The Therapist Gamer

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is the second half of a story that begins with Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.  Unlike Ground Zeroes, this is actually a full game (well, mostly.  More on that later).  Like it's predecessors, it is primarily a stealth game but you can play the game any way you want - if you want to be silent and not kill anyone, go for it; but you can run around with a grenade launcher if you want to.  The game has a lot of RPG elements, including building a base and developing new items and weapons throughout the game.  Due to a variety of factors, it is the last real Metal Gear Solid game that will be made.  

 

Some brief real-life context:  As of the time of this writing (4/20/16), it is not publicly known why there will be no more Metal Gear Games made by Hideo Kojima.  We know that about a year before the game was released that Konami took the phrase "A Hideo Kojima Game" off of all promotional materials for the game and its packaging.  They even retroactively took it off of the Ground Zeroes packaging.  Apparently Konami was mad at Kojima about something, and many suspected it was because he was taking a long time to finish The Phantom Pain.  A few months before the game was released there was a rumor that Hideo Kojima and his entire staff had been fired, or rather would be a few months after the game was finished.  The game was released but neither Kojima nor anyone else commented on the rumor that they'd all been fired.  There were some issues with the game with many people, including myself, thinking the game was unfinished; this further fueled the rumor that Kojima actually was fired and his game was released before his team was done.  Three months after the game came out Hideo Kojima won an award for his game at the VGX awards, but the host said that he was told by Konami's lawyers that Hideo Kojima was forbidden to attend the event to accept the award.  This of course caused a massive backlash against Konami, but neither they nor anyone else had anything to say about what was going on.  Very soon after, Hideo Kojima appeared with a PlayStation executive where it was revealed that they were partnering to make a new game, and that Kojima was forming a new studio (which was weirdly named Kojima Productions - the exact same name as his studio with Konami).  Later we learned that Kojima was not allowed to work on the game for the final six months of development.  And that's all we know - no one knows what happened between Konami and Kojima, but Konami own the rights to Metal Gear Solid and so Kojima won't be allowed to make any more.  Since Metal Gear Solid is my favorite video game series ever this was a huge bummer to me, but I'm glad that Kojima will be making games with PlayStation.  This whole saga was one of the biggest scandals in the modern video game industry.

 

Why this is relevant is that people knew before The Phantom Pain was released that it would be the final "real" Metal Gear game.  What secrets did the story hold?  How did the events from the games that take place in the past lead to the events of the games that take place in the future?  "All will be revealed!" the trailers teased.

 

The game starts out with your character coming out of a coma.  You learn that you've been in a coma for nine years - since the end of Ground Zeroes.  You also learn that you lost your left arm and that you have a large piece of metal lodged in your skull.  While talking with a doctor, someone sneaks into the room and strangles him (you are unable to speak or use your limbs).  The assassin then turns to you, but is tackled by a bandaged man who has apparently been in a bed across the room.  He fends off the attacker and gives you a shot of some medicine that supposedly speeds up your use of your limbs.  The entire hospital is under attack - troops are killing everyone but they are looking for you.  You spend the first several minutes of gameplay literally crawling on the ground as you are completely unable to walk.  

 

You later meet up with your old comrades and decide to exact revenge on the people who attacked your base at the end of Ground Zeroes and who attacked the hospital.  To do this you need to rebuild a base and raise an army.  You do this by acquiring resources in the field and kidnapping enemy soldiers.  Yes, every enemy in the game can be captured and convinced to join your army.  This is done via the Fulton Recovery System, a real device that was once developed by the U.S. military.  How it works is that a person has a weather balloon attached to them and then they fly up into the air where a helicopter picks them up.  It was never used in real life because it wouldn't have worked, but it does in The Phantom Pain.  Each soldier has strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities, and you can play as them instead of as Snake.

 

You can capture many other things including livestock, mortars, vehicles, and railcars full of supplies.  In addition to capturing material, you can use this game mechanic in other ways; for example, you can capture a mission target, put him in the passenger side of a jeep, and then just extract the jeep itself.  If you need to leave a warzone in a hurry, you could climb atop a railcar and attach a balloon - riding along with it up into the sky.

 

These materials and soldiers all end up at your base and help you out in the field.  For example, if you capture enough soldiers with engineering skills then perhaps you can develop a better scope for your sniper rifle or a silencer for your shotgun.  All of the weapons you capture end up at your base and can be used to fend off attackers.  Players can invade each other's bases in an effort to steal supplies, so it's ideal to have good defenses.

 

The stealth, gunplay, and other gameplay mechanics are polished to a tee.  Metal Gear games are known for the freedom you have with your character's movement, and this game goes even further than any previous Metal Gear game.  Everything about this game is simply top-tier and there are essentially no flaws whatsoever with the gameplay.

 

Incidentally, the term "phantom pain" refers to the phenomenon where amputees can still feel pain in their severed limbs.  This is a theme throughout the game, both literally with Snake having lost an arm, but also in metaphorical ways such as the emptiness of revenge.

 

I found the story to be engaging and there were many memorable events throughout the game.  However, I am of the opinion that, from a story perspective, the game felt unfinished.  It's hard to explain why I feel this way without revealing spoilers for the game, so I'll give you a vague but demonstrative example.  At one point in the game there are three objects that, if any were used, could kill billions of people.  You secure two of them, but someone escapes with the third one.  And that's it.  Nothing further is revealed about what happened.  This is a plot point that is in no way addressed in Metal Gear Games that take place in the future.  Since this is the final Metal Gear game there is simply no closure for this massive plot point.  The special edition of the game included a video (now available on YouTube) of a mission that was mostly complete but not included in the game.  In part it addressed the plot issue I just mentioned, but it never made it into the game.  Given what we know about how Kojima was fired, it really seems like the game was released in an unfinished state.  To me it's also noteworthy that the previous two Metal Gear games had a prologue, 5 acts, and an epilogue, whereas this game had a prologue and basically one and a half chapters, and then it's over.  I can't help but think that there was more Metal Gear planned, but now I'll never get to play it.  Even without the cut content, however, I would still say the story in The Phantom Pain is better than the story in 95% of video games.

 

The Phantom Pain is an amazing game of the highest caliber, and truly an achievement of game production.  However, it feels somewhat blighted by its sordid past and seemingly incomplete story.  Maybe this was Kojima's intention, but I feel a phantom pain that the series is over.