MGSV: A Phantom Plot (A Critique of MGSV's Story)

ladies and gentlemen the long wait is over mgs 5 is out it's been released it's been played by millions it's been reviewed and well the reception has been mixed while critics everywhere have praised it awarding it numerous perfect scores many series fans can't shake this feeling that these reviews seem to be discounting one of the serious flaws within the game its story while the gameplay Metal Gear Solid 5 is the best the series has ever been a story is perplexing it's honestly the worst has ever been for an MVS game and for many fans like myself that's a pretty big problem mgs as a series can't really be separated from its compelling a story it's not just a gameplay or their stories by themselves that make an MVS game but the two of them working together to craft one singular unforgettable experience and yet mgs 5 is the first real mgs game in it which the story is just plain bad or even worse missing so for this analysis that's what I'm pretty much solely going to focus on I'm gonna talk about all aspects of story from the plot to the characters and explain what I thought about them and essentially why they pretty much failed sadly the stories and the characters is the worst thing to have ever come out of Hideo Kojima's mind almost everything about the story is a failure but in order to fully explain why we're going to have to take it apart piece by piece analyzing every strain as we try to separate our wolbachia is from our metallic our chaos to comparing it to the past mobius all games most specifically Peace Walker the game Metal Gear Solid 5 is most similar to so sit back relax and let's get started you see I could tell there was something wrong with him Diaz five just from the way it started we wake up to the David Bowie song the man who sold the world and I just have to lay there for it seems like an eternity for one of the doctors to notice us eventually we wake up only to pass out again and then wake up and then pass out and then we're totally enough to change our face before passing out one more time this opening is painfully slow to play and the face switch immediately had a player questioning their identity especially if they paid attention to the prelaunch theories that had been around for over a year finally we get up meet Ishmael in a gameplay sequence that plays out exactly as it was shown in the GDC demo a couple years back literally nothing has changed I mean there was even the same poster promoting Metal Gear Solid Ground zeroes if any player watched a pre-launch trailer and gameplay demos and this entire sequence was spoiled for them meaning they are bored from the very start of the game then after what seems like an eternity of his heavily scripted heavily tutorial eyes opening that doesn't feel like mgs at all the player meets up with Ocelot who tells us we have to rescue Miller who's been captured in Afghanistan cue the epic music at which point we found and feel like we're playing an mgs game what's odd is that no other section in the game is like the opening despite my complains about the heavy cutscenes in tutorials we never see a sequence like this again we never get story details and cutscenes happening in such rapid succession we never again have weird gameplay affecting psychological trauma we really ever have another character standing beside us and even then rarely are able to have an actual conversation with the character in short the opening of the game feels totally disconnected from the entirety of the rest of the game which is unusual for an mgs game in almost every other game the opening sets the tone for the rest of the game often introducing new gameplay elements which you will learn to master later on and most importantly they tend to tie into the plot in a meaningful way for example Metal Gear Solid to stanker chapters sets up the big opening twists and plays upon the players desire for a standard mgs sequel nothing about Metal Gear Solid fives opening twist is meaningful in any way except for the fact that the players later forced to be played later on to learn the truth but we'll analyze that part much later just reflect on the fact of this opening which has a very horror esque vibe complete with eerie body horror psychological hallucinations and feelings of helplessness as never explored with seen for the rest of the game that is just odd truly start off this analysis we have to ask a simple question why does this game exist if we look at the pre-launch trailers everything we seem to be told and are shown is that we are finally going to witness Big Boss descend into a full-blown villain finally we get to see Big Boss become the villain we know from Metal Gear 1 Howard is just one problem we already saw all of that happen already seriously that game was actually Metal Gear Solid 5 confused I'm talking about Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker now maybe you never played peace walk or maybe you just weren't thinking critically enough about it story especially the ending but find the end of Peace Walker big bosses basically complete his character art and turned into the land we know from Metal Gear 1 hy Kojima has always stated that Peace Walker is metal dish out 5 in his heart think about it by the end of Peace Walker you build you pop your own private army the military sans frontier MSF was shortened into a massive forest involving conflicts all around the world he got hundreds of men on your command dozens of Tanks helicopters and other support equipment you've created and excited a massive offshore facility to house all this man equipment he personally accepted a child soldier into your organization and continued to train him to be a better soldier and to top it all off he built yourself your very own nuclear equipped walking bipedal tank capable of launching a nuclear missile from anywhere on the planet you call this mechanical wonder Metal Gear do I need to continue alright so you say that's just a physical buildup not the evolution of big boss as a character so let's look into that in peace well can we see that big boss is already leading MSF a private military force that fights in any complication fine they don't care for race or ideology only battle well that already sounds like big boss's dream of outer heaven except for the fact that MSF is small-time episodes game and big boss didn't exactly committed fully to the cause now peace walker is all about completing the characters arc of big boss which started with mgs3 we know after mgs3 he grew disillusioned with the US government for discarding the boss and manipulating him into killing his former mentor afterwards he may or may not have been captured in San here MO where he created fox Ham and then at some point not long after helped found the Patriots by the front of peace walking's left the Patriots and returned to the battlefield the only place he feels at home but throughout all of this he still has not come to terms with the boss's death there are still too many lingering questions in his mind and he doesn't even know for sure what Eva told him is true thus we start peace walker way professor Galvez leads with the snake playing a tape with the boss's voice on it to tip big boss seeming to suggest she might still be alive and this began to personal journey for big boss as he finally puts the boss's memory to rest and become his own man for better or worse you see one of the main lingering questions about snake has Bob about the boss's death is why she did what she did why did she willingly put down her gun and sacrifice herself for a corrupt and morally bankrupt government no not even a government a small cabal of powerful men and woman what exactly did she feel going into the mission knowing her goal was to die at the end of Peace Walker his snake gets his answer and it's not one he likes well the a I literally drowns peace walker arrived and launches nukes snake understands that in the end the boss laid down her gun she sacrificed herself for peace she gave up ironically had peace walker kept with program mission and launched its nukes snake would've at least accept this outcome as keeping with memory of the boss after all that was a whole reason why her personality was used as a template for the mammal pod AI because the boss would complete admission no matter what but in the end the boss lay down a gun and chose to sing this experience completes big boss's arc he feels that such an action is a personal betrayal by the boss persona to lay down their gun and stop fighting a choice he simply cannot accept it is at this point he makes his vow to never lay down his gun never stop fighting and it's also at this point he accepts a title of big boss throwing the boss's bandana into the ocean in the final secret ending we see the final piece come together in the true ending big bosses completed Metal Gear Zeke stopped Paz from launching its payload and officially declared motherbase outer heaven in his speech he speaks to his troops about preparing to fight against the whole world which might oppose a new world order of Perpetual privatized military conflict honestly after that seemed the only thing left for Big Boss to do was to go back to America lead fox hunt for bait where he would train rookie Solid Snake and then said said rookie Solid Snake to implicate outer heaven and destroy Metal Gear I think what people tend to forget is that big boss especially among vr1 was not some monstrous villain and he never really became one his big diatribe was at who's building a soldiers paradise our world where soldiers would always be a value where war was constant and the battlefield always remained healthy only began to recruit shout soldiers in Metal Gear 2 and even then it was to feed them back into the system of warfare not to accuse them at least not in his mind so this notion that big boss would evolve into some monstrous villain running down innocent civilians I'm not giving a [ __ ] about anyone's life doesn't match with what we knew about the character before mgs 5 again all he ever wanted was to create a world where war never ended so that he and his band of soldiers would always have a place in the world think back to the plot of Metal Gear 1 big boss hasn't even threatened to use Metal Gear against the world it's a secret salts Nick's job was to investigate outer heaven find the missing squad member grey fox and then figure out just exactly what Metal Gear was and if a track vehicle was threat to destroy it in other words Big Boss accomplished all of this and officially became the villain we'd known and loved by the end of Peace Walker there was no further need from the big boss centered story detailing his supposed downfall he had already felt he just never thought so because we have a plan for his perspective the entire time it's actually went the more genius elements of Peace Walker many of big bosses questionable actions are presented in Warwick terms creating an odd sense of dissonance in the players mind let's just look at one of my favorite scenes in peace Walker we have Big Boss rescued by Amanda and her rebel compatriots saving the day from the KGB's plotted new Cuba and blame it on the US after they are done rescuing snake they begin to chant Big Boss elevating big bows into a legendary status with music that just can't help but make the player feel heroic their point you're gonna comrade we will not be pawns of the KGB we will win our own victory hasta la victoria siempre Amanda we're home look we're back in Nika we did it Amanda I mean come on Dante what you hurt I'm fine big boss your regular jump Park you're the hero here you saved my life you're the heroes here I never figured you for a softy snake Thanks it's good to see you but examine that seemed more closely and what's happening and you should probably be feeling a bit more uneasy for instance Amanda and the rebels are portrayed as the good guys throughout the game but we know from what the game tells us that they are actually communist rebels who helped to fund the rebellion against an alleged democratic regime through the drug trade they're an anti-american force we are meant to side with in a game geared towards a Western audience but that's not all the truths he truly uneasy part about this scene is Chico now cheek was about 12 years old in peace Walker he's a child who is Trent be a soldier and evil he wishes to be so in the cutscene you see Chico a 12 year old boy finally accepting finally being accepted by his peers gunning down grown men as a chance hasta la victoria siempre he even has a smile on his face afterwards this action he's rewarded and praised by carcas like Big Boss if that doesn't make you feel uncomfortable and Nicki question he was really the good guy here I don't know what does but the heroic nature and sending righteousness to play his cause through their own perspective seems to push these morally questionable part into the back of their mind or even worse causes them to rationalize their actions which is what the game wants it turns building a nuclear attack into a fun little game allowing you to fully customize and paint it before having your actions literally come back to plague you and it's resulting bossfight better you make Metal Gear the harder it is to fight in the end so you see we're already the villain by the time Ground Zero was around to the point that we a private military corporation are hiding the existence of our nuclear weapon from the world now that is some villainous [ __ ] well despite everything I just said that doesn't mean that another big boss story couldn't be told the notion of a story is centered around Big Boss and his comrades thirst for revenge which slowly consumes them trying them at even colder more inhumane characters could make for an interesting story but that's not what we got at all in mgs 5 I don't think I need to point out just how little about revenge and its power to corrupt is present Metal Gear Solid 5 despite Koz continually being an angry [ __ ] and just about the only person in the game that seems to show any emotion or seem to care about things nobody seems to really get upset about what happened to them and snake or venom snake as would later learn seems to be just a nicest guy ever as he saves animals takes contracts with environmental NGOs saves child soldiers and doesn't train them to be soldiers like Chico and doesn't decide to rebuild Metal Gear in fact he can take on the job of helping dismantle nuclear weapons he acquires from rival fo B's in other words mgs 5 seems to counter everything we did in MGS peace Walker we actually revert as a character you seem to only take contracts and support America's interest or are rather anti-soviet we can choose a dismantled nuclear weapons we attempt to convince others that war isn't everything we spare traitors we work with our enemies we give everyone a second chance and seem to be incapable of criticizing others of their actions but most importantly snake is a passive character in this game now even in peace walk a big boss seemed to be more of a follower than a leader but that mostly dealt with MSF as an organization as a whole who is not a passive character he drove the plots he made decisions he influenced events he personally influenced characters he made mistakes and he [ __ ] talked the entirety of peace walker story dealt with the emotional arc of naked snake aka Big Boss in mgs 5 snake spends most of the game reacting to events doing what others tell him to and speaking very little he doesn't interrogate potential spies the one Ocelot handled that he doesn't train her influence recruits they learn a lot handle that he doesn't search for and accept contracts Miller does that almost all the key decisions in the plot are taken out of his hands and he's relegated to the role of a supporting character that reacts with others around him tell him to do surprisingly the plot is in no way centered around the character on the trunk of the box but you know what all that wouldn't be so bad if the game could at least give us a villain to hate I'm willing to really get upset about and want to take down he can't even get that skull-faced fails in every way at being a compelling villain for the majority of the game we pretty much don't get to see him except for a few brief encounters yet most importantly the major problem with him as a character is that we have absolutely zero idea what he wants as a character and a villain we have no idea why he hates Big Boss or zero why he attacked MSF or what he's doing in Afghanistan and Africa why his face is burnt off nothing instead we complete what seems like random missions until we get back to Afghanistan and enter her hilarious Jeep ride and which skull face explains his plan and semi motivations of course we as a player are completely lost as he starts introducing totally new concepts like uranium eating parasites which is somehow tied the distribution of nukes worldwide which he never explains how he acquired which will control all in an attempt to make the perfect world the boss envisioned by deploying a language parasites that will destroy the English language despite us having no idea he ever knew the boss and the first place and then he dies and literally the next scene a villain so ineffective he doesn't even get a boss fight it is only after his death were given a massive dump of cassette tapes which still aren't the whole picture that explained after the fact just what the hell skull face was trying to do what am I the only one confused you see usually in a story the audience needs to know why they should be stopping the villain and why the building is doing exactly what they are doing but in mgs 5 this is all given after the fact and even then it's incomplete when it's all over none of the characters seem to have change in the slightest no one is to come to the toxic nature of anger and vengeance no one slowly went mad by a lust for revenge no they all just seemed to treat the whole thing as another Saturday afternoon a slight inconvenience they had to overcome so they could get back to saving wild animals and continue with their insidious takeover of the world hardly something to get nuclear about while the revenge or downfall plot promising men becoming demons is certainly lacking in mgs 5 it's not the only thing the only every theme in this game is thoroughly unexplored or boggled in its execution it's as if Kojima had all these ideas for themes he wanted to tackle name the game and decide to pull them all in without really developing or exploring any of them let's take a minute here and list all the topics MDS 5 attempts to cover child soldiers limb loss and its resulting psychological trauma guilt sacrifice anger revenge a loss of language and the forceful spread of the English language racial tension loss of identity nuclear deterrents a loss of indigenous life in a war zone environmental damage as caused by war and the list goes on and on of course the problem is that none of these themes are ever really explored in the game but are rather thrust upon the player in a scattershot manner oftentimes through one line of expository ocelot dialogue for instance Ocelot tells the player early on that they've set up a deal with an environmental NGO to save animal life in the area even going so far as to construct our own animal conservation platform and that's just about as far as that goes there really isn't much benefit to saving these animals lives and all you can really do is look at them at the conservation platform which is totally separate from all other mother based platforms even having its own loading time thus we have to ask why is this even here but this isn't just a small themes either even what I assume are the main themes of the game are also surprisingly lacking language one of the largest themes of the game is oddly underdeveloped the theme was prominently talked by to one of the most recent trailers and leading up to release and even seem to be present in our very first real killer of the game we are told of quiet a sniper deprived of her words and a man literally named code talker all the while seeing scenes of these characters talking about being without being able to hear what they say drowned out by the musical score of the trailer a musical theme I might add that repeats the phrase words that kill yet we never really see this team fully coming to fruition the language parasites are introduced late into the game and the plotline is almost immediately resolved upon obtaining code talker afterwards we confront skull face who finally reveals in a convoluted matter what he was using them for and his grand plan for dying afterwards the plot line slash theme is placed on the back burner until it crops up again briefly in chapter 2 but we are forced to kill nameless mother base soldiers in which the infection has mutated again after the situation is quickly resolved this theme is dropped in the cassette tapes - very little to add to it what's strange is that this theme - in particular appears to have been a much bigger deal than what we eventually got if you notice every soldier you recruited mother is Heather wine which is listed many of them speaking multiple languages this can't simply been placed there for the brief sequence in which must guess which members of your staff are unaffected I must quarantine them it must have been there for some other reason however we'll never truly know as the game never explores this or tells us why it's important that some staff members are fluent in Japanese and others in vanish meanwhile every staff member you encounter on mother base speaks perfect English as I said this is just another example of an unexplored theme alongside revenge but I say that Bob this goes with all the other major themes in the game chapter 2 is in towels raised and yet has almost nothing to do with race hit shouts we'll just take up a large chunk of the main story but we never explore anything about them in fact we do everything we can to ensure that they don't return to being child soldiers limb loss is glossed over as a trivial detail that is easily fixed by other sci-fi bionics for parasite magic in many respects you're left wondering if it's not better to lose a limb if your replacement is a mechanical arm that functions better than your normal hand and does way more why is being burned alive so bad if a magic parasite could completely heal your body and take away pesky things like the need to have a digestive system lungs or even a stomach it's all just lacking ideas thrown at a wall with no real meaning or purpose behind them lazy another puzzling aspect of mgs5 is a supporting characters themselves well have a great deal to say about quiet let's first talk about the rest of the cast the main problem with almost all of the characters in mgs 5 is that they are either written backwards thus eliminating any character development or are completely out of sync with passport rails of their character some of them even behaving inconsistently in the very same game let's start off with Kazakh hero Benedict MacDonald Miller he's angry he more than anyone built MSF to what it eventually became all deceived go up in flames losing an arm and a leg in the process but that's really all there is to his character he's angry now while it's nice to have at least one person in the game that displays at least some emotion Miller doesn't really do anything with this anger snake basically ignores all of his mad suggestions and choose the least dickish option available but further undercuts his sole character trait is his alternating demeanor while in cutscenes with that as an expository to toil and narrator on the radio when on the radio Miller often seems calm reserved and even sometimes joking one scene particularly struck out to me when snake is given the contract to eliminate some soldiers who appear to have evidence on a client he discovers their child soldiers now at this point Miller appears a bit conflicted on the radio a remind snake that their contract is to eliminate them nonetheless in other words it would appear that Miller will be completely fine murdering half a dozen children yet one snake decides not to kill the children he immediately chimed in on the radio as a gameplay kicks in telling snake not to let a single child soldier die will come to any harm or it's game over do you see what I mean later in chapter 2 Miller becomes even more suspicious of spies and seems to look villainous with those icy white eyes and yet nothing ever really come to this as well if we move on to Ocelot we've seen another odd treatment of a character I can't have been the only serious fan that it was finally hyped to have Oslo on our team finally a chance to speak with this sneaky bastard of twists turns double crosses triple crosses torture and all things spycraft and yet we hardly ever talk to him of course we do talk to him he's protected in the most bland as fashion ever he has under the Flair of past or future games and his oddly only ever seen on mother base this is a man so feared and respected by the Mujahideen that they nicknamed him shalosh Aska yet we never get to witness this we're simply given a boring tape in which he explains how he got the nickname Ocelot never leaves mother base despite being one of the most capable soldiers and spies on the base and thanks to the effective elimination of the codec / radio as a narrative tool radio caused him amount to nothing more than boring expedition and technical explanations about land features so in effect ah slaughter presented as completely the opposite of what we've come to see him over the course of four games the only time we even see even a hint of his past and future personalities are the interrogation rooms and even then it's limited he's just another static character cardboard cutout he just seems unfinished and then there is liquid liquid or Eli is probably one of the most disappointing inclusions in this game and I just wish Kojima had never exploit his backstory any further than mgs one mgs 5 took what seemed like a complicated villain from mgs1 and turned him into a cartoon villain it turns out that liquid was always an evil [ __ ] and big boss or venom snake or whoever had nothing to do with his massive amounts of angst this of course is counter to what he directly tells us in mgs one let's just listen it that's right I'm just the leftovers of what they used to make you can you understand what it's like to know that your garbage since the day you were born but I found the chairs so that's why you're so big boss some wart kind of love love it's hate he always told me I was inferior and now I'll have my revenge you should understand me prefer you killed our Father with your own hands you stole my chance for revenge now I'll finish the work that father began I will surpass him I will destroy him yes so none of that happens in mgs 5 big boss never chooses Eli for anything he never treats him as a some inferior clone rather he gives him the utmost respect and tries his darndest to help the kid despite him continually trying to kill him now naturally you could say at some later point he meets back up with the real Big Boss who treats him like [ __ ] but gives him the task of continuing his legacy but that's just job dodging the point and it leaves a giant question why aren't we witnessing that part instead we were treated to a one dimensional liquid who hates big boss from the very first encounter and never changes when are the character ruined by having their backstories shown and treated with needless added complexity that what we can only assume who is the child mantis is treated the exact same way needless complexity to a character we really didn't need any further explanation besides what we got in mgs one finally of course I can't complete any analysis of the story of mgs 5 without talking a little about the character of quiet in spite thing pretty much the only character in the game to go through an arc quiet is still a terrible character despite some interesting design decisions mainly I'm referring to there's a sort of unspoken bond the play develops between between her by continually using her as a buddy it's an interesting way of getting a player attached to a character without having any lines of dialogue happen between them the relationship develops almost purely through gameplay however the rest of her character design and story is just a mismatch of ideas and actions that may no sense let's look back now the first time we were introduced to quite as a character is the very beginning of the game when she tries to kill us now we don't get to see a lot about this character but what we do see does seem to paint at least some of a picture with the type of person you're dealing with she's dressed all in black and her xof outfit with long hair she coolly perceives a brutally strangled to death which me the player can only assume are an innocent doctor and nurse before turning on the player after which she again coolly reports in her status before stating she plans to kill you and the patient lying next to you off his paints the notion of an ice-cold killer a personal very few morals who has no problem killing anyone she is told to including an entire hospital filled of wounded patients and all the supporting medical staff now the next time we meet up with her she's dressed in a bikini and ripped stockings on the sniper which she attempts to use to kill us of course she fails and we spare her life bringing her back to mother base but after saving her life her character seems to completely change switching between two very different extremes she's either a cold-blooded killer capable of extreme acts of brutality or a sultry stripper saint amongst men who risks her life to recover at Shaw's memento she enjoys listening to pop music in a cell with her top off plays in the ring with her boobs flopping about and posed for snake whenever he's there presenting her ass and titties as much as possible she even enjoys personally taking a shower with snake as the entire mother baiz crew watches on so I just have to ask what the hell is with her character is she a cold-blooded assassin or some innocent [ __ ] on there's a sniper rifle the game seems to have absolutely no idea as it seems the only thing kojima cared about when creating the character was how many toys he could sell of quiet and her Diamond Dogs after completing her final mission we were given no insight into her character but rather further questions she states she was driven to them by vengeance but she doesn't exactly explain who they are well why she was driven to them or when is she talking about ex-wife slash skull face what vengeance drove her to them was it because we lit her on fire in the opening because that can't be right because are with xof then so what made her joined them before we lit her on fire we're never told it's not even really clear if she's dead at the end because we know from the tapes she has no lungs thus the virus can't kill her so she would however she would however be a threat to other people but we aren't entirely sure about that either in the end quite is just a laughable excuse for your character was mainly there to please the male fanbase we're talking about a character that could Jimmy intentionally designed only to survive because she's half-naked and covered in water and yet she's the only character that appears to have any closure in the game before I end this part I just want to touch on one final point about most of the characters in this game specifically those characters which will appear in future titles they all seem to have this weird sense of precognition all these major recurring characters seem to already know their future fades and just play into them I know I haven't talked about the final twist yet but the final ending conversation between Miller and Ocelot just had me laughing they begin to start spouting nonsense about how the sun's a big boss will be important in the future despite the fact that they should have no feelings whatsoever about these at the time unimportant kids they even conveniently seem to forget about solidus all in an attempt to foreshadow mgs1 why would liquid or solid be important in the future why must they break off into teams supporting one clone or the other it all just seems to couch em just one of these almost predestined biblical terms that these characters of liquid and solid are destined to fight one against one another another example is when we banish Chui from mother base also that much as how eventually someone like Kay mold get what's coming how he'll eventually realize what he is and pay for it how could he possibly know such a thing unless he played mgs2 I don't know maybe maybe they play him just to that's how he knows so much now do you remember who you are what you were meant to do all right it's finally time to talk about the biggest controversy surrounding this game the big twist I don't think it's of any surprise now after hearing my thoughts but all the other parts of the game story to learn that I hated the twist it's needless it serves no purpose and it just feels like one big M night Shyamalan [ __ ] you to the audience rather than a carefully crafted reveal the best thing to compare the twist to is well another MGS game that did something very similar except better in every way mgs 2 you see the idea that sure playing a carefully crafted Solid Snake simulation that riding is a representative the player the idea that deep down we all want to be Solid Snake and a subtle manipulation of an audience expectations are all presented very well throughout MGS 2 so when you get to the end and Ocelot starts revealing truth bombs everything makes sense you have that oh my god moment as you realize it he's absolutely right about everything he's saying and you knew it all along and his fives twist is just lazy back a person there's no lead-up to the twist there are no major breadcrumbs along the way besides a few minor hints and it's something a player immediately expected the may they boot up a game and we're told to change their face to their own personal avatar the twist doesn't speak to any larger theme but at best clears up a minor question regarding the original Metal Gear games mainly how could we kill Big Boss twice a question no one really ever asked or cared about yet even as reveal of a doppelganger Big Boss doesn't make sense within the Canon of the game the big problem of the twist is that it's so meta that it cannot possibly serve as an in-universe explanation what I mean is that venom snake is not a character like say riding was venom is instead a direct cypher if you will for the player that is why you speak very little during cutscenes this is why he simply follows and reacts what will tell or do to him it's why he just doesn't seem human but I'm snake is purely the avatar of the player inserted into the Metal Gear universe but unable to actually change anything they are allowed to play out sequences in a set order but they aren't allowed to direct event or participate in big decisions so when the game implies at the end that the big boss Metal Gear one wasn't actually the real big boss but a body double the logic of universe falls apart as a trials reconcile this meta to with a fiction of the universe the game is essentially saying that venom snake both is and is not a real character you see if venom snake is an actual character as in the medic from Ground zeroes who has turned to Big Boss and serves as his body double for a number of years running out of heaven before being killed by Solid Snake then we run into a series of questions that cannot possibly be answered for example how does there exist technology to completely change a person's face and body into that of Big Boss we're talking about technology that can turn a black person white or an Asian into a Caucasian how does that him have any a big boss's memories the game says that Ocelot uses hypnotherapy to convince venom snake that he is big thoughts but even if that hypnotherapy could implant memories which is a major stretch it still wouldn't explain how he would have so many memories of things he shouldn't have Ocelot wasn't there to witness the majority of operation Snake Eater he wasn't present with snake at all for portable ops and I doubt the medic from Ground Zero it was secretly there for the private moments in peace Walker yet we are told to be set except that venom snake is able to convincingly operate as big boss because he supposedly has all his memories he has a question just who the hell Ocelot is or what the hell Miller was talking about when you mentioned cypher now as a pure avatar for the player this makes sense Ocelot wasn't present for much a snake eater or peace Walker but we as a player were we played all those games we have all those memories we know who Ocelot cypher images 0 are and we don't have to ask these questions but when the twist actually turns venom snake into an actual in universe character that exists after the events of defense of pain and this explanation cannot serve and must be answered in some fashion but it never is and it never can be this leads to further question as to why some medic happens to be just as [ __ ] a legendary at combat and CQC as the real big boss or why you would continue to follow some maniac after letting he forcefully and without his consent changed his entire face and body so that he could be used as a cannon fodder decoy who would smile upon learning such a truth I think you understand what I'm getting at come here this to riding at the end of mgs2 who becomes his own man and forcefully discards the role of the player's avatar he throws away the name we give him and becomes his own man his own character Venna meanwhile seems to enjoy being the plays avatar and later big boss as a decoy the twist serves no purpose of him to have a twist shoehorning in some concept about how we the player have always wanted to be a big boss and helped craft the ledge of the character as much as Kojima of course even that isn't true unlike Solid Snake about any sane money player wishes to be big boss Solid Snake was a smooth-talking sarcastic badass routinely put his life on the line to save the world he embodied the allure of the noblesse by big boss on the other hand is the megalomaniac who seeks to create a world which were as constant as is the only way he can maintain a hard-on he's not exactly a figure to be emulated no the player has always sought to examine witnesses characters origins and downfall but unlike Solid Snake we don't harbor some secret desire to embody his life we don't want to be his phantom we will sometimes have to sell ourselves and services if the times demand it will be revolutionaries criminals terrorists and yes we may all be headed straight to hell but what better place for us when all instead of done the phantom pain may Polly be the most apt title for this game because nothing about this game feels finished we're after the continual feeling of anger and pain towards things that aren't in the game I'll exploit themes character arcs that never happened but we know will eventually appear in later games major time skips in which important events happened that we don't get to witness a to chapter game in which we have proof of a third chapter that was cut and not as the last two games had five chapters or acts now I don't want to give cootie with too much credit but if this feeling was intentional then his mission was accomplished but I doubted if mgs 5 proved anything it's that Kojima is bored with the series mgs4 was clouded by the feeling of frustration and mg's 5 just feels like the final boiling over porn of this feeling Kojima said everything you needed to say about the character Big Boss and peace Walker and with mgs 5 was just dying to work on a new game and he could explore new gameplay ideas there's a little quote at the end sort of a sealed the deal for me facts do not exist only their interpretations of them Kojima is basically telling a play that you can't really accept anything that happened in the game is fact to basically choose your own Canon because it's just as valid as the convoluted nonsense he's put in the game the last time you saw him directly state such an idea was mgs2 when he truly believed that he would be done with the series and it seems like at least this time it looks like he'll get his wish but don't be sad if you feel like you still won mgs5 then it already exists just go play peace walk again in fact let's just listen to another awesome moment from peaceful art it will just look just listening you know the name Big Boss and maybe you were there at the ceremony when I received the title from President Johnson indeed I was we don't have time for this [ __ ] hold it let's hear him out you were saying at the ceremony the DCI tried to shake my hand I refused what happened in that room is classified top secret only a handful of people would know he's making it up don't listen to it wait why did you refuse to shake his hand because I knew where my loyalty you you such a lot for revenge Oh

Channel: Boss Attack

Views: 113,375

Keywords: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Video Game), Action-adventure Game (Media Genre), Video Game (Industry)

Id: RkC3IZjBRTE

Length: 45min 53sec (2753 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 24 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/V2213]

Just a warning to those potential viewers. It's basically just a guy from 2 months ago complaining about the game. He brings up points and questions, but instead of answering to these questions or attempting any sort of understanding of major plot points, he instead rejects them as incoherent and stupid. And many parts of his semi-attempted analysis, don't really even work with the actual story.

His basic conclusion is Kojima was bored of MGS, nothing makes sense, it's poorly written garbage.

Not my kind of video.

[u/ThePhantomMedic]

Before I watch... Is this guy open minded or one of those guys yelling that they hate the twist?

[u/walpole14]

Don't agree with everything he says, just when he talks about the reveal.

[u/Maxvayne]

He's completely right.