grind out platforms to keep putting a guy back in prison to unlock the true ending. Fingers crossed, anyways 

So, I think I mentioned before about not really clicking with how the Side-Ops are paced because of needing to call in the chopper after completing one, go to the ACC, sortie for the next Mission, etc., rather than chaining a bunch together in a single drop like the game seems to want you to do. While I still stand by the criticism that you should be able to fly directly from one Side-Op to another (like how you can fly from one platform to another at Mother Base), I actually ironed this issue out a while ago to some degree – but this is specifically in Angola-Zaire.

You see, dropping into Angola-Zaire, the map is essentially a giant plain, and so you can reasonably drop in with your buddy of choice and a vehicle, and just beeline from one Side-Op to the next, ignoring roads and making use of some off-road treks instead. This means I can typically complete every single Side-Op available in a single drop, as even Side-Ops positioned some 2+km from my current position can generally be beelined to in vehicle (and worst case, you'll cover the last few hundred metres on foot if there's a canyon involved in your journey to the next Side-Op). 

Compare this to the first map in the game, Afghanistan, which I think excellently serves its purpose at the start of the game to narrow your focus on a single command post, for example, and its designated entrances/exits. It's very rare that there are more than two points of entry, by road, to a command post in Afghanistan (the ones which have more than one, or are more complex in their infrastructure, are typically tied first to a main mission), and so with most of these command posts and roads nestled amongst canyons, it feels like a great way to tutorialise the open world, because it is limited the factors at play and directions from which the enemy can arrive – combined with dumber enemy AI than in Angola-Zaire, I think it's a terrific way to onboard the player.

However, what becomes apparent as the game goes on, and especially once you've experienced the wide open plains of Angola-Zaire and enjoyed the flow that brings to how you access Side-Ops, is just how claustrophobic and limiting these canyons become; while there is a desert part to the map and some settlements in larger "fields", the vast majority of the map itself is divided up by these tall canyons. Some of these can be climbed through at certain points along the canyon, but by and large, you can't beeline from one side of the map to the other in a vehicle like you can in Angola-Zaire due to the canyons along the way, and so you're forced to stick to the roads...which just sucks, and unnecessarily stretches out how long it takes to get from one Side-Op to the next in Afghanistan vs Angola-Zaire. This isn't anything game breaking or particularly annoying, I just think the fact that the game continues to throw Afghanistan-based Side-Ops at you at the same rate as Side-Ops in Angola-Zaire when one map is much better suited to chaining a few Side-Ops together in a single drop (note: new Side-Ops won't appear until you've returned to the ACC, so you're limited on how many you can clear in a single drop) is a bit puzzling. 

To speak to another criticism based on my recent sessions with the game, I need to speak about Episode 25...

Spoiler

...so, for anyone viewing this, brief reminder: Episode 25 ends with learning that a strain of some sort has been making your men and women at Mother Base fall ill. The game recommends you start quarantining them on a designated Quarantine platform, but gives you no serious hint as to what is causing the illness, with you being advised to try to figure it out yourself. Looking at the 10 or so people on the platform and given some earlier story events relating to a new language specialist being gained from Angola-Zaire and some kid having a mic stuck in his throat, I pretty quickly deduced that the common denominator was that the infected were Kikongo speakers.

However! The pain came in when moving these Kikongo speakers, painstakingly, one by one, from other platforms, and having Ocelot ask if you've figured out what the pattern is – which, well, I had, but the damn guy didn't think to give me a hand moving them en masse. What's more, you can't filter soldiers by the languages they speak, nor can you move them faster than one by one (at least from what I found), and so this entire process took well over half an hour, perhaps even closer to an hour to move 326 soldiers across – and I then had to deal with new people coming in, and minimised the enemies I Fulton'd out so that I didn't need to deal with filtering out the Kikongo speakers. 

Love it conceptually, and very Kojima (the story too, love it) -- but not a big fan of the execution of this part. 

I'm very curious now to see how long I'll stick with the game, because there are still clearly some important story beats to hit and I'm sure I'll see those through (assuming no Peace Walker silliness), but I'm just not sure about going ham on those Afghanistan Side-Ops with the issue that I mentioned with the map design before. 

Still having a great time and that's the main thing 

On 4/18/2025 at 8:07 PM, Hero-of-Time said:

I honestly hated that scene. It really highlighted just how little dialogue there was from Sutherland in the game and how bland he was when he did speak up.

Ah, I totally get you -- for me, I think I've just got used to Snake being silent most of this game, so having someone speak at me for a while with some great music thrown in for a very tense car ride felt wonderful. Snake occasionally looking at the camera with a the hell is this guy talking about? face cracked me up, though I'm not really sure it fit with the tone of the scene 

[Julius]

That Quiet in the rain scene sure is...something. Never quite seen something like that in games before, let me tell you. Kojima isn't a Diamond Dog, he's a Dirty Dog 

Anyways, 50+ hours in now and in what feels like the home stretch in Chapter 2 (hard to tell given how long Chapter 1 was and the context of the whole Kojima/Konami fiasco). After a bit of time away from the game this past week, today the focus was on getting back into the swing of things with Side-Ops, deployments (Battle Gear is out in the field being tested) and maxing out Quiet's bond - as I'd barely used her up to this point she was way behind my other Buddies - which took a bit of time, but we got there. Much prefer D-Dog for my play style, who I think I'll probably be focusing on using for this last bit of the game. 

Subsistence and Extreme versions of previous missions have popped up, and I just don't think I'm in the mood to go that hardcore and replay a mission this far in, especially when I feel like the story (or whatever's left of it) is trying to barrel to an end. Unfortunate timing as I'd probably have been down to give it a try half a game ago  

Miller keeps going off at everyone, and I continue to not be a fan of his. He's such a negative presence around Mother Base – I've never been one for middle management. Really wish Snake would give him a good backhand to put him in his place 

[Julius]

Uh, wait...what? 

Spoiler

The Man On Fire was Volgin and the game first decides to confirm that information offhand in a radio conversation? Weird anti-climax. 

Super hype to see his model in the FOX Engine though. 

It was a bit weird being told the objective was to secure his body, but then not having it be marked by the game or D-Dog. I wandered around the base for a while before - standing next to the corpse in the middle of that square - I checked on it and chuckled at not noticing the corpse next to me. One of the only instances in the game this has happened? 

The entire handling of The Man On Fire and this Side-Op felt like some weird meta-commentary from Kojima. 

Man, I've got to say, I really love the FOX Engine. This game still looks INSANE to this day, and the way everything feels and moves just feels so tangible. There's a weight and a punch to this game's physics that I don't think many other games of this size and ambition come close to. 

Honestly, I would've loved to see the first Metal Gear Solid remade in this engine, the way Ground Zeroes and certain locales in MGSV are framed and given a similar colour palette to mirror the first game seems very purposeful and like a massive tease for what they could've gone on to accomplish with this remakes on this engine – similarly, Mother Base looking so much like Big Shell from MGS2 and the jungles being very reminiscent of MGS3, to the point that this game feels like some weird, confused, out of time celebration of MGS mechanically and visually in contrast to the hype fest that was 4 (and to be clear, there's definitely a place for both). 

Konami going the way they did and this engine going to waste outside of PES and pachinko cutscenes genuinely hurts, and playing through this makes it hard not to wonder what their plans are for the franchise at this point. If nothing else, it really pumps up my hype for Delta later this year and a potential MGS Remake in the future, though. 

Edited 11 hours ago by Julius