Critics said it is a masterpiece, it being actual a 2015 GOTY contender, Angry Joe also gave it a 9, Metacritic score is ~90 for reviewers and ~80 for users, then spawned tons of memes and shown on Youtube all the time, and I did think, believe that it be like that. So how the hell did it come to this? A Not Recommendation!!!?

Because THEY PLAYED US LIKE A D@MN FIDDLE!

There is so many, perhaps too many things I want to talk about how messy Phantom Pain is, but I will just focus on the main disdain points I had with it.

Skull Face, such super cool voice he has, such intimidating he looks, such dangerous the way he schemes things, even has the background considering him to be the Shadow versus the Light of Big Boss Snake, all of these should make him an epic antagonist, perhaps might surpass Ocelot too, right? RIGHT? only then to be shot a like dog on the street. I admitted every encounter with him is freaking chilling and hype, only to be let down with plot armor “I am the boss, can easily finish you, but I’ll just let the other cool guys do it instead so that you can escape and we will have the next conversation similar to this… or till I got PK by another. Too late Snake!”

Okay the main antagonist is wasted, who else can I chat to? Miller? Nope, only mission briefing. Ocelot? Nope, only boring and repetitive codec talk. Quiet? Feel free to watch her booty while showering but that is all, and her department is total unnecessary and pointless. Huey? That is the last person you would ever want to face. Aside from the cool cutscenes randomly appear you won’t get to talk to anyone or anymore.

To summarize, MGSV:PP has the weakest plot in the entire series.

Okay what about the classic codec talk? We should get insight on the locations, events, side quirky stuffs to aid the missions, right? “A Soviet soldier... A lot of them came from Central Asia before, but lately they've been using more and more Russians.”. Then A Soviet soldier... A lot of them came from Central Asia before, but lately they've been using more and more Russians. Sure there are lot of tapes, but it’s just hearing, not active talking about something, with genuine reactions. And I doubt Kojima hired Kiefer just to say a few lines and a few grunts.

Now to the missions and stealth gameplay, the stealth play is superb, smooth, flexible, allows for variety of playstyle, the mission area designs are open enough for multiple entries and covers, yet the mission variety is lacking – ranging from capture/rescue prisoners, neutralize/eliminate/destroy certain targets, retrieve intel and equipment. There are side-tasks for you to revisit, though just extend on the previous or escape via certain ways, nevertheless, you must do them all anyway if wanted to see the true ending, plus it is the only good way to increase funds. But if you are not satisfied enough with those tasks, here is another 150+ side-ops doing the same thing over and over again – capture/rescue heavy armored/”highly-skilled” soldiers/prisoners, eliminate tanks and troops, and the f*** helicopter requiring you to go loud always without alternative silent method, two new minor tasks which are disarming mines and capture wandering soldiers. Devs tried to be clever by turning some side-ops into main ones, but the surprise wouldn’t last long. In the end, as the game is extremely incomplete, they forced you to REPLAY the past missions, but with higher difficulties, and slap the title chapter 2. From there on the cutscenes, the plot went out of order making it a mess to comprehend what just happened, and how.

Talking boss fights, remember how unique the fight was each time you face the Fear, the Fury, Ocelot, Volgin and more in MGS3? Or the sleek Vamp, Fatman, pure swordfight with Solidus and even a freaking fighting Jet in MGS2? Let see what we got in MGSV:PP – yes there is jet fight which is a cutscene only, one sniper fight with Quiet, two encounters with the Skulls (one is totally optional), another one with but armored this time, then another sniper fight with 4 skull girls, and lastly metal gear Sahelanthropus. Thus 5 boss fights in total, and 3 of them are just facing Skulls. And what is the general experience of fighting these Skulls you ask? Shoot and run nonstop! Shoot as you want to deplete their HPs as fast as possible, run as they can just teleport jump around your location with precise, leaving much less room to even think of a proper strategy. Indeed, you can stealthily snipe the Skull snipers, but it is about sitting in one place, using thermal and binocular to pinpoint their locations, then shoot one of them, wait till they recover and relocate their positions, repeat. Because it is way riskier trying to sneak around from cover to cover, as they just automatically pinpoint you regardless of slow crawling, camouflage costume matching the environment you are in, and at foggy night!

The whole base building is pointless and empty. Getting all 7 departments upgraded to the fullest (and costing real-life time) only to realize they are just giant structures of nothing, as there are no facilities you can enter/interact with, you can’t find core characters like Ocelot, Miller to chat, or even DD to pet him more properly while he was young. Yes there are a few things to collect, but just suitcases containing emblem and some diamonds. There is target practice minigame, but it gets boring too quick. And traversing between bases is long, tedious both by air and by land, it is better to use box teleportation.

Nevertheless, if you want to get better gears and gadgets, you must upgrade and scout higher rank staffs, and this severely affects your variety of playstyle said above, mainly you must stick with non-lethal all the time, fulton-ing a lot and a lot of soldiers whether you like it or not. Therefore, almost every mission turns into neutralize everything in the first half just so you can up your base decently. Ironically, the amount of non-lethal tools and gears is too limited, yet the amount of AK, M4A1, heavy machine guns is too many, yet you won’t be using them anyway because of high deployment cost. There do be one mission helps you to grind S rank soldiers, but you will need certain tools to make it efficient and quick everytime -> grind to get them first. Still, the game loves to point middle finger towards your capturing efforts, by having scenario that gets many of your high rank staffs killed… TWICE! BECAUSE F*CK YOU CAPTURE THEM AGAIN!.

By this point, you already got so tired of the game, the playtime is already too bloated, just want to 100% and quit forever, don’t even have any mood left in trying out different things, unless you are so obsessed with it. And no, I don’t want to do anything related to MGO.

Quick on others - open world maps are barren, full of outposts choking the traveling, fast-travel by box always put you in clear detection range, heli can’t travel from one point to another without going back to air intermission, can’t skip heli intro unless you start mission on ground, animals capture is non-existent and pointless, and more.

One last thing, yes Fox Engine is truly a spectacle, solid performance and stunning visuals, no need to say further about OSTs and copyrighted music too.

I’m just done, the superb stealth and cinematic cutscenes alone couldn’t carry the half-@ss of the rest – from the plot, character buildings, dialogs, to mission variety, boss fights, base building, etc. We knew F*cknami is fully responsible for this dumpster fire, but I couldn’t help to think that Kojima perhaps went way too far than what he could manage. Final rating is: 6/10. It could have been 9 or 10… could have… could… such a phantom pain