Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Reviews
The Phantom Pain makes a major departure from the gameplay of the earlier home console games, but it’s brilliant for it. The story loses its momentum half-way through and the boss fights can fall flat, but those are minor points compared to the outstanding open world that has been created for you to play in and the freedom to do so.
The best Metal Gear Solid game ever made, as it bravely reinvents both its gameplay and its storytelling to far greater effect than ever before.
An unforgettable gaming experience, a unique world and an unmistakable style. Hideo abandons Snake with an all-in that emphasizes his courage and ambition.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The Phantom pain is the Divine Comedy of video games, the best infiltration adventure ever made and GOTY 2015. A true masterpiece and a perfect send-off to the man who sold the world: Hideo Kojima.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Incredibly, unbelievably, what we have here is a nearly perfect finale to the Metal Gear franchise. I truly believe that The Phantom Pain is where Kojima always envisioned he would take the franchise. This is personalized, open-world infiltration at its finest.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will go down as the best-looking, best-playing, and most ambitious game in the series -- one that utilizes the new-gen hardware and the incredible Fox Engine to deliver both a visual masterpiece and more robust gameplay experience than its predecessors.
That I can be so critical of it, that it can have damn microtransactions in it, and still get one of my highest recommendations, speaks volumes about what Kojima's done. Because this is a game in which I made a tank fly away on balloons and then rode a horse that pooped whenever I told it to. Yes folks… this truly is a Hideo Kojima game.
Ultimately, the story isn't the thing in MGSV, or at least not the one that Kojima wrote like a funhouse for you to weave your way through. No, the real story is the one you make yourself as you play through each mission, making new decisions each time and writing an action thriller of your own making. That's what makes Metal Gear Solid V brilliant, and that's why people will still be talking about it years from now.
The Phantom Pain is the kind of game that actually feels as if every seemingly insignificant gameplay detail actually has a real purpose. Every mission, side-op and minute spent assigning staff back at Mother Base makes a real difference to what can or cannot be achieved out on the field. At its core, it is still a stealth-action game, but it never ties you down to just being stealthy. Every mission can be approached in a multitude of different ways and it's left up to the player how to progress. The more manageable approach to storytelling may not seem true to the Metal Gear Solid series to date, but it fits in well with the game's more flexible approach, which lets people attack the game head on or play in smaller bites without needing to worry that at any moment they may have to set aside an hour purely to watch a surprise cut-scene.
The latest Metal Gear instalment somehow lives up to the hype and expectations, providing a luxurious cinematic gaming experience without equal
Perhaps MGSV's best quality is how in pulling gameplay to the foreground and letting much of the exposition remain optional, it opens it up to be enjoyed by people who have in the past been put off by its weirdness, serving as both the perfect entry point and a satisfying conclusion. MGSV takes the best of a great series and creates a series' best in the process.
The Phantom Pain combines an open-world setting with the best Metal Gear Solid gameplay the series has to offer and a killer narrative to boot.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is the most divisive game in the series for me. On one hand I love the game play. Building up Mother Base, the missions, the stealth and gunplay all feel so refined. The open-world sandbox is endless fun. The Metal Gear portion though sadly disappoints. The boss fights are lackluster, the cut scenes are not as wacky and outlandish as I expected, and the story never really grabbed me. The Phantom Pain is the best "game" in the series by far, but also the worst Metal Gear. Still, it will be hard to top it when it comes time to choose my game of the year.
Phantom Pain is hands down one of the best game's I have played in a long time. The open world environment offers you an endless amount of ways to play. Phantom Pain is a game you can sink over 100 hours into and still come back for more. Even if you haven't played past Metal Gear games, Phantom Pain is a great place to start.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a gameplay triumph, that's for sure. Kojima managed to marry the stealth/action elements of MGS with the open world setting in a way that no one could have predicted. While not perfect, this is a masterpiece that everyone should enjoy; let's just hope it's not the last we'll see of Snake.
Overall, the release proves to be a fitting, brutally brilliant finale to Hideo Kojima's beloved saga.
Which is what makes Metal Gear Solid so relevant today: its unwavering capacity to adapt and evolve. It's a game that understands everything about itself and how it works. It's the best stealth game ever made and feels like a game-changer for the medium as a whole - through its scope, the freedom it offers its players, and its deft structure.
With Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Hideo Kojima did not just create a final masterpiece but he wanted to leave a much stronger mark by renewing the series and literally reinventing the genre of infiltration.
Review in French | Read full review
It’s a vast game that, some backtracking aside, could engross you with fresh ideas for dozens upon dozens of hours.