Replaying this and GZ for the first time in years. Damn this is still so good. These cinematics are so awesome and I’m loving all of it. The gameplay is just top notch and easily the best offering of the series. The story, I’m on on the side who really loved it, the crazy nightmare horror of Big Boss in Ground Zeroes and the perfect intro to Venom Snake (following up from Naked Snake in MGS3 - this game is a sequel to that one in many ways). Phantom Pain is a perfect concept to wrap this series up, the dichotomy of BB as a legendary mercenaries who is both hero and villain. Anyone asking when he is going to go bad hasn’t been paying attention during the Ground Zeroes cutscenes, Chico and Paz, the only remnants from Peace Walker, symbols of the revolutionary heroic nature (Paz = peace) are now just pieces of meat in the gears of war, their bodies not even their own, mutilated to send a message to BB, just more tools in the game of war. Ofc Solid Snake the go hero of the series was himself an engineered weapon. this series, like Robocop, is about the way war dehumanises and alienates, and how this can manifest against enemies, friends, family, and even oneself.
the story in this perfectly shows the disintegration of Venom’s dream. he is caught between the past and future, a man out of time. he is “already a demon” and we see him helped by characters that are normally villains in other games. Psycho Mantis and Volgin from MGS and MGS3 at the hospital, Ocelot giving you your mission objectives. Quiet as an almagamation of The Boss and The End and all the female sniper love interests of previous games. here Venom decides to save her, she was there when he woke up and she fought Ishmael, who lit her on fire and caused her to become Quiet. instead of killing the Boss for his country he saves Quiet for his own selfish reasons, because back at mother base Kaz is not happy with that arrangement. In truth she is a living WMD and much like when they took on nuclear weapons in PW it ends up causing many problems and ensuring the downfall of Diamond Dogs.
anyways it’s all so cool, rescuing Kaz is a cool segment, taking Quiet back is super awesome action movie stuff, all the D-Dog stuff is wonderful and charming and also badass. i remember chapter 2 being well done too, see sad collapse of Venom’s dream as he slowly pieces things together. it all leads up to where BB was at the time of the first Metal Gear game, completing the loop. It’s cool between PW, GZ and TPP they cover 20 years of BB’s career following MGS3. why people so down on the story in this I’ve no idea.