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How Is MGSV's Story Surprising or Stupid? (Warning: Spoilers)
- Thread starter Muppet of a Man
- Start date
Muppet of a Man
Member
I agree that he didn't have the finer plot points mapped out prior, but he always keeps consistent the underlying theme: sins of the father (i.e., the mistakes of history are tragically repeated with regards to politics and war, whether it happens due to biological tendencies which are expressed via the genes of father and son or memetically due to the passing of an ideology/meme from one individual/group to another via the expression of propaganda, language, and/or cultural hegemony).
Vital Tundra
Member
It wasn't a surprise because the beginning spoiled it. The man had the same voice as you, said you were talking to yourself, the song. Everything pointed to it so I found it unnecessary. I would have rather actually seen Big Bosses downfall. The context of the twist is good, though. Makes MG1 really interesting in that way.
Yes, it was too in your face about it.
Always liked the idea of BB turning villain. They pretty much killed it. Though 4 played a role.
Like all Metal Gear Solid stories it is utterly stupid
The problem is that there is not enough of it in MGSV (likely a reaction to there being too much of it in MGS4.) Most of the story is either in another separate game (Ground Zeroes) or pushed into cassette tapes that are a pain to listen to because they get in the way of Fultoning sheep
The problem is that there is not enough of it in MGSV (likely a reaction to there being too much of it in MGS4.) Most of the story is either in another separate game (Ground Zeroes) or pushed into cassette tapes that are a pain to listen to because they get in the way of Fultoning sheep
SolVanderlyn
Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
Muppet of a Man
Member
I think the story had substance but that the gameplay content was overwhelmingly greater in volume and not directly related. I do think there was some logic to this Kojima madness, however. I think Kojima was trying to hammer home just how powerful ideological brainwashing can be in terms of translation to action. V really intellectually believed he was Big Boss from the get-go but he needed to FEEL what it meant to be the legendary soldier by pulling off magnificent feats, saving the world from skull face. That's what the toiling of the game's mission are: you feel what it means to be the leader of a mercenary army with a polarizing ideological position only to realize in the end that you are a tool of someone else's grand scheme.
I think Kojima is saying that we all take our ideological viewpoints at face value as axiomatic in many instances, when in reality, much of what we think of as our own point of view on the world is really that of what has been culturally/hegemonically implanted into us from birth, shaped by another author's will to meet their own ends.
semiconscious
Member
completely agree. & holy crap! did the exact same thing with playing until dawn soon after, & it's true! - tho i didn't really appreciate it till now, i did care way more about that cast than i did mgs v's
...
FlashbladeGAF
Member
The surprise came when a previous mission had to be replayed at a higher difficulty, and Chapter's 3, 4 and 5 never showed up after the credits rolled on Chapter 2 MGSV followed the same structure as Peace Walker. The big difference was Konami stopped Kojima from finishing MGSV.
I enjoyed the story that was there, just like any MGS. I just wanted more of it.
Sure it had it's flaws. But I still enjoyed every second of the game and looked forward to the next mission until I got that first "subsistence" mission.
Hell no. The voice acting for skull face was awesome.
Pharaoh 117
Member
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
I don't care about the twist. In fact I like not playing as Big Boss and the Raiden parallel. Its a lot of the other stuff I don't like.
- Skull Face is such a misfire of a character. Not engaging at all.
- Not a single Solidus mention.
- Liquid and Mantis subplot is resolved in a youtube video.
- Parasite plot is completely irrelevant to the rest of the series. Its just a vehicle to show how Zero lost control of the AI.
- The revenge theme falls flat for players who did not care about the Peace Walker MSF organization.
- The race theme is not addressed at all. When you're quarantining soldiers by language, its not like you're segregating based on race.
- Language is an unnamed theme. Its message falls flat. Was Kojima trying to say that English is a virus and that English speakers should feel bad or something? Globalization boogeyman? Is this revenge for the VGAs?
- Sahelanthropus is too advanced for a 1984 Metal Gear. Its one thing to ditch the consistency of your old 2D games but its another to ditch the consistency of your relatively modern 1998 and 2001 outings.
- Mantis' power creep.
- Code Talker's conversations are boring. Exposition in other MGS games was presented better, including the long codec scenes in MGS2.
- Skull Face is such a misfire of a character. Not engaging at all.
- Not a single Solidus mention.
- Liquid and Mantis subplot is resolved in a youtube video.
- Parasite plot is completely irrelevant to the rest of the series. Its just a vehicle to show how Zero lost control of the AI.
- The revenge theme falls flat for players who did not care about the Peace Walker MSF organization.
- The race theme is not addressed at all. When you're quarantining soldiers by language, its not like you're segregating based on race.
- Language is an unnamed theme. Its message falls flat. Was Kojima trying to say that English is a virus and that English speakers should feel bad or something? Globalization boogeyman? Is this revenge for the VGAs?
- Sahelanthropus is too advanced for a 1984 Metal Gear. Its one thing to ditch the consistency of your old 2D games but its another to ditch the consistency of your relatively modern 1998 and 2001 outings.
- Mantis' power creep.
- Code Talker's conversations are boring. Exposition in other MGS games was presented better, including the long codec scenes in MGS2.
WHHHHHOOO-What!? Skullface's voice acting was actually good
I'm conflicted. I really liked the game, the gameplay especially, but I have to admit the story was kind of weird and not as expertly crafted as other titles. Maybe the open world aspect is to blame? I don't know :/
NinjamicWZ
Banned
Yeah, wtf. We started saying whooooo because it's amazing.
matrix-cat
Member
Whoa, hey there, Skully's voice actor is amazing. Not his fault he had a ridiculous script to work with; that guy knocked it out of the goddamn park.
And, yeah, MGSV's story is firmly in the stupid camp. I actually think parasites destroying language is a really cool, very MGS-y idea, but Kojima botched it completely by just getting the pacing completely wrong. The parasites plot should have unfolded gradually over the course of Chapter 1, instead it's entirely confined to the last four missions. Game gives you nothing from like mission 3 to mission 27, then crams everything in right at the pointy end, and expects you to listen to hours of new tapes while at the same time telling you it's time to go and get big bad Skull Face. Where was all that shit while I was slogging away doing Fultoning no-name schmucks for forty hours, game? Why would you keep a glorious ham like Skull Face off-screen until the very end of the game, then just kill him off with no fanfare? Ugh, what a complete misfire of a game.
Chapter 2 isn't even worth talking about. Grind out some Side Ops or repeated main missions then get called back home to watch a cutscene. I honestly can't fathom why Kojima thought he needed to split the game into two chapters. Chapter 1 is begging for more story content, and Chapter 2 has so little new gameplay; you could make a totally decent story with the same content if you just put it together in a less stupid order. I mean, you couldn't make the Venom twist or the Quiet stuff any less ridiculous, but the rest could totally be salvaged.
GodzillaDB
Member
Ultimately, I find the MGSV story-arc as a massively missed opportunity both in retrospect of the franchise and Hideo Kojima's initial proclamations toward implementing artistic process over churning out just another product. After the undeniable train wreck from MGS4 and the filler nature of Peace Walker, the game designer's proclamations toward taking some thematic risks with this entry suggested some renewed aspiration toward exploring the narrative realm of the interactive medium. His fawning over acclaimed cinematic works like Breaking Bad and Drive (2011) potentially indicated an effort to hone his storytelling skills by acknowledging constructive criticism and studying visual works with notable praise for enforcing the fabled "show, don't tell" technique. Instead, we're left with a video game hindered from tossing out the essential (balanced, signature game-plot ratio) with the non-essential (cut-scene length, open-world framework) and trimmed/withheld content as another uneventful extension of the Metal Gear universe with corporate interest making their presence known for the first time as part of the core experience. Even on the chance the absent material, such as Venom Snake in the African village and the purported return to Camp Omega, were initial red-herrings to combat spoilers, misdirection right at the closure of the franchise doesn't make any sense when the advert stuff holds more topical weight than the final release and the final reveal was spoiled well in advance while serving as a lackluster retcon to boot. I dare believe his efforts facilitated a masturbatory desire to return back to his legacy as the "ruse master" without understanding the reason to enforce misinformation. I don't believe the post-release journey was worth the effort even if the extra main-ops comes to fruition.
Jangowuzhere
Banned
I thought the twist was surprising and cool, but then again, I wasn't one of those people analyzing every single trailer for story details.
petethepanda
Member
It has some interesting ideas that it kind of states and lets sit there, unexplored (though I personally don't find the 'other Big Boss' stuff to be one of them), but the thing that ruined it for me was that the game practically doesn't have a story. It has an opening scene and an ending scene and a lot of vague, loosely strung together events thrown around inbetween, but at no point does it ever remotely feel like the kind of narrative we normally get in one of these.
RevolverRoden
Member
It was stupid ya but so is every other MGS game tbh
Jangowuzhere
Banned
I think the trailers for this game gave people unrealistic expectations. If you come into this game expecting the final "missing link" to the saga, then you will be disappointed. However, if you disregard that marketing bullshit from the actual game and judge it by its own standards, it's a fun Metal Gear story.
I was personally fascinated with the vocal chord parasites, revenge against Skullface, Huey's relation to the Diamond Dogs, the twists with Quiet, etc. Is it all amazingly well done? No, it has a major pacing problem by being such a long game. The ending is cool, but not a proper send off for that journey. I was also disappointed with this game and its story when I first finished it, but I've come to terms with it. I think it's a lot more engaging then all the bullshit presented in MGS4.
I was personally fascinated with the vocal chord parasites, revenge against Skullface, Huey's relation to the Diamond Dogs, the twists with Quiet, etc. Is it all amazingly well done? No, it has a major pacing problem by being such a long game. The ending is cool, but not a proper send off for that journey. I was also disappointed with this game and its story when I first finished it, but I've come to terms with it. I think it's a lot more engaging then all the bullshit presented in MGS4.
I'm actually glad they didn't go down this route. Honestly, you can make a direct connection to Big Boss being a villain at the end of MGS3 or Peace Walker. We really don't need to see Big Boss "become" a villain. It's heavily implied why he does it. In MGS3, you can just assume he became a baddy once he figured out that his government were a bunch of scheming dirtbags. In Peace Walker, you can assume that he became a bad guy when he rejected The Boss and her vision of peace. Making an entire game just to see his exact downfall only stretches his character arc further to unneeded lengths. At some point, it would just be Kojima beating you over the head, and that's not fun.
Muppet of a Man
Member
I kind of agree with this because MGSV is not at all about Big Boss; it's about V. It's about finding out that your real history has been supplanted by a false one that is not your own and having difficult allegiance problems to contend with. For example, many grow up being patriotic, blindly regurgitating the rhetoric that we are the good guys and that the "other" is bad or unjust. Then they are confronted with a reality at a certain point in their lives where they can no longer decipher between what used to be a black and white to them in the past. It is about delusions of grandeur then having a humbling experience occur that changes your perspective on life. Hell, I think V was so quiet the whole time because that is an aspect of his own personality coming through, not Big Boss's. You might even say he has an intuited reticence in his belief that he is actually Big Boss throughout the game. In contrast, the actual Big Boss is much more assertive throughout Ground Zeros and in the hospital scene as Ishmael.
Know what? I have actually come to like the story in all its insanity- its the execution that was horrible, though. It was a cool idea but this is my biggest problem with the sory:
Before the game came out, I thought central theme would be that the greatest weapon of the 20th century isn’t nuclear, its the English language. I thought the general idea was that the English language is used as a force of cultural assimilation and thus genocide as a result of globalization. I thought it would touch on the negatives of an increasingly globalized world and how we end up losing our identities in efforts to conform... but nope its a damn zombie flu... of course.
The Elegia trailer in general made the game out to be far deeper and surreal than it actually was, I even thought the whole Venom Snake thing was going to be a Fight Club situation- that he perceived his "good" and "dark" side as two different entities, and that some dissonance made him hallucinate another "self". In the end his two "sides" would conform into one man and identity- the Big Boss we know from MG1 and 2.
Now THAT would have been cool. Its an idea I have been pondering as well, being an immigrant myself.
Before the game came out, I thought central theme would be that the greatest weapon of the 20th century isn’t nuclear, its the English language. I thought the general idea was that the English language is used as a force of cultural assimilation and thus genocide as a result of globalization. I thought it would touch on the negatives of an increasingly globalized world and how we end up losing our identities in efforts to conform... but nope its a damn zombie flu... of course.
The Elegia trailer in general made the game out to be far deeper and surreal than it actually was, I even thought the whole Venom Snake thing was going to be a Fight Club situation- that he perceived his "good" and "dark" side as two different entities, and that some dissonance made him hallucinate another "self". In the end his two "sides" would conform into one man and identity- the Big Boss we know from MG1 and 2.
Now THAT would have been cool. Its an idea I have been pondering as well, being an immigrant myself.
I'm not understanding this parallel with MGS2's themes. The game is the exact opposite of MGS2. MGS2 urged players to be their own self, and make their own story in life. Raiden is used as a parallel to the player, who is trying to imitate Snake for most of the game, only to realize that he has his own story and people that he cares for. At this point, Raiden stops being a self insert for the player, instead becoming a reflection to make the player look at their own life. MGSV does the exact opposite, instead urging players to take on the appearance of Big Boss, and in essence become part of the legend himself. Venom Snake has no history. He is a straight up self-insert for the player to use for the sole purpose of imitating big boss. The twist doesn't even try to be subtle. It's a useless gimmick as far as storytelling goes, and serves no real purpose to the story.
The man has been writing himself into a corner for years. It's almost respectable that he just keeps knocking down the walls and building new rooms instead of a more practical solution.
I dunno, I don't think it's terrible, it's just not really "there". The ending isn't much of a conclusion, it's just a neat little twist that doesn't have a whole lot of ramifications on the plot of the game or the rest of the series.
It's not really all that stupid, at least not in the traditional MGS sense. It's just not that interesting.
It's not really all that stupid, at least not in the traditional MGS sense. It's just not that interesting.
Muppet of a Man
Member
I believe that it's parallel in structure but the outcome is the opposite on purpose. Like Kojima is saying that this is what happens when people are deluded but either reluctantly settle for that delusion because there is no better alternative that they perceive or double down on it due to becoming further deluded. Even though Raiden's seemingly breaks free of his delusion at the end of MGS2, we come to find he continues to wrestle with his past and identity into the future with the events of MGS4 and Rising.
Sure MGS always has a Stupid story. But i always liked it until MGS Venom phantom Pain . Its beyond stupid. I mean i loved all the other MGS games including Peace walker. Its got a better story than this. I mean Ground zeroes is Fun & i thought the Prologue is also really great. After that it felt short on Everything.
Its just you play
.
i really was expecting a better story. even a 12 year old kid can write a better story than that.
. Its beyond stupid. I mean i loved all the other MGS games including Peace walker. Its got a better story than this. I mean Ground zeroes is Fun & i thought the Prologue is also really great. After that it felt short on Everything. Its just you play
as Venom & at the last minute, OK big boss it gone to create outer heaven & you are not big boss & you are just the medic blah blah blah. its beyond Stupid
i really was expecting a better story. even a 12 year old kid can write a better story than that.
And how the hell is Medic performs like Big Boss. I mean Big Boss has skills better than anyone out there. And here we have Venom , killing Soldiers like eating cake.
VanillaCakeIsBurning
Member
Yeah, it's disappointing (to me).
I feel like I am much more likely to replay the other games in the series versus 5.
One, because I can experience a continuous narrative ride, which I prefer over doing tons of filler missions (the gameplay in 5 is great, but what it's placed in is not imo), and because it doesn't require me to delete my save data in order to start a new game.
Palculator
Unconfirmed Member
VR_RaidenXOF
Member
If you don't understand Postcolonial theory then you won't 'get' this game. Same with MGS2 and postmodernism. It's simple. Look it up. You feel that loss, that sense of what's missing? Yea, whole nations of people have been made to feel that way for centuries. Kojima is a genius.
BadAss2961
Member
The twist kinda gives you Big Boss' heel turn without having to show it. It's a very simple story, but the one that was necessary at this point in the series.
The saga is over. This is the third mainline prequel in a plot that wrapped 7 years ago. How many more series-impacting plot points can you expect? The story wasn't perfect, but I got all I wanted out of another MGS. A ton of gameplay content, some fan service with returning characters from both ends of the series, lots of Kaz and Ocelot material, Skullface dropping memes, and the Quiet story that ends strong and gives Venom Snake at least one friend to really remember him as his own person and not just a phantom Big Boss.
The only thing that sucked was Code Talker. His intro was pretty good, but he went downhill from there. I was gonna strangle him if he said "teh vocal cord parasites!" one more time.
One if the things I liked about the twist is that the two Big Bosses actually seems plausible in regards to the original game.
In Metal Gear you find out that your superior officer Big Boss sent you in and is the leader of Outer Heaven. You "kill" him escape the immediate area and your superiors bomb Outer Heaven back to the Stone Age. Game ends with Boss saying something about how it isn't over or something along those lines. Metal Gear 2 comes around, not only did Boss survive, somehow he was going around saving refugees prior to the bombs dropping which Snake seemed to barely escape.
Two Bosses actually makes more sense. The real one sent him in expecting him to fail, tried to stop him when he got too far, cleaned up refugees after it was obvious he got too far to the truth. Snake kills the other Boss and the end result makes a lot more sense than the original scenario.
WHOOO
Palculator
Unconfirmed Member
BadAss2961
Member
HAMBURGERS
Quintin DM
Member
Probably a little of both.
thesolidshark
Member
For the story wasn't really stupid. Biggest negatives that I'll give it is that it's sparse, compared to the gameplay, and that some of the cutscenes/story were a lot less linear and too experimental, if that's the right word. There were some post-story cutscenes I'd triggered by accident, and wondered would it have been better if they just added it to the main campaign; that includes the nuclear deterrency cutscene, but I can understand what they were trying to do.
After seeing most of the important cutscenes, seeing the twist, and especially the "truth tapes" accompanying the ending, I ended up liking what was there. I don't blame anyone for thinking the story felt poorly paced or incomplete; I could feel some of that before I felt the overall story was over. I think someone on GAF suggested the story might've been better if they had forgone chapters and re-arranged a few cutscenes so the fight with Sahelanthropus and Skullface's death was at the end of TPP's story.
The twist itself made sense more after the fact, as it of course explained how Big Boss was supposed to come back from dying at Solid Snake's hands in MG1, and another point that seemed relevant in relation to GZ. After GZ's motherbase was destroyed, I briefly wondered if there was wisdom in building such a similar base of operations as they were being actively targetted. Ocelot's, or Zero's plan to help the real Big Boss evade such a fate seemed really smart.
I liked what was there, but what I would've given for more (or what Konami could've charged for Ep. 51 and beyond). I really would've like to have seen where Kojima's original narrative was supposed to go past chapter 2. But more than anything, in it's place in the franchise, I'm glad it fits and didn't actively undo anything chronologically, that I know of.
Edit: Oh, and I think if Kojima did any planning for the franchise, it was done loosely. I really think he's more thematically-driven than anything, like he would want to make a game about a theme featured in a Metal Gear, but given popularity and expectation, the only way we'd see an idea like that pulled off (in a big budget game) is if that game had 'Metal Gear' in the title. Probably the reason why every MG seems different from each other when you start deconstructing them.
After seeing most of the important cutscenes, seeing the twist, and especially the "truth tapes" accompanying the ending, I ended up liking what was there. I don't blame anyone for thinking the story felt poorly paced or incomplete; I could feel some of that before I felt the overall story was over. I think someone on GAF suggested the story might've been better if they had forgone chapters and re-arranged a few cutscenes so the fight with Sahelanthropus and Skullface's death was at the end of TPP's story.
The twist itself made sense more after the fact, as it of course explained how Big Boss was supposed to come back from dying at Solid Snake's hands in MG1, and another point that seemed relevant in relation to GZ. After GZ's motherbase was destroyed, I briefly wondered if there was wisdom in building such a similar base of operations as they were being actively targetted. Ocelot's, or Zero's plan to help the real Big Boss evade such a fate seemed really smart.
I liked what was there, but what I would've given for more (or what Konami could've charged for Ep. 51 and beyond). I really would've like to have seen where Kojima's original narrative was supposed to go past chapter 2. But more than anything, in it's place in the franchise, I'm glad it fits and didn't actively undo anything chronologically, that I know of.
Edit: Oh, and I think if Kojima did any planning for the franchise, it was done loosely. I really think he's more thematically-driven than anything, like he would want to make a game about a theme featured in a Metal Gear, but given popularity and expectation, the only way we'd see an idea like that pulled off (in a big budget game) is if that game had 'Metal Gear' in the title. Probably the reason why every MG seems different from each other when you start deconstructing them.
It's trash.
Kojima traded a compelling villain origin, a soldier who wakes up from a coma an amnesiac and is immediately thrust into war, his only memories being those he is informed about regarding his actions as a soldier, less human and more of a weapon with a past of only conflict, traded for a badly executed M.Night twist.
It serves little purpose other than to be a surprise that the narrative painfully and illogically contorts to make happen. It's a neat meta statement, we the player being complicit in Big Boss' downfall through the act of playing, mired by being clumsily woven into the canon.
#TeamStupid
Kojima traded a compelling villain origin, a soldier who wakes up from a coma an amnesiac and is immediately thrust into war, his only memories being those he is informed about regarding his actions as a soldier, less human and more of a weapon with a past of only conflict, traded for a badly executed M.Night twist.
It serves little purpose other than to be a surprise that the narrative painfully and illogically contorts to make happen. It's a neat meta statement, we the player being complicit in Big Boss' downfall through the act of playing, mired by being clumsily woven into the canon.
#TeamStupid
I would consider it more towards the "stupid" side. It just didn't have the same impact that MGS2 had, and the entire plot of the game is spent answering a question nobody had. Everyone accepted Big Boss didn't die in MG1, we really didn't need to expand that.
Also, most of the story of the game is irrelevant to the twist- the only missions which actually play into it is the first mission, and the replay of that. The rest of the game is practically just filler, which ruins the twist, simply because there was no build up to it like in Metal Gear 2.
I enjoyed the game a lot, but the plot was very poor, which was a bit of a slap to the face considering how interesting the plots for the other MGS games were. Honestly, I feel like the series was better off ending at MGS3 or 4, both of those would have been much grander endings that what MGS5 offered.
Also, most of the story of the game is irrelevant to the twist- the only missions which actually play into it is the first mission, and the replay of that. The rest of the game is practically just filler, which ruins the twist, simply because there was no build up to it like in Metal Gear 2.
I enjoyed the game a lot, but the plot was very poor, which was a bit of a slap to the face considering how interesting the plots for the other MGS games were. Honestly, I feel like the series was better off ending at MGS3 or 4, both of those would have been much grander endings that what MGS5 offered.
SomedayTheFire
Member
It's obvious as hell and complete and utter trash. One of the worst endings I've ever had the displeasure to witness. It's so ridiculously amateur it comes off like a terrible fanfic