I actually picked back up on the game I started back when it released, and it took me a couple sessions to get back into it. Part of that was coming to the realization that running between things to do is often not a particularly effective way to tackle them. The game environment is open, but works better when not treated entirely that way. I started enjoying it a lot more when I started calling for a helicopter to pick me up more often.
Another thing I intended/tried to do was swap to playing as a different character. As has been pointed out on the internet, one can actually play through (most of) the game as any of your personnel that you can put in the Combat unit. That includes women, though pretty much all of the opposing soldiers are men (offhand, the only exceptions are Skull sniper units, and Quiet), so female recruits only come from rescues.
After making a point to do the prisoner rescue side-ops to diversify my workforce, repeating an earlier mission a few times to rank up Seething Coyote, the blonde Russian communications officer I forced to do field work… I ran into the need to be using Snake in order to trigger a side-op event. ._.
Swapping characters meant running back out to the helicopter platform, calling a chopper, getting on the chopper, “starting” a mission to let me pick the loadout (to include character), backing out of it, and restarting the side-op to land back on the platform, jump off the chopper, and run back down to Quiet’s cell.
While I’m sure there are fairly few times when Snake would be required (and that not be noted in-game), I figured it’d just be safer to swap back to using him, given how not-quick swapping characters is. It’s to Kojima Production’s credit that it’s even an option though, even if it’s not 100% “there”. There are also little things, like enemies still saying “he” when referring to you, or people still yelling “SNAAAKE” when you die, etc. Flip side, a lot of voice work was implemented that has no other purpose than letting you play as a female character.
In general though, the game just has a way of making basic actions take longer. Playing a Bethesda open world game, for example, if you want to fast-travel to a quest location, it takes seconds. In MGSV, you call a chopper, you wait for the chopper, you get on it, you take off, you get back to the mobile command center, you go back to map, pick a landing zone, wait through the animation/cutscene, and finally can jump off…and probably still have to run a little to get to your objective.
Far more immersive, but also far, far more time consuming. Ultimately, the process is quite tedious, given that the game intends for you to do it hundreds of times. Things that are less common, like checking in at different points of Mother Base, can take even longer.
We have had Metal Gear games that use the basic model, but far more concise. The PSP entries are like that, particularly Peace Walker, which is the primary game that the Phantom Pain follows up, both narratively and mechanically.
Years ago, Hideo Kojima indicated that MGSV would be more like a TV show than a movie, referencing (at least) reduced amount of cutscenes and things. He incorporated that notion into the game to a fair degree. For example, each mission has quick opening and closing credits, a fair bit of which credit in-game characters. Apparently they wanted to use an “80s action filter” for some of it, but it was too intensive for the older platforms.
I think the parallel could be taken further – the mostly-canned animations for getting on/off the helicopter, for instance, could be stock shots.
Even down to the way the story is told through the missions. As I grumbled about in the “What are you playing” thread, a fair number of missions are for fairly inconsequential stuff, at least as far as the actual game story is concerned. On considering it though, it’s comparable to what a lot of TV shows would end up like. Essentially, MGSV has two chapters, or what’d be seasons. The first, more drawn out, that’s mission 1-31 or so. The second “season” pads things out with repeats/challenge missions, but moves forward with a lot of plot development and twists in the unique episodes. Ultimately, it leaves off with open-ended plots, along with at least one big completely unresolved one, which could be a “third season” that it didn’t get renewed for.
Looking at the game from the “I wanna be a MOVIE” angle of most of the others in the series makes it seem awkward. Considering it as a two-season box set of a Diamond Dogs TV show…and it comes together more logically. I don’t think that’s a particularly unique thought (there are multiple edits on Youtube towards that end, even). Just saying, I think it actually “works” that way.
Even some of the remnants of intended plots that got reduced or dropped (which MGSV has a few of) work in that context. It makes it more interesting to look those up, or pore over the tapes (which largely replace codec conversations…it still means there’s hours of stuff to listen to though).
I’m skeptical that Kojima intended for quite all of the parallels to TV shows that are possible, as not all are positive. Still, I think the resulting game is worth spending time with. It just takes a lot more time – and more effort – to get as much out of as earlier entries basically forced on the player.
