What was Kojima’s message in Phantom Pain?

[A.G.]

There are a lot of videos about that on YouTube.

[Cerberus_0408]

thanks LOL

[A.G.]

A bit long, but a lot of great points:



He does praise Peace Walker which I think has flaws. But MGS5 seems far more on point. How one can view MGS5 as canon just doesn’t make any sense. 35:30 has a great point that I’ve mentioned before.

[Cerberus_0408]

This video also talks about the game's failures

[fgdj2000]

May 22, 2020 0:37:19 GMT -5 A.G. said:

Not much point on discussing it since there isn’t a discussion. You dismiss things that are logic in favor of a personal preference.

You're right, there is not discussion, just your opinion, which you present as fact on the same level as gravity. 
You ONLY value continuity above all else and dismiss everything else, the games have to offer, gameplay, story, themes, characters. And you even judge that by a double standard, since it clearly doesn't bother you, that even the Shagohod was more advanced than the TX-55 and Metal Gear D at least, or MGS4 act 3 not only out of nowhere turned a bunch of likable characters into the "evil" masterminds behind everything while elevating Big Boss to some sort of anti-hero, when earlier he definitely wasn't.

For example, it doesn’t bother you that the Metal Gears in 1974 and 1984 are far more advanced than in the 90’s or the 2000’s. But hey, gameplay was fun so it makes it ok, right? Magical giant whip that makes mountains... in 1984... with no explanation as to how that works... That ALONE makes MGS5 non canon. End of debate!

The Peace Walker mechs bother me a little, but since the Shagohod was already pretty advanced and I also recognize that I'm playing a game from 2010 rather than 1987, where a boss has to be able to do a lot more to challenge me, I'm willing to look past this. Then again, the Peace Walker mechs are gaudy massive monstrosities, while Metal Gear TX-55 and Metal Gear D were much sleeker, much smaller and could do the same thing (launch ICBMs). Doesn't make theme even more dangerous, since they are much easier to transport or move unseen? Technology advancement isn't getting bigger and bigger, but rather smaller and sleeker. As for the Sahelanthropus, clearly you didn't pa attention or willfully ignored that it DIDN'T WORK! It needed a superpowered psychic to actually be able to work at all. And I think they do actually explain the rocks in an audio tape.

It also doesn’t bother you that these games strip away everything that was special about the older titles. Tell me, what’s special about the plot of Metal Gear now? That Big Boss is revealed to run a PMC with a walking nuclear tank? Nope... did that 1974. Or is it that it’s the first time Snake and Big Boss did battle? Nope, striped that away too. How about Otacon building Rex in 2005? Doesn’t mean sh*t now that we have his father building Sahelanthropus 20 years prior. Many more examples like this, including the full third act of the series finale.

Now we are at the meat of the argument. I don't think it takes away from the early games, since they are still central to the entire saga. We have three games showing the build-up to that and three games about the aftermath. You are the one who takes away from what's special about the old MSX games with your own interpretation. Outer Heaven wasn't just a PMC, it was a superpower made up entirely of soldiers, fueled by an ideology that idolized perpetual war since Big Boss believed this brings out the best in people. But I don't have to tell you. Peace Walker showed how he came to that ideology, how he had a PMC and turned that into a nation, MGSV saw it immediately destroyed and had you build a big distraction, while the real Big Boss is off doing his thing. If anything, MGSV is the side-story, your own personal side-story, where you as the player are inserted into the Metal Gear universe.

The first battle against Big Boss being changed in meaning didn't bother me, since honestly, the battle was pretty underwhelming in the game itself and the second encounter in MG2 was far more meaningful and interesting and is left untouched. Sure we still have Big Boss' line in MGS4 (You've killed me twice before), but that still fits with what he tells Venom at the end of TPP.

How does Huey developing A.I. weapons take away from Hal developing Metal Gear REX? REX had a stealth warhead and had extremely thick plating (couldn't be penetrated by a missile).

You defend a game that took a big sh*t on everything that made the others special. You throw logic out the window because you like some of the plot twists. And yet you think it’s nothing like Game Of Thrones Season 8. It’s EXACTLY like it.

The technology presented in game and the basic plot weren't what made the other ones special, imo. For MG1 and MG2 it was the amazing gameplay and sound design and level design and the interesting ideology that Big Boss had, the drama between Gustava and Frank Jaeger, the twists. In MGS1 it was (besides the gameplay) the characters, the drama. Solid Snake struggling with his need to be a soldier (and only being good at killing) and and his will to be a better person and eventually achieving that in mGS2, even though MGS4 ruined that. Otacon dealing with falling in love with the enemy, who must be killed, and his own anxiety in an intense situation. Meryl, who always idolized war and war heroes like Snake and Campbell, dealing with the realities of the battlefield. The complex relationship that is revealed between Snake, Gray Fox and Naomi, Liquid's madness that eventually is his undoing, the optimistic message at the end, that no matter what you've done, what you think you are, you can always work on yourself and become a better person. That's what made MGS1 special, not what Metal Gear REX technological capabilities were or that Otacon developed it. And it's all still there.

[A.G.]

Complete disagree.

On this:

And you even judge that by a double standard, since it clearly doesn't bother you, that even the Shagohod was more advanced than the TX-55 and Metal Gear D at least, or MGS4 act 3 not only out of nowhere turned a bunch of likable characters into the "evil" masterminds behind everything while elevating Big Boss to some sort of anti-hero, when earlier he definitely wasn't.

Shagohod was not more advanced. It crawled at best and needed a runway to launch a nuke. The entire concept of a walking tank was that it can walk over all terrain and launch a nuke from anywhere. And the fact that you are still seeing that MGS4 turned the radio crew from MGS3 into evil mastermind shows that you missed the point. Frankly, of the entire series. The point always has been CHOICE. It’s not as simple as good guy vs bad guy. How many people did Solid Snake murder during his run? Yet he is the hero. But somehow in your eyes ParaMedic or Sigint became evil masterminded? Ridiculous! It was a brilliant move to make them the Patriots. Whether it’s Zero’s leadership, or Sigints tech, or Paramedic’s medicine things can seem different when you amplify the scale. Their story is parallel to Big Boss. And look at Big Boss. To some he was a hero and savior. In the end al of them made a similar choice. They felt that pushing further in their respective fields would help make the world a better place. That doesn’t make them evil.

This is why we disagree on this and will continue to do so. MGS5 offers nothing to the main story or the main theme of the series. It’s just a big contradiction.

Outer Heaven wasn't just a PMC, it was a superpower made up entirely of soldiers, fueled by an ideology that idolized perpetual war since Big Boss believed this brings out the best in people.

And MSF wasn’t? And Diamond Dogs wasn’t? sh*t, he calls it Outer Heaven at the end of MPW. Cmon! That’s the point here. They are the same. Except the first two are far bigger which makes the 1995 Outer Heaven insignificant.

[fgdj2000]

May 22, 2020 10:52:15 GMT -5 A.G. said:

Complete disagree.

On this:

Shagohod was not more advanced. It crawled at best and needed a runway to launch a nuke. The entire concept of a walking tank was that it can walk over all terrain and launch a nuke from anywhere.

I know that, and I know that they tried to make Shagohod less advanced by removing the legs. But come on. That thing was fast and massive. I can see Metal Gear REX with its thick plating taking it, but not the old Metal Gears on MSX. By that logic, you should be okay with Pupa, Crysalis and Cocoon at least. But, again, I posit that when compared to Peace Walker and Metal Gear ZEKE, the TX-55 and Metal Gear D can be seen as more advanced, even if they might seem less capable in a fight, precisely because they are so small and therefore easy to hide and get anywhere.

And the fact that you are still seeing that MGS4 turned the radio crew from MGS3 into evil mastermind shows that you missed the point. Frankly, of the entire series.

Not exactly good form, even if I'm guilty of that, too. Just FYI, I've been a fan since 1999, I've played the games when I didn't play anything else. I've read and seen interviews with Kojima. I'm pretty sure I "get" them, not just on a plot level, but on a thematic level.

The point always has been CHOICE. It’s not as simple as good guy vs bad guy. How many people did Solid Snake murder during his run? Yet he is the hero. But somehow in your eyes ParaMedic or Sigint became evil masterminded? Ridiculous! It was a brilliant move to make them the Patriots. Whether it’s Zero’s leadership, or Sigints tech, or Paramedic’s medicine things can seem different when you amplify the scale. Their story is parallel to Big Boss. And look at Big Boss. To some he was a hero and savior. In the end al of them made a similar choice. They felt that pushing further in their respective fields would help make the world a better place. That doesn’t make them evil.

Maybe you didn't notice the brackets I put on the "evil" masterminds. Of course, they're not "evil". That's the beauty of it. I am just arguing that it was quite a stretch to turn the radio crew from MGS3, a group of quirky lovable characters, into the founders of the Patriots. I just had a hard time seeing Para-Medic, the film geek radio medic, being the same person who did arguably disgusting experiments on Gray Fox and caused a lot of suffering for him. Maybe it worked for you, but it didn't for me, just as the mechs in Peace Walker and MGSV didn't work for you, and I felt, especially when it came to Zero and Big Boss, the later games fixed it for me, maybe not to a perfect degree, but in a way that's better.

And MSF wasn’t? And Diamond Dogs wasn’t? sh*t, he calls it Outer Heaven at the end of MPW. Cmon! That’s the point here. They are the same. Except the first two are far bigger which makes the 1995 Outer Heaven insignificant.

Well, MSF was destroyed a couple of months into existence. Diamond Dogs isn't nuclear unless you make it. Outer Heaven was a full blown country with even a resistance and 30 miles between buildings. It didn't look like that, because it appeared in a game in 1987 on a limited hardware, and that's where I accept that certain things in canon cannot be taken too seriously, since some of it still depends on the medium.

However, all of this doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, because those details aren't why we (or why I at least) fell in love with this series, as I iterated before. And one of the major themes of the series, as you observed, is Choice, particularly, how we do make the choices in our lives and how we pass things on to the next generation and enable them to make choices.

MGS1 and MGS2 were all about genes and how they are not all to pass on to the new generation, and what else we can pass on (GENE and MEME, basically MGS2 was the antithesis to MGS1's thesis)
MGS3 was about how our environment forms us, but also how arbitrarily it can change even within a lifetime.
MGS4 was about everything that makes a person, that cannot be passed on.
MGSPW was all about PEACE and how we need to actively work for it to make it happen, and how Big Boss eventually refuses peace and makes his choice to create the military superpower Outer Heaven.
MGSV was about loss and how revenge takes our choices away and is also culturally passed on, but also how loss can arguably open up new things to pass on and new choices.

Anyway, MGSV for me was about loss. Losing everything you've built in Peace Walker and now you're out for revenge, and at first, this revenge fuels you and is actually really helpful. You expand your army, people you've lost come back, you gain new buddies and by the end, DD defeats Skull Face and has a giant mech... BUT as you have lost the target of your revenge you just go on and eventually lose everything that matters.... the mech and kids are stolen, lovable scientists are revealed to be awful murdering sociopaths, another outbreak forces you to kill your own men, and finally, your most valuable asset whom you didn't really like at first (because of her awful design) leaves forever (and I'm gonna ignore Konami's patch here) and finally, as if that wasn't enough, you even loose your identity, since it is revealed that the player character isn't who you thought you were playing, at all. But by that point you have also formed your own identity apart from the character. You have a massive base, have played most of the missions, probably around 50% completion and now it's up to you whether you continue or not. That's what I take away from The Phantom Pain. The experience of loss and dealing with it. Not what technology should and shouldn>'t be there in a fictional history that is already convoluted.