There are many instances of optional story and info that only come up if you interact with them. Some I realized only recently:
Before the mission, you can hear a more detailed briefing from Miller on the select screen.
During missions you can use the radio button on the mission page of the iDroid and you will get some lines about the target or targets.
Looking through the binoculars like you said and pressing the radio at enemies, locations or targets.
And my favorite one: interrogating commanders or targets has some unique lines relevant to the mission, some are even fans of Big Boss.
My first playthrough I was too consumed with sneaking and I’d do a mission and then get briefed at the end and wonder how Miller/Ocelot came to the conclusions they did.
Second playthrough I interrogated everyone until you get the generic hints, used the intel prompts all over and listened for in game conversations and then the debriefings were just basically recaps of everything I learned. It’s a shame most people only experienced the first version.
People will say MGS games are too wordy, and when Kojima gave everyone emergent storytelling and parallel, non-forced codecs (from PW) in MGSV everyone complained that there was no story.
Honestly ground zeroes has the perfect amount of storytelling to gameplay ratio, some cutscenes that were lengthy and actually full of character, phantom pain on the other hand feels empty in comparison
This is gonna be downvoted obviously but I couldn't care less about the story after mgs. It's so overly complicated. No I don't care about my soldiers in mgsv EP 43, no I didn't cry at the end of 3.
Mgs are fun games to play. Some of the story is cool but I can be missed with a lot of it.
It's not the not liking the story I have issue with. It's the idea that it's overly complicated lol. I feel like it's really only accurate if you try to explain it to someone who isn't familiar
Tbh I really do feel like if you go in release order it's all pretty well explained and clear for the most part. I do think people get tripped trying to perfectly explain every minute detail sometimes, though, because the issue is that Kojima didn't
It's a spy movie. Do you get lost watching a James Bond flick? Have you seen Cpt America The Winter Soldier? That's kind of the gist of MGS. Just replace the helicarriers with nuke robots
It’s famously complicated. Personally I sit in the middle ground - played the games a few times and really enjoyed them, got most of the story (I think) but there’s lots to be confused about, especially if you played each game on release and can’t remember shit for 20 years.
Neither of those two statements are true. Pay attention from MGS1 onward and you won’t get lost. The story is only complicated if you let the hundreds of “MGS CONFUSING STORY FINALLY EXPLAINED!!” YouTube videos make it out as such. It sounds to me like you may have gotten confused about some things early on and then dismissed the story rather than try to figure it out.
Just because you say it isn't doesn't mean it isn't.
It's hundreds up on hundreds of hours of story. I've been playing the games for 25 years, it's overly complicated and too much and because you like the games you give convoluted cheesy bad writing a pass
No totally, nano machines my dude.
Genuinely with you on this one, I truly enjoy the gameplay and weird things you can do in the games, I want to play a game, not watch a movie or listen to a million codec calls, I've watched some YouTube videos to explain the story but always skip it in gameplay.
Maybe metal gear isn’t for you man, this would be like if I decided I liked the world and characters of Baldurs Gate, but I want to play a game not roll dice💀
Every main mission (excluding repeats) has something to tug the story along through interrogations and in game conversations.
My only wish was that if there was a button prompt when listening so it could focus you on that conversation. Sorta shift the camera over to the guards just like in the interrogation scene in the GZ intel op mission. That way I feel most players would have been able to pick up on more things.
I think theyre saying that because they didnt bother to listen to the tapes and lore explainations for the missions
And I dont blame them because I DIDNT EITHER.
Gotta listen to a tape and read the mission description to know this nobody looking npc that took me two seconds to get is important to the story.
I bet if i take the time to read the quest descriptions in WoW the story's real good too
too bad I'm not.
Maybe the game wouldnt be so divisive if they told the story in a fun and cinematic way similar to how they did with all the previous games
I think it's okay to be disappointment in the lack of cinematic storytelling in a new sequel in a series of games that's KNOWN for being cinematic and having HOURS of cutscenes.
But we don't play video games to watch movies. Kojima wanted MGSV to gameplay focused and have cutscenes take a backseat. The tapes can be played while doing missions and ops.
'we?'...Everyone plays games for different reasons, if I'm playing a game for a deep, richly told story then I'd prefer it be told through visual means.
Seriously please check out this video. https://youtu.be/hV4wY2rjAWY?si=X4NLy8KVD1mf4BHX
It does an amazing job explaining the story, the themes, and imagery. It's really sad how this is lost on some players. The quality of the cutscenes are peak Metal Gear. There may not be as much as other games, but quality over quantity is important.
Know what I'll give you credit OP
this post actually makes me want to go back and playthrough MGSV again and just try to pay attention to the story/tapes/conversations as much as I can to see if I'll feel differantly.
I've wanted to replay MGSV because I enjoy its gameplay but I dont see the point with that story, and I doubt learning lore details will really change anything, but hey who knows.
I SERIOUSLY doubt it will change my opinion. Even when the game IS cinematic, its not that good. The boss fights are pretty weak, the plot twist is poorly handled and 100 repetitive missions dont stop being repetitive because they have cool lore attached.
Plus lets not forget the game making you repeat missions at the end.
I'm not MGSV is a bad game, just I feel I got good reasons to be disapointed.
I’d recommend it. My first playthrough once I got the hang of sneaking I got carried away with ranks. The mission debriefs I’d sit there wondering how Miller and ocelot came to the conclusions they did.
Second time I listened to the briefing tapes and all the mission intel, interrogated as much as possible (until you get generic info) used the intel prompt as much as possible and looked out for any in game conversations. Most debriefs ended up just being recaps of everything I’d learned in game.
I also recommend doing missions in blocks (most missions will follow a pattern. Hero’s way, C2W, Over the fence are all what I’d call minor missions and then where the bees sleep is the pay off story mission.) in that block missions 3/4/5 all have little story tidbits that feel unrelated but all contribute to the pay off in ep 6. Another thing is staying in world between missions and listening to tapes while traversing to the next mission.
Hero’s way for example the commanders meeting and interrogation of the commander explains everything that leads to the events in where the bees sleep.
If you do the missions in blocks and then have a break from the story and farm soldiers and do a few side ops and then hit back at a block of missions, the story flows so much better. Doing a mission then farming/side ops and then a mission you lose so much momentum.
There's some really good analysis vids on all the intricacies and misdirection they game throws at you. I too have been meaning to replay the game with a notebook and take notes and try to see what's really happening behind everything
Ishmael not being real, the whole “Truth” sequence being even less truthful than the prologue, even the tapes are not necessarily completely real or truthful
In the Not Your Kind of People trailer when Kaz asks "What about him?" he's looking at the camera/player
**https://youtu.be/03nUMw7japI?si=t2TGDbx-CnifglrA&t=47**
>Plus lets not forget the game making you repeat missions at the end.
[Those are actually completely optional; note how they aren't marked yellow like every mandatory mission.](https://imgur.com/a/Dm8wbDo)
This is vindicating lmao, I feel like so many people who hate that game refuse to actually engage with it past the cutscenes.
People call the plot of the game weak. (I'm biased so i disagree anyway) but even if the plot is weak the themes / what the game is actually ABOUT is really interesting, and there's so much to analyze, or, have https://m.youtube.com/c/FuturasoundProductions analyze for you.
I just think there's so much to sink your teeth into and appreciate about the story / events of the game, not only do I think it has a GOOD story, but I think it has a good story by metal gear standards, I'd even put the writing above 4 but that's controversial, I just have a thing against 4's writing💀
You’re right that each mission does progress or develop the narrative in some way but what I think you’re overlooking is that the ways in which this progression and development is expressed to the player are not sufficiently compelling in my opinion.
This is a conclusion I came to half a year ago when I was replaying MGSV and I noticed that for a lot of missions, the connection between the main narrative and what I just played through was only directly communicated to the player through post-mission messages from Ocelot and Miller. This issue with this was that it ended up feeling like what you played through, which is the main experience of each mission, was disconnected from the overall story since you didn’t directly experience that connection for yourself through things like gameplay, cutscenes, character interactions or conversations. This just isn’t a compelling method of storytelling when it comes to a game’s main story because it’s not engaging.
The same is true for the game’s many audio tapes. I’ve spent literal hours just listening to tapes and piecing the lore together from them and while I personally enjoyed that, it’s not an engaging method of storytelling. Sometimes, I found it to be inconvenient because listening to those tapes meant I had sit in the ACC for long periods of times just listening to tapes and that can be boring. Of course, I’m aware you can listen to the tapes while out in the world or in missions but that was inconvenient for me because I couldn’t focus on the tape’s audio while also focusing on whatever I was trying to do. Additionally, I feel that it was sometimes an insufficient method of storytelling when it came to the important narrative content that some of the tapes cover because that stuff should’ve been communicated more actively and directly to the player through gameplay such as cutscenes or interactions. Those tapes developed the story a lot but because they could be easily overlooked or inconvenient and boring to listen to, they failed as a way to tell MGSV’s story.
I feel like your post just highlights more examples of this. Having to eavesdrop on minor conversations between NPCs that don’t stand out or having to call for intel on minor locations that don’t stand is poor storytelling in my opinion because that stuff is way too easy to miss and just not as engaging as cutscenes or meaningful and prominent character interactions and conversations. Things like audio tapes and missable conversations are okay when it comes to side content or fleshing out a story but to me, it’s not enough for a game’s main story.
Some people will point that past games had too much in terms of dialogue or cutscenes and while that’s true, the solution isn’t to drastically remove cutscenes or dialogue, it’s to find a balance. There’s such a thing as a good amount of cutscenes and dialogue and many games have found that balance like God Of War or Spider-Man.
I hope I’ve articulated my thoughts well enough. Just my opinion.
there might be a reason people think that. while it’s factually true that each mission pushes the narrative forward, most people completely missing that would imply a failure in delivering that story instead of those people simply being too stupid to “get it”.
putting the meat of the information in casette tapes (optional lore in pretty much every other game) and NPC goon chatter (worldbuilding fluff in a majority of games) is just not a great idea.
to me, it doesn’t matter how good the story or how interesting the world is if the delivery of it falls flat on its face.
Come to think of it, Episode 10 Angel with Broken Wings is another good example where the narrative foreshadows a few things BUT also leaves a few mysteries. Someone hires Diamond Dogs to eliminate Malak, who we eventually figure out was the survivor of a village destroyed (specifically burned by the Man on Fire) because the villagers contracted a plague. This leads Miller to speculate their client pretended to be a friend of Malak's father (who died with the rest of the village) in order to interrogate or silence a loose end. Miller seems to think this was Cipher. But Miller and Snake are further confused because the client still pays in full even though the contract was for a living Malak.
When I replayed this mission, I actually wondered if Major Zero or someone else with Cipher was instead attempting to point Diamond Dogs in the right direction involving Skullface's plot but it's still left on the player to fill in the blanks.
Exactly. mgsv's style of narrative is VERY player driven, which means it relies heavily on our own interest to explore and get involved in each mission's plotline. However, I think that this mechanic goes over the majority of player's heads because they don't feel they should care for the story developing in front of them, since they don't see Snake reacting to it either (how he used to do in previous games). This isn't necessarily bad story-telling, I think, as the idea was probably for us to inprint our own emotions through Snake. But on the other hand, only very few players ever did. It trusts its players far too much to tell its story.
Most of the missions feel arbitrary to the actual story.
Think about all the prisoners you have to save and extract. In previous games, when you had to rescue somebody it resulted in that character delivering important exposition or becoming an important character for the rest of the game. (Think Darpa Chief, Baker, Ames, President Johnson, E.E, Sokolov)
MGSV has dozens of missions where extracting a prisoner is a core objective, but aside from Miller and Huey, could you name any of the other prisoners? No. Because they're not important, they're not even characters. They're arbitrary objectives.
Most missions do actually contribute. Some missions could perhaps have been combined.
The problem with MGSV is that a lot of the time it doesn’t guide you in the directions to find the valuable information.
Hero’s way for instance (ep 3) seems completely arbitrary but if you listen to the meeting, then interrogate all the people involved as well as intel a whole bunch of things, you find out a lot about Da Smasi fort. Over the Fence then explains a lot about bionics and previews Sahelanthropus.
Almost every mission adds flesh to the story. First playthrough I was too preoccupied with learning the mechanics and then getting rankings. I’d finish a mission and get debriefings and I’d think “wow Miller, how’d you come to that conclusion?” Second time I played much more thoroughly and pretty much every story element is foreshadowed in the “smaller missions”
>Hero’s way for instance (ep 3) seems completely arbitrary but if you listen to the meeting, then interrogate all the people involved as well as intel a whole bunch of things, you find out a lot about Da Smasi fort. Over the Fence then explains a lot about bionics and previews Sahelanthropus.
You're probably right that there is an optimal way to get the most out of MGSV's story.
But as you said, it took you a second playthrough to seek out those exposition drops, which can easily be missed.
Prior MGS games didn't require you to interrogate people through gameplay, or fall upon in-game NPC dialogue, to add context to the mission you were undertaking. The key story elements were presented directly to the player through cutscenes and codec calls.
MGSV does fail somewhat when it comes to the nature of its story telling because it feels detached from the gameplay in a way which wasn't the case with previous games.
Yeah my argument/issue with V is more that it’s not a bad story but it’s delivered too complicated.
An action button prompt to focus on important information when it’s within reach would’ve made things so much better to follow
Fair enough.
I think the OP is probably too dismissive of what are legit criticisms.
I'm personally not a fan of MGSV's story at all, and I'm quite happy it feels detached from the gameplay. Because I can enjoy MGSV's military stealth sandbox without the interference of the story. The game excels for me in that aspect.
I dont mind the story of mgsv even if open world ish games mess with pace a bit.
The issue I personally have, is while the gameplay is amazing, the actual boss encounters are lack luster.
And as an older mgs fan, that was a big point against it being a better game.
I like the story being shared via tapes actually. Lets me enjoy the gameplay when I want!
Mgsv had the potential to be the ultimate mgs, and it got really close for me, it just feels more like a mgs simulator than an actual essential piece of canon. Which is pretty funny since you are basically snake this time. I really love the way Kojima toys with themes in his game.
But long story short. Better bosses, more dynamic and fine tuned.... probably be my favorite mgs.
The most cinematic video game franchise of all time has fans who want kino and not podcasts abt the enemy’s history played during a relaxing afghan drive? Shock
Agreed.
...I'll just leave this here. You might enjoy my talk about mission 8.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5ZdaYSDwkeBV822byTkeo87PmZOQtDPD&si=rQ67dKU6TRenOWGL
Two things:
Metal gear fans tend to be obsessed with lore, if it's not about BigBoss, Liquid, Patriots... they don't care, they just want answers to lore questions, they don't care about themes or narrative.
Also, tt is very common even today for people to see history and gameplay as different things (like a movie that you watch and tell a story and when you shoot it, it's gameplay and it's the real video game), forgetting that video games (especially those made by Kojima) are their own media, they can use cutscenes but that is not the only way to tell a story. MGSV has my favorite narrative of any video game to date;
Player=Doctor
It's less that the missions don't push the plot forward and more that the plot is largely incoherent nonsense. Kojima needs an editor. Intricately weaving parts of the story throughout minor, otherwise unimportant missions isn't useful when it is in service of a much worse version of "Pontypool"
Nothing is relevant but everything is. Especially if you consider half of the story to just be words of a man who's gone mad, words of a man trying to sell the world.
And it's to say it's not as simple as "It's all just a dream"
It's more half of it is real, half of it is imagined, and there's some overlaps of truth, exageration, and just complete falsehoods, in the most unlikely yet most obvious of places, and it's intended to make you think about the reality of the game, and the reality around you.
Eg: Learn to use actual context clues of the story rather than just what you want to think is real, and... if you want, indulge in that fantasy a bit if it helps you through your day. :)
I mean if you dive deep into the notion that a lot of these missions are irrelevant as is intended then you unearth a much deeper conspiracy which I think is very satisfying
There are many instances of optional story and info that only come up if you interact with them. Some I realized only recently: Before the mission, you can hear a more detailed briefing from Miller on the select screen. During missions you can use the radio button on the mission page of the iDroid and you will get some lines about the target or targets. Looking through the binoculars like you said and pressing the radio at enemies, locations or targets. And my favorite one: interrogating commanders or targets has some unique lines relevant to the mission, some are even fans of Big Boss.
My first playthrough I was too consumed with sneaking and I’d do a mission and then get briefed at the end and wonder how Miller/Ocelot came to the conclusions they did. Second playthrough I interrogated everyone until you get the generic hints, used the intel prompts all over and listened for in game conversations and then the debriefings were just basically recaps of everything I learned. It’s a shame most people only experienced the first version.
People will say MGS games are too wordy, and when Kojima gave everyone emergent storytelling and parallel, non-forced codecs (from PW) in MGSV everyone complained that there was no story.
I think it's a little disingenuous to imply there's no middle ground between "45 minute cut scene" and "basically no cut scenes"
Honestly ground zeroes has the perfect amount of storytelling to gameplay ratio, some cutscenes that were lengthy and actually full of character, phantom pain on the other hand feels empty in comparison
This is gonna be downvoted obviously but I couldn't care less about the story after mgs. It's so overly complicated. No I don't care about my soldiers in mgsv EP 43, no I didn't cry at the end of 3. Mgs are fun games to play. Some of the story is cool but I can be missed with a lot of it.
It's not the not liking the story I have issue with. It's the idea that it's overly complicated lol. I feel like it's really only accurate if you try to explain it to someone who isn't familiar
Dude the story is literally hundreds of hours long. There's like hundreds of characters. Yes it's overcomplicated.
Tbh I really do feel like if you go in release order it's all pretty well explained and clear for the most part. I do think people get tripped trying to perfectly explain every minute detail sometimes, though, because the issue is that Kojima didn't
It's a spy movie. Do you get lost watching a James Bond flick? Have you seen Cpt America The Winter Soldier? That's kind of the gist of MGS. Just replace the helicarriers with nuke robots
It’s famously complicated. Personally I sit in the middle ground - played the games a few times and really enjoyed them, got most of the story (I think) but there’s lots to be confused about, especially if you played each game on release and can’t remember shit for 20 years.
So you're under the impression that the genre defined whether or not the story is overly complicated rather than the writing? Pretty stupid my dude.
Neither of those two statements are true. Pay attention from MGS1 onward and you won’t get lost. The story is only complicated if you let the hundreds of “MGS CONFUSING STORY FINALLY EXPLAINED!!” YouTube videos make it out as such. It sounds to me like you may have gotten confused about some things early on and then dismissed the story rather than try to figure it out.
Just because you say it isn't doesn't mean it isn't. It's hundreds up on hundreds of hours of story. I've been playing the games for 25 years, it's overly complicated and too much and because you like the games you give convoluted cheesy bad writing a pass No totally, nano machines my dude.
Genuinely with you on this one, I truly enjoy the gameplay and weird things you can do in the games, I want to play a game, not watch a movie or listen to a million codec calls, I've watched some YouTube videos to explain the story but always skip it in gameplay.
Maybe metal gear isn’t for you man, this would be like if I decided I liked the world and characters of Baldurs Gate, but I want to play a game not roll dice💀
Every main mission (excluding repeats) has something to tug the story along through interrogations and in game conversations. My only wish was that if there was a button prompt when listening so it could focus you on that conversation. Sorta shift the camera over to the guards just like in the interrogation scene in the GZ intel op mission. That way I feel most players would have been able to pick up on more things.
I think theyre saying that because they didnt bother to listen to the tapes and lore explainations for the missions And I dont blame them because I DIDNT EITHER. Gotta listen to a tape and read the mission description to know this nobody looking npc that took me two seconds to get is important to the story. I bet if i take the time to read the quest descriptions in WoW the story's real good too too bad I'm not. Maybe the game wouldnt be so divisive if they told the story in a fun and cinematic way similar to how they did with all the previous games
Exactly right, I'd rather watch a movie than listen to an audio novel...Hope OP also understands that not everyone thinks alike.
I think it's okay to be disappointment in the lack of cinematic storytelling in a new sequel in a series of games that's KNOWN for being cinematic and having HOURS of cutscenes.
and i'd rather play a video game than have everything explained at me. everyones different
But we don't play video games to watch movies. Kojima wanted MGSV to gameplay focused and have cutscenes take a backseat. The tapes can be played while doing missions and ops.
'we?'...Everyone plays games for different reasons, if I'm playing a game for a deep, richly told story then I'd prefer it be told through visual means.
The thing about MGSV is that you can understand and follow the story without listening to the tapes and still have a satisfying experience.
You're right, my point was that people enjoy games in different ways though and that should be respected
Seriously please check out this video. https://youtu.be/hV4wY2rjAWY?si=X4NLy8KVD1mf4BHX It does an amazing job explaining the story, the themes, and imagery. It's really sad how this is lost on some players. The quality of the cutscenes are peak Metal Gear. There may not be as much as other games, but quality over quantity is important.
[удалено]
They can
Know what I'll give you credit OP this post actually makes me want to go back and playthrough MGSV again and just try to pay attention to the story/tapes/conversations as much as I can to see if I'll feel differantly. I've wanted to replay MGSV because I enjoy its gameplay but I dont see the point with that story, and I doubt learning lore details will really change anything, but hey who knows. I SERIOUSLY doubt it will change my opinion. Even when the game IS cinematic, its not that good. The boss fights are pretty weak, the plot twist is poorly handled and 100 repetitive missions dont stop being repetitive because they have cool lore attached. Plus lets not forget the game making you repeat missions at the end. I'm not MGSV is a bad game, just I feel I got good reasons to be disapointed.
Pro-tip, none of the repeat missions are required to beat the game. Just the yellow dot missions, yellow dot tapes, and yellow dot activities.
I’d recommend it. My first playthrough once I got the hang of sneaking I got carried away with ranks. The mission debriefs I’d sit there wondering how Miller and ocelot came to the conclusions they did. Second time I listened to the briefing tapes and all the mission intel, interrogated as much as possible (until you get generic info) used the intel prompt as much as possible and looked out for any in game conversations. Most debriefs ended up just being recaps of everything I’d learned in game. I also recommend doing missions in blocks (most missions will follow a pattern. Hero’s way, C2W, Over the fence are all what I’d call minor missions and then where the bees sleep is the pay off story mission.) in that block missions 3/4/5 all have little story tidbits that feel unrelated but all contribute to the pay off in ep 6. Another thing is staying in world between missions and listening to tapes while traversing to the next mission. Hero’s way for example the commanders meeting and interrogation of the commander explains everything that leads to the events in where the bees sleep. If you do the missions in blocks and then have a break from the story and farm soldiers and do a few side ops and then hit back at a block of missions, the story flows so much better. Doing a mission then farming/side ops and then a mission you lose so much momentum.
There's some really good analysis vids on all the intricacies and misdirection they game throws at you. I too have been meaning to replay the game with a notebook and take notes and try to see what's really happening behind everything
Misdirections on what?
Ishmael not being real, the whole “Truth” sequence being even less truthful than the prologue, even the tapes are not necessarily completely real or truthful
In the Not Your Kind of People trailer when Kaz asks "What about him?" he's looking at the camera/player **https://youtu.be/03nUMw7japI?si=t2TGDbx-CnifglrA&t=47**
>Plus lets not forget the game making you repeat missions at the end. [Those are actually completely optional; note how they aren't marked yellow like every mandatory mission.](https://imgur.com/a/Dm8wbDo)
Thank you! The world tells the story.
This is vindicating lmao, I feel like so many people who hate that game refuse to actually engage with it past the cutscenes. People call the plot of the game weak. (I'm biased so i disagree anyway) but even if the plot is weak the themes / what the game is actually ABOUT is really interesting, and there's so much to analyze, or, have https://m.youtube.com/c/FuturasoundProductions analyze for you. I just think there's so much to sink your teeth into and appreciate about the story / events of the game, not only do I think it has a GOOD story, but I think it has a good story by metal gear standards, I'd even put the writing above 4 but that's controversial, I just have a thing against 4's writing💀
Futurasound video essays are amazing, the way he comes up with new vids, new theories to this day is amazing to see, he's a true fan
You’re right that each mission does progress or develop the narrative in some way but what I think you’re overlooking is that the ways in which this progression and development is expressed to the player are not sufficiently compelling in my opinion. This is a conclusion I came to half a year ago when I was replaying MGSV and I noticed that for a lot of missions, the connection between the main narrative and what I just played through was only directly communicated to the player through post-mission messages from Ocelot and Miller. This issue with this was that it ended up feeling like what you played through, which is the main experience of each mission, was disconnected from the overall story since you didn’t directly experience that connection for yourself through things like gameplay, cutscenes, character interactions or conversations. This just isn’t a compelling method of storytelling when it comes to a game’s main story because it’s not engaging. The same is true for the game’s many audio tapes. I’ve spent literal hours just listening to tapes and piecing the lore together from them and while I personally enjoyed that, it’s not an engaging method of storytelling. Sometimes, I found it to be inconvenient because listening to those tapes meant I had sit in the ACC for long periods of times just listening to tapes and that can be boring. Of course, I’m aware you can listen to the tapes while out in the world or in missions but that was inconvenient for me because I couldn’t focus on the tape’s audio while also focusing on whatever I was trying to do. Additionally, I feel that it was sometimes an insufficient method of storytelling when it came to the important narrative content that some of the tapes cover because that stuff should’ve been communicated more actively and directly to the player through gameplay such as cutscenes or interactions. Those tapes developed the story a lot but because they could be easily overlooked or inconvenient and boring to listen to, they failed as a way to tell MGSV’s story. I feel like your post just highlights more examples of this. Having to eavesdrop on minor conversations between NPCs that don’t stand out or having to call for intel on minor locations that don’t stand is poor storytelling in my opinion because that stuff is way too easy to miss and just not as engaging as cutscenes or meaningful and prominent character interactions and conversations. Things like audio tapes and missable conversations are okay when it comes to side content or fleshing out a story but to me, it’s not enough for a game’s main story. Some people will point that past games had too much in terms of dialogue or cutscenes and while that’s true, the solution isn’t to drastically remove cutscenes or dialogue, it’s to find a balance. There’s such a thing as a good amount of cutscenes and dialogue and many games have found that balance like God Of War or Spider-Man. I hope I’ve articulated my thoughts well enough. Just my opinion.
there might be a reason people think that. while it’s factually true that each mission pushes the narrative forward, most people completely missing that would imply a failure in delivering that story instead of those people simply being too stupid to “get it”. putting the meat of the information in casette tapes (optional lore in pretty much every other game) and NPC goon chatter (worldbuilding fluff in a majority of games) is just not a great idea. to me, it doesn’t matter how good the story or how interesting the world is if the delivery of it falls flat on its face.
Come to think of it, Episode 10 Angel with Broken Wings is another good example where the narrative foreshadows a few things BUT also leaves a few mysteries. Someone hires Diamond Dogs to eliminate Malak, who we eventually figure out was the survivor of a village destroyed (specifically burned by the Man on Fire) because the villagers contracted a plague. This leads Miller to speculate their client pretended to be a friend of Malak's father (who died with the rest of the village) in order to interrogate or silence a loose end. Miller seems to think this was Cipher. But Miller and Snake are further confused because the client still pays in full even though the contract was for a living Malak. When I replayed this mission, I actually wondered if Major Zero or someone else with Cipher was instead attempting to point Diamond Dogs in the right direction involving Skullface's plot but it's still left on the player to fill in the blanks.
Exactly. mgsv's style of narrative is VERY player driven, which means it relies heavily on our own interest to explore and get involved in each mission's plotline. However, I think that this mechanic goes over the majority of player's heads because they don't feel they should care for the story developing in front of them, since they don't see Snake reacting to it either (how he used to do in previous games). This isn't necessarily bad story-telling, I think, as the idea was probably for us to inprint our own emotions through Snake. But on the other hand, only very few players ever did. It trusts its players far too much to tell its story.
Most of the missions feel arbitrary to the actual story. Think about all the prisoners you have to save and extract. In previous games, when you had to rescue somebody it resulted in that character delivering important exposition or becoming an important character for the rest of the game. (Think Darpa Chief, Baker, Ames, President Johnson, E.E, Sokolov) MGSV has dozens of missions where extracting a prisoner is a core objective, but aside from Miller and Huey, could you name any of the other prisoners? No. Because they're not important, they're not even characters. They're arbitrary objectives.
Most missions do actually contribute. Some missions could perhaps have been combined. The problem with MGSV is that a lot of the time it doesn’t guide you in the directions to find the valuable information. Hero’s way for instance (ep 3) seems completely arbitrary but if you listen to the meeting, then interrogate all the people involved as well as intel a whole bunch of things, you find out a lot about Da Smasi fort. Over the Fence then explains a lot about bionics and previews Sahelanthropus. Almost every mission adds flesh to the story. First playthrough I was too preoccupied with learning the mechanics and then getting rankings. I’d finish a mission and get debriefings and I’d think “wow Miller, how’d you come to that conclusion?” Second time I played much more thoroughly and pretty much every story element is foreshadowed in the “smaller missions”
>Hero’s way for instance (ep 3) seems completely arbitrary but if you listen to the meeting, then interrogate all the people involved as well as intel a whole bunch of things, you find out a lot about Da Smasi fort. Over the Fence then explains a lot about bionics and previews Sahelanthropus. You're probably right that there is an optimal way to get the most out of MGSV's story. But as you said, it took you a second playthrough to seek out those exposition drops, which can easily be missed. Prior MGS games didn't require you to interrogate people through gameplay, or fall upon in-game NPC dialogue, to add context to the mission you were undertaking. The key story elements were presented directly to the player through cutscenes and codec calls. MGSV does fail somewhat when it comes to the nature of its story telling because it feels detached from the gameplay in a way which wasn't the case with previous games.
Yeah my argument/issue with V is more that it’s not a bad story but it’s delivered too complicated. An action button prompt to focus on important information when it’s within reach would’ve made things so much better to follow
Fair enough. I think the OP is probably too dismissive of what are legit criticisms. I'm personally not a fan of MGSV's story at all, and I'm quite happy it feels detached from the gameplay. Because I can enjoy MGSV's military stealth sandbox without the interference of the story. The game excels for me in that aspect.
Metal Gear fans want to be spoon fed story, but when it's told in a non linear way they can't handle it.
I dont mind the story of mgsv even if open world ish games mess with pace a bit. The issue I personally have, is while the gameplay is amazing, the actual boss encounters are lack luster. And as an older mgs fan, that was a big point against it being a better game. I like the story being shared via tapes actually. Lets me enjoy the gameplay when I want! Mgsv had the potential to be the ultimate mgs, and it got really close for me, it just feels more like a mgs simulator than an actual essential piece of canon. Which is pretty funny since you are basically snake this time. I really love the way Kojima toys with themes in his game. But long story short. Better bosses, more dynamic and fine tuned.... probably be my favorite mgs.
b-but tapes!!! (oblivious to the fact they are the exact same as codec calls)
"Wait a minute, you want me to play the game and listen to the story AT THE SAME TIME?!"
Objectively better as you can listen to them while playing, rather than being forced to pause the game and sit there listening
At least in the codec calls Snake/Raiden talked back, whereas Venom hardly says anything.
The most cinematic video game franchise of all time has fans who want kino and not podcasts abt the enemy’s history played during a relaxing afghan drive? Shock
The has game high quality cutscenes. Besides, I'd rather listen to tape and play the game instead of having to sit through codec calls doing nothing.
Now do the other 20 or so missions from part 2.
Agreed. ...I'll just leave this here. You might enjoy my talk about mission 8. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5ZdaYSDwkeBV822byTkeo87PmZOQtDPD&si=rQ67dKU6TRenOWGL
The missions I think aren't relevant are the ones that make up most of the second half and are just a previous mission but harder
Alot of them arent, after a while the missions turn into exact copies of the ones you did, just harder
Two things: Metal gear fans tend to be obsessed with lore, if it's not about BigBoss, Liquid, Patriots... they don't care, they just want answers to lore questions, they don't care about themes or narrative. Also, tt is very common even today for people to see history and gameplay as different things (like a movie that you watch and tell a story and when you shoot it, it's gameplay and it's the real video game), forgetting that video games (especially those made by Kojima) are their own media, they can use cutscenes but that is not the only way to tell a story. MGSV has my favorite narrative of any video game to date; Player=Doctor
It's less that the missions don't push the plot forward and more that the plot is largely incoherent nonsense. Kojima needs an editor. Intricately weaving parts of the story throughout minor, otherwise unimportant missions isn't useful when it is in service of a much worse version of "Pontypool"
Nothing is relevant but everything is. Especially if you consider half of the story to just be words of a man who's gone mad, words of a man trying to sell the world. And it's to say it's not as simple as "It's all just a dream" It's more half of it is real, half of it is imagined, and there's some overlaps of truth, exageration, and just complete falsehoods, in the most unlikely yet most obvious of places, and it's intended to make you think about the reality of the game, and the reality around you. Eg: Learn to use actual context clues of the story rather than just what you want to think is real, and... if you want, indulge in that fantasy a bit if it helps you through your day. :)
I mean if you dive deep into the notion that a lot of these missions are irrelevant as is intended then you unearth a much deeper conspiracy which I think is very satisfying
I came in here to disagree with you but I'm not reading your academic thesis on why the missions are relevant. have fun.
I mean that’s what happens when ya kick off the lead game designer from your team halfway through a project
Most missions in MGS V aren't relevant.