Am i the only person who genuinely likes Metal Gear Solid 4?
I got around to finishing Peace Walker tonight and with that i have officially beaten and exhausted all the media in the series. Which naturally had me reflect on how its over and done with.
Naturally thinking how MGS5 was literally shipping unfinished it could leave a sour note for the player but there was one thing i kept coming back to: It was a cash in prequel, the Metal Gear has had its ending for years.
The strange thing when talking with friends was that most of them hadnt ever played it because of the extremely long cutscenes intersecting the gameplay. Which was understandable if you look at the game in a vaccuum and it seems more movie than game, but as a finale piece to a long series i had no problem with it.
The difference there however was the folks i know that never owned a pstripple had MGS5 as their send off. That "i am big boss and you are too" was all they got. I cant imagine a worst case of not knowing what they are missing.
-For those who dont know and i imagine most do but you never know MGS4 appears to end with a rapidly aged solid snake in the cemetery from the end of MGS3 ready to eat a bullet. After the credits however you get a long cutscene where Big Boss shows up with a braindead zero. He turns of zeros oxygen tank and lets him die then knowing snakes foxdie is going to kill him just like it did liquid he lies on his loved ones grave and gives a genuinely touching speech about how he never saw David/Snake as some cheap imitation but as a brother, and a soldier he truly respected. He says "let it go son" and dies and with the loop finally closed and debts paid so to speak David/Snake decides death isnt the answer and just because hes no longer needed as a soldier doesnt mean he has to give up on finding new reasons to live for as long as he has left.
Thats the end, bar metal gear rising of course, to the metal gear story. everything that came after like peace walker, ground zeros and the phantom pain were retcon heavy prequels that love or hate them in no way effects the actual end where the rivalrys between snake/zero/ocelott and all the different groups trying to interpret the will of The Boss were finally dealt with so the future of the world could once again find its own course rather than be manipulated and nearly annihilated time and again because of these delusional machinations.
Its not perfect, berlin is a huge letdown, the gameplay is far too action orientated but on the whole its good points are far more enjoyable than its bad points are at best points that make you want to hurry up to the good parts than quit.
The strange part is we got our end to metal gear in 2008, 8 years ago. And while i wont call it perfect i still love MGS4 as the swan song ending to the story and i wonder if the series feels way more hollow and unsatisfying to the anons that never played it because they heard too many bad things about it.
Did you play it? if not do you feel you are missing the proper conclusion?
I guess PW just makes me want to revisit it again to remind myself mgs has a solid end, which is better than silent hill will ever receive.
;_;7