I couldn't find a thread for this series which is weird because I feel like it's really popular here and V came out a month ago.

The first game in the series I played was actually Rising because a friend recommended it and said the story really didn't matter enough to play all the others. With all the hype for V I decided to finally get the Legacy Collection. So in about a month I've played through every Metal Gear Solid and just looked up what happened in MG1/2 and Portable Ops. I loved 2-5 and thought 1 was ok, but only because it's so dated. I can appreciate what it did at the time but I just really wasn't into it.

The story was all the cheesy action movie convoluted s*** I could ask for and I loved almost all of it. That said, even though its gameplay is the best of the series, I thought V's story was pretty lame overall. V in general went away from a lot of things that were staples of every other MGS. Like there are so few boss battles and it seems like there definitely could have been more. Granted, the story is literally incomplete. There's a whole cutscene from the next mission where you take down Eli but it's not entirely finished and had to be cut due to time constraints. There are rumors Kojima wanted to add a whole 3rd chapter but didn't have enough time. The actual ending in the game is pretty flat. It's just like "hey you aren't really Big Boss, game over." There's no leadup to it either. It's just like they needed to end the game now so here replay the first mission with some slight differences and a final twist. It was pretty obvious from the very beginning you weren't the real Big Boss anyway. I also can't believe the Man on Fire got so hyped up, revealed to be Volgin, then he just ACTUALLY DIED when he got crushed by the platform.

Anyways I'd rank the games 3>4>5>2>PW>1

1 is my favourite and i know this makes me a filthy hipster

No it doesn't lmao

As long as you can accept that the backtracking sucks and the controls are a little clunky sometimes, there's nothing wrong with liking 1 the most

1,2 and 3 (and the end two missions of 4) are the best to me, it's like choosing a favorite child. I really liked 1 and 2 when I played them first and starting 3 after that was so jarring (no radar really irked me) but I tried it again and I honestly think it has the best story out of all of them.

1 is dated but I still loved it completely, there's nothing wrong with it if you play it with a 'this came out in the 90s' mindset

2 is the problem child, because of the bomb defusing part of the game specifically ( as well as questionable bosses, Fatman is just too silly and miss fortunes powers STILL aren't explained even with the parasite s***. 5 metal gears too). The ending sequence is perfect however, and I really think Campbell AI's speech about context holds true to this day, even more so than it did in 2001.
4 was too f*** dumb at points to be considered on the same level but some parts surpass all of the other games, chapter 4 and 5 specifically being masterpieces. The graveyard scene at the end is the best.
Peace walker was just bleugh, long a** boss fights and stupid technology
V is a really good game but it's a bad metal gear game, and it's unfinished/mtx s***. Where is raiden/solidus? Naomi? GRAY FOX???? Why was Eli on the helicopter in mission 30? Eyes on Kazuhira?? who is Ishmael ?

What annoys me about PW and V is that they don't -really- have any reason to exist. You can fill in the blanks of what happened between MGS3 and MG1 yourself from MGS3's ending + a little imagination.

And then when Kojima tries filling in the blanks himself we end up with a "missing link" that isn't even complete and just raises further questions about the series. Questions that probably won't ever be answered.

At least we got Kaz out of PW and V

i'm horribly late but i started playing 1 recently and i'd say i'm about 1/3 through it. i absolutely love it so far, don't even mind the occasional clunkiness and stuff. i have a soft spot for high quality games that came out in the 90's tho

i have 2, 3, and peace walker via the HD collection, and revengeance (thx thot) and ground zeroes on steam. the only game i don't have access to play immediately is 4 since it's a ps3 exclusive i think, but from what i can tell it's not a great entry in the series and i could probably do ok to just watch it online or something

also according 2 my friend who is the world's biggest metal gear fan 5 is atrocious and almost ruins the franchise just because of the story. although i'd like to think this isn't all kojima's fault as much as the fact that konami has made soooo many bad decisions lately and one of the results of this is 5 being released incomplete

Revengeance isnt canon, neither is PO (except for some parts)

They should have made it that the boss AI is the reason the patriots are f*** up but I guess they don't really think some parts through

Revengence is canon, it just takes place after all the other games in the series so it's irrelevant

Revengeance is canon yeah. It has very few links to Metal Gear's 'main story' though.

As for Phantom Pain, a lot of people seem realy on the fence about it and I kind of agree. The whole 'missing ending' really makest he game feel incomplete and Konami's awful practises are probably the blame for it. I personally thought the true ending was pretty clever (although in this case thinking it's clever doesn't neccesarily equal liking it), as it's a deconstruction of video games similair to what happened with Raiden as a proxy character in the end of Metal Gear Solid 2 but maybe I'm just pretentious who knows.

Quiet was also a stupid caracter in my opinion but I'll take that to Tumblr lol

Quiet ended up being more cute than sexy lmao

Here comes Term's hot opinions!!!

MGS1 is a solid ( ) game, if a bit dated. It can definitely still be enjoyed today, and it has some great ideas to it, but when comparing it with the others it tends to come up short for me for a few reasons, like its level design, backtracking, etc. Don't mistake this for negativity, I still like it quite a bit.

Sons of Liberty gameplay-wise was a step up from 1 I guess, but the top down gameplay becomes a bit odd to me after playing the other games. Mostly I think this one's great for it's ending sequence and it's exploration of themes that have only become much more relevant since the game's release. It's great.

Snake Eater is my favorite. Everything about this f***' game is so good. The story, the characters, the 3D camera, the expansion of the stealth gameplay. I hesitate to give anything a 10/10 but this is super damn close. I love it.

For Guns of the Patriots, I can't put it more accurately than "The worst in the series, with the best moments". Trying to make a concrete story that takes place after an ending left largely open to interpretation was a terrible idea to begin with, and a lot of the plot elements added are still jarringly stupid to me. The boss fights and setpieces are among the worst in the series, with the two exceptions that I don't have to mention. I also don't think I even have to mention the ridiculous cutscene length. It's telling that, although I wanted to play this game in 2014 for the novelty of it, I didn't get the inspiration to do so for the whole year. The stealth gameplay itself is solid, but it gets drowned out by all the other s*** I think

Peace Walker had some neat ideas, but the boss fights were terrible awful bullet sponges and it was clearly held back by the PSP's hardware. To me it feels like MGSV surpasses it in basically every way; I don't think this one's worth playing anymore now that MGSV has improved upon its mechanics

Lastly, The Phantom Pain. I really liked the move to open world, I liked how it changed the game. I liked that there was an absolute boatload of s*** you could do, with gadgets and buddies and the like. The first half of the game was paced nicely, and I was thinking it was brilliant up until then, but everyone knows what happens after. I can only claim that it's incomplete, and could've been comparable to Snake Eater in my eyes if they'd been able to take a few more years and a s*** more money to finish it. That was never reasonable, though. It's still a really good game, despite disappointing aspects after the first half ends, and luke your buddy who thinks it's atrocious is dumb as a rock ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I disagree with some of the new story elements, but it didn't add anything as offensive as Guns of the Patriots did. There are a lot of complaints to make about it storywise, but honestly you can just shrug most of them off as "maybe if they'd been able to finish the game....". Makes it hard to talk about. Also, given their track record with the last two games, I am definitely not upset that boss fights are mostly gone. I mostly enjoyed it, anyway. Def better than MGS4

3 > 2 > V > 1 > 4 > PW

What about Portable Ops?

Nobody really cares about Portable Ops. If anything just read Let's Destroy the Fox Unit because it's more enjoyable.

Made by some B-team while Kojima was busy with MGS4. Not really worth playing.

Revengeance was confirmed noncanon by kojimbo, sorry friends