We wouldn’t even need any of the now-legendary Phantom Pain cut content for this to have happened, either. We need to see Venom taking his new role on in some capacity, not have it relegated to what are essentially the end credits after a symbolic cutscene of him getting the news. We were told that Venom Snake accepts his role as a second Big Boss, but it was done in the most impersonal way possible the scrolling-text timeline can be used for interesting tie-ins and easter eggs (the line of text at the end of Peace Walker regarding Miller’s death), but using it to tell us of what becomes of Venom to the soundtrack of a Big Boss-read audio tape just robs the ending moments of any gravity that they might have had. It was perfectly clear what sort of ramifications this revelation had for the lore of the series, but what was left murky was the consequences it would have for the characters. The most memorable moments in Metal Gear Solid are all defined by their emotional impact, and the ending of MGSV has none. This lack of set-up was only a subsection of MGSV’s final moments’ problems, though throughout the entirety of the last batch of cutscenes, I felt absolutely nothing. It was like playing the last four bars of a symphony without the first fifty minutes it was loud, but there weren’t any motifs to build off of or bring to a head. This lack of investment made for a climax, if you can even call it that, with no real payoff.
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The Phantom Pain’s lens was pointed squarely at gameplay this time around, which should be fine, but I never got enough of the game’s story to really care for any substantial amount of time. Sure, there was the whole thing with Eli’s DNA test not matching DNA taken from Venom Snake, but that was tucked away in a single three-minute audio log startlingly close to the end of the game. Venom Snake’s physical features aside, there was very little concrete in the Phantom Pain that pointed to body doubles. There was set-up, but I don’t feel that the story was ever focal enough in The Phantom Pain to make this count. The twist itself could have been cool, but was neutered by transgressions on the part of the rest of the game. The whole affair just left me feeling unfulfilled. Not only a twist, really, but THE twist, the one that left some fans feeling cheated and others enlightened, the revelation that Venom Snake is a body double for Big Boss’ protection. How do those story points wrap up? Unless you have a DVD with cut content from the Collector’s Edition, you don’t really know. It’s a well-known fact that Metal Gear Solid V barely ends a clone of Big Boss escapes confinement, a floating boy is just kind of there, and a nuclear-armed mech gets hijacked.
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Only reinforcing this opinion was the game’s ending, which could have been made far better even without the cut content.
#METAL GEAR SOLID V REVIEW NO SPOLIERS SERIES#
As a big fan of the Metal Gear series as a whole, I was going into the ending with less than stellar impressions of the game’s story as a whole. I know I’m late to the party, but I finally finished Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain this past week. Though we may never know how it came to be, Metal Gear Solid V’s Ending stinks.