Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is Hideo Kojima's final Metal Gear Solid game, which finally bridges the gap between Peace Walker and Metal Gear from 1987, showing the legendary "Big Boss" fall from hero status, and descend into the realms of Hell, and becoming the villain of the series.

Except that doesn't happen.

MGSV takes the series in a bold new direction; switching from a linear corridor structure into an open world environment. This was a big risk for the series, but has paid off greatly. Of course however, this means that MGSV has some issues related to this change. For example the open world; while large, feel really boring and empty, despite the large amount of wildlife and enemies.
The AI is pretty stupid at times too, having a short sight and getting stuck in geometry. Other times however the AI are cheating, being able to see through buildings, mountains and other forms of geometry. Lastly the open world loves to waste your time, waiting for your helicopter to drop you off or arrive, slowly making yourself across the open world is tiresome.

Despite this however; MGSV features the best gameplay of the series so far, and features more options than ever to tackle almost every mission. Despite having large amounts of options however; such as being able to use explosives to distract enemies, or even using sound as a distraction, the best solution is usually using your tranquilizer pistol and extracting the soldier. There are many ways to do your objective yes, but there is usually only one really efficient way of doing this. Sure enemies get progressively smarter as you do this tactic by wearing helmets or armor, but this proves to just be a minor inconvenience.
The gunplay is fantastic, the guns feel like they have weight, you can feel the impact of your bullets, and the aiming is very fluid. However MGSV also has the MGS4 problem, where there are a lot of guns - both lethal and non-lethal - but you'll only use one or two of lethal or non-lethal weapons.

Weapon customization is pretty barebones however, the changes are usually only cosmetic, and the only reason I would use the customization was to place a silencer on my weapons, making the whole system very shallow.

Mother-base management also returns from Peace Walker, allowing you to grow your base of operations into a force to be reckoned with. You progress Mother-base through extracting soldiers with skills and setting them into their most efficient sector of Mother-base. As you extract more staff for Mother-base, development for weapons, items, tools, and abilities increase. The interface is very smooth and easy to manage.

Because of this however, this means that grinding is required in order to access high tier gear. You may also encounter frequent roadblocks due to the lack of tools to complete specific goals.

Missions consist of Main missions and Side ops. Main missions are obviously what progress the story, most objectives usually require "Extract the target" or " blow up the target" which can get tiring really fast if you don't experiment. At the end of each main mission you are ranked from E to S, based on how many times you've been spotted, your accuracy, hits taken, time, etc. Most of the main missions support both play styles, and it is entirely possible to get an S rank if you go the non-stealthy way of completing the mission. Main missions also have mission tasks. Throughout the mission you can compete tasks, ranging from "Extract the prisoner" to "Listen to the conversation between X and Y". Some of these are enjoyable, some of them however are downright terrible. Due to the somewhat buggy nature, the conversation of the targets may not even trigger, requiring a restart. This can be incredibly frustrating if you're a completionist, and proves that the designers didn't have any other tasks the player could do in the mission. Despite this however, the main missions are generally a enjoyable experience.

Side ops are a mixed bag however.

There are 157 Side ops in the game, but most of them are largely the same, almost the same as the main ops, consisting of "Eliminate the tank unit" or "Extract the highly skilled soldier" which can get incredibly boring after the first 50 or 100 side ops. You aren't ranked in these ops, so you're free to mess around as much as you want. Compared to 2010's Peace Walker, the side ops lack any imagination or fun aspects, which is very disappointing.
Lastly, the game suffers from a lack of boss fights.
Boss Fights are a staple in the MGS series, which is why it is very disappointing to see a lack of boss fights. There is a boss fight against Metal Gear Sahelanthropus, a Metal Gear Which can stand upright but is very shallow and mostly acts as bullet sponge.

Since I've talked about the gameplay long enough, I think it's time to talk about the storyline of MGSV.


Ultimately, MGSV's storyline is lacking, and by the end of the game it is outright terrible.

What we have is a literally unfinished storyline, character arcs which go no-where, and major plot holes within the story.

Every character is devoid of life, and lacks the charm of the Metal Gear franchise. Snake barely talks, and is ultimately forgettable despite Kiefer Sutherland's excellent efforts.
Huey is turned from a goofy, likeable character in Peace Walker, to an evil, selfish, piece of ♥♥♥♥, that makes him more evil than Skullface, ruining any character he had.

Skullface's plan can literally be beaten with pen and paper, and his back-story lacks any substance or reasoning. Skull face doesn't even include a Boss Fight .

The "Taboos" that Kojima promised were merely tame, and lack any impact or creativity. Big Boss never becomes a villain in this game because *MAJOR GAME BREAKING SPOILER * Big Boss turns out to be the Medic from Ground Zeroes who is made to look like Big Boss in order for the real Big Boss to be a coward and hide from CIPHER. The twist was ultimately horrible, and feels like it was made to be shocking rather than clever. This resulted in ret-cons, and Big Boss ultimately being a coward, and giving Kojima an easy way to explain why the real Big Boss survived Solid Snake's attack

The twist is incredibly obvious as well, with too many hits alluding to this twist, which is poor writing, as its too obvious.

Lastly are the plot holes infesting MGSV. Here are a few:

• Eli steals Metal Gear Sahelanthropus but is never followed up.
  
• Code Talker warns Snake of Miller which goes no-where.
  
• Snake becoming a Villain never happens.

As a game, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is mostly excellent, it provides players with deep, complex, and unparallelled gameplay, with many options to tackle objectives in the most efficient way possible. As a way to end the series however, the game is absolutely atrocious. It truly saddens me that this is it, Kojima will never make another Metal Gear Solid game, due to his parting with Konami.

MGSV may be my current Game of the Year, but it is also my most disappointing Game of the Year.