Board 8 > Rate the VG Story Day 211: Metal Gear Solid V

(+) Yeah! (+)

Today we will rate the two parts of Metal Gear Solid V separately. That is:

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

How would you rate the story on a scale from 1-10?

You can still rate previous days games if you missed them, just write <game name><rating>. If you want to change your rating you can just specify that you are changing your rating. Nominations for future days are also welcome, nominate as many games as you like and I will get to all of them.

Previous Results:
Planescape: Torment - 9.85 (13 votes)
Clannad - 9.75 (4 votes)
Omori - 9.67 (6 votes)
Outer Wilds - 9.61 (22 votes)
Silent Hill 2 - 9.5 (20 votes)
Higurashi When They Cry - 9.5 (9 votes)
Deus Ex - 9.32 (12 votes)
428: Shibuya Scramble - 9.27 (9 votes)
Nier Automata - 9.25 (31 votes)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC - 9.2 (20 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations - 9.19 (35 votes)
Last Window: The Secret of Cape West - 9.15 (10 votes)
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - 9.1 (14 votes)
The House in Fata Morgana - 9.06 (11 votes)
Yakuza 0 - 9.03 (13 votes)
Red Dead Redemption 2 - 9 (8 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - 8.95 (31 votes)
Steins;Gate - 8.94 (9 votes)
Mother 3 - 8.91 (15 votes)
Umineko When They Cry - 8.89 (14 votes)
Zero Escape: Virtues Last Reward - 8.88 (21 votes)
Return of the Obra Dinn - 8.85 (10 votes)
Silent Hill 4: The Room - 8.83 (6 votes)
Suikoden II - 8.8 (11 votes)
Persona 3 - 8.76 (22 votes)
Grim Fandango - 8.75 (14 votes)
Xenogears - 8.73 (24 votes)
AI: The Somnium Files - 8.73 (12 votes)
Tales of Berseria - 8.71 (15 votes)
Final Fantasy Tactics - 8.67 (27 votes)
Metal Gear Solid - 8.67 (28 votes)
Pyre - 8.64 (7 votes)
Portal 2 - 8.64 (19 votes)
Bastion - 8.63 (12 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 8.63 (32 votes)
Dragon Quest V - 8.6 (15 votes)
The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask - 8.57 (28 votes)
Persona 4 - 8.56 (32 votes)
Disco Elysium - 8.56 (17 votes)
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - 8.53 (18 votes)
Fate/Stay Night - 8.48 (12 votes)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - 8.47 (16 votes)
Undertale - 8.45 (42 votes)
Mass Effect 2 - 8.44 (29 votes)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd - 8.42 (12 votes)
What Remains of Edith Finch - 8.41 (19 votes)
Chrono Trigger - 8.4 (41 votes)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon - 8.4 (5 votes)
Snatcher - 8.33 (6 votes)
Final Fantasy X - 8.31 (56 votes)
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door - 8.31 (17 votes)
Final Fantasy VII - 8.29 (38 votes)
South Park: The Stick of Truth - 8.25 (18 votes)
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus - 8.23 (6 votes)
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 8.21 (19 votes)
Parasite Eve - 8.19 (9 votes)
Dragon Quest XI - 8.19 (17 votes)
Final Fantasy VI - 8.19 (43 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - 8.19 (43 votes)
The Walking Dead Season 1 - 8.16 (22 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies - 8.15 (17 votes)
Wolfenstein: The New Order - 8.14 (7 votes)
The Last of Us - 8.13 (35 votes)
Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals - 8.11 (9 votes)
The Wolf Among Us - 8.11 (15 votes)
Horizon: Zero Dawn - 8.06 (18 votes)
Silent Hill - 8.04 (14 votes)
Portal - 8 (26 votes)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky - 8 (18 votes)
Xenoblade Chronicles - 7.98 (28 votes)
Hades - 7.96 (22 votes)
Tsukihime - 7.94 (7 votes)
Persona 5 - 7.92 (27 votes)
Life is Strange - 7.92 (32 votes)
Spec Ops: The Line - 7.9 (17 votes)
Bloodborne - 7.88 (20 votes)
Kid Icarus: Uprising - 7.86 (13 votes)
Psychonauts - 7.79 (7 votes)
Deadly Premonition - 7.77 (11 votes)
Final Fantasy IX - 7.77 (26 votes)
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn - 7.75 (14 votes)
Silent Hill 3 - 7.75 (8 votes)
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future - 7.75 (6 votes)
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - 7.75 (4 votes)
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors - 7.73 (32 votes)
The Sexy Brutale - 7.7 (5 votes)
Bioshock - 7.65 (24 votes)
Skies of Arcadia - 7.63 (15 votes)
Doki Doki Literature Club - 7.61 (28 votes)
Celeste - 7.56 (26 votes)
Half-Life 2 - 7.55 (10 votes)
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair - 7.51 (31 votes)
The Last Story - 7.47 (6 votes)
Mortal Kombat (2011) - 7.46 (13 votes)
Marvels Spider-Man - 7.43 (16 votes)
Tales of Symphonia - 7.42 (30 votes)
Earthbound - 7.37 (20 votes)
Mass Effect - 7.33 (29 votes)
Batman: Arkham Asylum - 7.33 (23 votes)
Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma - 7.27 (20 votes)
Tales of the Abyss - 7.25 (29 votes)
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 - 7.25 (12 votes)
Red Dead Redemption - 7.23 (11 votes)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - 7.21 (30 votes)
Resident Evil 4 - 7.19 (25 votes)
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony - 7.17 (25 votes)
Mass Effect 3 - 7.16 (21 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots - 7.11 (23 votes)
The Stanley Parable - 7.11 (14 votes)
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - 7.1 (30 votes)
Broken Age - 7.1 (5 votes)
The Last of Us Part II - 7.09 (16 votes)
To the Moon - 7.07 (7 votes)
INSIDE - 7.06 (16 votes)
Warcraft III (overall) - 7.06 (8 votes)
Assassins Creed II - 7.04 (13 votes)
Final Fantasy VIII - 7.01 (31 votes)
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - 7 (6 votes)

Unfinished.

3

Ground Zeroes - 6

Super short but as a set up for the full MGSV, it does the job.

Phantom Pain - 4

Blatantly unfinished, and I mostly only remember the laughable parts (WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)

(Only played Phantom Pain)
Yes it's obviously unfinished, but its problems run much deeper than that. Pretty much everything that is here is a complete mess, the cast is uncharacteristically boring for this series, and even by MGS standards it's difficult to enjoy some of the more absurd plot beats. More time wouldn't have fixed this, I had a great deal of fun playing this game but the story is not the reason why.

That said, there are a couple of bits I like. As much as I hate every time Huey is on screen, his arc is the only one that I feel gets a satisfying conclusion, and thematically it's strong. I also like A Quiet Exit, as nonsensical as it may be. Let's say uhhh 3/10 for TPP.

Nominate Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling

Sort of unfinished, but not like in an FFXV way.

6/10 because I like mgs babble even at its worst

I would honestly argue that as much of a mess as FFXV is it still manages to end up feeling like a more "complete" story than MGSV.

4/10

fittingly enough, let's give them both 5's

ground zeroes is such an aggressively dark tonal shift from peace walker. it works better as the "tanker chapter" of phantom pain, and not at all as its own narrative/story in my opinion. the torture porn is completely unnecessary, but I'm generally down with the idea of skullface/xof/zero/big boss origin story.

there are certainly major issues with phantom pain (skullface's characterization, the sexy zombie women, code-talker, the parasites) but I'd be willing to forgive most of them if the game was actually finished. even then though the game's over-reliance on tapes and the weird mission-based structure would prevent it from getting a higher score.

Xiahou Shake posted...

I would honestly argue that as much of a mess as FFXV is it still manages to end up feeling like a more "complete" story than MGSV.

I guess because MGSV just has less story in the first place, it feels less incomplete to me as well. There aren't a ton of crazy plot points and twists that happen offscreen and stuff. The story (MGSV) just doesn't really go anywhere.

Yeah, I would say that FFXV feels rushed but "complete." Meanwhile, MGSV is simply missing an ending act.

MGSV feels more incomplete because it has no ending. FFXV at least has an ending.

Ground Zeroes - 5/10

It has a beginning, middle, and end.

The Phantom Pain - 2.5/10

It demolishes all sense of character and personality the series has had up to this point. It's blatantly unfinished and repetitive with little to no depth. I too also hate the language virus. It has fanservice in all the wrong spots. It's completely miserable on practically all accounts.

In other words:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzcKJVtgaNA

Phantom Pain: 6/10

Lot of wasted opportunity here. There were some interesting concepts at play, but nothing got the development or conclusion they deserved.

Up.

I literally finally just finished this last night almost at the same time as you posting this what timing. I was gonna make a topic about it once I had listened to the final cassette tapes you receive. Probably still will.

Most of what feels unfinished in the game is in the gameplay department, such as repeated missions. I think it's incorrect saying that the game doesn't have an ending, though I can accept it not being the kind of ending you would want from a game like this. The reveal was definitely intended to be the ending.

I thought it was very good and did basically everything it was supposed to do. People wanted a fifth game mainline game but I don't view it as such. It does however have an overuse of cassette tapes, I don't mind them for many of the smaller things, but a lot of big things are only spoken through those and that's a shame. Ground Zeroes is an offender here too, you have to complete the side-ops to fully learn everything from the tapes there. Otherwise, it's a perfectly executed set-up.

Ground Zeroes - 9
Phantom Pain - 9

Whooooooooo

8 for both

8 for both.

Nah, the cut final mission was supposed to be the ending.

Nominate Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

4

Very disappointed that I didn't get what was advertised as Big Boss' descent to madness and what turned him into the villain that we see in Metal Gear 1 and 2. Instead we got fragments of a storyline that was just there and a cheap twist in the ending just to cover up a game that was clearly unfinished after Kojima's falling out with Konami. Big Boss or more like Venom Snake barely had any personality and felt like it was a huge waste and a missed opportunity for Kiefer Sutherland. Ocelot also felt like he was a completely different character from what we see in MGS3 and his older self from MGS1.

There are certainly interesting elements to the story and the template was there for what could have been a great MGS story alongside its fantastic gameplay. The game was just unfinished and we ended up getting a shadow of something that could have been truly special.

This is gonna be the biggest what if in video games for me for a long long time.

Leonhart4 posted...

Nah, the cut final mission was supposed to be the ending.

I guess, but I think other scenes function as fine endings, it's just weird that they're not the final missions. I could easily see the Eli plotline just being pushed to a different game, it's not like phantom pain was leading up to that cut mission. The Venom Snake twist and the outbreak sequence with your base lands well.

FFXV had way more to say, and told less of it. Only the final bros campfire really works in the ending.

I think MGSV deliberately saying little (epitomized by Kiefer Sutherland's startling lack of dialogue) is worse than FFXV not saying as much as it wanted or could have said because MGS fans did not enter into that game with the expectation of the game saying so little.

It took user SaveEstelle about 10 missions to realize he wanted nothing more to do with the game because he saw how much of a nothing burger it was, and he may have made the right choice as opposed to me, who held out hope there would eventually be a satisfying payoff.

It's absolutely wild looking at how silent and borderline nonexistent Kiefer's character is compared to Norman Reedus in Death Stranding

Xiahou Shake posted...

Norman Reedus in Death Stranding

Heeyyyyyy!!!! I'm Sam!!!! Anybody hear me????

The Sutherland thing is one of most pointless casting in video game history indeed.

Leonhart4 posted...

Nah, the cut final mission was supposed to be the ending.

Well yeah, at some point for sure, but for whatever reason those plans were changed and something was made to be the ending.

Though I fully accept that it would not be the ending that everyone would have liked.

Speaking about the cut content, this is what was removed:

https://youtu.be/SxgH4I_6d0Q

It is the ending of that storyline but the ending of the final game is the actual ending of the story both chronologically and in terms of how it wraps back around to the original Metal Gear. Now what I linked was included in some versions of the game and is freely available do frankly, in terms of story I dont see why we cant incorporate it as is. After all, Mass Effect 3 shipped with about 65% of its eventual story so it seems fine to me.

Anyway

Ground Zeroes: 2.

This is the absolute bare minimum in storytelling made worse by its gross treatment of Paz. I sometimes see that defended as well its just showing the realities of torture which is fine in some contexts but vagina bomb does not qualify for that defence. To say nothing of the huge tonal problems that stuff like this brings about, the grimdark stuff just comes off as tryhard and the goofy stuff just seems to diminish the weight of the rest of the story due to how serious it is this time.

The Phantom Pain: 6.

This was a lot better. There is a good amount of missing story content and bizarre pacing, but it satisfactorily brings the series full circle and brings back a lot of the more thoughtful social and political commentary that was missing from 4 and Ground Zeroes. The character work is also great - with the exception of Skullface who is just an awful villain. He is so bad that when this game was new I dedicated an entire topic to how ludicrous his plan was. I think the broader story survives though as it is not really about him. The twist was also effective despite the fact that there is no lead up to it at all and it is just given to you.

In conclusion,

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/7/9/AAEfmDAACzN_.jpg

Lightning Strikes posted...

Now what I linked was included in some versions of the game and is freely available do frankly, in terms of story I dont see why we cant incorporate it as is. After all, Mass Effect 3 shipped with about 65% of its eventual story so it seems fine to me.

because there's a difference between "some versions of the game had some form of it" and planned DLC

like yeah the way ME3 did it kinda sucked but it's not the same thing

Yes its crappy and they should have just let you view those scenes in the main game. However, Mass Effect 3 was missing a lot more in terms of important story content than either MGSV or FFXV, the difference is that Mass Effect 3 actually got that stuff added in eventually!

Also Im just going to count the non-specified votes as votes for The Phantom Pain since thats what they seem to be. Let me know if thats wrong!

I actually love Skullface's voice acting/voice actor (admittedly, such a lust for revenge whoooo is a bad read). It's just his character overall that kind of sucks

Well, the difference is that ME3 planned to add those things all along (well, except for the Extended Cut, I guess). Like, if you want to make plain ME3 its own rating topic, you can and ill punish it for not having the DLC in it! But I don't count MGSV's aborted final arc any more than I would count a movie's deleted scenes. They aren't part of the final product and they aren't finished.

To be clear I think the nature of video games means you just need to let people count their own experiences with it, so I will allow somebody who had only played base ME3 and somebody who played the game with all the DLC to both rate it. You cant account for that. Similarly if you feel that cut content counts or does not count thats fine! It is just part of the subjective rating process. Its still accessible content so its alright to think about it, but also it is not in the actual main game so its alright to not think about it.

Yeah, I'm not saying people can or can't count it. I just don't think the two situations are equal.

Lightning Strikes posted...

The twist was also effective despite the fact that there is no lead up to it at all and it is just given to you.

Well it does actually but mostly through tapes.

After you see it!

No, I think heavily implied by Eli's DNA tests not matching those of Snake, but it's basically confirmed to be Liquid at that point.