This is a Hideo Kojima game, you can't really say that you're surprised can you?

@tennmuerti: I stand corrected, then - there was a similar thread a couple hours ago where people weren't hostile, so I made wrong assumptions. Shows me what's up for going on forums right after waking up. Apologies to @Mike for this one. *shuffles out*

Hey, someone gets it!

My take on this is that the reason a player dislikes losing Quiet, whether gameplay, narrative, or both, doesn't actually matter. At the end of the game she is gone, and if you want her back, that's too bad. The game took something meaningful from you, and you felt some way about it. Mission accomplished. What you feel and why you feel it is up to you.

I hope it's a big fuck you to konami from team kojima so their costume dlc is worthless.

"This is the intended reaction created from the game and the narrative. Being pissed you lost her was the goal."

"Fuck you, don't tell me how to feel about the game. Kojima's a hack."

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Snake Eater still reigns supreme! No, 2 does not.

I was watching Stefanie Joosten (who plays Quiet) live stream her playthrough of this game and some asshole in the chat dropped the spoiler that Quiet leaves Mother Base. When I got to that mission I knew it was coming, and it still sucked when it happened. Quiet changed the way I played the game, she had an interesting story arc, and it was pretty great to see the relationship between her and the Boss change over time. I was sad to see her go. Mission accomplished, Kojima.

At least she's still alive so maybe we'll be able to get her back as a Buddy and continue her story in some future DLC. I'd buy that, for sure.

She's not. That's why she left.

I feel the same way. I can understand why people like the character though. The way she was written and presented didn't win me over personally. The whole end with her didn't feel earned.

As far as what happens to her after that mission I can see why people would dislike it from a gameplay standpoint. From a story perspective I really like it. Kojima sticks to his vision no matter what and I respect it.

Also once all the dust settles and the game is over, Miller is a more believable and sympathetic character than Quiet. Just think about it, seriously.

She can take out vehicles with the anti material rifle. Guys in armor are no biggie.

@xerseslives: I don't think we know for sure, do we? Was that little bit of English she spoke in the end enough to trigger the parasites? It was said a few times throughout the game that speaking a little bit of the language wasn't enough. She may not know the answer to that either so I can see her leaving just to be on the safe side.

She is in my game!

The new Aries

Kojima is now and has forever been the trollish "F U player" director. Like in practically every game he ever made, with the exception I think of 4 where we actually got a definitive ending and no final "dun dun dun" stinger at the end. All of this is no surprise.

No its not good game design. No its not well made. Its trash, pure and simple. Hell half of the defense is this thread is in the form of "trololol I love seeing people get butt-hurt about this!" Any other game, any other designer? Universal BS would be called. But its MGS and Kojima, so he gets a pass from the fanbase cause, well, he's done it before so it must be ok!"

Which is obvious BS. That's like saying "oh hey that guys a known murderer, you shouldn't have let him kill your family, trololol look how much it sucks for you!" Like no, not to that level, but taking it to that extreme you see the silliness of defending the choice.

Give you the best thing in the game..then take it away, cause screw you player my shitty, badly told, ill-paced and absolutely not completed uninteresting and frankly "oh hey guess what, this was completely pointless' story >>>>>>>your enjoyment of the game you bought.

But that's Kojima for you. Doesn't make it right, doesn't make him somehow a great artist. infact..after this game, my respect for him has dropped drastically. Frankly, if we ever got another MGS game..it might well be better off without his trolling nature working its way into things. We won't, of course. But eh.

Don't feel bad for being mad about this OP, and ignore "haha he got you, hes so amazing, you suck for not appreciating the fact that your suppose to be angry". That's all pure BS from people who seek to justify it in their own head and/or who worship at the man's feet and would scold you for calling him anything but a martyred genius with nothing but good to give to the world.

Sorry, I'm laughing too hard at the people who are hoping/expecting story/single player DLC. I hope you guys aren't for real or you are in for some real heartbreak I think.

Also kind of cringing/laughing in regards to all the people telling other how they should and are supposed to feel about a character leaving. I know we can assume certain motivations for Kojima's writing (and lack thereof) but the entirety of MGS, outside of gameplay, is lacking. The story is a mess and feels like it has hours left on the cutting room floor.

Also, he's not upset that he lost Quiet because she was such an amazingly well written character...he is upset because now he no longer has a function of the game that he enjoyed using. This is not an emotional attachment...this is not enjoying a character's "Story arc" (which she doesn't really have one, at least not a good one)...this is the equivalent of someone taking Yoshi out of Super Mario World once you get 3/4 into the game and now you can't do stuff in earlier stages that you wanted to.

Kojima is cool and the man has some great ideas but some of you guys treat him like he's Voltaire or something. Nope, he's the guy obsessed with nuclear weapons and who loves boobs. Then again, I also think its laughable people are/were acting attached to their basically no-named cardboard cut out soldiers when you have to gun them down...so apparently tons of people have weird issues with attachment. To each their own.

@bladededge: Apparently some people are so violently opposed to the idea that Kojima might actually know what he's doing they create this narrative in their head that anyone that likes or appreciates it on any level is just a worshipping fanboy, completely oblivious to the fact that these arguments appear with every new game of his and that there is space for nuanced opinions.

I mean, fuck, did you seriously just compare Hideo Kojima to a murderer simply because he attempted to put consequence in a video game?

Why do you play his games if you hate him so much?

@bane: They didn't beat you over the head with it (and if I've learned anything about the reaction to this game, it's that people really want to be beaten over the head with narrative points), but yeah, it was more than enough to trigger the parasites. Otherwise, she'd just come back a month later and be fine. That clearly never happens in the timeline and it would be silly if she did.

@starvinggamer: I love not wanting to play this game ever again! Good job Kojima! Yeah!

So aside from PC users taking away gameplay variety is not a good thing, it doesn't matter if there's a sort of alright story point behind it (which the scenes with Quiet weren't really that good in the first place, and the fact that she was going to talk was 100% guaranteed from the start of the game; so there's no surprise value or anything). People are just too inclined to not dislike this game so they'll justify something terrible with general stupidity. Now if it was a fucking amazing ending or mission 45 didn't suck in the first place (which like 3 out of 100 people thought it didn't, not a very good ratio) then sure why not, but that's not what happened; you're giving too much credit to a poorly conceived and directed setup in a game with limited story value in the first place. This game you play for the gameplay almost exclusively just fucked you on gameplay and you're congratulating them for it.

@xerseslives: I think whether or not that was enough English is left up to individual interpretation/speculation. I did forget about the timelines, though. It was scrolling too fast for me to read all of it so I took screenshots of it to read later. Thanks for the reminder!

@xerseslives: The murder comparison was not to Kojima itself. He is no such thing, obviously. I was simply taking the way people react to the man and his work, and expressing it in its most extreme form I could think of, so as to call attention to the fact that, while it isn't as overtly silly..it is when you turn everything involved up to 11 as it were.

See the thing is, people enjoy a thing, and so defend it. I've been a fan of the series for a long time..but my respect for Kojima kinda ended as of the MGS2 'twist'. I am firmly in the camp of "all the BS troll 'gotcha' moments he has played over the years, if removed from the series and replaced with a differnt story/writing alltogether, would have made for a better project. " Meaning if MGS3 had just been MGS4, the end of a trillogy, if he'd never invovled Big Boss into the equation, if we'd just played Solid Snake through the games...why poof, better story then what we got.

Not that what we got didn't have merit? But there is an on-going belief that as things stand now, they should have. The issue is, people buy into it being the best possible because it exists..not because it is. MGS5 I feel suffers this exact same fate. People love the gameplay, so the complete wreck of a story (and their complete inability to tell it well) is over-looked.

Is their space for nuisanced opinion? Could my tone and words be phrased in a way to spark discussion? Yep, absolutely. What I find here however is not nuisanced discussion. It is a genuine "Um, I think this was bull" and a chorus of "haha your an idiot for not seeing the genuis behind it/I am glad to see you suffer/Thats the point, your artisticly blind/your grief and anger are intended and make the game better". None of which exist as starting points for anything close to proper discussion..but are the fanboy-reactions I mention. Thus the comparison you call out, trying to show that if you were to see this kinda reaction to something as horrific as murder, you could more easily see how wrong and hollow they sound.

Now if you wanna talk about the merits of Kojima's story telling, if you want to start from the premise that its opinion, not fact, and everyone is intitled to get out of it, or think of an author's work as they wish. Then that's completely different, and my post would reflect it. I was being as hard-line and unwavering as the responces I saw..because I figured anything else would be given the same "oh psh you just don't understand".

The only responces left I feel would be one like yours..who take a moment to step back and actually look at the whole issue, not just knee-jerk laughing at the OP, or telling him he can't see the art..or what have you.

So, your right to be critical of me..but not because my point was invalid. You just happen to be in the right here. I was mostly just giving the other "scream as loud as you can" response, since so many people on the other side decided to give theirs.

@bladededge: I can kinda get that, only here it's less a case of two sides screaming as loud as they can as much as it's two opposing viewpoints attempting to be as dismissive and reductive as possible of the other, so as not to even hint at the other side having merit. So, basically, it's an argument on the internet.

I have a lot of problems with MGSV. There are design issues, such as how that last mission plays out, the lack of really anything to do on Mother Base, that one mission with the tanks, the Quiet perv stuff (though I'm not as incensed as most people) and other things here and there, but since launch, I've been seeing nothing but people bitching and moaning in comments and blogbait about a lot of stuff that I didn't hate or didn't honestly think was a big deal or even stuff I just flat out liked; the ending twist, losing Quiet, FOBs, the "cut content", etc.

"You don't get it" might come off as really fucking arrogant to people, but that doesn't somehow make it less true. Kojima, for better or worse, is a guy with clear goals in just about everything he puts out, and for people to act like he's some hack that's just sprawled all of this stuff on the back of a napkin and somehow lucked into, like, a dozen successful games is downright silly.

To anyone that seriously gets that pissed at the game and goes "yeah, this is typical Kojima BS", it comes off like someone that either had no idea what series they were playing, or hateplayed every Metal Gear game and decided to finish this one under protest. It's not a matter of "yeah, well, this guy fucks you every time you play one of his games lol your fault" because there are a lot of people, myself included, that don't see stuff like this as the game fucking you over. We see it as a turning point near the climax of a story. If it lacked impact or you didn't care or think we should just throw the baby out with the bathwater because you didn't like how the narrative was presented in the first place, then that's fine, but it's kind of a no-win situation at that point.

Disclaimer: I have not played this game, nor any other MGS title aside from dabbling in Ground Zeroes for about an hour or two, and I have no real investment in this series. However, I do find it intrigueing just how heated and emotional both sides of the argument tend to get. Good or bad, Mr. Kojima sure is stirring things up to levels I've not often seen other games/developers do.

Anyway, the reason I started of with this disclaimer is because I recently came across the following image, and I wanted to make clear I neither support nor condemn its intention; I merely thought it might be relevant to this "He's a lunatic hack / No he's a freaking genius" debate, and figured some people on here would appreciate it.

There are a lot of flaws with that image, not the least of which is that any argument can easily be made to look silly when you're rewording it to fit whatever strawman you want to shut down.

The "Kojima doesn't respect woman" thing is a complicated issue that has already had several threads made about it, but if people want to keep saying that he's a creep that sees all women as sex objects, they also need to acknowledge that the most important character in the entire Metal Gear lore is a woman - a smart, skilled, admirable marytr that is downright worshiped by everyone for her strength. Unless you're really offended by a cleavage scar, The Boss is never sexualized.

Everyone just wants a binary "he's great" or "he's horrible" because "he's clearly a smart and talented guy, but he's behind the times and outright tone deaf on a lot of social issues and that, along with his over-relance on a lot of bad anime tropes, undermine the impact of what are complex and often clever narratives" isn't a fun or convenient conclusion.

He's teaching you want Phantom Pain feels like in multiple ways at once.

Starting from a point of "anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot" doesn't really leave a lot of room for understanding other people's points of view. That's fine if that's what you're after, but don't expect anyone to extend you the courtesy of caring about your thoughts when you frame them that way.

@brads_beard: I have no use for dead guys!

D-Walker has a flamethrower, guys.

@bladededge: You're absolutely right in the notion that people want to paint Kojima in the best way by always trying to find underlying meanings or real life analogs to his games, to give an extra dimension to the storytelling. Part of it is because Kojima is known for that extra dimension with the twist of MGS2, part of it is because the story ended so abruptly.

Hearing how Motherbase stands for Konami, Huey is Kojima and Kaz is the Metal gear fanbase; Sure that could be intended , but it could just as well be people trying to find extra layers in a game because the story left people wanting for more.

And the fandom regarding Metal Gear Solid might be because this is a series that has been around for decades now. You have COD fans, you have Halo fans, but those fans always have lived in a world where you can share your stories online. Salesnumbers are known, commercials are on TV. I remember playing the Metal Gear Solid demo with my neighbour over and over. For years, in my mind , we were the only ones that knew that game. It was one of the best games i've ever played and no one knew about it. Usually, I don't get hyped for releases, but whenever a Metal gear comes out i do get those feelings of anticipation. This notion of playing a 'secret gem' certainly makes people go out of their way to show their passion in a way that you can't really do with a game like Halo because everyone is aware how popular that product is.

Regarding the story, while you seem to be in the Solid Snake camp, a lot of people (including me) enjoy the Big Boss storyline and character just as much or even more than Solid Snake. So there's certainly some merit to that storyline if you just come to terms with the fact that Kojima is making things up as he goes along. Metal Gear wasn't made with MGS5 in mind, MGS5 was made with Metal Gear in mind. Acknowledging this fact doesn't diminish the story or make anyone less of a fan. Seeing how he tied all those games together after the fact is still impressive. Some messages i read make it seem like Kojima always had this Metal Gear Lore book and is only giving us one piece of it at a time, while he's behind the screens selecting a new page for upcoming games.

Now we're 4 games further, and i still think that the Metal Gear Solid franchise is mechanically and storywise the most entertaining franchise i've ever played. MGS5 was a weird experience because it was a fantastic game, but it was also an obviously flawed game. The cherries on top were provided, but the base of the pie was not fully realized.

Up until MGS5, every Metal gear game felt mechanically fleshed out with fully realized features. Sure, some might not enjoy the camouflage and food system in MGS3, but no one can say that system was halfbaked. I feel that a lot of Metal Gear fans feel the need to defend the series to 'newcomers' with the coming of Metal Gear Scanlon and now this new game that has obvious flaws. Flaws that are uncommon to a series that always felt complete and with a fully realized storyline. It's still the best game i played this year. I did like the whole parasite storyline, and there were some awesome missions in the game, but there were also a lot of unremarkable missions that evoked a 'meh ' from me.

I like every MGS game and every one has flaws and every one has plot holes or issues with its story telling or storyline. All the new characters in 2 are weak for example (which people cover with saying that's intentional). I constantly read someone argue that 2 and 4 are Kojima just writing a story about how much he hates Metal Gear even though 3 doesn't really have anything convincing to argue that with and the series is clearly a work of love even if Kojima is conflicted about the pressures and dealing with the scope as he has continued it. The whole final stretch of 4 is a man that loves his games and fans.

MGS3 is probably my favorite in the series and I will say the camo system and food system are not all that interesting and are kind of half baked, actually. Neither one is very smooth to use. The food system does stuff like let you blow up enemy food supplies in like one or two spots and that hardly even matters (half baked) and then also even at the time the camo system was was extremely clunky to use. In the end the food system doesn't even affect the gameplay that much. It just basically comes down to are you doing the work to gather and eat food or not. This is all looking past the fact that I absolutely hated the original release of MGS3 because the camera which seems to completely work against the gameplay and environments.

4 had really weak bosses character wise (thought a couple were fun to fight) and also had some lame new characters and moments. Even 1, which I kind of saw as flawless, watching Metal Gear Scanlon I was really kind of surprised at how poorly it is paced, even if the boss fights and moments are cool. There is cool exploration and stealth gameplay early, some bad backtracking later, and then the game turns into a boss rush with extremely little normal stealth gameplay.

As far as cuts, by the way 2 had a whole boss cut (that made the Dead Cell group add in to the overall MGS story more) and different areas as well. The first game supposedly had big time cuts that created some of the pacing issues I mention above and is directly why there is the annoying backtracking to get the sniper rifle (which pads out the game time).

The thing is, ever since 2 pulled some meta level business fans run wild with what Kojima is saying in a meta way to the point where they even excuse issues with the games as intentional. I think some of that is real (I think Raiden is supposed to be lame) but some is a flaw and I don't care what is being said about the characters in 2 on any meta level because they are lame and the bosses aren't fun to fight. The environments are still constrained and extremely repetitive. Solidus is still throw away feeling and hardly matters in the series (even though he was the damn president). V has that same kind of thing going on with some fan interpretations I see now, but that goes on with 2 and 4 big time so it's nothing new.

Anyways, I see some big time rose tinted glasses in your post. I can't buy any argument that the other MGS games are not flawed in different ways (especially mechanically and with plot cohesion). If you don't like V or see bigger issues than the others, you can argue that and that's cool. I just think trying to ignore the issues with the others doesn't add up.

wow, somehow this entire post got deleted. Thanks giantbomb :D

I mostly defended the MGS3 foodmechanic, agreed with the criticisms on MGS2 and stated that i should have said that i viewed each game among its time peers and that therefore certain flawed things could still be pretty nifty at the time .

@onemanarmyy: I think part of it is an expectation (that I disagree with) that this game needed to tie up every loose end. Trust me, I think it's pretty crazy Eli just waltzes off with a Metal Gear at the end of this game and all but in the end they were probably expecting to make more Metal Gear, even if it wasn't Kojima making it. Yeah I saw that cut content stuff but regardless, as I say, there's cut content in the other games too. I don't know, but if I'm to guess, I think the stingers at the end of 1 and 2 had ideas of where the story should go next that changed and weren't followed up on that much (as I said, Solidus feels pretty throw away, especially his role as the President). In the end, I'm just taking the plot of V on its own as a fun part and I think important of the MGS lore.

Anyways, really side tracking the thread but wanted to put in my two cents.

@sammo21: missing a character for a mechanical reason rather than narrative is, to me, far more powerful and impressive.. not to mention very daring from a design perspective. That's what's INSANE about it. Forget the story entirely. That she is useful, possible overpowered, and then gets yanked from the game is nigh unheard of. I like feeling robbed of that. Aries had a similar thing going for her, but her healing abilities are pretty easily replaced.

I think Quiet endears herself to you by being useful (and humming) regardless of her overt sex appeal. Her story is largely whatever, but characters in games are much, much more than their narratives. A character is described first and foremost by your experience with them then what the developer tells you about them. MGS isn't special in this regard. That's all games.

@geraltitude: I'll have to agree to disagree. If there was a meaningful resolution to it happening then my feelings might be different. However, like a bunch of the niggling things in mgsV it falls into the category of either not explained or not explained well. Quiet is no more a character than D-Dog or D-Walker. I could maybe buy the "endearing" thing if people didn't getting oddly attached to the dumbest things in video games.

@sammo21: I suppose, but a human can develop attachment to a hole puncher or keychain, so, all in all... well... I dunno where I was going with that other than people can like any thing/character for any reason, has nothing to do with games. Are you telling me your mother (or other mothers) aren't emotionally attached to fridge magnets? LOL cause mine is. I think you're carazy if you don't think D-Dog is a character for example, so Quiet being "as much a character" as the dog isn't a pejorative when I hear it. In both cases our adventures together defined the character for me. D-Walker I have absolutely zero love for. In fact fuck D-Walker all it did was eat up GMP.

@bladededge: Wow you need a nap or something.

Or, you know, maybe different human beings are capable of genuinely appreciating the same thing for different reasons. Nah, you're right, we're just stupid.

@starvinggamer: The first part was the only bit directed at you in particular if you perceived it as ad hominem my apologies, but it's definitely a silly standpoint regardless. The flowchart above seems reasonable enough, even if it doesn't hold a candle to the bioware flowchart of yore. It's too bad Viscant didn't write a post about this though, that would have been amusing to dissect.

Man... this post. I think it got the proper response above but I just have to gawk at the absurdity myself.

It stops being reasonable at the title and just gets worse from there.

@ghostiet: If you don't want to hear opposing opinions maybe you shouldn't be on a forum. Anyway, I think it's pretty lazy to cover up the game's shortcomings and failures with "that's what the intent was." Disappointingly silent protagonist? Phantom Pain. Unfinished story? Phantom Pain. Playing as some random grunt instead of Big Boss? Phantom Pain. Taking your access to a key gameplay mechanic away for contrived plot reasons? Phantom Pain.

At some point it stops being theming and starts being bad game design.

Often not talkative protagonist? For a reason that is explained (plus Snake's dialogue was mostly useless in the old games anyways "Metal Gear?" "SOP?" "CQC, huh?"). I do think the game needed more of the fun, off the wall dialogue of the past games (along the lines of the hamburger tapes in this, which were great).

Story that didn't need to wrap up every plot thread because it's a game in a series that may or may not continue.

Playing as an important new character for a reason that is explained in the narrative and has meaning in the story directly and in a meta way (the player, all soldiers, contribute to the legacy of Big Boss as the greatest soldier/mercenary of all time. A nameless soldier can take his place and become him with the right support. Also this shows Big Boss' side of the Zero/Big Boss conflict and that he isn't some good guy trying to fight Cipher/The Patriots with his nose clean in the whole conflict. Neither is the outright villain, both are wrong).

Taking away access to a gameplay mechanic for plot reasons that aren't contrived (because almost the whole story is about loss).

These aren't design flaws, they are design choices that many love. I can see why someone might not love them but they aren't some glaring flaw. Beyond that, the expectation that this game tie together everything in the plots from the other games, instead of do its own thing like it did, is not reasonable. And in fact, its something the other games did the exact same way. Most of MGS2 doesn't tie into anything directly, it just is revealing information to the player through exposition dumps. Anyways, the events in this game explain and detail the struggle between Cipher and Boss and set up the Metal Gear 1 and 2. Kojima took those games seriously as if they were just as important as the Solid games.

Anyways, you are telling him not to shut down dialogue and then just doing the same thing from the other side by saying these are all flaws vs decisions. To me, they all work pretty damn cohesively and make for an outstanding game that is willing to stray from the series formula in interesting ways (and in others ways, less than some critics say, especially 2 which I find is similar in interesting ways). Certainly it is a game with flaws.

Yep. Didn't ruin the game for me but it's one of like 5 garbage design decisions in this game that will prevent it from being my goty. Don't mind the fanboys who can't deal with criticism of Kojima.

Just came here to say D-Dog > Quiet

I must of used her wrong or something because she seemed worthless for the most part to me unless you wanted to get caught first to get her to do something. D-Dog's instant marking of everything was irreplaceable.

Also, since this is a thread about the ending.,. has anyone ever explained why Big Boss had bandages on his face during the hospital scene? I could understand if he actually got the surgery to have his face changed but he didn't. Unless you can just explain everything away with hallucinations.

@handlas: To fool Venom. Big Boss can't show Venom his face and pull off the ruse.

I love when people make the this argument, because it means I can safely assume they've never really played the MGS series. In Metal Gear Solid, Solid Snake was a talky mother fucker. In the briefing scenes, after he makes it up the elevator, talking to the DARPA chief Octopus, talking to Meryl, talking to Baker, talking to Meryl again, talking to the colonel, talking to Gray Fox, talking to Otacon... I could go on for quite a while. My point is that this stance is hilariously revisionist to the point that it makes me question whether people that make such a claim have ever even touched the previous games, or whether they just watched a youtube video of Snake asking questions and assumed that was literally all he said.

Boy, public reception of this game sure has turned on a dime just like it did with Bioshock Infinite. But whatever just like with Infinite I'm sticking in the "this game is fucking amazing" camp.

@berserker976: Or perhaps that was the one game not localized by Kojima and as such is a total outlier as far as Snake being talkative in that way (and in my opinion, mostly he is still a very blank slate character). If you wanted that from the other games you must've been disapointed with 2, 3, and 4. That was very much a product of the localization.

Regardless, his dialogue was indeed mostly just bringing out more exposition even in 1 and basically getting told things that the player can learn them. Really, what is there to Solid Snake's character that is so defined? He hits on women? He knows his guns? I really enjoy him, he's cool, but there isn't much there to his character as far as personality and he is the one being acted upon by outside forced continually, not the one bringing about action in the story.

@artisanbreads: haha, ok let's do this some more, then!

MGS2: Tanker mission, talks with Otacon non-stop, talks to Olga, talks with Otacon some more, comments on Liquid Ocelot. Plant Mission, even more talkative than in the Tanker, talks to Raiden, becomes a codec contact, talks to Stillman, talks to Stillman AND Raiden, talks to Otacon some more, talks to Raiden again, gives a huge ending speech to Raiden.

MGS3: Virtuous mission briefing, talking to the boss, talking to SIGINT, talking to paramedic and Major Zero, talking to Sokolov. Snake Eater briefing, dozens upon dozens more codec conversations, talking to Young Ocelot, talking to EVA etc. etc. etc.

Seriously, you might as well concede this point, man. You're arguing from an objectively wrong place. There are minor characters in MGS2 that have more lines than Venom Snake, it's extremely noticeable and off-putting.