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[Zakalwe]

More content in it, sure. I wouldn't say depth. Horizon also has people traveling through it's open world and plenty of side quests from people living /in/ the world that give interesting and unique perspectives. But, that said, none of that changes how you interact with the world. You still interact with the world the exact same way in those games.

Content /is/ depth.

This is a really weird argument you're trying to make.

EDIT: obliviously in context of the conversation: meaningful content is depth. Please read the conversation and don't just respond to this individual post.

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

It's not Bayonetta or Revengeance in terms of combat but it pisses over any other open world game I've played. (Haven't played MGS V but is that even a proper open world game?) Even Kamiya struggled to make open world combat look interesting in Scalebound.

Dragon's Dogma is the only one I can think of, that is on par with Horizon. And I guess Toukiden 2 is also really good, judging from the first game. But I didn't play that one yet.

 

[SolidChamp]

Today I learned that Zelda: BOTW is just a Ubisoft derivative. After all, it has towers that are climbed to reveal the map, and apparently all that matters are those peripheral mechanics instead of the core gameplay.

Not only that, today I learned that the only game that is comparable to MGSV is BOTW (and vice versatile).

I didn't even think MGSV was worth entertaining a thought when discussing BOTW, let alone being held to that same standard.

I've played BOTW a bit on my buddy's Switch. Just a bit, mind you.

There is no fucking way MGSV is that level of "masterpiece".

 

[mike6467]

Agreed OP.

MGSV was such a massive disappointment, sure it nailed the stealth element, but you were left to do it an empty and dull environment.

Horizon is infinitely more fun and engaging, every machine encounter is like a mini Metal Gear fight. Actually more rewarding and fun than most end-game metal gear fights in the metal gear games.

And LOOOOOOOOOOOOL at the Ubisoft comparison, clear to see who has played the game and who hasn't and is talking out of their derriere.

I'm on the last mission and have all but 3 upgrades. I'll actually be beating it today before I get into Persona 5.

How is H:ZD not derivative of the Ubi games discussed here? I love the game, but fuck, it's a story driven game with collectibles, crafting and an open world. My map is covered in collectible locations, side quest locations and enemy camps that I can choose to engage with or not. There's fast travel and upgrades enhanced by hunting and crafting. Oh, and detective/Hitman/Witcher vision. I felt an overwhelming sense of dread the first time the game told me to activate my focus to follow the trail. It wasn't a major issue I had, but come on.

The story is more interesting, and the combat is more engaging, but the formula is still there, it's not a ridiculous comparison by any means.

Oh, and Meridian is probably the biggest reason I can think of for the "shallow open world" comments. I was expecting something on par with Novigrad with the way people were building it up. That city was incredibly underwhelming, it felt meaningless, like they built something fantastic only to leave it static and empty.

 

[GillianSeed79]

MGSV is a master-crafted systems driven game/simulation a lot like Breath of the Wild that encourages experimentation and varying play styles. It's fucking amazing and the Metal Gear Solid game with the absolute best mechanics in the franchise. People shit on it because it's not super story heavy and fan servicey as the past games. Even if you took out all of the story parts, MGSV is still a fun, addicting as hell game.

I'm currently playing Horizon right now. The first like 5 to 6 hours set it up to be GOTY material. Like it introduces an amazing story and world plus cool mechanics but once the world opened up I feel like I'm just playing another Ubisoft-like cookie cutter open world collect-a-thon. The combat is great, but the stealth is shallow and 90 percent of the sidequest stuff is largely just filler, busy work that I'm doing just to fill bars up and unlock my skill tree. The main story is amazing but it's absolutely fucking crippled by all the inane side stuff the most open world games have to pad out game length. If it were a linear15 to 20 hour, narrative driven game set in an open world environment, it'd be a game of the generation style game for me; however, right now I starting to lose interest by all the bloat in it.

MGSV had me addicted from start to finish just by the gameplay. Right now in Horizon I'm pretty much avoiding fights whenever possible, because I'm already over leveled.

 

[Zvonimir Boban]

It's a bit hard to explain, but there are a few factors:

- combat that actually hits hard and requires strategy. You'll die if you're not careful
- but unlike Ass Creed etc, the combat is actually crunchy and snappy and responsive, closer to MGSV (although not quite THAT snappy and responsive)
- the game actually features abundant and decently designed side quests. Even if the game structure is sort of similar to Far Cry/Ass Creed, you actually find people to talk to, get to decide what to say to them, uncover quests with actual story lines, solve mysteries, etc
- basically it's halfway between The Witcher 3 and a Ubi game - it's a nice, unique middle ground

I agree with the praise for the combat but steady on with the side quests. Some of them are really enjoyable with good characters and they add a lot to your understanding of the game world. Unfortunately, every other side quest or errand you come across involves turning on detective vision and following a trail round the corner.

The dialogue wheel options don't make much, if any, difference and shouldn't have been in the game at all. Aloy is a great character, either let her speak for herself or go full on RPG and let us choose dialogue in every conversation.

I will never understand why the term 'generic' is thrown around to describe gameplay mechanics simply because they've been used before. It's like every game has to reinvent the wheel to be given merit.

You're right that generic is this catch-all term that gets chucked out nowadays to mean "I don't like this but I'm too lazy/stupid to think of a proper reason why" but in the case of Horizon it's quite fair. With the exception of the combat, which is brilliant*, you can look at almost every other idea in the game and you go "Oh yeah, I've done this exact thing before".

*Except for human enemies. Fuck that.

 

[Alo0oy]

Because TW3 has tonnes of side quests from NPCs actually living /in/ the open world, it has houses you can enter and speak with people who are living in the open world, it has people moving throughout the open world like travelling merchants and random quest givers, etc... Its a fully realised, lived in, RPG open world that feels alive when you move through it.

It's utterly bizarre that you're tying to argue this. TW3's open world has far, far more depth to it than both MGSV and Horizon.

An open world's purpose is not just for giving quests, that's a shallow way to look at open worlds. Other purposes of open world include:

1) Environmental storytelling.
2) Emergent events (which TW has none of, they do happen in MGS sometimes though, and a LOT in Horizon).
3) Sandbox combat (TW fails here again while Horizon and MGS succeed).
4) Having things to do in those environments.

And many other applications.

 

[SolidChamp]

I'm on the last mission and have all but 3 upgrades. I'll actually be beating it today before I get into Persona 5.

How is H:ZD not derivative of the Ubi games discussed here? I love the game, but fuck, it's a story driven game with collectibles, crafting and an open world. My map is covered in collectible locations, side quest locations and enemy camps that I can choose to engage with or not. There's fast travel and upgrades enhanced by hunting and crafting.

The story is more interesting, and the combat is more engaging, but the formula is still there, it's not a ridiculous comparison by any means.

Oh, and Meridian is probably the biggest reason I can think of for the "shallow open world" comments. I was expecting something on par with Novigrad with the way people were building it up. That city was incredibly underwhelming, it felt meaningless, like they built something fantastic only to leave it static and empty.

I think Horizon is one of the best PS exclusives ever and even I agree with this. Novigrad it is not.

 

[Griss]

Mechanically complex on a stealth level, while Horizon has stealth elements, its not a stealth using that metric to beat it over the head is dishonest.

As a whole package, in terms of structure, story, characters, an actual living breathing open world and being a fully realised and complete game, Horizon beats it into submission. It is bizarre to see people call MGSV a masterpiece and then throw ubisoft-like narrative at Horizon whereas MGSV does literally NOTHING with its open world.

It pains me to say that as a massive MGS fan, seeing the franchise go out like that.

I far preferred MGS V to Horizon - and to be clear I enjoyed Horizon a lot and it will make my GotY list this year.

You are not supposed to play MGS V as an open world game. There is a mission select with heli-dispatch for a reason. So to say it does nothing with its open world is a strange criticism - the open world is just there to give the levels (the bases) a sense of real place and immersion. Now, I personally think they should have been disconnected, a series of 'open levels' like Ground Zeroes, but still... the open world was pretty much irrelevant.

In terms of story, Horizon has better backstory and lore, but MGS V has far better characters, dialogue, voice acting and cut-scene direction, and it's not close. Yes, MGS V is unfinished and that's a bitch. But it's spectacular as you're going through it. It's also funny at parts, whereas Horizon is grimly humourless the entire way through, unless you find Aloy being a smartass funny (which it isn't).

As for gameplay, I have 10+ videos of absolutely amazing things that happened in MGS V that I just had to save for the future. In Horizon? None. (Tons of screenshots, though.) This is because each enemy fight is, if not the same, is predictable to some level. So you shoot the tail off a Thunderjaw one time, and the next time you shoot the disc launcher off and kill it that way... It makes for great gameplay but it's nothing truly emergent, it's nothing other players won't have seen hundreds of times. MGS V has a high skill ceiling and tons of systems combining to through truly unexpected stuff at you again and again. Horizon doesn't have combining systems like that. Closest it gets is overriding one machine to let it take on another.

 

[RAIDEN1]

I have had no 2nd thoughts in exchanging this game for Mass Effect Andromeda, dam right it should have been so much more than what it was, it could have been a game like Rambo 3 meets Metal gear phantom pain! Engaging with the locals in an Afghan villages etc..atmosphere packed to the max, vice-city like background music, hell of a lot MORE immersive than just you and D-Horse, or the dog, as company...

I'd even rate MGS4 better than this game even though it didn't give you the freedom that 5 does, but for me seeing MGS4 was the game that finally convinced me to get a playstation...hence now I have resorted to seeing Metal Gear 5 the movie on Youtube as I can't be bothered to trawl through the game...

 

[Vanadium]

Nah.

 

[SolidChamp]

I still don't see the complexities and nuances of these systems in MGSV people are talking about.

Like, what is it?

All I got was repetition.

I want a gameplay video of a truly mind blowing moment in MGSV.

 

[Deleted member 752119]

That wouldn't have been much better for me tbh. For me to have liked MGSV more it needed to not be open world and just been big open mission areas.

I get why they did it though and not every game needs to be a perfect fit for me. I still enjoyed MGSV despite hating the open world and all the traversal, I'm enjoying BOTW despite not being a huge exploration fan and finding much of the world and traversal super boring. But I still enjoyed them far less than prior games in those series because of the open worlds.

I did enjoy Horizon much more as I can tolerate open worlds more when they're more compact and more full of things to fight (especially when the combat is fun) or meaningful things to gather etc.

That said, I really wish we'd get some long, linear, story-driven games that weren't anime-ish jrpgs.

I'm pretty fucking sick of open worlds and just slog through them as that's the bulk of lengthy, western narrative-driven games these days.

 

[Solid Shammy]

I'm tired of people still looking at games as two separate entities, the gameplay, and the story. Especially with a game like MGSV, where both its narrative and mechanical world are designed to compliment its actual open world. I've played and done just about everything there is to in Horizon Zero Dawn, and its storyline is a victim to its open world gameplay. Its narrative and mechanical world are constantly at odds, and the game feels like a combination of other successful open world designs without actually doing anything unique itself. Horizon is a competently designed game elevated by its outstanding visuals. I'm excited for Horizons future, but I don't think it is in anyway comparable to the masterpiece that is MGSV (and I'm being damn serious about calling it masterpiece). To the dude who said that no one will be calling MGSV an amazing game in 10 years, I deeply disagree, I'm still pretty youthful, and at the very least plan on living for another 30 or so years. You can bet yo ass I'm gonna be praising it to the day I die!

Anyway, I wrote this in another topic a few months back, a few people caught it, but I think it's relevant re-posting here. I love this game, and would really like it if people started looking at it on a deeper level.

I wanna tackle some of the bigger criticisms for MGSV, mainly its story, because I feel that it does a lot of great things that feel under appreciated by the majority. The Pantom Pain is paced like a TV show. It's obvious that Kojima Productions intended for this one to be a slow burn. With a steady tension that builds as the story escalates to its conclusion. Chapter 1 perfectly captures this, its paced to fluctuate at intervals until the crescendo towards the end. The previous games were of course paced like Hollywood blockbusters, so the shift in style came as a shock. But it was a necessary change, the game is no longer linear, it's open world, and its story knows that. I play a lot of open world games, and often come to a point in these games where I need to rush through the story just to enjoy the full breadth of their content. Why? Because their stories are often paced like 2 hour movies. Sometimes I just want to go a have a game of chess, yet my sister's been kidnapped, and now I feel uncomfortable doing all of this side content. But in the end it doesn't matter that my sister has been kidnapped, because it doesn't actually effect the gameplay in any meaningful way. It's more of a problem with me, I can't help but force myself through the story, I just don't feel comfortable exploring all of this side content when my main character should be in a state of distress.

So how does MGSV handle this? Quite damn exceptionally. MGSV starts with a pilot episode, Ground Zeroes. This pilot is the bridge between Peace Walker and The Phantom Pain. The conclusion for one, and a beginning for another. The Phantom Pain is at a stark contrast to what came before. It's filled with miserably serious characters, and very light on humour compared to Peace Walker. I often felt longing for the times of Peace Walker, how fun and witty it was. I missed it. But now I was in MGSV, a direct sequel, yet very different game.

The Phantom Pain opens with a very drawn out experience. You wake up from your 9 year coma, and are now bed ridden. It takes a whole hour before you escape the hospital. It's a very memorable experience, and it's also a goodbye. A goodbye to the previous Metal Gear games. They were highly scripted, and of course linear. The hospital is the perfect analogy of what came before. When you escape, and enter Afghanistan for the first time, it's supposed to be overwhelming, Ground Zeroes attempted to ready you for the experience, but it still didn't anticipate you for the complete freedom that this new world opens for you. After rescuing Kaz, you are now introduced to the real game. The story knows this. It lets you, the player, the Big Boss, play at your own pace. You're free to experiment with the side ops, explore the world, dabble in all of the games content, and the story doesn't intrude. No early story mission has a cliff hanger, or something to entice you to play more. It merely grooves at your beat, and continues when you want it to. Every early episode is self-contained, they all end with a credits sequence. You don't feel guilty for letting the story hang while you build your motherbase, because it doesn't. It accounts for your agency.

Now the brilliant thing about this is when the story does take centre, it forces you the player to pay attention to it. The Phantom Pain isn't afraid to hurt your gameplay, it will literally kill your staff you've spent hours building when a virus breaks out. You can attempt to identify the cause, and treat it. But the only way to cure it, is by continuing the story. This is great, because the things you value, you have built, are being hurt. It effects you the player, not just Big Boss the character. This idea really comes to fruition later in the game, when you have to personally execute staff members when another viral outbreak takes place. In a scene opposite of the hospital escape, in the only other linear episode in the whole game. You are now the executioner. It was one of the most intriguing things I've seen a game do in regards to connecting its mechanical world with its narrative world, and just after that mission, the game goes one step further.

Quiet is a very controversial character, I personally find her appearance distracting, and that is the best word I can use to describe it. It doesn't offend me, but it feels as though her sexual titillation is an attempt to make her more likeable. As if they felt her actual character wasn't enough to make her arc have impact. It's a shame, because it means she often gets overlooked. If one ignores her ridiculous appearance, and looks at how she fits into the bigger picture, then it's another example of MGSV's clever combination of narrative and mechanics. You bond with her not through cut scenes, but through gameplay. As a female character she surprisingly has actual agency, she is her own person, and bonds with you. She starts out being difficult to play with, going from the obedient D-dog to an actual person with freewill definitely has some growing pains. But the more you take her on missions, the more you work with her, the more useful she becomes. You become to rely on her, she becomes an asset to you, and then you lose her. Because the story loses her, because Big Boss loses her. Depending on how you play the game, this can be incredibly shocking. She becomes so overpowered mechanically, that taking her away can cause a huge reversion in how you play the game. It'd quite literally be like taking away the Red 9 handgun from Resident Evil 4 if for some reason the narrative dictated it. It'd hurt Leon, and it'd hurt you.

That's the thing that makes The Phantom Pain one of the best games I have ever played. It truly shows off Hideo growing as an excellent creative designer. MGSV is the closest he has came to capturing this idea he has envisioned ever since Metal Gears creation 20+ years ago. MGSV is the first time he has truly let the mechanics and narrative gel together, to let you the player dictate it, and to be imprisoned by it. MGSV is one of the most consistently designed games I have ever seen, everything mechanically is relevant to the narrative, and the narrative is mechanically relevant to the player. Hell, even the ending that everyone likes to take so literally, is tying its mechanical and narrative theme together. You get Big Boss' identity, and Big Boss gets yours. He thanks you the player for always being there, you deny your identity, you aren't you when play this game. You are Punished "Venom" Snake, a phantom of Big Boss. You quite literally live his identity through everything you do mechanically. There's so much beauty in its notion, so many ways that it speaks to you the player.

Everyone gets upset over Venom's limited dialogue, yet if he were too rounded out as a character, than it would hurt the games theme. If we are to be Big Boss mechanically, than our actions can't be ruined by his characterisation narratively. Venom's characterisation is dictated by how we play the game, he has to accommodate our agency, he is our avatar for how we interact with this virtual world. One of the rewards we get for finishing the Phantom Pain is being able to unmask ourselves, to genuinely play as our created avatar. It's our reward for this games design coming to fruition within its conclusion.

The Phantom Pain is probably the most ambitious game I have ever played. We can all get hooked on what was cut, what didn't work, or what was poorly implemented. But in the end, the game is still an incredibly polished, content filled adventure. It stands on its own at all fronts.

I can't express how much this game has impacted my creative thinking. I've manage to take so much from its ambitions, and I haven't even talked about the amazingly directed cut scenes, all in one shot with very few cuts, all to further tie the mechanical and narrative world together. Or the inspiring yet sadly poorly implemented FOB multiplayer end game of ridding the world of nuclear weapons. The game is littered with issues, but when looking at everything it did manage to accomplish, and respecting its ambitions, the game is a behemoth of creative ideas all directed towards one theme. That of playing as Big Boss in an open ended game of tactical infiltration. An idea Hideo has been trying to master since the franchises foundation.

 

[Zvonimir Boban]

I'm currently playing Horizon right now. The first like 5 to 6 hours set it up to be GOTY material. Like it introduces an amazing story and world plus cool mechanics but once the world opened up I feel like I'm just playing another Ubisoft-like cookie cutter open world collect-a-thon. The combat is great, but the stealth is shallow and 90 percent of the sidequest stuff is largely just filler, busy work that I'm doing just to fill bars up and unlock my skill tree. The main story is amazing but it's absolutely fucking crippled by all the inane side stuff the most open world games have to pad out game length. If it were a linear15 to 20 hour, narrative driven game set in an open world environment, it'd be a game of the generation style game for me; however, right now I starting to lose interest by all the bloat in it.

MGSV had me addicted from start to finish just by the gameplay. Right now in Horizon I'm pretty much avoiding fights whenever possible, because I'm already over leveled.

That's almost exactly what I was saying in the OT when I was playing it. I just can't be arsed with busywork that I've done in a handful of other games already, especially when it gets in the way of a story that I genuinely want to see play out.

I would definitely recommend you finish the main quest at least, Aloy's ending is fucking perfect.

 

[MegaSackman]

I far preferred MGS V to Horizon - and to be clear I enjoyed Horizon a lot and it will make my GotY list this year.

You are not supposed to play MGS V as an open world game. There is a mission select with heli-dispatch for a reason. So to say it does nothing with its open world is a strange criticism - the open world is just there to give the levels (the bases) a sense of real place and immersion. Now, I personally think they should have been disconnected, a series of 'open levels' like Ground Zeroes, but still... the open world was pretty much irrelevant.

In terms of story, Horizon has better backstory and lore, but MGS V has far better characters, dialogue, voice acting and cut-scene direction, and it's not close. Yes, MGS V is unfinished and that's a bitch. But it's spectacular as you're going through it. It's also funny at parts, whereas Horizon is grimly humourless the entire way through, unless you find Aloy being a smartass funny (which it isn't).

As for gameplay, I have 10+ videos of absolutely amazing things that happened in MGS V that I just had to save for the future. In Horizon? None. (Tons of screenshots, though.) This is because each enemy fight is, if not the same, is predictable to some level. So you shoot the tail off a Thunderjaw one time, and the next time you shoot the disc launcher off and kill it that way... It makes for great gameplay but it's nothing truly emergent, it's nothing other players won't have seen hundreds of times. MGS V has a high skill ceiling and tons of systems combining to through truly unexpected stuff at you again and again. Horizon doesn't have combining systems like that. Closest it gets is overriding one machine to let it take on another.

Mmm no man, you can exploit enemies in MGSV too, I've played that game for 100hs and in the end I always did the same. In Horizon it works the same way as any other game, it's your own interest that makes for great interaction, for intance I've never used the disc launcher on a Thunderjaw.

And no, Horizon imo has far better dialogues and voice acting. Characters I'd say is a draw because every new character in V is a disgrace. Cutscenes are really way better in Metal Gear, sure.

 

[Archtreyz]

Content /is/ depth.

This is a really weird argument you're trying to make.

Content is not depth. Because in that case, No Man's Sky is the deepest game on the planet. Depth is the level of systems at play while in the world. The level of interaction between MGSV, Horizon, and The Witcher 3 are pretty much the same. You interact with the world the same way. In Horizon and Witcher, you go up to the quest giver, open dialogue, have a back and forth, and then you accept the quest. Afterwards, you travel to whatever location, enter you 'enhanced sight mode' then follow that trail, beat the baddy at the end, and finish up with a twist or new wrinkle in the original progression and your done. In Horizon you do that for 50 hours, in Witcher 3, you do that for god knows how many.

 

[Jangowuzhere]

Eh, I just didn't see many great examples of true, "emergent gameplay" in MGSV. Certainly not to the extent of what was in MGS3.

There was nothing, NOTHING as detailed as destroying the enemy's food supply in a given area (TNT to the food storage sheds), listening for soldiers who were complaining about being hungry, and setting traps using poisoned food rations for the soldiers to go "FOOD!", wolfing that shit down and dropping dead from it.

Did anyone actually find that stuff useful in MGS3? I think that's a cool detail, but in being actually useful to the core gameplay, it was pretty useless. Infact, a lot of the emergent gameplay stuff in MGS3 isn't exactly useful. It is all presented incredibly well, but the idea of the player receiving massive benefits from taking out food or ammo houses is definitely false. MGS3 and MGS4 had the problem of giving you tons of different options to tackle combat and stealth, but in the end, it was just better to shoot them all in the head instead of trying to waste time cooking up crazy schemes.

I would say that the vast majority of MGSV's mechanics and emergent gameplay ideas are actually super useful. Pooping on the road with d-horse and using it to spin a tank out of control so you can fulton it is far more useful and ties in better with the core game.

 

[GillianSeed79]

I still don't see the complexities and nuances of these systems in MGSV people are talking about.

Like, what is it?

All I got was repetition.

I want a gameplay video of a truly mind blowing moment in MGSV.

Stuff like setting up an ambush for a convoy of tanks by placing your horse in front of the convoy, watching them stop and then setting a off a bunch of c4 or land mines while you watch from a nearby ridge. Everything works organically and realistically.

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

That's almost exactly what I was saying in the OT when I was playing it. I just can't be arsed with busywork that I've done in a handful of other games already, especially when it gets in the way of a story that I genuinely want to see play out.

I would definitely recommend you finish the main quest at least, Aloy's ending is fucking perfect.

Why didn't you concentrate on the main quests then? I had a similar issue with NieR: Automata recently, where all the side stuff was just boring to me. So I concentrated on the main story and enjoyed it much more this way.

 

[Servbot24]

Horizon is great, but it doesn't come even close to touching MGSV. MGSV gameplay is Mario Bros level of excellence.

 

[Alo0oy]

I'm tired of people still looking at games as two separate entities, the gameplay, and the story. Especially with a game like MGSV, where both its narrative and mechanical world are designed to compliment its actual open world. I've played and done just about everything there is to in Horizon Zero Dawn, and its storyline is a victim to its open world gameplay. Its narrative and mechanical world are constantly at odds, and the game feels like a combination of other successful open world designs without actually doing anything unique itself. Horizon is a competently designed game elevated by its outstanding visuals. I'm excited for Horizons future, but I don't think it is in anyway comparable to the masterpiece that is MGSV (and I'm being damn serious about calling it masterpiece). To the dude who said that no one will be calling MGSV an amazing game in 10 years, I deeply disagree, I'm still pretty youthful, and at the very least plan on living for another 30 or so years. You can bet yo ass I'm gonna be praising it to the day I die!

That's false though, Horizon's combat is very innovative, each robot part has a moveset associated with it as part of the enemy's moveset pool, removing that part removes the move associated with that part from the enemy's moveset pool, in some rare instances that part can be used against the enemy (to the game's detriment IMO, disc launchers and rail guns trivialize some fights). That is both very new, and very innovative.

I do agree with you that MGS5 gets a lot of underserved shit, it is the best TPS ever and it ain't even close, but the story deserves all the shit it got, I learned to live with the shitty story after playing the game for 200+ hours though, so I'm not that butthurt about the story.

 

[SomTervo]

Thats all fine. I dont even hate Ubisoft games in small doses. But the argument that its what MGSV should have been makes me expect a lot more.

Edit: not looking for pretty gifs. Videos showing creative and unexpected ways of completing missions that take skill.

IMO the MGSV comparison is a pretty giant reach. There isn't a huge amount of varied approach in Horizon - it's more about the moment-to-moment skill and on-the-fly planning behind what you do. Think more like a Souls game - position yourself carefully, time attacks and traps carefully, etc. There's nothing in terms of 'approach' like MGSV in Horizon (like distractions etc). There's just "stealth" or "prepare traps" and then usually "fight".

Horizon is more like sci-fi The Witcher 3 with substantially better combat and sandboxes.

In terms of gameplay there is pretty much 0 comparison between MGSV and Horizon.

I agree with the praise for the combat but steady on with the side quests. Some of them are really enjoyable with good characters and they add a lot to your understanding of the game world. Unfortunately, every other side quest or errand you come across involves turning on detective vision and following a trail round the corner.

The dialogue wheel options don't make much, if any, difference and shouldn't have been in the game at all. Aloy is a great character, either let her speak for herself or go full on RPG and let us choose dialogue in every conversation.

I never commented strongly on the quality of the quests or dialogue system - I just said they were abundant, decently designed and you can choose what Aloy says. It varies from good to mediocre IMO but that's all I said. It's still something that would add a lot to Ass Creed and Far Cry but Ubi will never do that.

Nah, Hitman is the game MGSV should have been.

Take a handful of levels the size and content of Ground Zeroes, give it Hitman's structure for repeatability and missions.

Excellent, excellent point.

You can even play Hitman as a straight up stealth/infiltration action game - not using disguises or anything - and it is bloody brilliant.

 

[SolidChamp]

Stuff like setting up an ambush for a convoy of tanks by placing your horse in front of the convoy, watching them stop and then setting a off a bunch of c4 or land mines while you watch from a nearby ridge. Everything works organically and realistically.

That gets a big "meh" from me.

 

[GillianSeed79]

I would definitely recommend you finish the main quest at least, Aloy's ending is fucking perfect.

Don't worry, I still love the game lol. I'll probably end up 100 percenting because I'm OCD, but the main draw is definitely Aloy's story.

 

[MegaSackman]

IMO the MGSV comparison is a pretty giant reach.

Horizon is more like sci-fi The Witcher 3 with substantially better combat and sandboxes.

In terms of gameplay there is pretty much 0 comparison between MGSV and Horizon.

Yeah honestly it requires a lot of mental effort.

 

[Bold One]

I'm on the last mission and have all but 3 upgrades. I'll actually be beating it today before I get into Persona 5.

How is H:ZD not derivative of the Ubi games discussed here? I love the game, but fuck, it's a story driven game with collectibles, crafting and an open world. My map is covered in collectible locations, side quest locations and enemy camps that I can choose to engage with or not. There's fast travel and upgrades enhanced by hunting and crafting.

The story is more interesting, and the combat is more engaging, but the formula is still there, it's not a ridiculous comparison by any means.

Oh, and Meridian is probably the biggest reason I can think of for the "shallow open world" comments. I was expecting something on par with Novigrad with the way people were building it up. That city was incredibly underwhelming, it felt meaningless, like they built something fantastic only to leave it static and empty.

I see the similarities and why on the surface level a lot of people might jump to that conclusion that ubisoft invented open world mechanics of the modern era, but this is a shallow evaluation. If the Destiny 2 reveal trailer thread has taught me anything its that gamers are pattern-seeking species.

Collectibles ain't a ubisoft invention, enemy camps have been a thing since All or Nothing on the XSpectrum in the 80s. Ubisoft didn't invent merchants or crafting either, nor did they invent hunting. I'll give them credit for towers though...

 

[Exploratory]

I still don't see the complexities and nuances of these systems in MGSV people are talking about.

Like, what is it?

All I got was repetition.

I want a gameplay video of a truly mind blowing moment in MGSV.

If I did another playthrough I could give you like 20. Fuck that game was so good.

That gets a big "meh" from me.

 

[Exploratory]

edit: woops

 

[Solid Shammy]

That's false though, Horizon's combat is very innovative, each robot part has a moveset associated with it as part of the enemy's moveset pool, removing that part removes the move associated with that part from the enemy's moveset pool, in some rare instances that part can be used against the enemy (to the game's detriment IMO, disc launchers and rail guns trivialize some fights). That is both very new, and very innovative.

I do agree with you that MGS5 gets a lot of underserved shit, it is the best TPS ever and it ain't even close, but the story deserves all the shit it got, I learned to live with the shitty story after playing the game for 200+ hours though, so I'm not that butthurt about the story.

I'd suggest you have a bigger read of my older post that I quoted. Separating the narrative and mechanical world of MGSV is in my opinion the biggest indicator that the person criticising the game for its story doesn't actually hate the story for what it is, but for what it isn't. Also I'd agree that Horizon is a fun action game, but its overall open world design leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[Alo0oy]

If I did another playthrough I could give you like 20. Fuck that game was so good.

20 is an understatement, I did so much unique shit to outposts in that game, the only thing I disliked was D-Horse locking you out of a useful buddy.

 

[Solid Shammy]

That gets a big "meh" from me.

Criticise MGSV all you want, but the game is only as repetitive as you personally play it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccJbSSMQjbU

 

[Jawmuncher]

The only thing MGSV needed was more story moments.

 

[Alo0oy]

I'd suggest you have a bigger read of my older post that I quoted. Separating the narrative and mechanical world of MGSV is in my opinion the biggest indicator that the person criticising the game for its story doesn't actually hate the story for what it is, but for what it isn't. Also I'd agree that Horizon is a fun action game, but its overall open world design leaves a lot to be desired.

Apologies if I misunderstood your post, but I still don't understand the larger point! I both dislike the story for what it was, and for what it could have been, and I don't see how the gameplay ties into that.

 

[Zakalwe]

An open world's purpose is not just for giving quests, that's a shallow way to look at open worlds. Other purposes of open world include:

1) Environmental storytelling.
2) Emergent events (which TW has none of, they do happen in MGS sometimes though, and a LOT in Horizon).
3) Sandbox combat (TW fails here again while Horizon and MGS succeed).
4) Having things to do in those environments.

And many other applications.

I didn't ever say it was just for giving quests, and nothing you've written proves that Horizon's world isn't shallow (which it is).

Content is not depth. Because in that case, No Man's Sky is the deepest game on the planet. Depth is the level of systems at play while in the world. The level of interaction between MGSV, Horizon, and The Witcher 3 are pretty much the same. You interact with the world the same way. In Horizon and Witcher, you go up to the quest giver, open dialogue, have a back and forth, and then you accept the quest. Afterwards, you travel to whatever location, enter you 'enhanced sight mode' then follow that trail, beat the baddy at the end, and finish up with a twist or new wrinkle in the original progression and your done. In Horizon you do that for 50 hours, in Witcher 3, you do that for god knows how many.

Content is depth in the context of the post I made: meaningful content. Obviously sprinkling dozens of collectable style activities isn't depth, but houses you can enter, NPCs you can interact with, sites you can explore an interactive with and receive reward from, etc.. are.

Horizon has very little of this type of content. It's towns are barren, you can't enter buildings, nothing much happens in the open world itself aside from combat with humans and machines, there's very little actual reward to exploration, and so on...

Horizon's world doesn't feel real. It feels like an open combat arena. TW3 has a world that feels real in comparison.

You can't just boli it down to the mechanical elements like you did while ignoring the facts. Horizon simply doesn't have the same level of meaningful content, it simply does not have the same depth to its open world/

Honestly, you really need to take another look here.

 

[Solid Shammy]

Apologies if I misunderstood your post, but I still don't understand the larger point! I both dislike the story for it was, and for what it could have been, and I don't see how the gameplay ties into that.

I can't express myself any better than the big quote I had of myself earlier. If you're truly interested in understanding my perspective and deep appreciation of MGSV for its combination of narrative and mechanics than I'd highly suggest reading that. The games story is literally in service of your agency as a player.

 

[Alo0oy]

I didn't ever say it was just for giving quests, and nothing you've written proves that Horizon's world isn't shallow (which it is).

It does the most important thing open world games need to do, which is sandbox combat, something 95% of open world games fail at, especially The Witcher.

 

[black070]

1. I don't have the means to (oh shit, rekt), and even if I did, critical appraisal and my own tastes would land it very low on my 'to play' list. I still feel the need to comment if someone says a game I like a whole lot should be more like a game I doubt I'd like as much. 2. I'm very familiar with many of the games in this conversation, have heard this comparison made by numerous reliable sources, thus feel entirely qualified to wade into this conversation, especially having pointed out that I haven't played the game, so feel free to refute those comparisons, rather than just pointing out what I've already said, or trying to slam me as a poor or something.

So you're spouting off on a game you have no knowledge on based on what you've heard ? Adding to that, you're going into the topic having already decided you wouldn't like the game in question, and then expect yourself to be taken seriously when it is being compared to a game you do like ?

I wouldn't say you're fully qualified to wade into this conversation at all.

You're right that generic is this catch-all term that gets chucked out nowadays to mean "I don't like this but I'm too lazy/stupid to think of a proper reason why" but in the case of Horizon it's quite fair. With the exception of the combat, which is brilliant*, you can look at almost every other idea in the game and you go "Oh yeah, I've done this exact thing before".

*Except for human enemies. Fuck that.

I don't disagree, I just don't understand why the conversation ends there.

 

[Natels]

I don't think so but,

MGSV could really have done the open world a lot more interesting like Horizon.

 

[Prithee Be Careful]

I actually loved both games for that they were and I think HZD owes some of it's success to the missteps that MGSV made.

MGSV was fantastic in its own right and, if I'm honest, while I found its world mostly bland and many of the side quests uninspired, its gameplay depth kept me going for about a hundred and fifty hours.

There's still a bunch I never even looked into and I didn't even touch the FOB/Base invasion stuff.

 

[Bold One]

I far preferred MGS V to Horizon - and to be clear I enjoyed Horizon a lot and it will make my GotY list this year.

You are not supposed to play MGS V as an open world game. There is a mission select with heli-dispatch for a reason. So to say it does nothing with its open world is a strange criticism - the open world is just there to give the levels (the bases) a sense of real place and immersion. Now, I personally think they should have been disconnected, a series of 'open levels' like Ground Zeroes, but still... the open world was pretty much irrelevant.

In terms of story, Horizon has better backstory and lore, but MGS V has far better characters, dialogue, voice acting and cut-scene direction, and it's not close. Yes, MGS V is unfinished and that's a bitch. But it's spectacular as you're going through it. It's also funny at parts, whereas Horizon is grimly humourless the entire way through, unless you find Aloy being a smartass funny (which it isn't).

As for gameplay, I have 10+ videos of absolutely amazing things that happened in MGS V that I just had to save for the future. In Horizon? None. (Tons of screenshots, though.) This is because each enemy fight is, if not the same, is predictable to some level. So you shoot the tail off a Thunderjaw one time, and the next time you shoot the disc launcher off and kill it that way... It makes for great gameplay but it's nothing truly emergent, it's nothing other players won't have seen hundreds of times. MGS V has a high skill ceiling and tons of systems combining to through truly unexpected stuff at you again and again. Horizon doesn't have combining systems like that. Closest it gets is overriding one machine to let it take on another.

That's fine to prefer MGSV to Horizon, I'm not stanning to be the greatest game ever made, nor am I calling it a 'masterpiece' like many others have done to MGSV despite all its glaring and baffling shortcomings.

While you might think its open world is a negligible criticism, I strongly disagree. Despite having helicopter drop zones, unless you are being dropped quite literally into the camps, then you still have to summon D horse or trek to the enemy base. Any game that would wrap its core mechanics and premise around something as pervasive as its own world-space (open world environment) should not be absolved of how it uses (or in this case doesn't use it).

While I will not disagree that MGSV excels in its stealth elements, it is bog-standard average in every other department. Regarding cutscenes, I will be honest, (apart from the promising opening - giant flaming whales) I don't remember any of them, there was nothing memorable about this game which is what hurt most as a MGS fan, nothing on the level of previous games, just listening to people talk on tapes, its only female character is a blank trope and it managed to turn Ocelot into kind of a dullard.

MGS has always been a good stealth game, but it used to bring so much more to the table and was loved for being a greater sum of its parts.

 

[Jangowuzhere]

Not only that, today I learned that the only game that is comparable to MGSV is BOTW (and vice versatile).

I didn't even think MGSV was worth entertaining a thought when discussing BOTW, let alone being held to that same standard.

I've played BOTW a bit on my buddy's Switch. Just a bit, mind you.

There is no fucking way MGSV is that level of "masterpiece".

I feel like you're living in your own world.

Many consider MGSV to be a flawed masterpiece. Heck, many have argued that it was almost the greatest game of all time. If it didn't end on such an odd note and chapter 2 had better structure, I imagine many would have been seen it as such.

I personally find it crazy that anyone could find MGSV repetitive or "meh" in terms of its gameplay systems, but whatever, opinions. Many also don't understand the appeal of BoTW either and have similar thoughts on why they think that game isn't good.

 

[MegaSackman]

I can't express myself any better than the big quote I had of myself earlier. If you're truly interested in understanding my perspective and deep appreciation of MGSV for its combination of narrative and mechanics than I'd highly suggest reading that. The games story is literally in service of your agency as a player.

I read that man but common you need to be really in love with the game to do all that connections and accept so many structures, it almost felt like I read an essay from a cultist.
Honestly, it's great that you think the game is a masterpiece in every front but personally I find the story to be really embarrassing (and yeah, I've listened every audio and stuff).

 

[SolidChamp]

I'd suggest you have a bigger read of my older post that I quoted. Separating the narrative and mechanical world of MGSV is in my opinion the biggest indicator that the person criticising the game for its story doesn't actually hate the story for what it is, but for what it isn't. Also I'd agree that Horizon is a fun action game, but its overall open world design leaves a lot to be desired.

Holy shit, you'd say this while defending the open world design of MGSV?!

 

[KOMANI]

I far preferred MGS V to Horizon - and to be clear I enjoyed Horizon a lot and it will make my GotY list this year.

You are not supposed to play MGS V as an open world game. There is a mission select with heli-dispatch for a reason. So to say it does nothing with its open world is a strange criticism - the open world is just there to give the levels (the bases) a sense of real place and immersion. Now, I personally think they should have been disconnected, a series of 'open levels' like Ground Zeroes, but still... the open world was pretty much irrelevant.

In terms of story, Horizon has better backstory and lore, but MGS V has far better characters, dialogue, voice acting and cut-scene direction, and it's not close. Yes, MGS V is unfinished and that's a bitch. But it's spectacular as you're going through it. It's also funny at parts, whereas Horizon is grimly humourless the entire way through, unless you find Aloy being a smartass funny (which it isn't).

As for gameplay, I have 10+ videos of absolutely amazing things that happened in MGS V that I just had to save for the future. In Horizon? None. (Tons of screenshots, though.) This is because each enemy fight is, if not the same, is predictable to some level. So you shoot the tail off a Thunderjaw one time, and the next time you shoot the disc launcher off and kill it that way... It makes for great gameplay but it's nothing truly emergent, it's nothing other players won't have seen hundreds of times. MGS V has a high skill ceiling and tons of systems combining to through truly unexpected stuff at you again and again. Horizon doesn't have combining systems like that. Closest it gets is overriding one machine to let it take on another.

No. Simply no. Characters accents change halfway through the game. Lines are cut from the NA release. Some characters are parodies of their older selves. What story, the closest thing to a story is Quiet's arc which IS optional. What funny parts are you talking about? The burger tapes? The burger tapes contain 1/5 of the humor of the PW tapes. Voice acting performance is lopsided. Tara strong and the rest of the last tapes are exceptional but how about thr other 90% of tapes? And again, the localization is shite. Mgsv did nothing to evolve the franchise, outside of game mechanics and gameplay. It's the "worst of Kojima" when it came to story. Terrible depiction of women, exposition of nonsense, treating the player like they're stupid by hammering the same line over and over again.

 

[Servbot24]

Content /is/ depth.

This is a really weird argument you're trying to make.

Content is an opportunity to exercise depth, not depth itself.

 

[Zakalwe]

Content is an opportunity to exercise depth, not depth itself.

See my post above.

It does the most important thing open world games need to do, which is sandbox combat, something 95% of open world games fail at, especially The Witcher.

Open world games need more than just great combat to be good open world games.

Horizon is a good game in that its open world supports the combat and works as an incredibly open and beautiful arena for that combat, but when you look at the open world itself and compare it to other examples at the top of the genre, it is immediately apparent how shallow it is in terms of the open world being this developed gameplay element by itself. It's crazy that people are trying to argue Horizon's open world isn't shallow... it is, and there's literally no evidence presented in this thread that it isn't.

Horizon doesn't even need a well developed open world /because/ it's primarily an incredibly strong action game. It's combat is so strong that it allows the shallow open world to exist without it becoming a major flaw.

Conversely, TW3's open world is so well developed that the game manages to be remarkable despite its lacklustre combat.

The games have different strengths and weaknesses, the most obvious being:

Horizon: amazing combat, shallow open world and RPG elements.
TW3: lacklustre combat, deep open world and RPG elements.

To argue otherwise is pretty insane.

 

[SolidChamp]

No. Simply no. Characters accents change halfway through the game. Lines are cut from the NA release. Some characters are parodies of their older selves. What story, the closest thing to a story is Quiet's arc which IS optional. What funny parts are you talking about? The burger tapes? The burger tapes contain 1/5 of the humor of the PW tapes. Voice acting performance is lopsided. Tara strong and the rest of the last tapes are exceptional but how about thr other 90% of tapes? And again, the localization is shite. Mgsv did nothing to evolve the franchise, outside of game mechanics and gameplay. It's the "worst of Kojima" when it came to story. Terrible depiction of women, exposition of nonsense, treating the player like they're stupid by hammering the same line over and over again.

Yep.

The game is horribly written. It's pure expository bullshit with none of the thematic nuance of the previous entries.

Fucking joke.

"Revolver Ocelot" was NOT Revolver Ocelot. Pissed away a lot of the mythology with this one.

 

[Solid Shammy]

That's fine to prefer MGSV to Horizon, I'm not stanning to be the greatest game ever made, nor am I calling it a 'masterpiece' like many others have done to MGSV despite all its glaring and baffling shortcomings.

While you might think its open world is a negligible criticism, I strongly disagree. Despite having helicopter drop zones, unless you are being dropped quite literally into the camps, then you still have to summon D horse or trek to the enemy base. Any game that would wrap its core mechanics and premise around something as pervasive as its own world-space (open world environment) should not be absolved of how it uses (or in this case doesn't use it).

While I will not disagree that MGSV excels in its stealth elements, it is bog-standard average in every other department. Regarding cutscenes, I will be honest, (apart from the promising opening - giant flaming whales) I don't remember any of them, there was nothing memorable about this game which is what hurt most as a MGS fan, nothing on the level of previous games, just listening to people talk on tapes, its only female character is a blank trope and it managed to turn Ocelot into kind of a dullard.

MGS has always been a good stealth game, but it used to bring so much more to the table and was loved for being a greater sum of its parts.

MGSV has a great deal of problems, but it doesn't stop it from being my masterpiece. I grew up with the MGS franchise like many fans, and I have a deep fondness for every single one, they have all attempted to do something unique. Same with MGSV, you're merely alienated by what it isn't compared to what it is. There's obviously a lot of controversy surrounding the game with the whole Konami fiasco, and that definitely elevated fan reaction. But MGSV was never going to be a linear MGS like its predecessors, that game had one vision of open world tactical infiltration, something Hideo has fantasised since the franchises inception, and everything about the game from narrative to mechanic design is made to compliment that goal. It's an incredibly intricately designed game with every mechanic in service of the overarching narrative, and the narrative paced to the agency of your personal progress. It won't work for everyone, but for the people it does, it's incredibly addictive, and there are even a few like me who appreciate its approach to open world storytelling.

 

[Alo0oy]

Open world games need more than jusst great combat to be good open world games.

Horizon is a good open world game in that its open world supports the combat and works as an incredibly open and beautiful arena for that combat, but when you look at the open world itself and compare it to other examples at the top of the genre, it is immediately apparent how shallow it is in terms of the open world being this developed gameplay element by itself.

It's crazy that people are trying to argue Horizon's open world isn't shallow... it is, and there's literally no evidence presented in this thread that it isn't.

Horizon doesn't even need a well developed open world /because/ it's primarily an incredibly strong action game. It's combat is so strong that it allows the shallow open world to exist without it becoming a major flaw.

Conversely, TW3's open world is so well developed that the game manages to be remarkable despite its lacklustre combat.

The games have different strengths, the most obvious being:

Horizon: amazing combat shallow open world
TW3: lacklustre combat, very deep open world

To argue otherwise is pretty insane.

I don't understand why you're dismissing open sand box combat as just a small part, it is the most important aspect in an open world game, an aspect that the vast majority of open world games fail at, they give you an open world to explore only to give you shitty shallow combat that can be done in linear games.

Horizon's combat only works in the open world.