Is Metal Gear : Phantom Pain Worth it

My friend texted me a few hours ago, asking if he should get Metal Gear : Phantom Pain. He likes stealth games, and has a PS4.

The only thing I know about this game is that Hideo Kojima left the company during the developement of this game, so the story suffered from that. But I was wondering if I should recommend the game to him or not.

The story is quite thin, but the core stealth gameplay is really really good.

I'd recommend it, especially since it's around $20 or less nowadays.

From what I've seen the gameplay looks incredible. I haven't played it myself though.

Short answer is: worth it.

Really, go for it its amazing. The gameplay alone makes this worth a buy. If you are looking for story well its there, not a lot but its there.

the story, base building / maintenance and occasional repetitive nature of the game are the detractors but, as others have already said, the core stealth gameplay is just so good that it's definitely worth a purchase, particularly for a stealth fan

Gameplay = good

Story = Bad

It's my least favorite of all the main MGS games, but it's still good, sort of. Certainly overrated.

MGS/ MGS3 are the best. MGS4 is also worth playing but can be tedious due to it going over the top with cinematics. Has its moments though_

MGS2 and MGS5 are awkward entries. MGS2 gets pretty mediocre after the Fatman boss encounter. But has better variety and consistency than MGS5.

I got it for 6 euros some time ago. As others have said, the stealth in MGS5 is great. But there's so much to do in this game (open-world activities, base building and management) that I lost my initial interest after 20 hours (this game is really long) and haven't played it since. Maybe I'll get back to it at some point.

For 5 bucks? Sure. It's a deeply, deeply, deeply flawed game with barely any story or content, but they throw it at you for pennies these days, so why not?

Yw

Yeah I heard that Metal Gear : Phantom Pain is notorious for focusing too much on gameplay and not story. No one in the character looks too interesting. They even made that "Quiet" character wearing only a bikini to make people get horny while playing the game. But on a serious note I also know about some of the rinse and repeat missions, but I think every game has that to some degree.

Sold for me. Just because it's only $20 nowadays

@rockstargamer48: Wouldn't really over praise the gameplay in MGSV either. Has the advantages of being in a slick and more advance engine but the open world design of the game is poorly done and creates a lot of exploits within the mission structure.

Level design for open world games needs to be built around very particular mechanics designed for the use of wider areas, and for MGSV, it's not.

MGSV gameplay is basically an updated mix of Peacewalker and MGSIV with worse thought-out level design for the A.I and functions given to the player.

If anything its a case that many developers/ publishers at the time thought openworld/=/better. . Without thinking to make a game fit the actual gameplay mechanics with its level design.

You know I'm kind of confused a tad. When you look at a game like Red Dead 2 with such high praise the actual missions are pretty linear. But then when you look at missions from Metal Gear : Phantom Pain with completely open-ended mission structure, people say that all the missions are too similar. Just seems like it's tough for developers to make missions too open-ended, with no narrative in them. If your missions are too open-ended then you'll have too many missions saying (Go to point B, Kill a bunch of people there, retrieve reward and return to point A) seem like a pretty average mission structure. But then if the game has too many structured missions then it falls apart. So I'm guessing a balance of both mission types would be best.

Again samething, that the missions are too open-ended killing any narrative or motivations. But to me in Red Dead 2 the game sort of needs the structured missions since the game is so narrative based. If the missions are to open-ended then it kills off any sort of narrative. Plus in Red Dead 2 it feels like there's a reason for lots of the missions. I'm not sure how mission-design should be to be honest. If there are open-ended missions then they are considered as filler missions.

It's tough to design missions to have a narrative, and include features from the open world. I guess in Rockstar's mind their intention for missions is that players want a decent storyline/narrative so their missions reflect that. Then in Just Cause 4 the missions are pretty open-ended, so the story ends up not mattering to the core game much.

It's a fun enough game. Open-world stealth? Hell yeah it's pretty good.

You make it sound like the story was good to begin with. It's not.

"Convoluted" and "needlessly dramatic like a bad soap opera" come to mind. It's entertaining, sure, but let's not make it out to be anything other than that.

I got a little into it but never even bothered to finish it but Imay need to go back and do that now.

Play it for the main missions. don't play it for free roam since free roam is awful.(And bores you from the game itself and prevent you to enjoy the story missions the way you should enjoy)

@rockstargamer48:

"They even made that "Quiet" character wearing only a bikini to make people get horny while playing the game."

- The reason for this was incredibly stupid! It's because her body is like a plant and she needs to breathe through every pore of her body. Wearing too much clothes literally suffocates her! LOL ?

When I heard that, I was like, "REALLY, KOJIMA??" ? But if it keeps the guys interested in it then what do I care, right?

@rockstargamer48:

that the missions are too open-ended killing any narrative or motivations.

I personally don't agree with that, open world can work for level motivation if the developer knows to make a game built around that kind of level design. They can set up the games progression structure to its concepts. MGSV doesn't do that because the options was essentially built for linear maps_

While for the most part I prefer linear games 'so it can take full advantage of mixing level design with complex control mechanics' open world also has a few advantages. And even with Bethesdas recent fall I believe (at least once) they along with RockStar have a good grasp of what works for really large maps/ open world. I also think FPS games benefit from more open and expansive level design_

Would prefer not to go into Red Dead Redemption 2, that's been discussed enough on the board with very mixed and passionate reactions. Simply put, I think they gave open world fans exactly what they should expect.

it's not quite as black and white as that unfortunately. mgsv's missions are open ended but that's not why people say it's repetitive, it's more because of the game's overarching formulaic nature.

just about every mission has you start at motherbase, pick your weapon / sidekick loadout, get transported via helicopter to drop zone with unskippable cut scene (i assume it's a loading screen replacement), exit helicopter, travel to target location, scout out a base, stealth in, stealth out, call the helicopter, back to base.

and it's an extremely long game, so you'll do this a lot.

then there's the large volume of side mission content which revolves around going back to locations you've already visited and recycling similar mission goals - rescue a soldier, collect a blueprint etc.

but despite that formulaic nature, when i compare it to other games of similar length with that amount of side content e.g. any ubisoft opem world game, i'd much rather play a game like mgsv that gives me freedom to play in whatever style i choose, than a game that limits me to one particular style or has puddle deep mechanics (there's a huge gulf in the depth of stealth mechanics between assassin's creed compared to mgsv, for example)