Was rewatching a few MGS4 cutscenes recently. Makes me realize how incredibly forgettable V's story was. As stupid and convoluted as 4 got, it had a lot of really great moments (end of act 3, Raiden's "death", the microwave hallway, etc). Just a shame that Kojima seemed to not want to follow through with a lot of the stuff, like Big Boss not really going out by having his braindead remains thrown on a fire, and Raiden magically surviving and utterly killing the impact of act 4's ending.
Also, 4 utterly destroys V in the musical score department.
I think MGS4 still works as the best last game to play in the kojima line, but MGSV works as a bridge between 3 and 4. The revelation of who the patriots were in 4 was shocking but handled slopily, and the emphasis on zero vs big boss felt forced and unearned. The ending of the game just comes off as flat in the original release. I am a firm believer that mgs 1 2 and 3 work best played in release order because of how 3 builds on the previous games and calls back to them, but V and 4 I feel differently about. (Also, I feel weird calling Act 5 an act, when you have the full install option it just feels like the rest of Act 4)
I just did a full playthrough of V and 4 (listening to EVERYTHING) and I think that MGSV functions better as a revelation of who the MGS3 crew turn out to be than what MGS4 did . It's not only better explained, but it adds character to them and reveals information in a better way. MGSV isn't really a sequel so much as it's a bridge game.
MGS4 handles the reveals of Sigint and Paramedic so slopily, but V does it in such a better way where it fills in the MGS1 part of their backstory first before going completely into patriots territory with the truth tapes, and even so it would leave a 1-3 player questioning what the current patriots even are, and from their perspective they would see GW (sigint's ai) as being destroyed, with MGS4 still having the ability to reveal the full Patriots AI system for the war economy.
Speaking of the War Economy, gameplaywise and narratively MGS4 benefits again from V being played prior. You get to play through starting the war economy with diamond dogs, building an army and fighting other pmc's and researching weapons and technology. MGS4 ends up being Snake on the other side of the War Economy Machine where he's forced to work his way through other peoples' battles. The messages in MGS4 work better when you have that context with PF's in MGSV. Also, Drebin's Shop functions as a much more streamlined version of the Mother Base R&D Menu, and you gain access to weapons customization from the start of 4.
MGS4 also has gameplay advantages over V that make it work as a followup in a playthrough. Solid Eye is the best piece of equipment in the series, Metal Gear mk 2 and mk3 function as a super useful version of the buddy system, the oil drum can do things that the box in V can't (which is amusing because act 1 makes jokes about how cardboard boxes are old news), and octocamo is more useful than anything in Venom's closet. MGS4 is the only one with urban environments, and army vs army would feel like a gameplay step up from mgsv's PF's (Which are more capable than the soldiers in 1-3, but the army vs army thing in 4 functions as an evolution, still) Snake also has more CQC options than Venom did, and a faster basic run speed. You have tighter controls in 4 and a few upgrades over Venom. 4 didn't feel like a strict evolution of 3, where I think V actually has some closer ties to 3's gameplay (even down to R1 still being the look button) and 4 still functions as a departure from V, with its own modernized evolutions (and points system). MGS4 still looks good, too. MGSV put everything into an idroid, but MGS4 sort of has the google glass effect of putting a TON of data on the screen (solid eye being an evolution of the idroid). The Nomad interludes would be comparable to the "Return to Mother Base" interludes, and the Ipod and the music on it is an interesting twist on the Cassette Tapes in V. (And each game would have it's own character identity. Solid Snake in 1, Raiden in 2, Naked Snake in 3, Venom in V, and Old Snake in 4)
Storywise again, Zero and his organization is actually established and evolved over the coarse of MGSV. From Ground Zeroes to Phantom Pain, we actually get to see how a well meaning organization became too big and lost control of itself. Zero gets a real solid characterization in MGSV, with the extent of damage caused by skull face's virus being left open ended by the end of the Truth Tapes, with MGS4 functioning as an evolution of that. The last time Zero sees Big Boss, he's comatose, and when Big Boss finally tracks Zero down, Zero has gone braindead. It actually makes the graveyard scene work as a perfect conclusion to Big Boss and Solid Snake's journey. It adds to Big Boss's character in 4 to know that he sacrificed one of his men like his government sacrificed The Boss. Also, Here's to You bookends the two games. It's the main theme of Ground Zeroes, and then a somber version plays as the credits of MGS4, and by that point the song would have some real weight to it. Not only that bookened, but you get the bookend of "Ending on" Shadow Moses.
There's more minor things like seeing Big Boss riding the bike at the end of V that Eva rides in 4. It also reduces disappointing aspects of V (like Ocelot not being a major story player in the events of the plot) when you get to see him as Liquid Snake in the next game. You also have context for him using doublethink and hypnosis in V, so that when it's revealed he hypnotized himself in 4 it feels less like an asspull, as a new player would have that base in MGSV already to set up this reveal. As a minor thing, you get to see eli and mantis re-introduced into the story in MGSV, adding to the notion that Mantis's spirit would be assisting "Liquid" in death as anything other than fanservice. It feels like Mantis showing up in Act 1 and 5 of MGS4 is more of an actual story beat with that third boy stuff as the baseline, rather than just empty fanservice. You also get to see the parasites and language strain in V before you get all the nanomachine foxdie explanations for everything in 4. Parasites make Nanomachines more interesting because it means Naomi was creating a synthetic duplicate of this magical alien parasite that gave people actual super powers. It feels like less bullshit, because the new player would have a more interesting version of that in the prior game. I also feel like Geckos kind of work more in 4 because you have skullface talking about mass producing sahelanthropus in V. And as the best part of this order, you get to have David Hayter "come back" as the voice of Solid Snake for the "final" game.
Overall, I feel like the absolute best order to play the series in is:
1 2 3 V 4
I consider MG1, MG2, PO, PW, and Rising to be bonus games in alot of ways. MGS1 did a good job of conveying what mattered from the msx games in it's backstory menu option and it's dialog. MGSV does the same thing for PW. PW is kind of a weird game compared to the other main games, but Ground Zeroes has a pretty good backstory menu option, and covers the important beats of the story in GZ and TPP anyways. It lets you focus on just these major games and come back to the others as bonuses later on.
About MGSV itself...
V's two biggest problems were gameplay fluff and most of the game being optional cutscenes. I feel like you could merge about 12 missions into the others as far as chapter 1 goes, and then theres like...10 or so optional cutscenes. you have enough to run 20 missions and give each of them a tagline cutscene. The low morale cutscene, eli vs ocelot, and some of the lesser scenes interspersed in the right way would add a mode and a sort of narrative arc to the goings on at mother base. Starting off budding and with ocelot building things up at mother base, then in the middle alot of stuff gets moving, and then towards the end of chapter 1 when the quarantine is in effect is where scenes like eli vs ocelot and the low morale would really add to the drama and the sense that snake is barely keeping things together. (Eli's fighting snake, quiet's fighting the men, eli's fighting ocelot and the men, the men are fighting eachother!) In the main game there was a real drive from saving the kids to quiet cutting that man's mouth up, it felt great because every mission had a cutscene at the end of it that progressed the narrative.
The bosses that everyone hates, actually, in a recent playthrough it just clicked for me. There are actual strategies they don't line out to you that work really well against them. I even figured out how to fight the tanks in quiet's mission without ruining my S rank, or putting her or myself at risk. The big thing there is that there is a spot in the level where splash damage won't effect you, and you have to stay in communication with quiet when she needs to shoot and when she needs to stand down.
It's really Missions 6 and 29 that people hate so much because the skull fights aren't as intuitive as other boss scenarios. The Sniper Skulls are decent (if you bring D.D. you can reliably take them down) but the other skulls don't really enforce that you're supposed to change your style to win reliably. The normal Skulls require you to think defensively, and the iron Skulls require you to use offense that you don't use otherwise.
The basic Skulls unit. The first time you meet them it's natural to just run, but the second time when they ambush you with the honey bee is an actual boss if you play it right. If you hide in the ruins they'll fire at you from outside and put up shields. You can dart from cover to cover and get around the shields with grenades and then shoot at them with your weapons or the honey bee. Feels like a decent fight when you understand this rule. Being out in the open feels terrible but hiding in the ruins where they won't follow really adds to the fight.
Skulls with iron skin. Best if avoided at the truck early on in Africa. You can fight them or you can sneak away with the truck (or fulton it), running is the obvious best solution at this point in the game and feels the most natural. At the Airport if you use a Machine Gun (or a shield with a good SMG) and a Grenade Launcher (or a shotgun) you'll do much better than the basic snake equipment you use for most missions. Assault Rifle and Sniper Rifle are terrible to use against these Skulls. Maybe the Brennan against the armor, but the Machine Gun is the weapon of choice, and using cover and dipping into buildings is important. I cannot stress how important the Machine Gun is to this fight, or at the least a Grenade Launcher. Most Rocket Launchers aren't even that good because you won't get through their shields. The game really needed to stress that you should put on one of the bigger weapons. The basic snake gear is terrible in this fight and it's why people hate mission 29 so much. You can't really control the fight unless you bring in the big guns that you never use in most of the game.
As an aside, I think D-Walker is REALLY useful in the 4 regular chapter 2 missions. They're all heavy combat missions against walker gears, heavily armed soldiers, choppers, and tanks. Some minor things with D-Walker that help with mission 41 are that you should kit out all 3 D-Walkers with swapping them out in mind. As long as none of them get destroyed you can expend the ammo on one and then go to buddy equipment to balloon him out and pull in another. I reccomend spreading missiles and gattling across the 3 sets with 2 of them having one of those two depending on your preference, so that you can use the buddy equipment swap as a "reload ammo" feature. Learning how to drive them is important, too. If you're using LT/L2 while pressing the drive fast button you can swerve around and basically move like doom guy through the battles, which makes fighting the walker gears and tanks so much easier. It's a ton of fun if you see these missions as designed around D-Walker.
A Quiet Exit. Took me a REAL long time to figure this one out in any way that isn't a struggle. What you HAVE to do is remember 2 things.
1: Quiet can be commanded during this fight. Tell her to stand down when she's taking fire, and tell her to cover you when you need the small fry taken out or need a distraction.
2: The narrow walkways on the right half of the building are the perfect cover for the tanks' shells. The reason those things are so fucking deadly is because of the splash damage, but if you're on these walkways, you won't be hit by splash damage, because they shells will need to score a direct hit to kill you, and from the vantage point you'll be at you can actually see the shells coming and dodge them. Going around on these and switching between 2nd and 3rd floor will make this fight much easier. Being in a regular room or on ground level or out in the open is why these shells are so fucking deadly. If you're not on regular terrain you can reliably avoid the one hit kill blasts and focus on firing on the tanks from relatively decent cover.
I was able to beat the mission in one try using this strategy. It is 100% reliable. Just stay on the narrow walkways on the right side of the building and keep in contact with Quiet so she doesn't get herself killed. These two things should have been mentioned in codec calls because they make this fight WORK.
That's basically it. I might type up a thing for how to have an expedited playthrough with all cutscenes triggering (it's a bit of explanation, but is 100% reliable and feels sort of like what the game should have been from the getgo. Also, I feel like a chapter title would have made sense for mission 13. The way I have it in my "guide" i'm working on is that there are 10 main missions from Ground Zeroes to Hellbound (Some missions go by quickly if you exfiltrate by land and then start the next mission by driving to it, and I also am taking into acount forcibly triggering cutscenes here) and that with a similar thing you would have 12 missions with 12 missions worth of cutscenes going from mission 13 to 31. It would feel more balanced and make the existing Chapter 2 feel less awkward from the rest of the game.)
It should be:
> Prologue: Retribution (Ground Zeroes)
> Chapter 1: Revenge (Awakening to Afghanistan)
> Chapter 2: Race (Africa to OKB Zero)
> Chapter 3: Peace (Everything after Sahelanthropus)
> Epilogue: Truth (Paz side quest should unlock the Truth mission)
