PixlBit

Let me ask you a question: How many video game series have, outside of spin-offs, made every game feel like a true sequel? Where every game does not just add a few of tweaks, unnecessary gimmicks, or offer nothing other than more of the same, but provides a strong, natural evolution to the previous entry? Very few fit that bill and if you factor in games which have existed for over twenty years, you are left only with Metal Gear.

For all of the controversies which exist in the franchise, ever since the original Metal Gear, every entry directed by series creator Hideo Kojima has a reason to exist outside the usual milking of what’s popular, both in story and gameplay. Many Metal Gear games have stories with similar setups of terrorists using nuclear weapons, yet always explore their own unique aspects of war with their own unique themes. Meanwhile, the gameplay front has addressed previous complaints and taken full advantage of new, more powerful hardware whenever possible until Kojima Productions has refined it to The Phantom Pain’s near perfection.

Why the series is unique in this aspect is no secret either, as everything that makes Metal Gear what it equates to one common factor: Series director Hideo Kojima. While not perfect as a writer or a game developer, one cannot deny how much of an impact his works have made onto the video game medium. It is because of this that his departure from Konami before The Phantom Pain’s completion is so very apparent.

The story of the title may touch on quite a few very deep themes, such as the effect of war on children, the nature of the Cold War, and the impact of varying importance between spoken languages on the individual and world, yet fails to tell the usual engaging, escalating plot. The story simply meanders around, concludes, then meanders again before ending on a cliffhanger. In my seventy-five hours with the game, there were various rehashed missions with a challenging twist or filler main missions which could have been side quests with how they have no impact on the story that I find the decision to cut the game’s ending of all things to be extraordinarily baffling.

In any other Metal Gear game, this choice would be the kiss of death, yet what saved The Phantom Pain from being too hurt by its lack of finality is ironically the apathy towards the overall story. Because of how the story is told, many plot twists and ties to other Metal Gear entries take what could have been jaw dropping sequences and instead barely had enough of an impact to make my eyebrows raise. The game offers plenty of content with exactly fifty story missions, yet maybe a dozen of these actually advance the plot. When these story missions often take well over an hour to complete, it is hard to feel involved in the plot of the game.

Yet on the flip side, the ending given at mission 31 would have been a perfectly satisfying conclusion without too much gameplay cut either since over half twenty chapters following are only more challenging versions of prior missions, without any unique cutscenes or even removal of past cutscenes or story points to make these fit into where the plot currently is. Weaving these into what little plot the game dishes out after made me do what I thought was impossible before: Made me care even less about the game’s story. For a series which has made story such a huge part of its appeal, The Phantom Pain makes quite the effort removing any sort of attachment to Kojima’s final Metal Gear tale.

While this should equate to the series jumping the shark even in the eyes of fans who adore Metal Gear Solid 2 or 4 (which I am not saying are objectively bad, but divisive for a reason), fortunately Metal Gear has never been a movie despite countless jokes to the contrary. It has always been a video game. And quite the video game at that, as put in a vacuum, this is could possibly be my favorite take on both stealth and open world gameplay, a blend I have been hopefully skeptical on from the start.

The Phantom Pain includes two very sizable worlds in Afghanistan and Africa, each offering the level design expected in a linear game. No matter what enemy outpost or base I was infiltrating, there were many common elements present: Vantage points to plan my attack, countless options in execution, and a design to the area which offers challenge, yet does not feel unfair. Even the areas I encountered which initially felt unfair had me eventually come upon an epiphany that fighting harder was not the solution, fighting smarter was.

By fighting smarter, I mean looking at all the options I have. An enemy covered in armor could be shot in the very small, hard to hit sweet spot, or you could drop a crate full of supplies onto the guard. A convoy could be met with a tank, or a smart placement of C4 and land mines could be more effective. Taking out a jeep could be accomplished with a missile launcher, but it also could be taken out by laying an unconscious body in its path followed by tranquilizing the drivers and launching them all up to your base via Fulton.

Which brings me to the Fulton. A gameplay element introduced in Peace Walker, these balloons initially allow you to capture enemy soldiers who will then work for you, whose output will come in supplies, deployment missions, and new weapons and items to research. As the Fulton is further upgraded, it allows the transport of turrets, vehicles, and giant containers full of resources. This is an incredibly addicting mechanic, employing the addicting nature of collecting, yet without a limit on how many enemies and items you can employ, it removes that nagging completionism feeling present in many collect-a-thon platformers. The rush given whenever I’d Fulton everyone and everything I could find in an enemy base never went away, remaining one of the most addicting mechanics I have encountered my dozens of hours playing.

This is helped by how what you Fulton gives you real, tangible benefits. While many other open world games give you plenty of useless or near useless items which only end up cluttering your inventory until you sell them, everything in The Phantom Pain is worth collecting. Enemy soldiers will be sent to your combat, research, base development, support, intel, or medical unit, each with its own purpose. Research, for instance, allows for the development of new weapons and items while intel will add more information onto your map. While not all units are created equal, each is important enough that I would take some high risks to Fulton a soldier with a high enough skill in any field.

Resources meanwhile allow you to bring higher grade items when dropped for a mission or requesting a supply drop, as well as upgrade your units at Mother Base to allow for more staff to work there with a higher productivity. This provides valuable short term and long term benefits, making these valuable. Finally, vehicles can be employed on missions while turrets can be used as defense from other players invading your base to take resources, a feature which fortunately is employed so other players will ignore you unless you decide to invade other enemy bases.

Meanwhile, the game manages to make getting discovered remain fun, a rare feat in the stealth genre. Sometimes it would require getting my hands dirty and start gunning down enemies in a firefight. Other times I would take a vehicle present and get in an epic unscripted car chase after completing my objective. The Phantom Pain is based on chaos theory, as any slight difference in approach or execution causes wildly different outcomes, resulting in gameplay which never grows stale.

Even the aforementioned challenge missions which drastically hurt the story do result in a net positive overall. By not allowing you to get caught, removing all of your equipment, or simply upping the challenge, these challenge missions are a blast to play through and took everything I had to accomplish finishing them. The game smartly makes its three best boss fights part of this as well. The bosses overall are about the same number Metal Gear Solid 4, yet because of the very long length, feel too few and far between. The only other only fault I could find in terms of gameplay lie in how the context sensitive buttons sometimes could make you pick up the wrong item or climb when you mean to operate a turret, yet these instances are uncommon enough to not be a serious issue.

On the online side, the game employs a mere three modes and five maps; yet what Metal Gear Online lacks in content, it makes up for in depth. The high volume of different outcomes present in the main game returns here, which combined with twelve people making their own decisions in a match, results in an online game that manages to stay fresh. While not all the items given via leveling up are balanced (active camo making you near invisible in particular creates a high barrier to newcomers vs veterans), the online mode remained intense and fun.

The modes meanwhile do a great job of feeling different from one another. These can best be described as guard vs guard (standard deathmatch), guard vs infiltrator (capture the flag), and infiltrator vs infiltrator (hide and seek where the first team to spot an enemy wins). Of these, the capture the flag mode was by far my favorite, as taking out guards looking for you or sneaking past them to take the data disc gave a nice contrast to the other round of searching for infiltrators and staying on alert. Combine this with three wildly different classes (long range, mid-range, and short range) and Metal Gear Online provides plenty of reasons to keep coming back.

While The Phantom Pain is in many ways a disappointment for Metal Gear fans and has its fair share of flaws, its merits make this an absolute must play for stealth fans. I just have a nagging feeling that what could have been a landmark in video game history will instead be reduced to one of the best games of 2015 and possibly the high point of modern open world games. Which is great feat in and of itself, yet the traces of missed potential are still there and hit hard.