When the trailer for chapter 2 popped up after the credits I thought "Wow, that looks awesome", but after finishing episode 46 I think the game would be better ending on episode 31. Everything in chapter 2 was filler or not that great IMO besides the Quiet mission and that's more so for the cutscenes than gameplay, since she's not good against tanks at all and they were too accurate.

Episode 46 almost makes the game feels pointless and it definitely makes things convoluted for no real reason. During the middle and end of chapter 1 I was thinking this was a great game and possibly GOTY, at least so far, but now I'd put Witcher 3 far above this due to the lame twist and making gamers replay missions to advance the story is lazy and boring IMO. If I wanted to do that I'd go back to Destiny.

It's really about 38 missions, they say 50 to make the game seem bigger, which isn't needed. It feels like they ran out of money so it has no real conclusion and lacks cutscenes that explain the story. Get rid of the duplicate missions, get rid of episode 46's twist, and end the game on Quiet's mission and this game would be way better to me, perhaps more so than Witcher. Did any of you think Chapter 2 made things too repetitive and then convoluted? Also, not getting Quiet back for the previous missions makes no sense (you're practically traveling back in time anyway) and that makes me want to replay the game less, but after the twist I didn't really want to go back and play anyway.

No, I would enjoy it more if they took out the Total Stealth and Extreme missions though. (Subsistence missions are the shit)

I just straight up think the game is too long. I hit a point where I had a lot fun with it for 60+ hours (good value) and then I just didn't want to play more of it. That the story hooks got weaker towards the end sure didn't help either.

No, definitely not.

I'm fine with all three types of difficulty, but it should be an optional filter that you apply yourself if you choose to go back. I do NOT want repeating/duplicate missions to become a normal trend.

Yeah as a toggle for the normal missions it would've been fine, but making me replay missions without getting caught when I already played them that way was boring, and playing harder versions of missions focused on combat that I already hated the first time just made me hate them even more.

Short version - No.

Long version - If the whole Konami vs. Kojima thing hadn't blown up, then maybe. In other words, I would need a promise that Kojima would be back with a sequel to wrap this story up. Otherwise, I know that Chapter 2 felt unfinished and still left some threads hanging, but there is plenty to be gleamed from the tapes, side ops, and true ending(s). Knowing that Kojima won't make another MGS game, if it ended at the end of Chapter 1, it would have been WAAAY more unsatisfying...Halo 2 levels of BS.

EDIT: I also agree that not getting Quiet back was BS. I finished about 100 of the side missions by the time I got around to completing the true ending. Losing her made me not want to go back and finish the last 50 or so side ops. With all of that said, the gameplay was spot on, the structure was bold, and the detail is unmatched. It is still my GOTY thus far.

I didn't have a problem with it at all. I feel that's in part due to the fact that I had found out that you didn't have to do the replay-ed versions of any of the missions. Really I think I only did 3 or 4 other side ops as I went along. For the most part the Chapter 2 content was fairly streamlined for me.

Nah, don't really feel that way myself. I loved the re-do missions personally. Kind of wish every mission had those settings or you co do Subsistence version of every mission at least. Now that is podracing! sneaking.

I mean, I don't think you're alone in how you feel by far, but I'm on the opposite end of all those points pretty much. Quiet especially. Her leaving is brilliant.

@TechnoSyndrome: I thought all the redo missions were optional? I definitely didn't do them all before finishing the game.

No, less would make this game more cohesive but at least Act 2 gives you... some closure.

@TechnoSyndrome: Those missions are optional and always have been optional. You never had to do them.

I wouldn't cut Act 2 wholesale but you could definitely cut a lot of the filler missions from both Act 1 and 2 and it would probably be a better game.

Not if you're trying to 100% the game. Yeah, they're optional content, but content being optional shouldn't excuse it from being bad.

@frostyryan: also the game doesn't make it very clear that those are optional

The cutscenes in Chapter 2 were fantastic, even if they were disjointed. That would suck to lose those.

Chapter 2 was fine, though the missions felt uninspired, I didn't do any of the extreme missions either, I just did side ops until major items showed up on the iDroid.

I would've liked the game more if none of the story missions existed. Everything that happened in that plot was complete nonsense with no setup, purpose, or payoff.

I'd like it more of the FOB changes and mechanics didn't hamstring the base building after the recent changes

If the game was half as long with the story content of both chapters, it probably would've been my game of the year.

Personally, I think the game needed to be about a third as long and three times as dense. It just got mind-numbingly boring after awhile. That said, there were plenty of other areas they could have cut without getting rid of actual missions.

I honestly think it would have been a much better game if they had cut Mother Base entirely, the side-ops entirely, and really curtailed the open world part of it. Nothing interesting ever really happens at Mother Base and ultimately it just felt like a series of progression bars for new platforms rather than meaningful content. If you ditch MB, you can ditch the side-ops too, since most of those are just for getting personnel.

As far as the open-world goes, I thought the way it was implemented didn't do the game any favors. It was too empty between outposts and most of the action took place in the denser areas you went into during missions anyway. In fact, most of the open world is really only there for the side-op stuff. If they'd cut the side-ops, they could have limited gameplay to moderately large main mission areas (i.e. the main area plus a few outposts, etc.). If they kept the main mission side-objectives in, there would still have been plenty of repeatable gameplay while making the overall experience much tighter.

Now here's an idea I can get behind.

I actually liked Chapter 2 way more than Chapter 1...

I'd liked the game more if they removed everything involving Volgin, Eli, and The Third Child because that's all the shit that got left unresolved.

Same here dude, that stuff was all a complete waste of time.

That was what drove me nuts about the spoilercast about MGS5. Brad just kind of dismissed the Eli/giant robot and virus strain loose plot ends. When that was the main fucking threat to the story. When that was just left unresolved, it made the entire game feel unfinished.

Calling it a chapter was a mistake. But some of those missions were awesome and storywise there was a lot of interesting stuff in it. I wouldn't want to miss out on that.

Absolutely not. The pacing and scattershot placement of the missions is insane, but basically every heavy moment in the game is in chapter 2.

I had this same discussion with someone about this few days ago.

I wouldn't say ditching chapter 2 would solve everything, but rather ending at chapter 1 would have been fine if this were any other game. End it without any Volgin and Mantis involvement to begin with or explain their origins by the end of chapter 1 could have been fine.

Chapter 2 isn't that bad, and as much as I like the gameplay I felt like I want the game to end so its shorter length and more speedy format isn't an issue. The game has pacing issue, it is a hard problem to solve in an open world game, especially so for a normally story focus game like MGS.

I feel like the entire game is unnecessary, both chapter 1 and 2. It isn't a bad game, not at all, but it just feels unnecessary in the grand scheme of the MGS timeline.

MGS3 was a miracle imo to be able to make past events relevant and stand alone on its own.

Peace Walker was a little weak but still if we want to spin it as that's how Big Boss build Outer Heaven and still be in somewhat good grace yet piss off with the world to be able to lead into MG it is fine.

Then MGSV came out and it is essentially (re)building off Peace Walker with throwaway villains, characters, events, and being indecisive on what direction they want to go just feels like a mess by MGS standard.

As an episodic platform the game has potential for future, but with the state of affairs between Kojima and Konami I guess it is best that it be left alone.

No because the ending to the first act was abrupt and kind of shit.

No. People would just be twice as angry about the game being "unfinished".

If they used some of the resources they had on story missions rather than 90% of the side missions and other useless shit, maybe they would have something resembling a full, decent story.

Nope, I finished chapter 1, quit the game and deleted it.
I was so damn tired of the gameplay after 40 hours and nothing about the story grabbed me enough to continue.

It's still very unfinished so it wouldn't matter.

I enjoyed the cutscenes from chapter 2 so I'm glad that I was able to experience them, but I could've done without replaying all of those missions from chapter 1. The game was feeling long to me before stuff was being repeated, but then they went ahead and put in hard mode versions of those missions and it just felt like needless filler. As well as the game played I was practically begging for it to be over well before it was actually finished.

They should have just named it epilogue instead. That wouldn't fix everything ,but it would have helped set expectations. I enjoyed the game either way.

No, because flaws and all, there's still some really fantastic stuff in Chapter 2. Maybe the wording of it should have been different (epilogue is perhaps better), but nonetheless. Seeing the teaser for Chapter 2 (as someone that had no idea of the structure of the game), was one of the most wonderful and goddamn happy moments I've had from a game in a while.

I don't remember anything fantastic in Chapter 2 besides Quiet going HAM and saving "Big Boss". The mission where you kill the infected is interesting, since it's one of the few interior missions, but it leads nowhere. Playing the prologue again was boring and the twist was awful. Maybe if episode 51 had actually happened it would've helped things, but it's disappointing right now.

My reaction after episode 31: "That was pretty cool".

My reaction after episode 46: "WTF was that crap".

The climax of the game is obviously the several "to be continued missions" leading up to episode 31.

I would have preferred the series just stopped at Snake Eater.

But no chapter 1's ending was way to abrupt for it to just end there.

No, I'd rather have the skeleton of an epilogue that is Chapter 2 than the otherwise underwhelming conclusion that is the end of Chapter 1.

No, that's crazy. I loved everything about it.

So don't play chapter 2 then. Anytime someone is suggesting taking out content I'm going to say no. That's just dumb.

No, because Chapter 2 had a lot more of the wacky Metal Gear that I'm used to.

Either way I had a lot of fun with all of it. IF anything I wish they released more missions as DLC - I'd buy that right away.

I think some people just read the title of the thread and not the first post. I suggested it be episode 31 then Quiet's mission. That wouldn't make it anymore abrupt since that's basically how it is now - but there's just a bunch of filler and a lame twist after the Skull Face climax, which is really the climax of the game. There's some stuff toward the end and in general that doesn't make much sense. Like Eli calling Boss "father" a couple times. How the hell would he know that - if it's in a tape then I don't care. Hyping up the battle gear tank when you never use it was silly too. It feels like there's a bunch of gameplay mechanics and cutscenes missing, more so towards the end of the game. It's abrupt and offers no closure whether it ends around 31 or on 46.

Yeah I feel the same way. I really liked it all. Imagine if Bungie got axed after Halo 2 and there was no Halo 3 coming as Halo 2 came out. Would everyone kill them for leaving threads hanging?

They built this engine and team to make more than one MGS game. Then things went sideways. I am not going to kill the game for that personally. All the MGS games have loose threads. I came into this game with no expectations about it tying everything up.

But then we would have no Proxy War Without End, which was one of my favourite missions.

I really enjoyed the twist and totally think it has a place in this game. I think people would be more annoyed if there was no twist at all, even if they aren't completely happy with the one that is there.

They should have made it clearer in game that you don;t need to do any of the repeat missions. I didn't do any, just side opped my way for new story missions to unlock, so I avoided what some are calling filler.

Like i said in a previous thread, i feel it would have been better served as an epilogue (which it really is) rather than a part 2. Being billed as a second chapter made the content feel weaker in c9ntrast to part 1 which made it disappointing at first until i realized it was more like post game content rather than a second half. Once i figured this i had more fun with the game and skipped most the repeat stuff and just dod side missions to unlock content.

30 or 31 was where I tapped out. I got what I needed from the game and didn't need to see anymore. If there's more story or cool content after that point, I don't need to see it. I don't know if the rest is bad, but I stopped caring a few missions before that point. It's good there's something there for people that want to play more.

The game have suffered so many flaws and this is one of them.

It would have been so much better if they have made all the filler main missions under side ops tab, including the important side ops missions like Huey's and Quite's while listening the rest of side ops missions under extra ops tabs.

Because of this simple mistake MGSV will most likely be the least repayable game in the franchise and it can easily get dropped out of the yearly MGS marathons.