'Metal Gear?!' Solid V: The Phantom Pain

[popcorn]

I find it weird that you say you've played for 15 - 20 hours but it sounds like you're so much ahead of me. I thought the same thing reading similar comments in the old posts on this thread. I have spent sometimes two - three hours on single missions, slowly crawling around for ages scoping areas out only to be discovered, shot to fuck, and forced to restart ages back.

I never finished it, I will go back one day, but it was the same for me spent about an hour on a mission only for things to go south at the end and have to do it all again, in a stealth game(yes you can go full assault) it really made it a bit of a grind.

Yep, absolutely. I say I'm about 20 hours in but more than half that has been replaying stuff. I really am crap at this.

[asids]

I haven't played MGS V for a good while but I played about 35 hours or so. I really like it and should probably get back to it sometime, but I totally get the criticisms on here. The open-world aspect I absolutely love and I'm glad a stealth game has managed to do it and generally do it right, but the game is so bogged down with stupid stuff that it kinds of ruins the experience. I would be quite happy if they just got rid of all the FOB staff and their missions and all that stuff, it just feels completely unnecessary.

Missions are also too much of a timesink, as has been said. Once I accept the mission, I go to the helicopter at the base, fly out with unnecessary little helicopter sequence, then on the helicopter I pick a drop-off zone, then I get to see another helicopter drop-off sequence that I can't just skip that I've seen a million times (only made slightly better by the fact I can put Kajagoogoo on in the background), I'm dropped off at a bit that's a distance away from the mission location so I've either got to pick my horse as my buddy to get there in decent time or D-Dog or Quiet who will be much more useful for the actual mission but make the trek much longer (EDIT: completely forgot you get vehicles later on which make things a bit easier), then once I get to the location it's a big base with loads of guys so I need to get a good vantage point and then use my binoculars to mark out all the guys so I don't get a nasty surprise when I go in, then once that's done I can finally start doing the mission itself. The whole process is just a pain in the arse, and then if I fuck up and die/decide to go back to the checkpoint I've got to mark out all those fucking guys again.

Another thing I dislike about the game is that it's another example of a game that forces you to do side stuff in order to actually be able to progress further in the main storyline, even if you don't care about that stuff. I mean, I do like the side missions, but a good example of what I'm talking about is the fact I had two main missions I needed to do in which it was recommended that I get a missile launcher for them. I check and I don't have the right staff level or materials for developing the missile launcher. So I now need to do side missions and just randomly go about the world hoping to capture some enemies whose skills will help get the necessary staff levels up and also find these materials I need. It's nice that they've got side stuff, but I want the side stuff to be optional, not necessary. What if I just want to play through the main story? Why force me to do this almost grind to be able to progress?

It's a shame, because I do really like the game when it's in the main gameplay aspect, it feels free and fun and also challenging and allows for the freedom of your own playstyle. But there's just so much unnecessary clutter that it worsens the experience.

[hedgehog90]

I generally agree with your post but I just wanted to say this - what's wrong with a bit of grinding?
It's a shame that this aspect of gaming has been mostly bred out of modern AAA games. Sometimes a bit of pointless monotonous struggle is nice.

[Zetetic]

The 'side missions' exist for various reasons, I think: to provide a context where the player can mess about and gain familiarity with the world and its (normal) mechanics without the stakes feeling particularly high and with the player having more control over the difficulty, to allow both silliness and touches of verisimilitude that might impinge on the main missions if it were highlighted there, to SPOILER allow the player to be surprised by violating expectations about what's "main" and what's "side" (and again I think there's something there both about playing with gaminess and creating a sense of a more real situation).

Effectively gating aspects of the 'main' missions is one way of trying to encourage you to play the side missions.

I'm not sure all the FOB stuff works terribly well, I would admit, but there's the shape of something more interesting there.

I found the MGS V did a very good job at introducing you to mechanics over time in a moderately unintrusive fashion. I'm sometimes very bad at making myself experiment and learn-by-doing in games, and MGS V managed to suppress that anxiety and encourage me in the right ways.

[popcorn]

I'm confused about mission objectives. Sometimes I start a mission and there's no goal point on the map. I just did a side mission where I'm supposed to rescue a prisoner, spent about an hour carefully taking out every soldier in the base, and now can't find this prisoner anywhere. I'd like to interrogate a guard but I don't have the African translation thing yet. I can't find a way of checking in the menu what the mission objective is, or even check the name of the mission to look it up online.

Can anyone answer this question? Am I doing something wrong? I've been stuck on this one mission for days now, and I can't find the bloody prisoner.

[AsparagusTrevor]

I always found D-Dog to be a huge help when searching for hostages, as he can sniff em out from a relative distance and they're tagged from then on. Sometimes the prisoners are executed without much warning, which, for all intends and purposes, causes them to disappear from the mission.

[popcorn]

I always found D-Dog to be a huge help when searching for hostages, as he can sniff em out from a relative distance and they're tagged from then on. Sometimes the prisoners are executed without much warning, which, for all intends and purposes, causes them to disappear from the mission.

I've got D-Dog! he's not managed it so far.

I think I might be infilitrating the wrong bloody base, or something. But with no mission markers or even a way to check the objectives that I can find, I have no idea.

[Zetetic]

I have to admit I'm struggling with my memory - I thought side-missions were clearly marked as limited to a particular area on the map. (To the extent that leaving that area abandons the mission?)

[popcorn]

Well, in the end I just fucked off out of the mission area, and now it's marked as complete in my mission list (assuming it's the mission I think it is). I have no fucking idea what happened. Wasted hours on it though.

I think I might also have worked out why I have such shite equipment. I haven't been upgrading my base. God, I really could have done without all this management shit. All it is is just clicking and waiting, clicking and waiting.

[Shay Chaise]

No, it's clicking, carrying on with the game, fultoning resources as and when you come across them and trying to hit all the objectives on each mission to get new blueprints and stuff to create new gear. Then you click again and you get the new gear and your basic gameplay opens up further.

[popcorn]

No, it's clicking, carrying on with the game, fultoning resources as and when you come across them and trying to hit all the objectives on each mission to get new blueprints and stuff to create new gear. Then you click again and you get the new gear and your basic gameplay opens up further.

Thing is, I'm not convinced you need the clicking element. It could all be automatic. The more guys and shit you fulton, the bigger your base gets, the faster equipment develops.

[Shay Chaise]

You've got a lot of choices, though, that's just the most basic way of getting the useful stuff without taking you out of the main game. I was trying to be helpful. I got right into the FOB stuff and did a lot more with it but it's not necessary, nor for everyone. If you concentrate on R&D, that'll have the most effect on your main game options.

[Penfold]

This is on sale during the latest PSN Big in Japan sale. Is there a way to play the game but not have to deal with all flaming man/teleporting skulls stuff? I really liked the stealth and trundling around Afghanistan but I wasn't interested in the story. Is there a different game I should be playing or were there parts to this I missed when I first bought it?

[Shay Chaise]

What is with you people?

This country.

[asids]

I generally agree with your post but I just wanted to say this - what's wrong with a bit of grinding?
It's a shame that this aspect of gaming has been mostly bred out of modern AAA games. Sometimes a bit of pointless monotonous struggle is nice.

There's nothing wrong with it in the right context, like, say a JRPG where you expect that sort of thing, but MGS V isn't so...I guess it just pissed me off. With that being said, the game does seem to incorporate a number of RPG elements so maybe it isn't that surprising.

[Thursday]

It's been a while since I played this so maybe I'm forgetting some of these issues, but I suspect those who'd played Peace Walker would have been better prepared for the R&D stuff and rinsing the Ground Zeroes prologue meant you'd be pretty comfortable with most of the mechanics going in. So I don't remember finding anything that confusing.

As for the story stuff... well yeah... if you've not been a dedicated fan since at least  Metal Gear Solid 1, I don't know what to tell you. I'm not saying that's fine, just that it is what it is.

[Consignia]

Meh, there's hardly any story in MGSV. Outside of a few brief set pieces, it's largely optional. It's like the anti MGS4.

[hewantstolurkatad]

Grinding is much more of a niche thing these days, is it not? It's not a very valid way of padding out a game when there are so many other options of things to fill your time. Like, if you wanna do some grinding, you play a game that's pretty much designed from the ground up to be all about the grind.

[Shay Chaise]

There is literally no grinding in this game, by the way. You can play the entire thing without replaying a single mission.

[Thursday]

Yeah I mean a lot of the side-missions are essentially minor modifications and variations on another. I don't see it as an issue at all, I was having a lot of fun with side missions, and the main campaign is substantial enough, so suggesting MGS5 is padded seems absurd to me.

I mean it does completely fuck off all the good-will I had towards it in the end, but I wouldn't say it was grindy.

[popcorn]

I had to do a bit psuedo-grinding early on when I was trying to do missions without necessary equipment, like missiles to take out vehicles.

[hedgehog90]

You can play the entire thing without replaying a single mission.

Aren't around 10 of the later missions repeats but with the difficulty ramped up?
That struck me not so much as grindy, but rather cunty. Didn't appreciate that at all.

[Consignia]

Aren't around 10 of the later missions repeats but with the difficulty ramped up?
That struck me not so much as grindy, but rather cunty. Didn't appreciate that at all.

No, you don't need to do those ones. You can just do the generic side missions instead to unlock the storyline missions. The second half of the game is pretty hobbled together, it's sadly not the complete vision Kojima had in mind.

[JamesTC]

It is a damn shame that only Chapter One really turned out as intended. We missed out on loads including a return to Camp Omega from Ground Zeroes. There is some real good stuff in Chapter Two. Shining Light Without Death has one of my favourite moments in any Metal Gear game.

The biggest loss was Mission 51 which was baffling in how they let that get cut. It was necessary for the story as it resolves a major plot point. At least the mission can be viewed online so you can see how the story ends.

The game as it stands is unfortunately the worst of the main Solid games in terms of story yet also the best in terms of gameplay.

Another thing I think was missing from the game was a bit more variety and silliness like Peace Walker. A few missions in which your only weapon is a banana would have been great. Ground Zeroes actually managed to have more variety in terms of side ops than Phantom Pain.

[Bhazor]

I still say chapter 2 was miles better than the first. It actually had a story at that point where each mission tied into the next and was bookmarked with a cinematic. Africa was also a much better sandbox. Afghanistan was just thinly veiled corridors linking bases with the vast majority of the map being inaccessible rocks and mountains. Africa though was nice and flat where you really could approach bases from any angle.

To me Peace Walker, which I played alongside it, was the better game even though that one had even worse problems.

[Thursday]

Africa was still chapter 1 though.

*edit* Actually maybe it wasn't, can't even remember now.

*another edit* No I'm right first Africa missions is chapter 13.

[Bhazor]

Barely. You get one Africa mission then head back to Afghanistan for Salanthrepous. I think.

[Thursday]

Think there's 2 Salanthrepous encounters, 1 where you just run away and one where you fight it, which isn't until mission 31, and that's when you get the weird end of chapter 1 credit sequence.

That's what's so bizarre, there's no need for it to be "chapter 2" there's no need for the hard versions of missions, which many will do thinking they have to.  Just fucking stupid.

[brat-sampson]

Yup, sadly bar a few cutscenes and one or two of the missions (which are highlights of the whole game, admittedly) everything in the game that follows the credits for Chapter 1 is a fucking dumpster fire of unfinished nonsense. Such a damn shame.

It's the best Metal Gear. It's the worst Metal Gear.

[Bhazor]

Think there's 2 Salanthrepous encounters, 1 where you just run away and one where you fight it, which isn't until mission 31, and that's when you get the weird end of chapter 1 credit sequence.

That's what's so bizarre, there's no need for it to be "chapter 2" there's no need for the hard versions of missions, which many will do thinking they have to.  Just fucking stupid.

Yep you're right I totally misremembered the game. It must be alzheimers. I have early onset alzheimers.