Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Reviews
[Kojima]'s made a game that utilises more fully what a game should, with all the learning curves that come with trying something new. Metal Gear Solid 5 is the best stealth game I've ever played, it's just not the best open-world one.
Hideo Kojima did it again. The Phantom Pain is an unique experience, full of superb details that you'll keep discovering even after sixty hours. Great narrative complemented by a tailor-made graphic design will fully satisfy you and you won't feel that the developers are forcing you to do illogical tasks.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
I highly recommend you get this game ASAP and show the true support of Kojima's last Metal Gear game ever!
Metal Gear Solid V is something every new and every returning player to the franchise will appreciate.
'Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain' isn't just great a stealth experience by 'Metal Gear' standards, it's a great stealth tour for this generation of gaming. The devs have built on the great prequel series and made an extremely sympathetic character of Big Boss. If this is Kojima's swan song, he has done it grandly.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain makes good on its word and delivers a great experience that's more than worthy of the saga's heritage. However, it's not exactly perfect, as the story requires a lot of pre-established knowledge, not to mention cassette-listening to make sense. The mechanics are polished in the campaign, but the FOB multiplayer does feel a bit pay-to-win with its microtransactions.
There's so much to say about Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, but it's a sprawling, evolving experience that it's best learnt first hand. So many elements are at play at any one time and I've only just scratched the surface of what it is capable of in this review. The number of unlocks is staggering and your play-style will drift over the 60 or so hours it takes to plough through this, offering one of the densest and most rewarding games of the year. It's already shaping up to a titanic battle for game of the year.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a game capable of upsetting metal gear's very basics and every video game preconception, but at the same time it represents a glimpse into Kojima's mind of rare clarity.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is the epitome of stealth action. It contains not only some of the best combat mechanics available, but everything you could have wanted from a Metal Gear Solid game. Plus Kiefer Sutherland.
Hideo Kojima with the release of The Phantom Pain is likely to say goodbye to the Metal Gear Solid series. He does it in a very good way, although it is difficult to find an understanding of many mistakes made on this occasion.
Review in Polish | Read full review
It's a game that's often obnoxious and clumsy in the handling of its subject matter and the treatment of its own characters, but it's also that rare game that showcases the treasure of undying delights to be found within meticulously crafted interactive worlds.
If The Phantom Pain is really going to be goodbye, it's a farewell worthy of the name it bears.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Does this impact our verdict on Metal Gear Solid 5 overall? Not really.
Despite some of its logical fallacies and niggles, The Phantom Pain remains a technical and highly polished effort with great production values, solid gameplay and oodles of content for players to sink their time into. If this is indeed Kojima's Metal Gear swan song, it's ending on a high note. It's easily one of the best games of the year or any year for that matter.
If this is indeed the final Metal Gear title from Hideo Kojima, he's gone out on an impeccably-produced high. Although the story doesn't match that of past games, The Phantom Pain's gameplay delivers in a way that only a select few open world games manage.
With The Phantom Pain Hideo Kojima has realised his Metal Gear dream.
Overall, the release proves to be a fitting, brutally brilliant finale to Hideo Kojima's beloved saga.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is the most divisive game in the series for me. On one hand I love the game play. Building up Mother Base, the missions, the stealth and gunplay all feel so refined. The open-world sandbox is endless fun. The Metal Gear portion though sadly disappoints. The boss fights are lackluster, the cut scenes are not as wacky and outlandish as I expected, and the story never really grabbed me. The Phantom Pain is the best "game" in the series by far, but also the worst Metal Gear. Still, it will be hard to top it when it comes time to choose my game of the year.
Flawed in many, many ways, but none of those ways impact a glorious, emergent, open-world experience.