Roni
Gold Member
I've thought about making this thread for a while now... Every time I did, however, I've always hesitated due to the absolute disapproval MGSV's story gets in every MGS thread I read. Thinking my arguments would fall on deaf ears unless they were extremely well built and fact-checked, and realizing I probably had more productive things to do with my time instead of spending over two of months laying out said arguments, I never did it. I thought: "that's OK, someone else will get to it".
Thing is, it's 2018 and no one got to it yet. At least I haven't read that thread, if it is around. I still don't have the time to do the 2-month research, but I thought I'd at least get the ball rolling with this thread. The thread openly talks about spoilers for ALL games of the Metal Gear franchise. Join the conversation if you have played all of the games or if you just don't care.
You see, when Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain first launched back in 2015, I was among the small group of people that considered it a masterpiece both in terms of story and gameplay. There were those who hated the game and there were those who loved the game, but both sides pretty much agreed that MGSV's story wasn't spectacular. Some even claiming it was the worst story in the series.
I think differently, radically differently.
MGSV's story is one of the best and most ambitious (and even thematically relevant) in the series, rivaling the awesome story in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - a title itself controversial at release. If you're willing to hear me out, let's jump right into it:
Premise #1: Kojima cares. You may dislike Kojima games, you may find his genre boring, you may even dislike his taste for the dramatic. What his work objectively doesn't allow you to say is that he doesn't care about his story and his fans. The man has bent over backwards and worked under the most ridiculous constraints & conditions to bring players original themes within the canon he's established over the years. He's stuck with a painfully simple game he designed back in 1987 and built an entire franchise around it, not once taking the liberty of saying: "Yeah, that whole game didn't happen anymore", which would've been the easier path to tread. He designed a full-fledged sequel to Metal Gear Solid 4 on a portable game system, taking the constraints of that platform in stride and creating, arguably, the most complete title of the PSP's library. He may have to retcon things, he may even require players to not stick as closely to what has been said in previous games - making good use of the fact Metal Gear is a series rooted in lies and deception. But the man definitely does his best to respect the fans who have played his games.
Premise #2: Kojima is a visionary. Time and again, the man has seen ahead and worked to materialize something that didn't yet exist in our medium. Be it propelling the stealth genre into the mainstream with the original Metal Gear, creating one of the best video game thrillers at the time with Metal Gear 2, introducing cinematic storytelling with MGS, using the medium's traits to make an extremely relevant point some 15 years ahead of time with MGS2, creating one of the most emotional tales in video game history with MGS3, subverting all of our expectations in MGS4 or creating, from the ground up, an extremely high-caliber portable game. The man seizes every opportunity he has to innovate.
Premise #3: MGSV is an incomplete game. That's just a fact, but ask any developer and they will tell you that every game is ultimately incomplete. The challenge in making a game is knowing where to stop. Given that Kojima cares and that he clearly strives to push the medium forward with every new project he takes on, it seems reasonable to assume he must've tried his best to connect everything together, even if that meant being economical and using as few strands as possible in that connection.
With these premises at hand, I'd like to make the point that MGSV's story is the antithesis to the ordinary plot you'd find in most games. You see, most game stories work in service of taking the player through a satisfying emotional ride. There may be betrayals, plot twists and complications; but the player almost always reaches a climax that results in some form of closure. In most instances where that doesn't happen, it can be attributed to an oversight or an error by the developer's part. But life, as we all know it, doesn't always play out as if we're the hero.
Not all of our friends are easy-going, hard-working and extremely supportive.
Not all relationships end well.
Not all of our struggles are just.
Not all stories lead to a satisfying conclusion.
Sometimes, life just tramples over us, and we're left to pick-up the pieces in its wake.
I'd like to make the point that MGSV's story is precisely about that: a story designed to evoke all different shades of pain. Let's focus on how each character in MGSV is designed to expose the player to something negative:
Skull Face is the main antagonist of the game. He's a bureaucratic villain that captures and tortures Chico, a child that lived in your base. Not only forcing Chico to watch as he beat and raped Paz, the girl he loved, but also forcing him to participate in her torture. Contributing to her suffering and agony. He also destroys MSF's Mother Base by the end of Ground Zeroes. Essentially taking your Peace Walker save file and deleting it. He's personally responsible for you being in a coma for 9 years, losing your left arm and suffering brain damage due to a massive piece of shrapnel being stuck in your head. He's also responsible for the deaths of everyone in the hospital you wake up in and for Miller's capture and mutilation. Skull Face has been a constant source of suffering for everyone you know. He's the target, the devil. If you follow the story closely, there's no way you don't hate him. And yet, his demise is quick and mostly painless - not only because of his parasite treatment, but also because Huey puts a bullet in his head and destroys his brain. He's designed to make players experience the pain of how unfulfilling revenge ultimately is.
Miller is your closest friend, a man who has lost everything, just like you. His outlook on life, however, isn't as neutral as Venom's. Miller becomes obssessed with revenge, fueled by rage and hatred. He hates those who wronged him and builds his life around ensuring they pay him back. This makes him completely paranoid: he is constantly at odds with Ocelot, he places armed sentries to point weapons at Venom himself, he even puts up posters that say 'Big Boss is watching!' to drive home the point that all will be under scrutiny and under constant evaluation. Miller's designed to make players experience the pain of losing a relationship because of trauma and loss - especially when you contrast who Miller was in Peace Walker and who he's become in V.
Huey is a coward and a sociopath who is perfectly comfortable lying and trying to manipulate those around him so that he doesn't have to deal with the consequences of his actions. He spent 9 years attempting to create the perfect Metal Gear for the ones who destroyed your base, only to be recaptured and claim he's always been on your team. To sell you that lie, he grasps at whatever he can: that they didn't give him a choice, that Sahelanthropus face had a Skull just like MSF's, because he never stopped thinking about them... All the while, as the story progresses, more and more information is extracted from him. Because he knows more, way more. Because he did betray Venom and his friends 9 years ago. When he's led to finally crack, he takes steps to ensure the only person who could ever incriminate him is dead. He shoots Skull Face in the head not because he wants revenge, but because with Skull Face truly dead, no one else could tell the tale of what happened during those 9 years. He then proceeds to mutate the vocal cord parasites on purpose. Oh, and let's not forget he deliberately hid Strangelove's involvement in his project in an attempt to hide the fact that he killed the mother of his own son. Huey is designed to make players experience the pain of being manipulated by someone, all the while not having enough evidence to pass accurate judgement.
Code Talker is a scientist who was blackmailed by Skull Face to further develop the vocal cord parasites. In an attempt to protect his tribe, he kept making the threat to his tribe bigger and bigger. Code Talker is designed to make the player experience the pain of living your life while pressured by others.
Eli is one of Snake's clone. He resents Big Boss after learning his just a copy of him. His 'lust for revenge' surpasses even that of Skull Face's. Making his bond with Angering Mantis stronger than everyone else's. He uses this power to steal Sahelanthropus and a sample of the final English vocal cord parasite strain and escape with the children Diamong Dogs was trying to help. Eli disappears, only to be found and dealt with after the game's ending. He is designed to make the player feel the pain of unfinished business, the frustration that comes from the lack of proper closure.
Quiet is designed as a sexy, useful and silent sniper. You may believe her design is sexist, and I wouldn't disagree, but the reason why she's this Anime wetdream is far more interesting than her actual clothes. Kojima knows his audience and he wanted as many players as possible to like Quiet: which is why she's pretty to look at, openly shows interest in Venom, is super useful in gameplay and spends most of the game without uttersing a single opinion. If you've played MGSV to completion, you'll know that Quiet leaves Venom permanently. Quiet is designed to make the player experience the pain of abandonment. And given how many players were looking for ways not to lose her or to get her back when the game came out, I'd say this is the experience Kojima was most succesful in conveying.
Ocelot in MGSV is playing a character, just like he did in every other Metal Gear game he's ever been in, the only difference here is that Ocelot is playing himself. In the end, Ocelot is revealed not to be really working for Venom, but for the real Snake. He's been pretending to be your friend, and your 'left-hand' man through self-hypnosis. A process not unlike the one he's applied on Venom himself, erasing his identity and imposing Snake's memories on top of his own. Ocelot killed everything you ever truly were, erased memories of everything you've ever loved. All in Snake's name. Ocelot doesn't really care about Venom as a person, only as a tool for keeping the real Snake safe. Ocelot is designed to make the player feel the pain of betrayal by someone thought to be a close friend.
The real Snake is almost entirely absent from the game, aside from Missions 0 and 46 and some of the truth tapes. Snake goes along with Zero and Ocelot's plans to turn the player into Venom, showing no remorse for his fate. Snake is designed to make the player experience the pain of disillusion.
Zero is also absent from the entire game, but the tape where he visits Snake in the hospital show how their friendship could have ended differently if they had one more chance to talk. Zero is designed to make the player experience the pain of hesitation.
It is my belief that MGSV's story is brilliant precisely because it reinforces these themes so elegantly. No human interaction is every truly fulfilling or useful because everyone is so up in their heads, worried about their own pain and their own problems. Venom can't get through to Miller because he's sure Quiet is a problem, Skull Face can't really convince Venom of his work because Venom is already intent on taking him down after everything he's seen. Skull Face can't keep Code Talker in line because he's become too bitter after losing everything. The problem is the game is so effective at making the player feel these inadequacies, that the feeling they evoke is projected back onto the game itself.
MGSV gets a bad reputation because it is so successful at emotionally undermining the player, which is what it was designed to do.
Thanks for reading up until this checkpoint. This is just focusing on the theme of Pain. I've also got thoughts on the game's overall plot, which I also think is amazing, and I shall expand on them further if there's enough interested in it. Hope to hear your thoughts on the game and engage in some interesting debate!
Thing is, it's 2018 and no one got to it yet. At least I haven't read that thread, if it is around. I still don't have the time to do the 2-month research, but I thought I'd at least get the ball rolling with this thread. The thread openly talks about spoilers for ALL games of the Metal Gear franchise. Join the conversation if you have played all of the games or if you just don't care.
You see, when Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain first launched back in 2015, I was among the small group of people that considered it a masterpiece both in terms of story and gameplay. There were those who hated the game and there were those who loved the game, but both sides pretty much agreed that MGSV's story wasn't spectacular. Some even claiming it was the worst story in the series.
I think differently, radically differently.
MGSV's story is one of the best and most ambitious (and even thematically relevant) in the series, rivaling the awesome story in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - a title itself controversial at release. If you're willing to hear me out, let's jump right into it:
Premise #1: Kojima cares. You may dislike Kojima games, you may find his genre boring, you may even dislike his taste for the dramatic. What his work objectively doesn't allow you to say is that he doesn't care about his story and his fans. The man has bent over backwards and worked under the most ridiculous constraints & conditions to bring players original themes within the canon he's established over the years. He's stuck with a painfully simple game he designed back in 1987 and built an entire franchise around it, not once taking the liberty of saying: "Yeah, that whole game didn't happen anymore", which would've been the easier path to tread. He designed a full-fledged sequel to Metal Gear Solid 4 on a portable game system, taking the constraints of that platform in stride and creating, arguably, the most complete title of the PSP's library. He may have to retcon things, he may even require players to not stick as closely to what has been said in previous games - making good use of the fact Metal Gear is a series rooted in lies and deception. But the man definitely does his best to respect the fans who have played his games.
Premise #2: Kojima is a visionary. Time and again, the man has seen ahead and worked to materialize something that didn't yet exist in our medium. Be it propelling the stealth genre into the mainstream with the original Metal Gear, creating one of the best video game thrillers at the time with Metal Gear 2, introducing cinematic storytelling with MGS, using the medium's traits to make an extremely relevant point some 15 years ahead of time with MGS2, creating one of the most emotional tales in video game history with MGS3, subverting all of our expectations in MGS4 or creating, from the ground up, an extremely high-caliber portable game. The man seizes every opportunity he has to innovate.
Premise #3: MGSV is an incomplete game. That's just a fact, but ask any developer and they will tell you that every game is ultimately incomplete. The challenge in making a game is knowing where to stop. Given that Kojima cares and that he clearly strives to push the medium forward with every new project he takes on, it seems reasonable to assume he must've tried his best to connect everything together, even if that meant being economical and using as few strands as possible in that connection.
With these premises at hand, I'd like to make the point that MGSV's story is the antithesis to the ordinary plot you'd find in most games. You see, most game stories work in service of taking the player through a satisfying emotional ride. There may be betrayals, plot twists and complications; but the player almost always reaches a climax that results in some form of closure. In most instances where that doesn't happen, it can be attributed to an oversight or an error by the developer's part. But life, as we all know it, doesn't always play out as if we're the hero.
Not all of our friends are easy-going, hard-working and extremely supportive.
Not all relationships end well.
Not all of our struggles are just.
Not all stories lead to a satisfying conclusion.
Sometimes, life just tramples over us, and we're left to pick-up the pieces in its wake.
I'd like to make the point that MGSV's story is precisely about that: a story designed to evoke all different shades of pain. Let's focus on how each character in MGSV is designed to expose the player to something negative:
Skull Face is the main antagonist of the game. He's a bureaucratic villain that captures and tortures Chico, a child that lived in your base. Not only forcing Chico to watch as he beat and raped Paz, the girl he loved, but also forcing him to participate in her torture. Contributing to her suffering and agony. He also destroys MSF's Mother Base by the end of Ground Zeroes. Essentially taking your Peace Walker save file and deleting it. He's personally responsible for you being in a coma for 9 years, losing your left arm and suffering brain damage due to a massive piece of shrapnel being stuck in your head. He's also responsible for the deaths of everyone in the hospital you wake up in and for Miller's capture and mutilation. Skull Face has been a constant source of suffering for everyone you know. He's the target, the devil. If you follow the story closely, there's no way you don't hate him. And yet, his demise is quick and mostly painless - not only because of his parasite treatment, but also because Huey puts a bullet in his head and destroys his brain. He's designed to make players experience the pain of how unfulfilling revenge ultimately is.
Miller is your closest friend, a man who has lost everything, just like you. His outlook on life, however, isn't as neutral as Venom's. Miller becomes obssessed with revenge, fueled by rage and hatred. He hates those who wronged him and builds his life around ensuring they pay him back. This makes him completely paranoid: he is constantly at odds with Ocelot, he places armed sentries to point weapons at Venom himself, he even puts up posters that say 'Big Boss is watching!' to drive home the point that all will be under scrutiny and under constant evaluation. Miller's designed to make players experience the pain of losing a relationship because of trauma and loss - especially when you contrast who Miller was in Peace Walker and who he's become in V.
Huey is a coward and a sociopath who is perfectly comfortable lying and trying to manipulate those around him so that he doesn't have to deal with the consequences of his actions. He spent 9 years attempting to create the perfect Metal Gear for the ones who destroyed your base, only to be recaptured and claim he's always been on your team. To sell you that lie, he grasps at whatever he can: that they didn't give him a choice, that Sahelanthropus face had a Skull just like MSF's, because he never stopped thinking about them... All the while, as the story progresses, more and more information is extracted from him. Because he knows more, way more. Because he did betray Venom and his friends 9 years ago. When he's led to finally crack, he takes steps to ensure the only person who could ever incriminate him is dead. He shoots Skull Face in the head not because he wants revenge, but because with Skull Face truly dead, no one else could tell the tale of what happened during those 9 years. He then proceeds to mutate the vocal cord parasites on purpose. Oh, and let's not forget he deliberately hid Strangelove's involvement in his project in an attempt to hide the fact that he killed the mother of his own son. Huey is designed to make players experience the pain of being manipulated by someone, all the while not having enough evidence to pass accurate judgement.
Code Talker is a scientist who was blackmailed by Skull Face to further develop the vocal cord parasites. In an attempt to protect his tribe, he kept making the threat to his tribe bigger and bigger. Code Talker is designed to make the player experience the pain of living your life while pressured by others.
Eli is one of Snake's clone. He resents Big Boss after learning his just a copy of him. His 'lust for revenge' surpasses even that of Skull Face's. Making his bond with Angering Mantis stronger than everyone else's. He uses this power to steal Sahelanthropus and a sample of the final English vocal cord parasite strain and escape with the children Diamong Dogs was trying to help. Eli disappears, only to be found and dealt with after the game's ending. He is designed to make the player feel the pain of unfinished business, the frustration that comes from the lack of proper closure.
Quiet is designed as a sexy, useful and silent sniper. You may believe her design is sexist, and I wouldn't disagree, but the reason why she's this Anime wetdream is far more interesting than her actual clothes. Kojima knows his audience and he wanted as many players as possible to like Quiet: which is why she's pretty to look at, openly shows interest in Venom, is super useful in gameplay and spends most of the game without uttersing a single opinion. If you've played MGSV to completion, you'll know that Quiet leaves Venom permanently. Quiet is designed to make the player experience the pain of abandonment. And given how many players were looking for ways not to lose her or to get her back when the game came out, I'd say this is the experience Kojima was most succesful in conveying.
Ocelot in MGSV is playing a character, just like he did in every other Metal Gear game he's ever been in, the only difference here is that Ocelot is playing himself. In the end, Ocelot is revealed not to be really working for Venom, but for the real Snake. He's been pretending to be your friend, and your 'left-hand' man through self-hypnosis. A process not unlike the one he's applied on Venom himself, erasing his identity and imposing Snake's memories on top of his own. Ocelot killed everything you ever truly were, erased memories of everything you've ever loved. All in Snake's name. Ocelot doesn't really care about Venom as a person, only as a tool for keeping the real Snake safe. Ocelot is designed to make the player feel the pain of betrayal by someone thought to be a close friend.
The real Snake is almost entirely absent from the game, aside from Missions 0 and 46 and some of the truth tapes. Snake goes along with Zero and Ocelot's plans to turn the player into Venom, showing no remorse for his fate. Snake is designed to make the player experience the pain of disillusion.
Zero is also absent from the entire game, but the tape where he visits Snake in the hospital show how their friendship could have ended differently if they had one more chance to talk. Zero is designed to make the player experience the pain of hesitation.
It is my belief that MGSV's story is brilliant precisely because it reinforces these themes so elegantly. No human interaction is every truly fulfilling or useful because everyone is so up in their heads, worried about their own pain and their own problems. Venom can't get through to Miller because he's sure Quiet is a problem, Skull Face can't really convince Venom of his work because Venom is already intent on taking him down after everything he's seen. Skull Face can't keep Code Talker in line because he's become too bitter after losing everything. The problem is the game is so effective at making the player feel these inadequacies, that the feeling they evoke is projected back onto the game itself.
MGSV gets a bad reputation because it is so successful at emotionally undermining the player, which is what it was designed to do.
Thanks for reading up until this checkpoint. This is just focusing on the theme of Pain. I've also got thoughts on the game's overall plot, which I also think is amazing, and I shall expand on them further if there's enough interested in it. Hope to hear your thoughts on the game and engage in some interesting debate!
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