Controls like trying to get your crippled grandmother to walk and drive. A story that is over complicated for the sake of trying to be smart which it’s not. It’s just a bloated story with nonsensical ideas and concepts that are fleshed out very poorly, and paced even worse.
With dialogue that’s sounds like me trying to talk, and sound smart to my crush. The only 2 things it gets right is sound design/soundtrack which is phenomenal all the way through the game, and the scenery which is some of the best I have seen in a game, and pulled off in a very smart way with using light to make textures look more real than they are. This game is like a piece of art, but in the sense that it’s only good to look at.
It is very hard to believe this is from the genius who brought us the metal gear franchise (particularly MGS 3) with pristine controls, and an intriguing story that’s confusing in the beginning but takes it time with fleshing everything out through multiple games, and great pacing in them. Even though the MGS franchise has numerous flaws it still had an identity for itself, and has functional controls, and mechanics that don’t feel like your fighting the game against itself just to walk/drive or fight for more than a few minutes. The controls with these environments do not function well together.
It really seems like Kojima try’d way too hard to one up himself with this game. Thinking if he made it so wack it would turn out unique, and “smart.” And the story had tons of potential, the initial concept is great, it just never fleshes itself out in a satisfying way.
Things that could’ve help this is better pacing, more world building with actually being able to see the people in settlements, and witnessing their struggles to give the player more motivation to deliver packages. More fluid vehicle controls, remove the conversation with mama talking about remembering herself in the womb, make a character for Sam, along with making him human, rework Fragiles dialogue. Give Higgs a motivation to be bad just a few ideas, he doesn’t agree with the reform of government, people in the US betrayed him so he would rather start a separatist group.
This game just doesn’t seem polished or changed, it doesn’t look like there was a person reviewing the work, and make sure it’s ok to be published, like Kojima was surrounded by a bunch of yes man that believe Kojimas word is the word of god, and everything he does is just too complex, and smart for are subhuman ape minds.