Sorry for not getting back into the thread earlier, didn't mean to leave it to hang dead. Got side tracked by other stuff.
Emphatically disagreed, homie.
For one, despite the shared plot threads canon is arguably the least important aspect of the Metal Gear story line. Considering how plot points are regularly retconned, forgotten or conveniently ignored, it's apparent that the minute details are really there to serve the overall concepts behind every major title rather than acting as some kind of consistent universe unto itself. Each game in the series has its own distinct voice, communicating similar themes and ideas in tonally disparate ways. Metal Gear Solid has this gritty 90s techno-thriller vibe, 2 has its post-modern surrealism, 3 has it's light-hearted camp and Cold War intrigue, 4 has its bullshit and I didn't play Peace Walker so whatever. The most important thing carried over from MGS1 to MGS2 is abstract rather than any concrete plot details. The fact that Metal Gear Solid, released in 1998 by Konami on the Sony Playstation was a critically-acclaimed and best-selling video game and that fans loved the character of Solid Snake is more important to the story of MGS2 than the specific hows and whys of the Shadow Moses Incident. Every MGS game is more or less saying the same things, they're just all speaking different languages. The same is true of Phantom Pain.
Alright, so this keeps popping up. The idea that canon isn't important and things are constantly retconned. Now please correct me, but the major game changing retcons didn't happen until MGS4, right? Sure, things like Big Boss's age were retconned, but that is small time shit compared to the massive revisions that MGS4 introduced to characters of it's past games. If canon and story wasn't important, why did Kojima make Peace Walker try to connect to MGS4 with all the AI stuff?
If Kojima truly didn't care about connecting his games, he wouldn't be trying to continue roping all his future games into MGS4. I know that I clearly have a enormous disdain for MGS4, but that's why I made this post. MGS4 canon is fucking ridiculous, and his attempts to tie future games into it are extremely off putting and are a constant reminder of everything I hated about that game. The silly/stupid parts of Peace Walker in the main story were directly tied to the attempts of connecting PW to MGS4.
Metal Gear Solid has this gritty 90s techno-thriller vibe, 2 has its post-modern surrealism, 3 has it's light-hearted camp and Cold War intrigue, 4 has its bullshit and I didn't play Peace Walker so whatever.
Alright, but a major part of my argument is the fact that Peace Walker was a continuation of MGS4's massive missteps. Like I said above, if Kojima simply made Peace Walker a sequel to MGS3 and a continuation of Big Boss's fall and a setup for his eventual turn to evil, while continuing it's usual MGS wackiness I really wouldn't mind and wouldn't be as worried as I am.
The point is, canon influences the story no matter what. All the noticeable retcons came in the wake of MGS4, which have had lasting effects on the games mainland stories. If it truly didn't matter, he wouldn't be attempting to connect the dots.
The main talking point when discussing MGSV's tonal shift has been the prior proliferation and now noted absence of so-called "Goofy Ass Shit". I'm talking things like ninjas, vampires, ninja vampires, bee dudes, etc.. Most casual observers of the series have chalked these elements up to merely being the scattered residue of Kojima's own eccentricities and perverted sense of humor. And while it's true that Hideo Kojima is like a weird 60-year-old Japanese dude or something, this doesn't even begin to describe the true extent and purpose of these outlandish flights of fancy. In essence, they are strategic and deliberate devices in order to set a tone that is capable of carefully luring and intriguing players into understanding its harsh worldview. While the MGS series as a whole could be said to be about "War", more accurately it's generally more concerned with the deceptions surrounding war. The mental gymnastics of justifying atrocities, the politics of getting other people to go along with things they would never do themselves. In particular, 2 deals with how information control can change how people think and 3 deals with how fiction and idol worship can alter perceptions. With this in mind, we can now note that the MGS series up to this point takes place in a sort of state of "Unreality" where these elements can run free alongside some of the weightier concepts. For example, there aren't any fucking jungles like that in Russia. The fact that Phantom Pain mostly does away with this unreality is extremely important to the story it's telling.
That all said, 3 is probably the most important title to keep in mind when charting the course from Old MGS' unreality to Phantom Pain's unflinching gruesomeness. As I've posted before, MGS3 is a story about perception, more specifically disillusionment. Throughout the game, Naked Snake learns that war isn't the adventure that he'd hoped for, that the reality is nothing like the James Bonds or John Rambos the aesthetics so heavily crib from. The Cold War wasn't fought by Tuxedo'd Welshmen knee deep in pussy and Vietnam wasn't fought by shirtless musclemen. In killing the Boss, Snake takes the final step to acknowledge there is no Joy in battle. He had been lied to and manipulated in order to get to this point, and from then on he becomes determined to live by his own truth. He resolves to step away from the Unreality that told him being a soldier was great and instead to inhabit Reality.
Well, I don't think The Phantom Pain is going to get rid of the un-realism either. We saw in the original trailer a young Psycho Mantis, we saw the ridiculous hallucinations, we just saw Quiet bounce off people and jumped ten feet in the air, along with her abilities to change her body to a degree. This universe is based off our own, but with supernatural elements, and I'm perfectly fine with that. That's what makes Metal Gear, Metal Gear.
But I agree with your analysis of Big Boss's characterization, and the games of the series as a whole.
To a point, anyway. The ideal of Outer Heaven is two noble warriors resolving their conflicts on the battlefield in honorable combat. No outside influence, no politicians behind the scenes, no double-crossing spies, nothing but soldiers being soldiers. The fact that he dreams of a nation where this is possible suggests he's still clinging to some of his old romanticism. The game leading up to the establishment of Outer Heaven is simply showing us why Outer Heaven is just another lie. That's why it's important that Phantom Pain won't simply be portraying Soldiers vs. Soldiers. There's a huge focus on the little people, figuratively and literally. The collateral damage. Think of the horrors Chico and Paz endured in Ground Zeroes. There's the scene with Chico where the thought of someone, anyone, entering his cell frightens him so much he can't even recognize Snake. And the tape where after suffering a brutal rape, Paz asks Chico if he wants to fuck. They're a couple of quiet, sad and pathetic moments that add a lot of life and character and sympathy to something so relentlessly bleak. From the trailers, we also know that MGSV will include child soldiers, kids getting knives pulled on them, handicapped people getting tortured, etc... Big Boss' words and deeds(heh) don't match up at all, and his quest to escape his former Unreality leads him to create another.
About that Chico thing. I think Chico was scared of Snake because he thought Snake knew about his betrayal, and was there to kill him. And I completely agree with what those tapes did to adding life to those characters. I found something in the game too, if you leave Chico and Paz next to each other, Chico will crawl to her and they will cuddle and hold hands. It was a heartbreaking, grounded moment in a horrible situation, but then my mind went to the last time I saw Paz and how ridiculous it was.
I agree with almost everything you say though. But I think my point is that this story, a tale of a mans decent into madness and insanity that leads him to hell will be completely tainted by the story that is set around him, and connecting it to Zero and the Patriots.
That was quite a fine read. You really managed to present your concern in a well written up OP. Too bad only few poster actually cared about the main cause of your concern. To people who have said that OP should judge the game on it's own merit, that exactly the problem for him. MGS isn't like FF where number means nothing and you can actually judge them by their own. There are many recurring characters that deeply involved either on the side or grand narratives of MGS. The OP have write a nice breakdown on how each MGS tackle different themes. The even numbered games dealt with meta-narratives most of the time, while the odd numbered dealt with more grounded themes.
The thing is that The Phantom Pain focused on the story of Big Boss, where he was heavily featured in MGS3, where the issue being tackled is more serious in nature and doesn't have any conflicting story element with the established canon (at that time), which of course should happened since MGS 3 is the prequel to all thing. In MGS3 we could see why Big Boss become cynic and turn into more of an anti-hero that become a perfect reason why he later become a villain. Despite that, we could see the usual wackiness from the usual MGS we should expect, but nothing really went overboard in MGS3 and the tone mostly the same when compared to MGS 1.
The Phantom Pain will dealt further into his fall from grace as OP have put it, but the main problem is that the game being set directly after the most canonical wrecked up game that is The Peace Walker. PW despite being the sequel of MGS3 and prequel to other ones just trying too hard to connect all the dot that originally come from MGS4, another wrecked game in term of canon since it's a continuation to MGS2 that being supposed to Kojima's last MGS game at that time. And Kojima rack it it up to the eleven with giving us more wackiness than any other MGS game combined. Even though one might argue that the side ops isn't canon and we can ignore it, there are some ridiculous things that indeed happened in the game canonically, that is Paz betrayal (in bikini/underwear).
With that much tone of the game being set up in massive wackiness, you could imagine the heavy dissonance one might experience by playing The Phantom Pan that is supposed to tackle extremely serious issues/themes. The dissonance might be more severe because the tonal shift just too extreme that it might hinder one capability to judge the game on its merit. This is the reason why OP write it all of his/her concern in one well written paragraphs.
I couldn't add anything to this discussion OP, as I'm pretty much agree with all the thing you've just posted. I actually interested in The Phantom Pain after all of that write up but considering the extreme tonal change, I might just have continue stance on the series, that is too ignore after all of that wrecked (also due to my pity on Kojim since he couldn't divert his creative energy elsewhere beside MGS). I don't suggest you take the same stance, but unless you could forget brainwash your brain from the shit that is Peace Walker, you would just suffer further from massive dissonance by playing The Phantom Pain.
I think he/she summed it up better than I could. So if you need a more east to read idea of my thoughts this is the post.
