Metal Gear V - The Phantom Pain - Spoilers Ahead

that scar on Del Toro's head, looks like he's had brain surgery. this looks like it's going to be insane.

i've gone back to playing this after beating Survive. Survive was fun but the end game is exactly the same as the regular game.

really still amazed at how well put together MGSV is. Kojima was given several impossible tasks:

- create an origin story for somebody who already has 3 origin story games (MGS3, PO, PW)
- create an interesting ending to that story while keeping in mind everybody already knows how it ends since the first Metal Gear
- tell origin stories for all the later MGS-era characters
- connect the Big Boss games to the Solid Snake games (technologically the series loops in on itself. imagine making a brand new HD Mario with a story that ends at the start of Super Mario Bros.)
- do all this while watching the axe fall in slow motion (in fact the axe cut off a limb (GZ) and was ready to fall again)

it makes sense that the second half of MGSV is new game+, concerned with doing missions, FOB defense, etc. after the intro starting in 1984 there really aren't many allusions to the time period, so it all takes place over the following decade (which would put it square up against MG in the timeline). from the start the whole game is about building up your base, recruiting the worst private mercs and warlords to be in your personal army. in effect you are literally building up the main bad guy's army in the first Metal Gear, single-handedly, one soldier at a time.

i really like how the "Shining Lights, Even in Dark" mission parallels the first hospital prologue. both are the linear story based missions in the game. both directly lead into the opening/ending of the game. in the intro, it is a trial by fire, survival is the name of the game, from the perspective of a wounded soldier. in the "Shining Lights", you have completed the transformation to villain by killing your own soldiers in order to hold onto your WMDs. it is now the perspective of the commander, the solider's lives are there for your disposal.

honestly can't imagine why people think the story is unfinished or they never showed Big Boss as a bad guy. they do all of that but they do it even one better: Big Boss doesn't simply corrupt himself, he takes a wounded soldier (a medic! - symbolism!!!) and transforms him into a power hungry killer. brilliant.

anyways, just thoughts, triggered by still seeing the "unfinished" complaint (which reads more and more like outsized gamer entitlement) on the webs.