Konami. What is considered by many to be one of the most corrupt video game companies to date. They have soiled the names of some of their most famous franchises from back in the day. Fired a handful of the trust employees, developers, and directors within the company. Have relied on cash grab tactics like mass producing slot machines rather than video games. And are driven by nothing but greed. Konami is truly the worst video game company out there and it’s no wonder so many game journalists judge this group of pricks today. Konami wasn’t always that bad though. Before they lined themselves up with other greedy companies like Electronic Arts or Activision, they were up in the ranks with thirsty Nintendo and Capcom.
The Nintendo Entertainment System, where many Japanese publishers made their first debuts. Nintendo came out with fun and approachable titles fit for any age like Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid. Meanwhile Capcom made challenging yet rewarding titles like Mega Man, Ghost N’ Goblins, and Bionic Commando. Then there was Konami, who published a short sweet catalogue of legendary games. Castlevania, a relentless badass experience where you play as a vampire hunter who navigated his way through a monster infested castle to slay Dracula. The bullet hell sidescroller Contra that told you to fight an alien invasion all you need are guns, guns, and more guns but this time explosives. And then there was the one that helped start one of few recognizable game series of all time. Metal Gear which was released in 1987. It was a top down action stealth game where you played as a cool military operative named Snake, as he sneaked his way through a heavily guarded complex to uncover info and an even bigger conspiracy. It was one of the first concepts of a stealth game and it was directed by the recently hired Hideo Kojima. At the time of production, Kojima was just a small employee within a big company. A senior associate reached out to Kojima and tasked him to direct their new IP. The idea was broad as a whale, but the execution was poor due to hardware limitations. The military combat they intended was hard to react to as enemy bullets were hard to see, and those elements of stealth were difficult to predict since enemy patrol patterns weren’t clearly recognizable. Metal Gear was not a bad game like a majority of the NES library, but it could have been carried out better.
Years later the first Playstation came out and the console’s hardware actually allowed Kojima to envision his ideas of a military stealth game. Out of nowhere and diving into the blue is Metal Gear Solid. It had a great stealth system with easy to read enemy patterns, mechanics to help switch up the gameplay, a brilliantly told story with depth, and memorable characters who were voiced thanks to the Playstation’s ability to render voice recordings. Metal Gear Solid is considered by many to be one of the best games on the original Playstation and one of the greatest games of all time. It has shown some age and rust, but it was so influential and helped pave the way for the stealth genre. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty comes out a few years later and it too is considered a smashing success. It left fans of the original story divided, but it was a serviceable sequel. The next iteration Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is released on the Playstation 2 and makes full use of the new hardware. Giving the origins of one of the antagonists of the first game while innovating in new ways. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots is made for the Playstation 3 and while it’s more cinematic focused it is another quality entry in a franchise paved with gold.
There were plans for a fifth mainline entry, but unlike the previous games it would have a development cycle longer than three to four years. Kojima often teased the next Metal Gear Solid game and claimed it was his biggest project yet. Aiming to fly higher above the earth’s cold atmosphere. It would rely on the all new Fox Engine which Kojima and his team created for the purpose of the fifth installment. They also tried to reveal info during a weekly episode of GameTrailers TV, but was cut abruptly due to live stage embarrassment. Eventually in 2013, Kojima announced two trailers for the upcoming Metal Gear Solid V. It would be split up into two games. The first game would be Ground Zeroes and the second would be the fully intended game, The Phantom Pain. This would be the last entry in the series and hopefully it would fill in some of the crack previous games formed with their stories. Ground Zeroes comes out one year later and people are kinda upset with how they paid forty dollars for what was a two hour demo. Ground Zeroes did have a good amount of content though, and the demonstration it gave of what to expect left a good impression on gamers.
One year later, The Phantom Pain comes out as advertised and fans are blown away with what they got. The quality, the spectacle, the detail, the confusingly told story that they should expect, and how it drastically changed how Metal Gear Solid played. Some fans were divisie with how many plot holes the story had, and others say it’s the weakest entry in the series due to how far it strays away from the formula. However, The Phantom Pain ends up to be the most critically acclaimed game in the franchise. Garnishing tons of praise, high review scores, good sales numbers, and quite a few end of the year awards. Almost four years after release and does The Phantom Pain still hold up today? Mostly yes, which is a good response. The Phantom Pain is one of the more interesting games I’ve played, but it certainly is a good one. Today we’ll talk about why I loved The Phantom Pain and why it deserves your attention.
Let’s get on in there Big Boss!
Story
The game takes place several months after the events of Ground Zeroes. The top infiltrator Big Boss entered a complex run by Skull Face, an evil madman who plans to eliminate multiple cultures and nations across the globe. Big Boss is sent in to rescue two kids from the complex, but when he takes off in a helicopter to return to his home base he finds it overrun by Skulls Face’s army, the X.O.F. The base is lit ablaze which leads to Big Boss and his closest friends retreating. Almost all of Big Boss’ soldiers are wiped out during the conflict and only a handful of them remain. Miller, who is one Big Boss’ head of operations, claims they were fiddled with and that somehow the X.O.F were able to track down where their base was. They could have implanted a tracking device into someone or some child. They deduce that Skull Face used the two children Big Boss rescued to track down their base, but instead find that a bomb was implanted deep in the chest of one of them. The child with the bomb jumps out of the helicopter before everyone can get caught in the explosion, forcing the chopper to spin towards the ground. Everyone is knocked out when hitting the ocean and they aren’t rescued until weeks later. This is where The Phantom Pain picks up.
You, the player, wake up in a hospital to find you wrapped up in bandages. A nurse finds that you finally woke up and rushes to get help. Each time you wake up, you figure more about who you are and that you may be connected to Big Boss himself. Turns out that you are in fact Big Boss and you got a lot of injuries across your body. Decaying bones are lodged into your skin and your arm gets dangerous, forcing the hospital to cut it off. You have no recollection of what happened before since you were in a coma, but one night when you wake up you find the hospital is being evacuated. The hospital officials say that you're “special” and that they have to get you out immediately. An armed force arrives and they begin to gun down everyone within the building. A woman shows up, armed to the teeth and pointing a gun right at your face. This is it. You are about to die by unknown hands. Just then another completely bandaged patient appears and he does the woman in a substance that lights her ablaze. The bandaged patient helps you escape the hospital, but you are both pursued by the strange militia.
A fiery man comes out of nowhere who has the ability to absorb bullets and explode everything around him. You and the bandaged man make a daring escape while everyone around you is killed. The vehicle you are both driving crashes and the burning man is heading right towards you. Fate comes yet again, this time with your old friend Revolver Ocelot riding on a horse and helping you escape. You both make it towards a chopper which flies you all the way to your new home base. Ocelot explains to you the events that transpired before and that Skull Face is getting near to a world wide massacre. You are then sent on a mission to save Miller and afterwards you both figure out that the X.O.F have a small number of mutants working for them. The fate of the world lies in your hand. You must rebuild your army by finding new recruits, navigate your way through dominated third world countries, and stop Skull Face before it is too late. You are Big Boss, always have been, and now adopt the name of Venomous Snake.
Gameplay
The Phantom Pain is one of the more realistic stealth games to come out there. They really want you to feel a military expert crawling through what could at any time become a chaotic battlefield with bullets flying in every direction. Every mission has a new objective and you can use whatever means necessary to achieve it. Before a mission starts you have the option to choose what equipment to bring with you. This includes what handgun, what rifle, vehicles, companions who may either be used as rides or to provide assistance during combat, and much more. Some equipment won’t be available from the start and you’ll have to use base points to have them developed overtime for future uses. Base points are acquired at the end of each mission or performing side tasks. They can be for new equipment as stated earlier, or to upgrade the mother base. You can add new sections which increase certain departments of your mother base or add in extra defenses just in case of an attack. You can recruit soldiers for your army which builds up your base's mother and efficiency.
The way recruits work in this game is very unique. They will either be added overtime or can be picked up while in the field. If you can knock out an enemy without completely killing them you can then tie a balloon to them which flies them back to mother base. They are then forcefully recruited for your army and their stats are shown. These stats dictate what departments they are good at and jobs that they can efficiently carry out. You can find ways to increase their stats making them better at different departments. These are only minor tasks though, because the real task is infiltration.
The Phantom Pain gives you a wide selection of options to solve a single situation. Sure you could just enter into a building using the main entrance, but that will be too obvious and you will be heavily exposed. If a guard spots you they will alert their comrades and try to gun you down. You can fight back using whatever weapons you have, but if one of them activates an alarm every enemy within a mile radius will hunt you down. You will either have to run away or deactivate the alarms. If you take too much damage you die and are sent back to a nearby checkpoint or save. This is a stealth game though and your main method of getting from Point A to Point B is of course, sneaking around like a damn military professional. You can hide behind cover, use a box to blend in with the environment, use objects that can distract your enemies, or go prone. Going prone will slow you down drastically, but you can hide beneath tight surfaces and areas practically invisible to every single enemy.
There is a wide selection of guns to use against foes. Magnums, revolvers, machine guns, smgs, a pump action shotgun, double barrel shotgun, a rocket launcher, a rocket launcher with heat seek, and other generic shooter stuff. The shooting isn’t really new for a video game, but it is very fluid to control. There are guns with special sedative ammo. They take time to put an enemy to sleep making them easy to send back to mother base or clear out an area, but they take time to kick in. Aiming towards the head should make the sedative work faster. Sometimes you can use enemy vehicles or weapons against them, or sabotage them so they can no longer use them. There are resources scattered about which can be used to craft items at your home base, and sometimes containers with a mass amount of resources but require stronger balloons to be sent back to base. You can even send back vehicles for future uses.
The Phantom Pain does have a few limitations, but it is a sandbox that let’s the player experiment. Every idea is a good idea as long as it gets you towards your goal. Maybe you have to rescue someone, eliminate a certain person or patrol group, locate a certain item, or blah blah blah. The Phantom Pain is just a good stealth game with very well put together gameplay and that’s all I have left to say. Hopefully, you can take down Skull Face and save the world once again. The silence is deafening!
Thoughts
Look, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a functional video game that can be played upon hours without end. It goes for an open world map rather than the enclosed spaces of before and allows the player to go at their own pace. What’s weird is that unlike most open worlds there aren’t that many rewards for exploring. There are side ops for the player to do, but nothing really for straying off the main path. The stealth is really good and rewards you for playing cautiously and slowly. Some players may end up ignoring the systems involving mother base, but I found them to be pretty engaging at times. Occasionally check in to see how things are going and rearrange your staff so you can improve each department. There’s an online feature that allows the player to borrow resources which is nice, because it shortens the grind by a long shot.
The graphics are pretty good even to this day. The gunplay is solid and no weapon feels clunky to aim or fire. The main thing to take away from The Phantom Pain is choice. The choice and options that stealth games should offer. Shall you blow everything up, call in a support helicopter, be a sneaky assassin, force every soldier into your army, or just go prone like every casual military game. The Phantom Pain offers a good selection of tools to allow the player to get creative. The story is the most divisive part of this game. It does have quite a few plot holes and from what I heard it’s not as good as previous entries, but I think it’s still pretty good. I like the presentation, how each scene is shot, the voice acting, and how the game makes you care about who you are and why you matter. The ending is somewhat of a weird twist and the last few story sections of the game feel rushed, but at least there is a conclusion.
There is a lot to like about The Phantom Pain, but there is also a good amount of stuff not to like. There are occasionally bosses and encounters with mutants, and a good chunk of them feel underwhelming. There is an aspect where your base can get invaded while playing online, but there aren’t that many people playing The Phantom Pain anymore so you won’t see one at all. Some conclusions with certain characters aren’t resolved that well. The last few bits of the game start recycling missions you did before. It’s both good and bad. Good because you get to relive certain missions but now they are more challenging and they have a gimmick. Bad because you have to play a certain number of them to progress. I also hope you like crawling through a one hour intro just to get to the game itself, because The Phantom Pain has started off with a slow painful burn. One detail I like is how if you headshot to many enemies they start wearing helmets on new missions or more body armor. It makes the game more challenging and forces the player to rely on other options, however they restrain you at the same time. Then there’s the story and how the gameplay doesn’t do that many interesting things. Yet, it is lovely put together and really fun to play.
It's sad of what happened to Kojima later after the game released. He had a couple of heated debates with Konami and eventually they fired him. They didn’t credit him in some of the marketing for the game and they didn’t allow him to show up for an end of the year award ceremony. From there Konami ran Metal Gear into the ground and Kojima went on to start his own studio. Right now Kojima is working on Death Stranding and I wish him the best of luck. The Phantom Pain is an absolute recommendation for stealth fans and is a mostly serviceable last entry to a legendary franchise. In the end I am giving Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain an 8.5/10 for being pretty good.
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