Berserker976

@artisanbreads: Fine, he projects an air of being bitter and closed off, partially due to committing patricide in MG2. He views himself as a killer, something he resents in himself, but something he has accepted (pre-MGS1). Despite being a tool of the government he has a desire to fight for what he believes in. He grows to care deeply about a woman, which prompts a change in him, and causes him to start diverging from his self-imposed fate. He has a deep respect and pity for soldiers, because he can empathize with their struggle. A speech by his best friend causes him to finally reject his role as a pawn and start doing what he personally feels is right.

There, that's all character stuff for Solid Snake in MGS1. There's more, but I think that's enough to prove that he is an actual, well-defined character, even just looking at the first MGS game. Now you do one for Venom Snake, I dare you.

@artisanbreads: Solid Snake? He was a reluctant tool of the government in MGS1, bitter at being pulled out of retirement. He's jaded, distant, and resents the fact that he's considered a hero after Metal Gear 2. He sees goodness in Meryl and argues that his life isn't something to be emulated or worshiped. Despite viewing himself as a hardened killer he still has goodness in him, and through the game he rejects who he is "suposed" to be - his fate, and learns to embrace life, and make his own way. Unlike Liquid, who remains chained to his fate til the bitter end. This is all expressed through the dialogue and characters of MGS1.

I can do the exact same thing with all the other games, trust me. I've spent waaaay too much time analyzing these games. MGSV has nothing close to this, and it's the simplest arc in the series.

@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.

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.

@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.

@artisanbreads: It's literally the opposite of MGS2. The message in 2 is that you aren't a legendary soldier, you are in fact someone sitting in front of a screen controlling characters in a game. Go out and make your own experiences etc. etc.

MGSV basically just says: "yep, you played as Snake a bunch so you're pretty much the same thing as Big Boss." It's insulting, reductive, and uninteresting. And the kicker is, that's all the the game really says about anything. The one message it actually managed to convey is terrible!

@artisanbreads: MGS2 is my favorite in the series, partially because of the misleading marketing campaign. The difference in the two being MGS2's deception served a greater meta-narrative purpose. MGSV's deception is the story-telling equivalent of a wet fart in the face of fans.

Except it was explicitly stated that it WAS the aim of MGSV in the marketing. This game was being billed as the "missing link" in the series that would complete the story of Metal Gear. This is an indisputable fact.

It failed spectacularly in that goal. Instead we got a game with barely any story, a bunch of filler, and a hollow "meta" twist.

Also, this is basically why I've decided to ignore all MGS games after MGS3 when it comes to canon. The Fukushima Trilogy was amazing. Kojima is lost without him.

@cornfed40: Plots are made up of things we learn.

I was listing plot points in MGS2 that served the narrative of the series, and that couldn't have been inferred by MG1/MG2/MGS1.

My point is that you can't make a similar list from MGSV's plot. It's a pointless entry in the series. It's a side-story that neither informs nor moves the overall series narrative.

It tells us nothing important.

@artisanbreads: Fine. Let's go over what we learn in MGS2, shall we?

-Solid Snake and Otacon have formed an anti-Metal Gear organization called Philanthropy.

-The Marines built a Metal Gear to counter all the Metal Gear derivatives spawned by the leaking of Rex.

-Ocelot is hijacks Ray for Solidus Snake and/or some organization called "The Patriots," betraying the leader of the Russian terrorists.

-Ocelot had Liquid's arm grafted onto him, causing Liquid's personality to occasionally take over.

-Solid Snake is framed for the sinking of the Tanker and becomes known as a terrorist himself.

-The Big Shell is built as a cover for the development of Arsenal Gear.

-The Patriots are introduced. You know, the organization that is basically central to almost the entire rest of the series?

-Solidus Snake (formerly president George Sears), posing as Solid Snake takes over the Big Shell with his terrorist group as part of a plan to attack the Patriots.

-The Big Shell incident is revealed to be part of the Patriots' S3 program to test their ability to control context.

-Liquid Snake takes over Ocelot (now revealed to be a triple agent working for the Patriots) and goes off to kill them; Solid Snake follows, plants a tracking device on Liquid/Ocelot's Ray, and successfully steals the digital FOXDIE.

-Arsenal Gear crashes into Manhattan. Solidus Snake is killed by the former child soldier he raised and taught to kill in the First Liberian Civil War.

These are all things that can't be inferred by the end of MGS1. Now let's look at the important events in MGSV that can't be inferred by previous games:

-The Big Boss you kill in MG1 was a body double.