Story was... so meh, I got HZ vibes. I mean, it was not terrible, but for some reason I expected more from hyped Kojima.
Play more than 2 hours. You haven't even started the game. By Chapter 5 you will have seen enough to make a decently informed impression.
There are some mechanics like the social stuff and the world building that don't sink in until hours and hours later.
It gives a feeling of accomplishment that few other games even attempt to attain. As you make deliveries, you expand the Chiral Network. As you do this, it reveals what others are doing in your shared world, making traversal easier. Making your job easier. The more you accomplish, the easier it gets to accomplish things. The more gear you get to accomplish it faster, until you are literally flying over the world like Santa Claus. The grind is well rewarded between cutscenes and gameplay options.
In between it all is a fascinating, deeply atmospheric 1970's sci fi style apocalyptic narrative. Like the best metaphysical sci fi (
2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, Dune) it ties physical landscapes and journeys to spiritual ones. The technological conquering of Death being almost an inevitable heightening of the usual Kojima futuristic nanomachines nonsense. Here we get to wander around and see what these people would do, if they could never die. Again, think of 1970's science fiction films, like
Logan's Run, or
Zardoz, which concerned with how humanity might grapple with immortality. Sam Porter Bridges is patient number zero for such a study.
And the narrative that (slowly, flowingly, beautifully) unfolds between him and Cliff Unger, the mysterious character Mads plays, is simply life affirming and beautiful. There is a lot of pain and misery in this world, but a lot of optimism and beauty. Thankfully Kojima was given ample time to deliver the full polish on this work, and you can really tell, as every menu, hologram, UI, etc. is lovingly and ornately rendered, presenting a vivid an almost retro-futuristic world.
The Phantom Pain suffered in the polishing phase, due to his early firing, but that is fully present here, and looks great in HD.
BTW these mountain landscapes look hella good on 4k. Hard to be bored when this game looks so damn good. I think this was one of the original inspirations tbh, the kind of demo videos they would show on 4k presentations at stores, with sweeping mountain landscapes.