I got Ground Zeroes when it was on Games with Gold and it was my first Metal Gear game. I loved it so much that in anticipation for The Phantom Pain I went through and played all the previous MGS games. I wish that I hadn’t done so prior to playing The Phantom Pain because all it did was set me up for massive disappointment.
Don’t get me wrong I still really liked TPP (even the plot) but it was far from the experience I was conditioned by the previous games into expecting. Even Peace Walker, which shared the “Tactical Espionage Operations” tag instead of the “Tactical Espionage Action” of the older games, couldn’t clue me in because it still told a coherent and linear story albeit heavily and arbitrarily segmented.
Where it all went wrong for me was shortly after first arriving in Africa. By Episode 12 it really felt like the story was finally starting to pick up but after the admittedly spectacular Episode 13 I was back to doing “Main Ops” that seemed like they had as much relevance to the plot as the side ops did. I’m betting that if the game was given as much time/budget as it needed to be truly ‘finished’ then nearly half of the “Main Ops” would have ended up as those yellow ‘important’ Side Ops.
A lot of people are complaining about the recycled missions in Chapter 2. The problem I had with these was that there isn’t an Extreme, Subsistence and Total Stealth version of every mission. Why the fuck not? Ground Zeroes had Normal and Hard mode for every mission and the previous games had different difficulty settings, so why doesn’t this one?
Despite all these glaring shortcomings the core gameplay of TPP is the best MGS has ever seen. There is an almost unlimited amount of ways to infiltrate every base and outpost. However despite all this openness I still have far less of a desire to replay TPP as I do the first 3 MGS games because the Mother Base metagame makes it all seem like such a chore and it’s not viable to completely ignore building up Diamond Dogs.
>>323506812
>Despite all these glaring shortcomings the core gameplay of TPP is the best MGS has ever seen
This is wrong sorry.
The factual game quality order is
2 > 1 > 3 > 4 > TPP
>>323506953
>factual game quality
No. Stop letting hate cloud your judgement.
>Gameplay
TPP > GZ > 3 > 4 > 2 > 1 > PW
>Story
2 > 3 > 1 > GZ > PW > TPP > 4
>Overall
3 = 2 > GZ > 1 > TPP > 4 > PW
>>323507835
i agree with this
>>323507835
> story
> tpp > 4
that would require tpp having one first
>>323508880
The shit I make up whenever I go in free roam makes up a better story than fucking MGS4.
>>323508880
It does have a story, and a great one at that. It's just hidden among a plethora of irrelevant bullshit.
>>323507835
>TPP having good gameplay
I genuinely don't get this meme. Shitposting aside, TPP had good, fluent controls, but the most boring, repetitive gameplay of all the games.
I often think that people are confusing 'gameplay' with 'controls.'
>>323510486
>I often think that people are confusing 'gameplay' with 'controls.'
Nope. You're just autistic. If anything MGSV is the LEAST repetitive Metal Gear because of how open everything is.
>>323510826
I'm not talking about free roam, dumbass. The missions all have the worst gameplay in the series. The first couple of infiltrations were fun, but on the 10th infiltration of the same base, I'm fucking bored.
>>323506812
>Don’t get me wrong I still really liked TPP (even the plot) but it was far from the experience I was conditioned by the previous games into expecting.
And the explosive shit mess of a bait n' switch that was MGS 2 was far from the experience I was conditioned into expecting by the previous MGS. Are you noticing a pattern? By the time Peace Walker rolled in, the original premise was almost completely unrecognizable. Call it a natural evolution or call it a reason to sperg out over getting a different experience instead of the same one reskinned, but Hideo Kojima has always been looking to "surprise" the fanbase with unexpected changes from day 1. How you could not expect a totally different game than Guns of the Patriots or any other previous MGS game by this point is beyond me.
>after the admittedly spectacular Episode 13 I was back to doing “Main Ops” that seemed like they had as much relevance to the plot as the side ops did
I don't get this meme. Firstly, Skull Face was only the subplot to a much larger problem. You discovered something strange in the devil's house. You later discovered it impacted your own staff and everything following that was looking for an answer. Some missions were busts and yielded nothing in the way of actual information, but that's kinda how it is when you're looking for what's essentially a needle in a haystack. Code Talker was the only one who understood how to stop it in the entire continent. This isn't to speak of the fact you're taking on just any well paying mission to rebuild mother base, which is central to the story too.
>However despite all this openness I still have far less of a desire to replay TPP as I do the first 3 MGS games
Of course you wouldn't want to replay a game you invested 100+ hours in. What kind of autist would want to start from scratch? This game offers way more in terms of real gameplay and content than does any other MGS and you still found a way to be disappointed.
>>323506812
>>323507835
shoehorned social commentary doesn't make 2's story remotely decent
1 is by far the best presented story, the localization adds a lot of cheese
3 is good but it's all big boss
>>323507835
TPP>2>1>3>4>PW
>>323510486
I don't either don't worry. But I'm pretty shit at MGS stealth unless there's a radar of some kind or I've already played it.
>>323510968
You seem to be confusing 'game play' with 'story'
>>323512187
Mate, I haven't said anything about the story. I'm talking about the process of fucking up everyone's day in a base.
It's boring and repetitive.
>>323512187
I think you're the one confused. You're confusing "gameplay" with "mechanics".
