(This review contains very small details about Metal Gear Solid V. It is written to be as spoiler lite as possible while still discussing the game. Those who have not played should be safe from anything that could diminish their enjoyment, but if you would rather not know a single thing about the story, you may want to avoid reading)

For a couple of decades, we’ve come accustomed as to what to expect from a Metal Gear Solid title. A crazy convoluted story, ruminations on the horrors of war and other real-world problems, absurd humor, fourth-wall breaking exposition, and generally clunky gameplay. It’s a wholly unique franchise, one where its weaknesses and the idiosyncrasies of its creator, Hideo Kojima (whose name was removed from the game’s cover, but is ALL OVER the game itself), actually add to its charm. So, when Metal Gear Solid V was announced, it was not a stretch to expect more of the same.

In a way, this assumption wouldn’t be wrong, either. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain contains almost all of the things we’ve come to expect from a Metal Gear series. The story adds complications which further muddle the already-too-complicated narrative. A large focus is placed on the death of cultures alongside their languages and English’s role as a plague of assimilation. And yet, characters still tell you to press the action button, you can make your horse poop on command, and you can sled down hills in a cardboard box if you’d like.

What has changed, significantly, is the gameplay. Building off of the basics introduced in the PSP title Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, MGSV is incredibly fun to play. The learning curve for the basic mechanics is much shorter than in previous titles and, after a couple hours, everything feels second-nature. Unlike in earlier games, when you get caught, you don’t feel completely helpless. You’re actually equipped to fight back, living up to your status as a legendary soldier.

The Phantom Pain also introduces two very large, open environments to explore, rather than the tiny interconnected environments of games past. These relatively open worlds, combined with the player’s ability to research new gear and customize his or her loadout, makes MGSV a sandbox game like no other. The absolute wealth of options for every single mission means that no playthrough will be exactly alike.

Sneakier and more conscientious players can try to stick to stealth each time around, infiltrating bases with tranquilizer guns and stun weapons, sending captured enemies back to base to join their armies and leaving without ever being noticed. Or, if you’ve got a Rambo fetish, you can just strap on your bandana and battle gear, equip a machine gun and a rocket launcher, and blow everything to hell. Personally, I preferred a mix of both, going in with a tranquilizer dart and a stealth tranquilizer rifle, while my buddy Quiet sniped from afar to keep things from going south. But if things DID go tits up, I could always pull out my assault rifle and blast my way out.

Between base development, FOBs, the fulton balloon system, the buddies, and supply drops/requisitions, it would take me far too long to explain all of the intricacies of The Phantom Pain. Just rest assured that it is one of the most fun and well-featured games of the year, and an absolute must-play for that reason alone. However, it does NOT fare as well on the story front.

Unlike previous Metal Gear titles, in which the story was the main draw, Metal Gear Solid V feels like it completely lost sight of its goals. In pre-release interviews, Hideo Kojima spoke about being hugely inspired by the TV show Breaking Bad. He wanted to create a game that finally explained how Big Boss, the hero of Metal Gear Solid 3 and Peace Walker and the villain of the original MSX Metal Gear titles, got corrupted. Without going into spoilers (yet…I may write a post examining the story in detail later), MGSV COMPLETELY fails in this regard. There is no shift in character whatsoever, and the game is instead far more interested in parasites and mechs and child soldiers.

It’s possible that all this talk was meant to lead people astray. Kojima has been known to pull the bait-and-switch in the past, like with Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2 and Big Boss being the protagonist of Metal Gear Solid 3. But here it feels like a failure in storytelling rather than an intentional prank on the gaming public. The story still focuses on Big Boss’ Diamond Dogs organization, which is morally dubious, but there’s no journey of character. Kojima’s interest is clearly given over to the aforementioned focus on language and culture.

A common complaint about Metal Gear Solid V is that it lacks the cinematic influence of the earlier games, instead telling too much of its story via audio tapes. Personally, this didn’t bother me as much as I expected it to. The Phantom Pain still has plenty of cutscenes and story sequences, probably as many as most of the previous titles. They’re just stretched out over a much longer game. If anything, the tapes take the place of the codec, and it’s honestly an improvement over the old system. You can still sit down in one place and listen to the tapes without distraction, but if you’d rather do some side missions while filling yourself in on the details of the plot (or half an hour of discussion on what makes the perfect hamburger…it’s still very much a Metal Gear game), you’re free to do that as well. It’s flexible, and far preferable to spending hours watching two animated faces talk over a black screen.

The tape system is also stronger than the audio journals in many games because, outside of some music tapes, they’re not collectibles. You unlock tapes with extra details about the story as they become relevant, so unlike some games (*cough* Bioshock Infinite *cough*), you’re not at risk of missing enormously relevant plot information because you didn’t examine every nook and cranny of every environment. The whole story is available to anybody who cares enough to listen to it.

Far more problematic than the tapes is the complete lack of closure to what becomes the central story of MGSV. Once again, this does not feel like an intentional upset of fan expectations but an actual failure on Kojima’s (or, more likely in this case, Konami’s) part to finish the story he/they set out to tell. There’s a pretty serious smoking gun out there in the form of a “Phantom Mission” cutscene that Konami actually included with the Collector’s Edition of the game. The cutscene, apparently 30% completed, shows the actual resolution of all three stories: child soldier Eli, the Metal Gear, the parasites, everything. It finally ties all of the disparate elements together into something of a cohesive narrative. It is utterly shameful that the game shipped without it.

Instead, the game’s “ending,” if you can call it that, is a replay of the first mission, but including pieces of information that the game withheld from you at the time. The “twist” that occurs is infuriating at first, but after listening to post-game tapes that explain the situation, is ultimately more unnecessary than it is terrible. It feels like Kojima and his writers had to come up with something that felt earth-shattering, but wouldn’t ultimately change the course of the series in any significant way.

So Metal Gear Solid V is very much a mixed bag. In terms of gameplay mechanics and freedom of play style, it is impossible NOT to recommend. I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun with a sandbox game, and it is absolutely loaded with content (I’m currently sitting at nearly 80 hours). But aside from a few extremely powerful sequences (keep a look out for a mission involving your quarantine zone in Chapter 2), the story is unsatisfying and unfinished. It’s depressing to see a game so bloated with extra content, mostly re-using environments from the main story, which didn’t put in the time or resources to finish what it started. I would have gladly traded half of the Side Missions for the conclusion linked above, but alas, Kojima has left Konami, so it will never be. At least what we do have is the culmination of his career, one of the greatest stealth/infiltration games in history.