I don't have a horse in this race because Ive never played a Metal Gear Solid game, but I do know that Quiet is a character that exists and I feel like that's all I need to know on that subject.
Metal Gear Solid 5
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I still don't get what MGS2 have to do with Phantom Pain because those are totally different games with nearly no similarities.
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Quiet is a great character. I don't like that shitty design, but let's not kid ourselves, and claim the character itself to be bad.
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I still don't get what MGS2 have to do with Phantom Pain because those are totally different games with nearly no similarities.
Aside from both games featuring the biggest video game switcheroo with a fan-favorite character, along with both of them having a contrasting ending such as Raiden at the end becoming his own man, and throwing away the dog tags with the players name on it, refusing to be controlled by people( and the player) while Venom in TPP loses his identity in order to become "Big Boss" and carry on the legacy while his entire existent is swallowed by the legend with the player still going out to get more resources, and build up the army.
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I think it is enough to just say that you know nothing about game development. Because that sentence is not a reality, anywhere that has shipped something.
Ok I actually take it back, maybe it is a reality at Quantic Dream, but they're French so it doesn't count(I still like you Heavy Rain):ninja:
! This is obviously a joke, the quantic dream part
Game-concepts, and basic-story outline are done before they start actually working on the game. And yes the script is not fully finalized, and can be changed in just like any other creative medium.
In TPP's case, and as people like to make it seem like Konami rushed everything, that would be reflected in the actual game, but as someone who played the game on release, the game was simply a technical masterpiece on both PS4, and PC. And that doesn't happen when a game is supposedly just rushed out the door.
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My favorite part is when somebody like Aranea tries to tell you about Biggs and Wedge but then Prompto pops in to quip the same bullshit he's been saying since chapter 1.
Or "Hey, Gladdy, remember when–" "Imperials above us!"
If youre going to tell a subtle story the dont override story conversations with generic bullshit like this, maybe?
Yea that's the downside of a open-world title such as this. It does become quite annoying after you listen to that same dialogue over and over, and over again.
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Aside from both games featuring the biggest video game switcheroo with a fan-favorite character, along with both of them having a contrasting ending such as Raiden at the end becoming his own man, and throwing away the dog tags with the players name on it, refusing to be controlled by people( and the player) while Venom in TPP loses his identity in order to become "Big Boss" and carry on the legacy while his entire existent is swallowed by the legend with the player still going out to get more resources, and build up the army.
And those are two totally different situations no matter how you see it. You have to try very hard to say those are similarities to the point one copies the other.
REAL Hard.
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I mean if you aren't familiar with Kojima's work or understand his methods then yea it might seem like they have nothing in common.
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Kind of the most important aspect of this. So yes if you're statement was meant to be read as in "done" meaning people are working on these things during pre production then yes. But that didn't make much sense to me because you were using it in an argument to say the "story was done" as in finished. Which just never is the case.
Scripts are nice guidelines to unite people's ideas they're not like movie screenplays or book first drafts like at all. Like with the latter examples you usually get what is on the page in some form(as in you finish the script and give it to a director or editor), in game dev what's on the page often doesn't work as intended(so even if you're David Cage writing your 5000 page script and deliver it, it kind of doesn't mean shit actually), is changed or even thrown away. But most importantly what's on the page is very often also stuff that just simply doesn't make it into game because of lacking resources(money, time). This causes rewrites(which in itself can cause different gaps), etc just to make shit fit on some form even if there are obviously important things missing.
As such it's totally logical to regard FFXV story as unfinished given how much connective tissue was not implemented because of simple production realities.
The shocking truth is no game is ever finished, they are simply declared so by necessity, the art is to not let players notice. And you really notice in FFXV. That's the simple reality.
I know that things are always changing even if they did plan most of it especially in this particular medium which has just too many factors. My point with TPP was that mission 51 seems to be removed due to a decision by the team, and not by Konami rushing the game.
FFXV is a great example because the game does in fact shows how it was rushed. I still love the core-focus of the game but characters like Regis, Luna, and Ardyn could have used a little more screen-time.
Though the game is not broken, and glitchy like DS3, or NMS, or FO4.
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It doesn't come up ever again. It doesn't effect the Solid Snake saga. Doesn't effect Eli as a character…..... But Please do tell me what critical relevance they hold to anything in the series.
We're not talking about it's relevance to the series overall we're talking about it's relevance to PP specifically.
No i mean the game doesn't acknowledge it.
Because Mission 51 isn't in the game
Kojima doesn't acknowledge it. His staff doesn't acknowledge it,
So I'm pretty sure all that stuff pertaining to the mission was just conceptualized without any intent whatsoever to put it into the game.
you know the people who created the game.
You know the people who were booted from the game near the end of it's production and some of whom had their involvement with the game scrubbed from it?
It was released with the collectors, just like how movies often release deleted-scenes in them.
…..This doesn't really dispute the point the mission was likely intended to be in the original game up until Konami reassigned most of the development team for reasons they have yet to be explained and may never be.
Only the butthurt fans acknowledge it who were clearly disappointed by the game, but instead of simply admitting that, they decided to blame the evil konami, and labeled the game unfinished.
Because the game was unfinished and Konami did fuck things up by essentially having it rushed out the door. Mission 46 being the most unbalanced mission in the game is a pretty damn blatant example of that.
TPP takes place in 1984, and MGS takes place in 2005. Eli builds his Kingdom of the Flies, stays under the radar until Big Boss in Zanzibar is taken down, then he plans for the Shadow Moses stuff.
Yeah…...this still doesn't reconcile the fact that Liquid absconded with an inoperable Metal Gear and a squad of child soldiers. Along with a powerful Psychic. And he was weirdly allowed to do that with no one paying heed of mind to it.
Snake Eater, Portable Ops, PW, GZ, and TPP(both GZ, and TPP make up the MGSV game) are all part of the Big Boss saga.
….This doesn't explain how the PP was supposed to be about Big Boss's "fall from grace" as you mentioned despite the fact that Ground Zeroes ends with most of his Mercenary Group decimated and the whole world thinking he perished, and eventhough TPP doesn't really have Big Boss (or rather his doppelganger) going through this "fall from grace".
Obviously. Otherwise we wouldn't be having a complete repeat of MGS2
People's issue with MGS2 was Raiden and a lot of confusing elements relating to it's plot, People's issue with TPP was well a bunch of things.
if people actually bothered to think about MGS2, and understand it's message.
Whatever message MGS2 had was buried under a lot of heavy handed sub-text and exposition….you know the opposite of what you praised TPP for.
It's funny how MGS4 was a giant middle-finger from Kojima
…..No it wasn't.
to those who kept asking for MGS2 "plot-points" to be explained yet even-then people STILL didn't get it.
Did you ever stop to think that if they didn't get it, it was because Kojima didn't do a good job of explaining it?
It's not a coincidence that the two games that Kojima enjoyed the most making are also two of the most ambiguous title in the series.
MGS2 and MGS4 weren't ambiguous just exposition heavy games with some asspulls and other negative aspects.
Probably because Kojima himself does not give two shits about the canon.
Is that supposed to be a good or a bad thing? Because it you don't care about the canon you've established yourself, you're essentially telling people who followed it, that they wasted their time.
MGS2 should be the dead giveaway of his design philosophy. Though most "fans" are oblivious to it, and think Kojima makes a MGS game just to throw crazy convoluted plot.
Because the games do actually have crazy and convoluted plots barring some exceptions, where the plot is a bit more straightforward and easier to follow.
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We're not talking about it's relevance to the series overall we're talking about it's relevance to PP specifically.
It doesn't effect anything in the slightest. Parasite themselves stand for metaphors rather than plot-related. Again if you are new to Kojima's work then i can understand this plot-stuff, but there is no way you would just look at the surface of the game if you have followed his work since the first game.
So I'm pretty sure all that stuff pertaining to the mission was just conceptualized without any intent whatsoever to put it into the game.
Yes they had intention of putting it early into the development just like how Ismael was, at one point, supposed to be Huey, or how Chico was supposed to be alive in TPP, but that didn't make it into the final product.
Kojima himself in December of 2015 confirmed that the mission was abandoned prior to 2014, and was supposed to be planned as DLC. You can see it in the mission which was only completed 30%. It was never needed nor important for the story which it really isn't once you go beyond just the english strain, and Sally.
…..This doesn't really dispute the point the mission was likely intended to be in the original game up until Konami reassigned most of the development team for reasons they have yet to be explained and may never be.
Based on what?
Because the game was unfinished and Konami did fuck things up by essentially having it rushed out the door. Mission 46 being the most unbalanced mission in the game is a pretty damn blatant example of that.
Unbalanced how? You mean the deliberate structure of chapter 2?
Whether people like it or not, the game is finished. Unless you are trying to argue that just because the game, in terms of story, doesn't really follow formal creative structure, well to that i would ask if you have really played the previous games because MGS has done anything but formal structures.
Yeah…...this still doesn't reconcile the fact that Liquid absconded with an inoperable Metal Gear and a squad of child soldiers. Along with a powerful Psychic. And he was weirdly allowed to do that with no one paying heed of mind to it.
We don't need to know about that in any way. Eli's role in this game was to explore his character, and relationship with Big Boss,and the reason for why he ends up in Shadow Moses as he does.
….This doesn't explain how the PP was supposed to be about Big Boss's "fall from grace" as you mentioned despite the fact that Ground Zeroes ends with most of his Mercenary Group decimated and the whole world thinking he perished, and eventhough TPP doesn't really have Big Boss (or rather his doppelganger) going through this "fall from grace".
The Phantom Pain just happens to have a Big Boss clone who is very much alike Big Boss, but differs from him in a subtle way….
The game does show Big Boss's fall from grace, but in a far more subtle way. But it's not so simple as "Big Boss does dark shit therefore he is a villain". It comes in the form of Venom, and what Big Boss did to him, along with him becoming obsessed with his own legend. It's like a final piece of the puzzle that you can use to properly interpret Big Boss character arc. It paints the clearest contrast between The Boss, Solid Snake, and Big Boss ideology, and where exactly he went wrong.
That's where the brilliance of the twist comes in, and why it's one of the most creative ways to show a character's fall especially with it involving the player directly to convey that. I say this for every MGS game, and i'll say it for TPP too; It's a game first, and story after.
People's issue with MGS2 was Raiden and a lot of confusing elements relating to it's plot, People's issue with TPP was well a bunch of things.
That's my point though. People were obsessed with the plot, and details that they completely forgot to THINK about what was being presented in front of them. Regardless of whether people like it or not, MGS has always been more about it's subtext then it's surface story.
The game itself was fucking ambiguous as hell, and far ahead of its time, but this particular quote of Solid Snake as stuck with me for a long time, "Listen, don't obsess over words so much. Find the meaning behind the words, then decide.", which to me is the core of MGS2.
Whatever message MGS2 had was buried under a lot of heavy handed sub-text and exposition….you know the opposite of what you praised TPP for.
Not really. MGS2 is a game first before it's a story. If you are just looking at just the story, and ignoring pretty much all the other aspects then yea i can that see.
Did you ever stop to think that if they didn't get it, it was because Kojima didn't do a good job of explaining it?
Ambiguity is half the fun with MGS2. Unless you prefer to have something that is delivered on a silver-platter so you can open it, see it, and close it and not think about it afterwards?
MGS2 and MGS4 weren't ambiguous just exposition heavy games with some asspulls and other negative aspects.
Surface? Sure. Hell i consider MGS4 to be the absolute worst in the series when it comes to surface plot. But beyond that, these games are fucking brilliant in their subtext, and meta-commentary.
Is that supposed to be a good or a bad thing? Because it you don't care about the canon you've established yourself, you're essentially telling people who followed it, that they wasted their time.
Kojima has never been just about telling a good story, and has always used the stories, characters, settings, game-design etc… as a way to convey greater thematic ideas. His work, interviews, trailers, marketing etc... are all part of the final experience. He isn't called the Kubrick of games for no reason.
Because the games do actually have crazy and convoluted plots barring some exceptions, where the plot is a bit more straightforward and easier to follow.
There is a big big difference between a game having crazy, and convoluted plots, and a game's core-focus being that crazy, and convoluted plot.
MGS2 with all it's crazy, and convoluted plot was designed to never have any real explanation behind it. It's easier to look back on MGS2, and claim that MGS4 is the sequel of it, but at the time of the game's development, it was supposed to be Kojima's final MGS game with 4 never ever being in development or even in Kojima's mind.
It's why i say that MGS4 was a middle-finger because Kojima himself then went on to explain the most irrelevant details in 4, and boiled them down to "nanomachine's son". The heavy-handed exposition, long-cutscenes, almost all of the characters appearing in some shape or form, everything being explained by nano etc…. were all very deliberate choices by Kojima, who at this point was extremely tired of making MGS games.
Anyway i am not here to tell you what you should enjoy about MGS. If you enjoy the surface plot, and found TPP to be disappointing then kudos. I personally don't like to just look at the story when it comes to Kojima games, and the story of TPP isn't anything special, but the other elements are fucking brilliant. Even after a year, TPP is still the most impressive game of this decade for me
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It doesn't come up ever again. It doesn't effect the Solid Snake saga. Doesn't effect Eli as a character…..... But Please do tell me what critical relevance they hold to anything in the series.
I'm sorry, what?
It doesnt effect it? Without mission 51, it presents a huge plot hole of Eli and Mantis having the most advanced goddamn metal gear that there is and Mantis having the ability to control it, but for some reason this weapon never comes up in the entire saga and they need the less advanced Rex in MGS1 to accomplish their goals?
HAHAHAHAHA
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I'm sorry, what?
It doesnt effect it? Without mission 51, it presents a huge plot hole of Eli and Mantis having the most advanced goddamn metal gear that there is and Mantis having the ability to control it, but for some reason this weapon never comes up in the entire saga and they need the less advanced Rex in MGS1 to accomplish their goals?
HAHAHAHAHA
Such a advanced weapon that Huey himself pretty much stated that it wasn't capable of working.
Which brings me to my other point; the series in order of release has always featured high tech than the last one. That in itself should show you the level of importance Kojima puts on continuity, and consistency in terms of lore, and tech. Not to mention that Sally is not mentioned in the previous games nor Eli ever showed the intention of using it.
Not to mention how 51 then creates huge plot holes such as Venom taking the Metal Gear back to his base with all of Huey's research while having someone like Miller who is becoming more and more paranoid, and wants DD to be really strong so no one can touch them. Then it concerns with Eli, and how Cipher found him even though the game very clearly states how Eli was able to escape them, and thus Cipher stop looking for him, but somehow in 51 they found him, know about the Sally, and Venom took it and yet somehow none of that ever comes up again or goes anywhere? Then there is a concern of Venom's character wanting to help Eli, and the other kids, then suddenly in 51, he somehow shoots him, yells, only to leave him behind to get burned?
Did you ever stop to think about the massive disconnect in 51 from the rest of the game? Especially when the joke is that Eli never meets his real father and doesn't realise that Venom genuinely cares about him. The twist is that he's harbouring hatred for a man who actually gives a shit about him and this makes him sympathetic or at least even more sad and misguided than he already was. By comparison, Mission 51's resolution of Venom accidentally shooting him and then leaving him to kill himself or be burned alive actually justifies his hatred and attitude towards Big Boss, which is incredibly boring and shouldn't be the point especially when taking the irony of MGS1 into account.
Here is something Kojima said about the vocal cord parasite;
Snake's crawling, then crouching and eventual standing is symbolic of man's evolution.
The MGS1 story is about genes. The narrative in MGS2 covers memes, in idea or behaviour that spreads within a culture. As The Phantom Pain is set in the 1980s, I could not use a storyline theme of nanoscopic scale, so I opted for an organism of microscopic size instead, which is why I chose parasites. In addition, I wanted to transfer the idea of biological parasites and symbiosis (relationships) to more general issues occurring on an international level.
Sahelanthropus is not just a bipedal Metal Gear, it's also a Metal Gear capable of walking upright, just like humans. When apes started to walk upright, their brain size increased and they developed vocal cords, so this idea goes well with the vocal cord parasite theme in the game.You can see some of Kojima's thought-process behind them. And as you can see, he doesn't relate it to lore, or plot-details.
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kojima's a pretentious nerd, you say
well color me surprised
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Same way like how Moby Dick, Orwell's 1984, Heart Of Darkness, Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver, Nausicaa, The Watchmen, all of Kubrick works, David Lynch, along with shit ton of works throughout the history that are more about conveying certain ideas through its respective medium than just being about plot.
But hey at least you tried.
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it'd be cool if any those ideas and themes were well-executed in the actual medium of a video game though
which they weren't lmao -
Cool story, bro.
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are you unable to actually back up how MGSV can carry its themes through the actual gameplay aka the thing that separates video games as a medium from literally everything else or should we just start calling kojima a jilted filmmaker who makes games and not movies like David Cage
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You can call him that, i guess. Though MGSV cutscenes are quite possibly the best entire game industry. One-sequence, or tracking shots, and the way they are used in V are simply breathtaking. It makes every other game look like a indie crap in comparisons. The only game i can see coming close to V is the new God Of War which looks amazing with that direction.
I got no real interest in discussing the game beyond the story in a place where people mostly care about the story, and don't really care much about the entire product or medium for that matter.
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It doesn't effect anything in the slightest.
Saying it doesn't affect anything in the slightest doesn't excuse a plot thread being left unresolved. Because the game was rushed to store shelves by Konami who could care less about making sure the game had all it's ducks in a row…..or that certain people would get credit where it was due.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > Parasite themselves stand for metaphors rather than plot-related.
! Few people give a damn about things supposedly being metaphors for other things. Not everyone plays video games for this pretentious "alternate interpretation" bullshit.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > Kojima himself in December of 2015 confirmed that the mission was abandoned prior to 2014, and was supposed to be planned as DLC. You can see it in the mission which was only completed 30%.
! Oh it was? well thanks for proving my point and admitting it was supposed to be in the game but wasn't do to the game being rushed out a few months earlier than it should've.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > It was never needed nor important for the story
! Maybe to you as you seem to be only one here or anywhere for that matter doubling down on this weird claim.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > Unbalanced how?
! Let's see you have to take on a platoon of tanks and APC's that seemingly have the ability to hit you from anywhere along with a few attack helicopters while also making sure Quiet doesn't get killed…...which weirdly makes this the hardest mission in the game. And this comes after you fight what should've been the final boss in the game.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > Whether people like it or not, the game is finished. Unless you are trying to argue that just because the game, in terms of story, doesn't really follow formal creative structure, well to that i would ask if you have really played the previous games because MGS has done anything but formal structures.
! Yes I have and yes you're right….not that, that's a good thing about not following formal structures.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > We don't need to know about that in any way.
! No no "you" don't need to know about that in anyway the majority of us that played TPP don't share you're opinion.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > Eli's role in this game was to explore his character, and relationship with Big Boss,and the reason for why he ends up in Shadow Moses as he does.
! Which the game doesn't really do that good of a job explaining particuarly on the last bit.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > The game does show Big Boss's fall from grace, but in a far more subtle way. But it's not so simple as "Big Boss does dark shit therefore he is a villain".
! Despite the fact that's what Kojima hyped up and what many people felt the game didn't truly deliver on?
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > It comes in the form of Venom, and what Big Boss did to him,
! What did he do to him since what happened to him was the result of his sacrifice and Zero using him as an unwitting guinea pig with Kaz and Ocelot in on the ruse.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > That's my point though. People were obsessed with the plot, and details that they completely forgot to THINK about what was being presented in front of them.
! When you play a story driven video game which the Metal Gear games are what else are you supposed to do where the story is concerned?
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > Regardless of whether people like it or not, MGS has always been more about it's subtext then it's surface story.
! And like I said before this is where the divisive aspect of the game's writing stems from.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > Not really. MGS2 is a game first before it's a story.
! Which becomes a bit funny since one of the common complaints about MGS2 was that the game spent more time on it's unskippeable and numerous cutscenes then it's gameplay.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > Ambiguity is half the fun with MGS2.
! Even if it essentially creates plot holes or ass-pulls? Like Fortune being able to ridirect bullets on her own (after needing technology to do it originally).
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > Unless you prefer to have something that is delivered on a silver-platter so you can open it, see it, and close it and not think about it afterwards?
! That would be better than to have to think about something that's not objective fact. Which is not what interpretating something amounts to as it's a subjective assessment of that something.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > There is a big big difference between a game having crazy, and convoluted plots, and a game's core-focus being that crazy, and convoluted plot.
! They sound and look exactly the same to me, but okay.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > MGS2 with all it's crazy, and convoluted plot was designed to never have any real explanation behind it.
! …..That sound an awful lot like bullcrap. Who makes a story to have no explanation behind why the story itself exists?
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > It's easier to look back on MGS2, and claim that MGS4 is the sequel of it,
! Ummmm because MG2 ends with Snake trying to track down Liquid Ocelot and Metal Gear Ray. And 4 more or less involves Snake trying to stop Liquid Ocelot and Metal Gear Ray. Along with explaining the truth behind the Patriots who were mentioned in the post credits of "Sons Of Liberty".
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > but at the time of the game's development, it was supposed to be Kojima's final MGS game with 4 never ever being in development or even in Kojima's mind.
! So basically 2 was supposed to end on a cliffhanger never to be resolved.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > The heavy-handed exposition, long-cutscenes,
! Which the 3 MGS games that preceeded them had the only difference was that you could skip them.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > were all very deliberate choices by Kojima, who at this point was extremely tired of making MGS games.
! And yet after this game went on to make Portable Ops, Peace Walker, & Ground Zeroes/The Phantom Pain with neary a gripe on his part…..besides him being worried about dropping the ball on one of TPP's plot points.
! @HeartOfDarkness:
! > If you enjoy the surface plot, and found TPP to be disappointing then kudos.
! I liked the Phantom Pain it had it's flaws like every other Metal Gear Solid game but I enjoyed it none the less. The only MGS game I didn't particuarly care for was Peace Walker but that's another story. -
I am sorry that you think plot pretty much dictates everything in MGS, but it doesn't. And you constantly refusing to take the entire product into consideration, and nitpicking on some shitty plot-threads that even you yourself pretty much fail to justify in any way isn't helping your argument.
Hate to break it to ya, but plot-details aren't everything in a game. You keep saying the game was just rushed over a single fucking mission compare to you know talking about the level of polish in the game, and other areas that should reflect your argument. But it doesn't. Nothing in the game does. Just because you repeat, and rely on the shitty fan-made-up-bullshit, doesn't mean the game is suddenly unfinished.
Common sense should dictate that when a game releases an deleted scenes with its collectors, along with it having 30% complete mark, along with it being disconnected with the rest of the game ( it creates shit ton of more plotholes, but hey don't let common sense stop you from blaming big evil Konami, because fuck logic) for the entire world to see. Along with people who created/ completed the product saying that it was never needed for the main story. But hey they are lying because fuck logic, or Konami conspiracy that must have cloned the original creators, and told them to lie, because again fuck logic.
And yes this convoluted, and conspiracy over simply being disappointed by the game not placing the same amount of importance on plot as much as you would like it to. Which would be ok if the people were honest about it, but why be honest when you can just blame something shit regardless of how little it actually makes sense.
Now when you are ready to discuss the game called, "The Phantom Pain", then i'll indulge your argument. Otherwise this is such a pointless argument.
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I'm going to be that asshole http://apforums.net/showthread.php?t=34333&page=10
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Having a particular view of MGS V is ok, and is more concrete if you can back up the interpretations with decently solid evidence, but to project your view onto others and say that their opinions/views are incorrect is, well… not really a productive discussion, and pretty condescending. :(
There's a general quote that goes along the lines of "If an author says a story should be seen one way, that is correct, but if they say it's the only way, then they are wrong" (Don't know who the quote belongs to, I've seen it rephrased every now and then).Nitpicky stuff:
[hide]Mission 51 is not canon. The game doesn't acknowledge it. Nor does it add anything of worth to the characters. Anyone still trying to argue that it's important must have not really thought about the episode just beyond resolving two useless plot-devices. The game's true ending with Eli going back to his old ways was a prefect end to his character-arc until his eventual appearance at Shadow Moses.
I’d argue that reverted to his old ways in Mission 51 anyway, still wanting to get revenge on Big Boss (and thus tying into the theme of the game).
On a side-note; TPP has the best character-work in the entire series. One-tape of Zero in the truth tapes is more than enough to show Zero's character, and his relationship with Big Boss and humanise him then the entirety of MGS3, and MGS4. More doesn't equal better. Kojima, with this game, finally understood the essence of subtlies, and keeps the characters very subtle.
Totally agreed. They gave us the right amount of Zero that I was hoping for ever since Ground Zeroes teased it. Plus, it makes Zero’s appearance in 4 less random and less awful.
It doesn't come up ever again. It doesn't effect the Solid Snake saga. Doesn't effect Eli as a character…..... But Please do tell me what critical relevance they hold to anything in the series.
The problem is more that the Saha is a loose thread that doesn't have a proper ending, along with the English strain of the vocal chord parasite. Hence why it feels unfinished to a lot of people (including me).
Unbalanced how? You mean the deliberate structure of chapter 2?
Whether people like it or not, the game is finished.
It's as finished as a game will be (as you saw Darth point out), I suppose, but there's still parts of the story that seem unresolved, and a lot of fans expected them to be resolved as this seemed to be the last MGS game by Kojima, given that he left or was fired or whatever happened with the Konami situation.
Unless you are trying to argue that just because the game, in terms of story, doesn't really follow formal creative structure, well to that i would ask if you have really played the previous games because MGS has done anything but formal structures.
I get that it doesn't follow the formulaic structure of the previous games, that's true. But the problem is probably because the structure of chapter 2 is inconsistent with the rest of Phantom Pain (as opposed to just the whole series in general), which is why so many people feel that it's jarring.
Probably because Kojima himself does not give two shits about the canon. MGS2 should be the dead giveaway of his design philosophy. Though most "fans" are oblivious to it, and think Kojima makes a MGS game just to throw crazy convoluted plot.
Eeeehh I don't know about that, he sure seems to care quite a bit about the game's overall story. I mean, sure, there's inconsistencies here and there, but to say he doesn't care at all about canon seems pretty extreme.
It doesn't effect anything in the slightest. Parasite themselves stand for metaphors rather than plot-related. Again if you are new to Kojima's work then i can understand this plot-stuff, but there is no way you would just look at the surface of the game if you have followed his work since the first game.
Which is why I want to know what happened with the English strain since it's an important metaphor in this case.
Anyone who has been on the internet since MGS2 days would know that the best discussions about MGS game comes after few years of its release. IT happen with every single MGS game since MGS2.
I get where you're coming from, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the games are great because they age better. Similarly, I don't think we can know for sure that PP will be recieved better in the future just because it's as "ambiguous" and similar to MGS2.
Kojima himself in December of 2015 confirmed that the mission was abandoned prior to 2014, and was supposed to be planned as DLC. You can see it in the mission which was only completed 30%. It was never needed nor important for the story which it really isn't once you go beyond just the english strain, and Sally.
Did he confirm that these were the exact reasons why it was thrown out, or is this an educated assumption?
[/hide]The Phantom Pain just happens to have a Big Boss clone who is very much alike Big Boss, but differs from him in a subtle way….
The game does show Big Boss's fall from grace, but in a far more subtle way. But it's not so simple as "Big Boss does dark shit therefore he is a villain". It comes in the form of Venom, and what Big Boss did to him, along with him becoming obsessed with his own legend. It's like a final piece of the puzzle that you can use to properly interpret Big Boss character arc. It paints the clearest contrast between The Boss, Solid Snake, and Big Boss ideology, and where exactly he went wrong.
That's where the brilliance of the twist comes in, and why it's one of the most creative ways to show a character's fall especially with it involving the player directly to convey that.
I think I see what you mean. It's creative because before PP, we knew Big Boss was gonna turn bad and become the person we knew in the original Metal Gear, but MGS V turns that notion on it’s head and introduces Venom, indicating that the Big Boss in MG is in fact, different from the Big Boss we know in MGS3-MSGV: GZ. I wouldn’t say it’s subtle, but it’s something that only a handful of the characters know. It fooled the world, along including Skull Face and Eli.
But how is this enhanced by the player's direct involvement?
I say this for every MGS game, and i'll say it for TPP too; It's a game first, and story after.
There's no doubt that MGS is a series that takes advantage of the medium, but I don’t follow this bit. To reiterate the previous question, how does this Venom story beat have anything to do with the gameplay aspect that makes it unique? In other words, what part of the experience gets lost if it were done as a book, comic, etc., anything other than a game?
That's my point though. People were obsessed with the plot, and details that they completely forgot to THINK about what was being presented in front of them. Regardless of whether people like it or not, MGS has always been more about it's subtext then it's surface story.
Well of course! In general, most things are about their subtext, more than the surface.
Obviously. Otherwise we wouldn't be having a complete repeat of MGS2 if people actually bothered to think about MGS2, and understand it's message. It's funny how MGS4 was a giant middle-finger from Kojima to those who kept asking for MGS2 "plot-points" to be explained yet even-then people STILL didn't get it.
It's not a coincidence that the two games that Kojima enjoyed the most making are also two of the most ambiguous title in the series.
The game itself was fucking ambiguous as hell, and far ahead of its time, but this particular quote of Solid Snake as stuck with me for a long time, "Listen, don't obsess over words so much. Find the meaning behind the words, then decide.", which to me is the core of MGS2.
Ambiguity is half the fun with MGS2. Unless you prefer to have something that is delivered on a silver-platter so you can open it, see it, and close it and not think about it afterwards?
Ambiguity is great when it's handled well (as it is done with a lot of literature, and like, 90% of the endings to anything Alan Moore has written), but ambiguity in and of itself doesn't really equate to quality, which is what your posts seem to be implying. Ambiguity is great when it relates to themes, and it's fun when certain traits or motives are unclear (as long as it isn't just ambiguous for ambiguity sake).
Can you specify why the ambiguity in MGS is great?
Kojima has never been just about telling a good story, and has always used the stories, characters, settings, game-design etc… as a way to convey greater thematic ideas. His work, interviews, trailers, marketing etc... are all part of the final experience. He isn't called the Kubrick of games for no reason.
So is this to say that the trailers, marketing, etc. are all necessary for the full experience? I wouldn't go that far, but I do find them to be fun supplemental material, especially fun when you're caught up in pre-release hype. Sorta like the crazy viral marketing that was done for Cloverfield before it's release (terrible movie to use as a comparison, I know :P).
It's why i say that MGS4 was a middle-finger because Kojima himself then went on to explain the most irrelevant details in 4, and boiled them down to "nanomachine's son". The heavy-handed exposition, long-cutscenes, almost all of the characters appearing in some shape or form, everything being explained by nano etc…. were all very deliberate choices by Kojima, who at this point was extremely tired of making MGS games.
I don’t really buy into that perspective myself. Even if those choices were deliberate, it doesn’t excuse them from being bad ones. I found it to be lazy storytelling to tie up a lot of the questions with nano-machines.
Anyway i am not here to tell you what you should enjoy about MGS. If you enjoy the surface plot, and found TPP to be disappointing then kudos. I personally don't like to just look at the story when it comes to Kojima games, and the story of TPP isn't anything special, but the other elements are fucking brilliant. Even after a year, TPP is still the most impressive game of this decade for me
I am sorry that you think plot pretty much dictates everything in MGS, but it doesn't. And you constantly refusing to take the entire product into consideration, and nitpicking on some shitty plot-threads that even you yourself pretty much fail to justify in any way isn't helping your argument.
Hate to break it to ya, but plot-details aren't everything in a game. You keep saying the game was just rushed over a single fucking mission compare to you know talking about the level of polish in the game, and other areas that should reflect your argument. But it doesn't.
But here’s the thing, I want to know your thoughts on how the “other elements” make it special. I’m not really doubting it, I just keep seeing “It was brilliant and ahead of it’s time” and “It was incredibly ambiguous”, but you don’t elaborate or specify examples. In other words, you don’t really seem to be justifying your claims either? so I’m just left confused.
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Sorry for the extremely-late reply.
@Mr.:
I’d argue that reverted to his old ways in Mission 51 anyway, still wanting to get revenge on Big Boss (and thus tying into the theme of the game).
Mission 51 makes Eli's actions, and behavior seem justified when the whole point of his storyline is to show that he was a misguided kid. Especially when the game itself shows that Venom does indeed care about Eli. 51 literally disregards Venom's behavior towards Eli when he leaves him to get burn. Along with tons of other inconsistencies that people forget to think about.
Everything the game presents is consistent with his character, while still adding much needed depth. His role in MGSV wasn't about explaining where he was, and where he went rather exploring his actual character, and relationship.
The problem is more that the Saha is a loose thread that doesn't have a proper ending, along with the English strain of the vocal chord parasite. Hence why it feels unfinished to a lot of people (including me).
And here's my question; So what? Unless you are saying that everything in a work of fiction somehow needs to have conclusion regardless of whether it makes sense or not, i really fail to grasp why this even matters in the slightest. Neither the game nor the characters state reasons for using Sally, and the english strain, along with everything suggesting that Eli is literally bidding farewell to the world to go under the radar.
It's as finished as a game will be (as you saw Darth point out), I suppose, but there's still parts of the story that seem unresolved, and a lot of fans expected them to be resolved as this seemed to be the last MGS game by Kojima, given that he left or was fired or whatever happened with the Konami situation.
It's a finished game. Period.
This is like claiming that 2001 A Space Odyssey is an unfinished film simply because it doesn't resolve everything, even though the film's focus is the technical aspect, and what it conveys through that while the plot is just a backdrop.
I get that it doesn't follow the formulaic structure of the previous games, that's true. But the problem is probably because the structure of chapter 2 is inconsistent with the rest of Phantom Pain (as opposed to just the whole series in general), which is why so many people feel that it's jarring.
Chapter 2 is an epilogue one that pushes the game's themes heavily through it's repetitive missions, side-ops, end-game grinding, and essentially is an endless cycle of repetition to make the player experience what Outer Heaven really is.
You can discard that explanation. But if you are familiar with Kojima views, and how he approaches game-design then this shouldn't be a surprise.
Eeeehh I don't know about that, he sure seems to care quite a bit about the game's overall story. I mean, sure, there's inconsistencies here and there, but to say he doesn't care at all about canon seems pretty extreme.
Read up on Kojima's interviews, and thoughts before leading up to MGS4, or his interviews regarding MGS2.
It's no wonder that MGS3 which was heavily boiled down to appeal to the masses with badasses, hollywood-like cutscenes, references to classic spy-movies, and just overall more focused on the plot. Kojima was pretty damn depressed when he made MGS3, and MGS4. Hell he wanted to kill off Snake in 4 just so he can be done with the series.
With MGSV Kojima went back to his MGS2-days, and literally made a game that was a complete opposite of 4, and did not pander to the fans. It was by far his most passionate MGS game after MGS2.
I get where you're coming from, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the games are great because they age better. Similarly, I don't think we can know for sure that PP will be recieved better in the future just because it's as "ambiguous" and similar to MGS2.
MGSV will be received better in future when people are ready to get over their butthurtary, and actually look/ understand the product they have.
In fact varies elements of V are already being admired with tons of people including me considering it as their absolute favorite game in the series.
Did he confirm that these were the exact reasons why it was thrown out, or is this an educated assumption?
He said it. Though the interview was in Japanese, and someone only translated that part. I forgot to save the link, and haven't managed to find it on reddit again otherwise i would have provided the exact source.
But even his team have more or less said the same-thing.
I think I see what you mean. It's creative because before PP, we knew Big Boss was gonna turn bad and become the person we knew in the original Metal Gear, but MGS V turns that notion on it’s head and introduces Venom, indicating that the Big Boss in MG is in fact, different from the Big Boss we know in MGS3-MSGV: GZ. I wouldn’t say it’s subtle, but it’s something that only a handful of the characters know. It fooled the world, along including Skull Face and Eli.
The point of the twist isn't to cover the plot-hole from the most least played MG title. Venom exists in MGS universe as a way to explore Big Boss's personal flaws through proxy. Outside-the game; Venom is the player who has experienced all of Big Boss's missions on record ( same way as the player has played through MGS3, PO, PW, and GZ), and acts exactly like how he (the player) thinks the legendary Big Boss would act like.
Twist in genius because it literally flips the entire perception of a character, and uses a much more clever way of conveying a character's fall.
Before the game came out, i always thought that The Man Who Sold the World referred to Zero because he was build up as the guy who works from the shadows while Big Boss fought against him from the front lines. But MGSV literally flips that idea, and instead shows how Big Boss essentially became the very thing that he hated at the end of MGS3. Big Boss IS The Man Who Sold The World, and used his legend as a way to further his political goals similar to how The Boss was used by the government.
But how is this enhanced by the player's direct involvement?
The game is designed to provide many many different variation of gameplay compare to the previous games where you are simply achieving what Big Boss achieved canonically. In MGSV, every player is essentially creating their own little-stories to build up Big Boss legend. Neither is invalided nor valided, and lets the player spread Big Boss legend. For some he is a hero, for others he is a villain. For some, Big Boss was a clumsy dude who needed d-dog or Quiet to help him out. For others, he was a badass who stealth every mission. MGSV essentially hands the legacy of the series into the hands of the players, thus making them a pivotal part of the conflict.
Instead of simply watching a character talk about Outer Heaven, you the player is essentially witnessing/taking a part in it.
There's no doubt that MGS is a series that takes advantage of the medium, but I don’t follow this bit. To reiterate the previous question, how does this Venom story beat have anything to do with the gameplay aspect that makes it unique? In other words, what part of the experience gets lost if it were done as a book, comic, etc., anything other than a game?
MGS has always used it's level design to enforce its greater thematic ideas. MGS2 is a game that deals with being a sequel of MGS1 with constant reminders of the game through it's design, structure, and plot-beats. It's a sequel of MGS1, and was developed by taking that into the account. IT's a game that explores social-engineering, and comments on how society can shape one's identity using it's game-design, structure, gameplay, and reusing the same plot-beat as MGS1.
Ambiguity is great when it's handled well (as it is done with a lot of literature, and like, 90% of the endings to anything Alan Moore has written), but ambiguity in and of itself doesn't really equate to quality, which is what your posts seem to be implying. Ambiguity is great when it relates to themes, and it's fun when certain traits or motives are unclear (as long as it isn't just ambiguous for ambiguity sake).
Can you specify why the ambiguity in MGS is great?
MGS2 was a game that wasn't concerned with plot or explaining stuff, and therefore didn't have one absolute truth. It required the audience to discuss, and interpret varies elements. Raiden spends the entire game being controlled by others( and the player), and being in the dark. He thinks he is on a important mission ( just like how the player once again wants to be the hero like in MGS1), but in actuality his actions doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. At the end of the game, he refuses to be control, and decides to become his own person symbolically depicted by him throwing away the dog-tag with the player's name on it.
The reality of the game isn't absolute, and is full of redherrings or continuity errors thus inviting the players to interpret, and more importantly understanding the overall message rather than worrying about Solidus or Vamp's immortality, or Solid Snake having "infinite ammo".
So is this to say that the trailers, marketing, etc. are all necessary for the full experience? I wouldn't go that far, but I do find them to be fun supplemental material, especially fun when you're caught up in pre-release hype. Sorta like the crazy viral marketing that was done for Cloverfield before it's release (terrible movie to use as a comparison, I know :P).
MGS2's biggest themes are represented in it's marketing, and relevant for the experience. Same with MGSV. MGS3 was the same, but to a certain point.
I don’t really buy into that perspective myself. Even if those choices were deliberate, it doesn’t excuse them from being bad ones. I found it to be lazy storytelling to tie up a lot of the questions with nano-machines.
Nano's were used because people absolutely refused to acknowledge MGS2's message, and just wanted their answers on a silver-platter.
Kojima himself did not enjoy working on MGS4, and stated in many interviews that he wanted to leave if he can.
But here’s the thing, I want to know your thoughts on how the “other elements” make it special. I’m not really doubting it, I just keep seeing “It was brilliant and ahead of it’s time” and “It was incredibly ambiguous”, but you don’t elaborate or specify examples. In other words, you don’t really seem to be justifying your claims either? so I’m just left confused.
I think i explained my reasoning pretty clearly. But i am not here to give a full indepth analysis of the series, and it's meta-elements. Just here to touch on some of the stuff, and show that MGS, contrary to what most people think, isn't focused on story, and has always used it as a way to convey it's greater thematic ideas.
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I really hope I don't sound antagonistic in my responses! I just really care about storytelling in video games, and especially the exclusive ways that video games tell their stories, so a lot of my questions are because I seriously want to know your thoughts, not necessarily argue.
Mission 51 makes Eli's actions, and behavior seem justified when the whole point of his storyline is to show that he was a misguided kid. Especially when the game itself shows that Venom does indeed care about Eli. 51 literally disregards Venom's behavior towards Eli when he leaves him to get burn. Along with tons of other inconsistencies that people forget to think about.
He left Eli because he had symptoms of the vocal chord parasite, and Ocelot told V that there wasn't anything he can do.
I do agree that it seems odd that V left Eli to burn, but it's not totally unbelievable. Plus, I think V felt guilty about partially guilty leaving Eli, reinforced by how V sees his demon reflection on the helicopter ride out.Everything the game presents is consistent with his character, while still adding much needed depth. His role in MGSV wasn't about explaining where he was, and where he went rather exploring his actual character, and relationship.
Do you mean Venom or Eli?
And here's my question; So what? Unless you are saying that everything in a work of fiction somehow needs to have conclusion regardless of whether it makes sense or not, i really fail to grasp why this even matters in the slightest. Neither the game nor the characters state reasons for using Sally, and the english strain, along with everything suggesting that Eli is literally bidding farewell to the world to go under the radar.
I'm not every single microscopic detail needs a conclusion, but Saha is quite a big thing to not have one, though. Right before you fight Saha for the final time in the story mode, they even express how dangerous it would be for the world to find out about it's mere existence. So leaving a huge, function robot like that in the hands of a kid like Eli is a huge liability. If chapter 51 is considered non-canon, then that story just seems unfinished.
It's a finished game. Period.
This is like claiming that 2001 A Space Odyssey is an unfinished film simply because it doesn't resolve everything, even though the film's focus is the technical aspect, and what it conveys through that while the plot is just a backdrop.
It still feels incomplete, and the 2001 metaphor loses me: 2001 does resolve itself. 2001 is left heavily up to interpretation, but MGS V never struck me as trying to do the same thing.
Chapter 2 is an epilogue one that pushes the game's themes heavily through it's repetitive missions, side-ops, end-game grinding, and essentially is an endless cycle of repetition to make the player experience what Outer Heaven really is.
You can discard that explanation. But if you are familiar with Kojima views, and how he approaches game-design then this shouldn't be a surprise.
But what exactly are Kojima's views that make Chapter 2 not a surprise? I can kinda see how Chapter 2 shows what a day-by-day operation at Outer Heaven is like, but the game didn't really make that connection clear and that's why that view falls flat to me.
In addition, Chapter 2 is titled Race, and I still don't know how most of the missions fit under that title, which is another reason that I feel it's incomplete.
It's no wonder that MGS3 which was heavily boiled down to appeal to the masses with badasses, hollywood-like cutscenes, references to classic spy-movies, and just overall more focused on the plot. Kojima was pretty damn depressed when he made MGS3, and MGS4. Hell he wanted to kill off Snake in 4 just so he can be done with the series.
With MGSV Kojima went back to his MGS2-days, and literally made a game that was a complete opposite of 4, and did not pander to the fans. It was by far his most passionate MGS game after MGS2.
MGS V definitely has a more controlled feel to it, especially compared to 4, but all of them seem to focus on story at about the same level.
MGSV will be received better in future when people are ready to get over their butthurtary, and actually look/ understand the product they have.
What exactly are the current fans missing? They aren't "butthurt", they have valid feelings of disappointment on aspects of the story (mainly the ending, from what I gather). Everything else, people seem to love, including me (MGS V is one of my top favorite MGS games).
I feel that educating the "butthurt" fans will go much, much farther than insulting them. Especially if you feel there's something you see in a product that others don't.
The point of the twist isn't to cover the plot-hole from the most least played MG title. Venom exists in MGS universe as a way to explore Big Boss's personal flaws through proxy. Outside-the game; Venom is the player who has experienced all of Big Boss's missions on record ( same way as the player has played through MGS3, PO, PW, and GZ), and acts exactly like how he (the player) thinks the legendary Big Boss would act like.
Oooh okay I can see that. The problem still persists though that the game doesn't exactly make that a clear thing, and to date you are literally the only person I know who's gotten that perception from the game. It's a valid view, but it's so subtle I get the feeling it wasn't an intentional idea that Kojima and team did.
Twist in genius because it literally flips the entire perception of a character, and uses a much more clever way of conveying a character's fall.
It's a neat idea, but I think the problem is implying that no matter what direction the player takes, it's automatically assumed to be the reason that V falls, as if all the decisions are bad ones.
But MGSV literally flips that idea, and instead shows how Big Boss essentially became the very thing that he hated at the end of MGS3. Big Boss IS The Man Who Sold The World, and used his legend as a way to further his political goals similar to how The Boss was used by the government.
If I'm not mistaken, BB left his legacy entirely to V, and BB went to do his own thing (whatever that may be). So it's more V furthering his (V's) own political agenda, rather than BB's.
The game is designed to provide many many different variation of gameplay compare to the previous games where you are simply achieving what Big Boss achieved canonically. In MGSV, every player is essentially creating their own little-stories to build up Big Boss legend. Neither is invalided nor valided, and lets the player spread Big Boss legend. For some he is a hero, for others he is a villain. For some, Big Boss was a clumsy dude who needed d-dog or Quiet to help him out. For others, he was a badass who stealth every mission. MGSV essentially hands the legacy of the series into the hands of the players, thus making them a pivotal part of the conflict.
It's pretty identical to previous MGS games. There's no doubt that MGS V provides the greatest variety in how you can go about missions, but the basic idea of going through the game however you want is there in mostly all of them. You could go through any of the games guns blazin' or stealthy, like you said, although the previous games punish you harder if you don't go the stealth route. However, no matter the variance in play style, the stories still remained intact for the most part, while other minor parts are influenced, like how killing people influenced the The Sorrow's river sequence in MGS, for example.
With MGS V, your playstyle is reflected in his appearance, with the size of his horn/shrapnel reflecting your killings. That's one of the few things I can think of that makes it stand out in terms of the different playstyles affecting the story.MGS has always used it's level design to enforce its greater thematic ideas. MGS2 is a game that deals with being a sequel of MGS1 with constant reminders of the game through it's design, structure, and plot-beats.
Structure and plot beats, yes! I'm still lost on what you mean by design, though:
IT's a game that explores social-engineering, and comments on how society can shape one's identity using it's game-design, structure, gameplay, and reusing the same plot-beat as MGS1.
So I can see how the story explores social-engineering and comments on shaping identity, but how does the design/structure/gameplay reflect that specifically?
MGS2's biggest themes are represented in it's marketing, and relevant for the experience. Same with MGSV. MGS3 was the same, but to a certain point.
And I agree, but games should be able to stand on their own if they want to be good at the very least, and they can be made greater with all that extra stuff. But the hard thing is that in 10 years, not everyone who picks up MGS V for the first time is going to go back and look through all the marketing and videos except for those who are heavily invested in it, so it's a part of the experience that is expendable and shouldn't have to be made essential.
But hey, including that stuff with the game disc (sort like they did with MGS3: Subsistence) can help fix that. Although I suppose it's hard to know if we'll still be using physical media in 10 years, so :/
Nano's were used because people absolutely refused to acknowledge MGS2's message, and just wanted their answers on a silver-platter.
Do we for sure know that this is the precise reason they did that? Even if it's true, the reason why nanos are included in the story isn't known to the player as they play the game. They just experience how it's used in the game, and it's (over)use really disappointed them, particularly since they were used to explain every loose end. I would've been fine with small things going unexplained (like Vamp running on water–No bigger stretch of the imagination than The Pain controlling a bunch of hornets. I can roll with stuff like that), but the fact that they went out of their way to explain it the way they did looked extremely lazy.
MGS, contrary to what most people think, isn't focused on story, and has always used it as a way to convey it's greater thematic ideas.
The games spend a lot of time with storytelling (as they do gameplay), so it's hard for me to dismiss the idea that they aren't focused on story.
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@Mr.:
I really hope I don't sound antagonistic in my responses! I just really care about storytelling in video games, and especially the exclusive ways that video games tell their stories, so a lot of my questions are because I seriously want to know your thoughts, not necessarily argue.
But here's the thing; video games are not, and shouldn't be just about storytelling. Unlike movies, comics, tv shows etc….. video games aren't just limited to one-way, and can create really unique experiences.
He left Eli because he had symptoms of the vocal chord parasite, and Ocelot told V that there wasn't anything he can do.
I do agree that it seems odd that V left Eli to burn, but it's not totally unbelievable. Plus, I think V felt guilty about partially guilty leaving Eli, reinforced by how V sees his demon reflection on the helicopter ride out.I am not asking you why he left him. I know why he leaves him. But regardless of the explanation, that doesn't match with Venom's character in the main game.
Do you mean Venom or Eli?
Eli. But you can apply the same for any other major character in the game.
Quiet, and Code Talker are the only ones who don't appear or get mentioned in the latter games due to them being the only heroic characters in the game.
I'm not every single microscopic detail needs a conclusion, but Saha is quite a big thing to not have one, though. Right before you fight Saha for the final time in the story mode, they even express how dangerous it would be for the world to find out about it's mere existence. So leaving a huge, function robot like that in the hands of a kid like Eli is a huge liability. If chapter 51 is considered non-canon, then that story just seems unfinished.
Sally doesn't work without Mantis. Huey himself acknowledges that it wasn't supposed to be working. Mantis himself wasn't controlling Sally. Other character's hatred made him do it hence why he took on someone else's character visual trait whenever he was being controlled. Until he learned to control it by the end of the game.
So Sally, a broken high-tech that wasn't supposed to be working in the first place, is left in the hands of kids who want to disappear from the radar.
Your point might be more valid if TPP was a stand alone game. But it's not, and we know that Sally, nor English strain ever show up in the Solid Snake saga nor impacts anything. Nor does it impact the overall experience.
Again you keep saying that the story seems unfinished, but in what way? Neither the game nor the characters show any reasons for using Sally, and english strain.
It still feels incomplete, and the 2001 metaphor loses me: 2001 does resolve itself. 2001 is left heavily up to interpretation, but MGS V never struck me as trying to do the same thing.
Aren't you literally proving my point? 2001 in itself doesn't "finish"/concludes its narrative, and you will have to do research/read the book in order to understand the narrative. But that's not the point of the movie. It instead focuses on the technical aspect, and how Kubrick uses varies cinematic-language, and tools to convey the ideas while the narrative is just there to reflect it not drive them.
But what exactly are Kojima's views that make Chapter 2 not a surprise? I can kinda see how Chapter 2 shows what a day-by-day operation at Outer Heaven is like, but the game didn't really make that connection clear and that's why that view falls flat to me.
Does it have to? But just to answer it; it's perfectly summarized in the mission "proxy war without an end".
In addition, Chapter 2 is titled Race, and I still don't know how most of the missions fit under that title, which is another reason that I feel it's incomplete.
Race, especially how it was translated in french, and other languages, refer to race against the clock which in turn refers to the mission objectives of chapter 2 as well as the FOB mode, and disarming nukes.
MGS V definitely has a more controlled feel to it, especially compared to 4, but all of them seem to focus on story at about the same level.
Having a narrative is different from actually focusing on it. Drive, by Nicolas Winding, is a movie about mobs, and seems typical, but it's actual focus is on conveying a character-tale through its visuals while the story is just there to put things in context.
What exactly are the current fans missing? They aren't "butthurt", they have valid feelings of disappointment on aspects of the story (mainly the ending, from what I gather). Everything else, people seem to love, including me (MGS V is one of my top favorite MGS games).
Fans are butthurt that TPP doesn't have lengthy expositionary cutscenes. They hate the fact that the game doesn't stop it's flow for the sake of history or other lesson. They hate the fact that you don't play as Big Boss, and thus pretty much refusing to even look at the game beyond their fantasies. They hate the fact that the game wasn't fanservice, and didn't bring old characters just for the sake of it. They hate the fact that MGSV story is more spread out, and is like a puzzle where they have to gather the pieces, and using brain-power to put the big picture together compare to previous games simply handing it on a silver-platter. They hate the fact that story in TPP is more small scale rather than shoving big events for the sake of big events.
MGSV has been shitted on for many many petty reasons just because it's a game that takes a different direction from the previous games.
I feel that educating the "butthurt" fans will go much, much farther than insulting them. Especially if you feel there's something you see in a product that others don't.
People, including me, tried, and failed. Most people are in their own fantasies about the game, and anyone who dares to argue automatically gets shitted on.
Just few days ago, i was arguing with someone on why MGS3 isn't as much of a storytelling masterpiece as it fan boys will tell you only to get a response like "YOU ARE A BLIND FANBOY" without much debate.
Or just take a look at some of the previous posts in this thread by Majin who bashed the game simply because it wasn't what he expects from a MGS game, and failed to provide example or argument for it beyond " it doesn't follow my guideline therefore it sucks" which is one of the worst, and laziest argument against any work of fiction.
Oooh okay I can see that. The problem still persists though that the game doesn't exactly make that a clear thing, and to date you are literally the only person I know who's gotten that perception from the game.
It's one of the most common interpretation of the twist.
It's a valid view, but it's so subtle I get the feeling it wasn't an intentional idea that Kojima and team did.
But that's the thing; MGSV approach in general is subtle, and the game itself heavily deals with Big Boss, and his legend.
It's a neat idea, but I think the problem is implying that no matter what direction the player takes, it's automatically assumed to be the reason that V falls, as if all the decisions are bad ones.
Not sure if i fully understand this.
If I'm not mistaken, BB left his legacy entirely to V, and BB went to do his own thing (whatever that may be). So it's more V furthering his (V's) own political agenda, rather than BB's.
Listen to Big Boss's speech again. He talks about how Venom is his own man, and that Venom is now Big Boss, and that you should be proud. Most players think that the speech is just a thank you from Kojima, and is now passing the torch. And it's right, but not in the way people assume.
The whole speech, regardless of friendly it may sound, is actually Big Boss manipulating Venom ( and the players) into building up/ taking the extreme heat for the legend while the real one goes into hiding to achieve his goals. Millions of players build up the legend, but at the end of the day they are never remembered, and are swallowed up by the real Big Boss.
It's pretty identical to previous MGS games. There's no doubt that MGS V provides the greatest variety in how you can go about missions, but the basic idea of going through the game however you want is there in mostly all of them. You could go through any of the games guns blazin' or stealthy, like you said, although the previous games punish you harder if you don't go the stealth route. However, no matter the variance in play style, the stories still remained intact for the most part, while other minor parts are influenced, like how killing people influenced the The Sorrow's river sequence in MGS, for example.
With MGS V, your playstyle is reflected in his appearance, with the size of his horn/shrapnel reflecting your killings. That's one of the few things I can think of that makes it stand out in terms of the different playstyles affecting the story.You can't play the previous games without being stealthy. That's their basic design philosophy. Hell MGS2, and MGS3 have pretty shitty shooting mechanics that if you do get into a battle, chances are that you are gonna get killed. Not to mention the game HEAVILY punishes you for killing when it comes to the stats.
MGSV's mechanics are all polished enough where you can be stealthy, running, killing, bombing all at the same time. It's much more dynamic, and responsive, and experimental. It's just simply more organic, and actually represents the player.
Structure and plot beats, yes! I'm still lost on what you mean by design, though:
Layout's, visual look, atmosphere etc…... Like the scene where Raiden is going up the elevator which is exactly like how Solid Snake did in the first MGS game. Players expected to see Solid Snake just like in MGS1, but turns out its Raiden. It has familiar stuff to bring in the players expecting the same as the first game only to defy it.
So I can see how the story explores social-engineering and comments on shaping identity, but how does the design/structure/gameplay reflect that specifically?
MGS2's story reflects the ideas, and touches a little on it. But the heavy-lifting is done by the game itself.
And I agree, but games should be able to stand on their own if they want to be good at the very least, and they can be made greater with all that extra stuff. But the hard thing is that in 10 years, not everyone who picks up MGS V for the first time is going to go back and look through all the marketing and videos except for those who are heavily invested in it, so it's a part of the experience that is expendable and shouldn't have to be made essential.
MGS2's marketing is still discussed among the MGS fanbase. Same with MGSV.
Games are about interactivity, but with Kojima, the interactivity goes beyond just holding the controller. Kojima likes to play/challenge his audience unlike most developers that create something, deliver it to players, players play it, close it, and move on to something else.
Do we for sure know that this is the precise reason they did that? Even if it's true, the reason why nanos are included in the story isn't known to the player as they play the game. They just experience how it's used in the game, and it's (over)use really disappointed them, particularly since they were used to explain every loose end. I would've been fine with small things going unexplained (like Vamp running on water–No bigger stretch of the imagination than The Pain controlling a bunch of hornets. I can roll with stuff like that), but the fact that they went out of their way to explain it the way they did looked extremely lazy.
Nano is extremely lazy. But that was the whole point of nano; to give out lazy answers for the players that simply refused to acknowledge MGS2's message of understanding the core-meaning rather than worrying about the details. Whether Snake has infinite ammo or not doesn't matter. Whether MGS2 is in a stimulation or not doesn't matter. What really matters is what you actually took away from the experience.
The games spend a lot of time with storytelling (as they do gameplay), so it's hard for me to dismiss the idea that they aren't focused on story.
Here is Kojima's new design-philosophy:
It’s very difficult to implement a storyline into an interactive game. I actually think we shouldn’t do that. I am not trying to tell a story. You are inside a story, an environment, and acting as a certain character. And what a character is feeling inside that environment is what I want the players to feel as they play the game. You don’t need an elaborate storyline for that. Within that environment, I want the players to not only have a fun and exhilarating experience, but also to think about many different things. That’s my concept.
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But here's the thing; video games are not, and shouldn't be just about storytelling. Unlike movies, comics, tv shows etc….. video games aren't just limited to one-way, and can create really unique experiences.
Oh, of course not! I don't mean to say they should only be about storytelling. It's just an aspect of video games, and I have an interest in it and I really think the MGS series works pretty well to show that. Specifically, playing in a story adds an extra layer of immersion to that story.
I am not asking you why he left him. I know why he leaves him. But regardless of the explanation, that doesn't match with Venom's character in the main game.
The reason I state that is because it's why V ended up leaving Eli. It is kinda odd, but it's a development on V's part (however good/bad that development is up for us to decide… I'm not particularly fond of it).
Sally doesn't work without Mantis. Huey himself acknowledges that it wasn't supposed to be working. Mantis himself wasn't controlling Sally. Other character's hatred made him do it hence why he took on someone else's character visual trait whenever he was being controlled. Until he learned to control it by the end of the game.
So Sally, a broken high-tech that wasn't supposed to be working in the first place, is left in the hands of kids who want to disappear from the radar.
Your point might be more valid if TPP was a stand alone game. But it's not, and we know that Sally, nor English strain ever show up in the Solid Snake saga nor impacts anything. Nor does it impact the overall experience.
Again you keep saying that the story seems unfinished, but in what way? Neither the game nor the characters show any reasons for using Sally, and english strain.
Unfinished as in (taking Mission 51 as non-canon) Saha and the english strain are still out there. I would've been fine with it just being Eli escaping motherbase with his kid army, and Diamond Dogs choosing not to go after them.
This point is just going around in circles now. :/ Look, I just don't think we'll ever agree on this.Aren't you literally proving my point? 2001 in itself doesn't "finish"/concludes its narrative, and you will have to do research/read the book in order to understand the narrative. But that's not the point of the movie. It instead focuses on the technical aspect, and how Kubrick uses varies cinematic-language, and tools to convey the ideas while the narrative is just there to reflect it not drive them.
No, I'm saying that MGS V doesn't really resolve itself, while 2001 does. And the research supplementing 2001 reflects back onto what's within the movie to explain it. Sorta in the same way, Mission 51 could be looked at a potential insight on closing the narrative gaps.
It's a dense film that certainly doesn't take it's story as priority, but MGS V never struck me as trying to mimic that.Does it have to? But just to answer it; it's perfectly summarized in the mission "proxy war without an end".
Yes. And I can't argue that that mission doesn't reflect that idea, but it's one mission out of the handful in Chapter 2, and the mission alone never felt like it was the one to define the chapter.
Race, especially how it was translated in french, and other languages, refer to race against the clock which in turn refers to the mission objectives of chapter 2 as well as the FOB mode, and disarming nukes.
Hm, okay. This might be where I'm missing quite a bit of insight, because I didn't get to do much of the online FOB stuff, let alone even get to touch the disarming nukes stuff.
Having a narrative is different from actually focusing on it. Drive, by Nicolas Winding, is a movie about mobs, and seems typical, but it's actual focus is on conveying a character-tale through its visuals while the story is just there to put things in context.
Of course, narrative doesn't have to be the priority, and in fact most of the character driven stories are the best (hey, everyone likes Breaking Bad). So I can see the plot being secondary, but in no way unnecessary.
Fans are butthurt that TPP doesn't have lengthy expositionary cutscenes. They hate the fact that the game doesn't stop it's flow for the sake of history or other lesson. They hate the fact that you don't play as Big Boss, and thus pretty much refusing to even look at the game beyond their fantasies. They hate the fact that the game wasn't fanservice, and didn't bring old characters just for the sake of it. They hate the fact that MGSV story is more spread out, and is like a puzzle where they have to gather the pieces, and using brain-power to put the big picture together compare to previous games simply handing it on a silver-platter. They hate the fact that story in TPP is more small scale rather than shoving big events for the sake of big events.
MGSV has been shitted on for many many petty reasons just because it's a game that takes a different direction from the previous games.
People, including me, tried, and failed. Most people are in their own fantasies about the game, and anyone who dares to argue automatically gets shitted on.
Just few days ago, i was arguing with someone on why MGS3 isn't as much of a storytelling masterpiece as it fan boys will tell you only to get a response like "YOU ARE A BLIND FANBOY" without much debate.
Or just take a look at some of the previous posts in this thread by Majin who bashed the game simply because it wasn't what he expects from a MGS game, and failed to provide example or argument for it beyond " it doesn't follow my guideline therefore it sucks" which is one of the worst, and laziest argument against any work of fiction.
Well, at least you tried. It's not worth wasting your time if people won't hear you out. I just don't like the idea that you think your view of the game is the only correct one, and that everyone else is wrong for being disappointed. Sure, it's their fault they had wonky expectations, but I don't think there's much you can do for their disappointment beyond trying to explain why you think MGS V is great.
Not sure if i fully understand this.
Hm let me try to clarify. You mentioned that the player can choose whatever way to play the game, so whatever they do, thus shaping who V is (and that will vary from player to player). However, V is going to fall, so the end of V is a fixed point that no matter what play style you choose, it's implied that your play style is what leads to his fall.
Listen to Big Boss's speech again. He talks about how Venom is his own man, and that Venom is now Big Boss, and that you should be proud. Most players think that the speech is just a thank you from Kojima, and is now passing the torch. And it's right, but not in the way people assume.
I think it's perfectly fine to see it the way people assume, though. Kind of a sweet send off from Kojima. Of course, it doesn't have to be the only way it's seen.
The whole speech, regardless of friendly it may sound, is actually Big Boss manipulating Venom ( and the players) into building up/ taking the extreme heat for the legend while the real one goes into hiding to achieve his goals. Millions of players build up the legend, but at the end of the day they are never remembered, and are swallowed up by the real Big Boss.
Yeah I also did feel it was pretty manipulative on BB's part, especially having V take all the baggage, but V didn't seem to mind all that much. He had a smirk and seemed to accept it.
Layout's, visual look, atmosphere etc…... Like the scene where Raiden is going up the elevator which is exactly like how Solid Snake did in the first MGS game. Players expected to see Solid Snake just like in MGS1, but turns out its Raiden. It has familiar stuff to bring in the players expecting the same as the first game only to defy it.
Got it. I think I originally thought you meant layout/design as in how the player interacts with it, not just as setting. Still though, it's not entirely exclusive to games since you could do the same with a movie, have a scene match a setting shot for shot.
MGS2's marketing is still discussed among the MGS fanbase. Same with MGSV.
As in the marketing that led people to think Snake was the main character for 2? In a similar vein I can see how it's great for a build up with MGSV, but some of the stuff I think is okay to miss (like the interviews with the heavily bandaged guy).
Kinda hilarious though that Kojima got away with a switcharoo twice, even if the 2nd one isn't obvious until the end.
Games are about interactivity, but with Kojima, the interactivity goes beyond just holding the controller. Kojima likes to play/challenge his audience unlike most developers that create something, deliver it to players, players play it, close it, and move on to something else.
Agreed!
Nano is extremely lazy. But that was the whole point of nano; to give out lazy answers for the players that simply refused to acknowledge MGS2's message of understanding the core-meaning rather than worrying about the details.
This is where we disagree. How is the player suppose to know that's the point of the nanos in the story, let alone assume that's the specific reason of them? It's not an invalid interpretation, but I never went away from the game thinking, "They used nanos a lot, must be because I refused to accept MGS2's message". I'm more interested on how the worked within the game, and I wasn't happy with how they were handled.
Whether Snake has infinite ammo or not doesn't matter. Whether MGS2 is in a stimulation or not doesn't matter. What really matters is what you actually took away from the experience.
I didn't like that they went out of their way to explain things that didn't matter in the long run, and explain it with a bad excuse. That's what I took away from the storytelling part of the experience. Gameplay was great, but the story was eh.
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@Mr.:
Oh, of course not! I don't mean to say they should only be about storytelling. It's just an aspect of video games, and I have an interest in it and I really think the MGS series works pretty well to show that. Specifically, playing in a story adds an extra layer of immersion to that story.
I don't agree with it, but fair enough.
The reason I state that is because it's why V ended up leaving Eli. It is kinda odd, but it's a development on V's part (however good/bad that development is up for us to decide… I'm not particularly fond of it).
But it doesn't really flow well with the rest of the game. There is just a huge disconnect between the main game, and the mission 51 that lot of people simply ignore. There is the fact that Eli has no intentions of seeing Venom ever again when he leaves and yet in Episode 51 he's demanding his body and tells Venom that he was expecting him. There's also the fact that Sally suddenly has a shield in that mission whereas development of the machine is completely halted at Mother Base. There's even the fact that we see Eli with the English strain once in the entire game at the end of the first chapter, something which none of the characters ever learn that he had, and yet in Episode 51 Kaz is fully knowledgeable of his possession of it.
No, I'm saying that MGS V doesn't really resolve itself, while 2001 does. And the research supplementing 2001 reflects back onto what's within the movie to explain it. Sorta in the same way, Mission 51 could be looked at a potential insight on closing the narrative gaps.
It's a dense film that certainly doesn't take it's story as priority, but MGS V never struck me as trying to mimic that.But it did. V's main story ended with Skull Face death. Sally, and English strain exist just to provide context for Skull Face's plan.
Also V does provide explanation for it; most people simply chose to ignore the narrative/character's intention, and actually focus on the plot-devices.
Eli taking Sally would be unresolved if he had stated any intention of actually using it when he steals it, or the narrative making that point some-time before it happen. But instead he simply says goodbye to Venom, with Kaz emphasizing that he's turning his back on the world and Ocelot explaining in a tape that the kids' uprising was a diversion he created just so he could use Sally as an escape vehicle whilst everyone's backs are turned, and we are given a reason for why it can't be used later on in the series.
Yes. And I can't argue that that mission doesn't reflect that idea, but it's one mission out of the handful in Chapter 2, and the mission alone never felt like it was the one to define the chapter.
That mission only reflects that. The basic-design of chapter 2 is about the repetition which is showcased in main ops, side-ops, helicopter rides, gathering resources to get more weapons to get more GMP etc…... The game doesn't end even when the story is done. What do the players do then? Gather resources/GMP to get more, and better weapons to get more resources/GMP.
.Of course, narrative doesn't have to be the priority, and in fact most of the character driven stories are the best (hey, everyone likes Breaking Bad). So I can see the plot being secondary, but in no way unnecessary.
It also comes down to the intention. MGS4 is the only game that is totally focused on the lore for the sake of lore, but aside from that every other game lore is used as a way to contextualize the more political thematic ideas of the series, instead of Kojima simply throwing history lesson just because.
Well, at least you tried. It's not worth wasting your time if people won't hear you out. I just don't like the idea that you think your view of the game is the only correct one, and that everyone else is wrong for being disappointed. Sure, it's their fault they had wonky expectations, but I don't think there's much you can do for their disappointment beyond trying to explain why you think MGS V is great.
I am not saying that everyone has to like the game. Not everyone is going to enjoy this type of game, or like what the game is doing.
The problem for me is that V haters instead of simply admitting that they were disappointed by the game, end up choosing the lazy route, and blame the game for being unfinished or Konami or it not being "MGS".
Most of the people i have seen pretty much shit on the game without ever presenting any real decent argument to explain their point of view. Which is sad because MGS in itself encourages open-minded discussions, and debates.
Hm let me try to clarify. You mentioned that the player can choose whatever way to play the game, so whatever they do, thus shaping who V is (and that will vary from player to player). However, V is going to fall, so the end of V is a fixed point that no matter what play style you choose, it's implied that your play style is what leads to his fall.
Venom is destined to "fall", and die. The gameplay doesn't really change that, and in fact shows how he simply exists to build up Big Boss's legend.
I think it's perfectly fine to see it the way people assume, though. Kind of a sweet send off from Kojima. Of course, it doesn't have to be the only way it's seen.
It is a really great send-off. I just think that people don't really look at the other-side of it.
Got it. I think I originally thought you meant layout/design as in how the player interacts with it, not just as setting. Still though, it's not entirely exclusive to games since you could do the same with a movie, have a scene match a setting shot for shot.
I do also mean interactivity with the environments.
I just used that as an example to show how MGS2 uses the player's memories/experience of MGS1 in order to defy expectations.
But in order to understand it properly, you would have to dig really deeper.
This is where we disagree. How is the player suppose to know that's the point of the nanos in the story, let alone assume that's the specific reason of them? It's not an invalid interpretation, but I never went away from the game thinking, "They used nanos a lot, must be because I refused to accept MGS2's message". I'm more interested on how the worked within the game, and I wasn't happy with how they were handled.
And that's where my point about the marketing, and interviews playing a part in the overall experience. If for example you had read some MGS4 interviews and know the creator's views then you would know how MGS4 seems fishy for him which might make you approach the game in a different manner than simply going in blind without much knowledge of the series, and its creator.
I hope that makes sense.
I didn't like that they went out of their way to explain things that didn't matter in the long run, and explain it with a bad excuse. That's what I took away from the storytelling part of the experience. Gameplay was great, but the story was eh.
Keep in mind that Kojima created MGS2 with the intention that he never going to continue the series, and no plan for MGS4 whatsoever. It was never suppose to matter in the long-run.
Anyway i don't want to keep this argument going for too-long. I presented my points, and you presented your's so it's better to agree to disagree, and move on.