Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a great game, easily GOTY so far, but it's a horrible Metal Gear game.

The game prioritizes it's gameplay over story, and the gameplay is FANTASTIC, the most fun I've had with a game in years, but Metal Gear has always been about story. While there are a good number of high points, the story is very lacking compared to the other Metal Gear games, with a majority of MAIN MISSIONS simply being "go here and do this" with no relation to the plot at all.

Among the metric ton of cut content caused by Kojima being fired from Konami mid-development is the game's true ending. After the first ending, you start "Chapter 2", which was supposed to wrap things up and make the entire Metal Gear timeline come full circle. Instead, only 7 of the 20 missions in Chapter 2 are new, and the other 13 missions are just replays of previous missions with modifers to make them harder, such as failing instantly on detection. Going back and watching the trailers, there are scenes in the E3 2013 and E3 2014 trailers that appear NOWHERE in the game. There was supposed to be 3 "Chapters" but instead we essentialy got one and a half. Chapter 1 is 30 missions long, and Chapter 2 is 7 missions long. The true ending is available on YouTube since it was included as a video in the console-only Collectors Edition of the game.

The gameplay is amazing and replay value is extremely high. At 80 hours, I only have 60 percent completion. There is a lot to do. It's definitely GOTY for me, but The Phantom Pain has unfortunately failed to dethrone Snake Eater as the best Metal Gear.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a great game, easily GOTY so far, but it's a horrible Metal Gear game. The game prioritizes it's gameplay over story, and the gameplay is FANTASTIC, the most fun I've had with a game in years, but Metal Gear has always been about story. While there are a good number of high points, the story is very lacking compared to the other Metal Gear games, with a majority of MAIN MISSIONS simply being "go here and do this" with no relation to the plot at all. Among the metric ton of cut content caused by Kojima being fired from Konami mid-development is the game's true ending. After the first ending, you start "Chapter 2", which was supposed to wrap things up and make the entire Metal Gear timeline come full circle. Instead, only 7 of the 20 missions in Chapter 2 are new, and the other 13 missions are just replays of previous missions with modifers to make them harder, such as failing instantly on detection. Going back and watching the trailers, there are scenes in the E3 2013 and E3 2014 trailers that appear NOWHERE in the game. There was supposed to be 3 "Chapters" but instead we essentialy got one and a half. Chapter 1 is 30 missions long, and Chapter 2 is 7 missions long. The true ending is available on YouTube since it was included as a video in the console-only Collectors Edition of the game. The gameplay is amazing and replay value is extremely high. At 80 hours, I only have 60 percent completion. There is a lot to do. It's definitely GOTY for me, but The Phantom Pain has unfortunately failed to dethrone Snake Eater as the best Metal Gear.