I'll try to be vague for spoilers that I know of. Still at the beginning of the game. Played about 8 hours but haven't really gotten that far: Only 3-5% completion for the total game.
Ok, at first I had very mixed feelings about MGSV. I didn't mind the slow burn opening at all and in fact welcomed it, especially the sequence of events that happened with a few key characters. I didn't expect to see a particular character so early in the game and it was a big surprise with everything that went down. It sounded like she was voiced by Laura Bailey when she started screaming from the fire (I think that's vague enough).
After the opening hours, I got into the battlefield. I kept getting crap ranks and I was thinking I was doing everything I can with all of the tools at my disposal. It got frustrating in the sense that it took forever to get past certain lines of enemy defenses, but I still enjoyed collecting resources and felt very well rewarded for stealing enemies to convert as allies.
Then I started getting better tools and I could get past parts much easier without having to resort to running and gunning in situations where there were so many soldiers and no statistic to tell you their field of vision or hearing, along with the difficulty of keeping track of them all. I can see rewards starting to creep up as I push through.
The thing is, it can be difficult to tell for some games if they will be worth it once you get past a certain part. For some core MGS fans TPP could be considered that kind of game. I know some loved it right away, but the length can be a bit jarring for those thinking of this game as a more traditional MGS game and could completely ruin the experience based on those expectations.
It's not that it's difficult to get past the missions necessarily, it's that it's difficult to get high ranks early on, and as a completionist myself it can be very frustrating to have to resort to lethal killing/ running and gunning (also because I heard the only way to see the last parts of the story is that you have to get high ranks for the last missions). I always liked playing with stealth and non-leathal weapons only (with the exception of bosses) in MGS games, but I had no choice in a lot of situations but to use that, either because it was dizzying to keep track of the soldiers in an area or I was just getting tired of restarting check points using non-lethal measures.
I was considering turning the game in after I beat the missing piece of the MGS puzzle and seeing the story come full circle, but I think I'm going to keep it. I knew we'd be getting better more useful upgrades and items as the game went on, but when and what were always the questions. It's that unknown right now that's keeping me anxious.
Lube Me Up
