Not MGS5. It's watered down. The automatic cover system is bad, the areas are too open (with the enemies too spaced apart) and you can't even knife people anymore. I could go on. MGS4 was the best, mechanically, but I preferred the prior games.

I wanna throw in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. To me just now playing the series in 2015-16, Metal Gear 2 (albeit with some of the cryptic bullshit taken out of the re release in MGS3:Substance) holds up better than 1-3. In fact MGS1 is basically a rehash of Metal Gear 2 except the 3d camera gimps the gameplay. Metal Gear 2 is to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past as MGS1 is to Ocarina of Time.

In terms of gameplay, my ranking is:

1. MGSV
2. MGS4
3. MGS2
4. MGS3 (I could flip MGS2 and MGS3)
5. MGS1

Peacewalker is probably somewhere in the middle, although I only played it for like 2 hours.

MGSV seemed like the only one to take queues from modern stealth games (Splinter Cell). My only complaint is the difficulty was trivialized later in the game by all the upgrades and companions. I didn't really like any of the others. I think I crawled my way through most of 4.

I would say 4 and Peace Walker basically feel like testing grounds for 5. They have modern camera controls, like over the shoulder shooting. Peace Walker also started fulton balloons and recruiting mechanic of different soldiers. They're not particularly fulfilling though. 4 is as close to an MGS movie as we're going to get from Kojima and it's basically an ode to MGS fans, so it's best to play this once you've played all the games. PW was a PSP game and it doesn't get away from that handheld game feeling, even though story wise it does connect the events from 3 to 5. Gameplay wise they all feel watered down and like they didn't quite nail what they wanted to do like they did in 5.

I'd say if you really want to invest more in MGS, start with 2 and 3. You might not have a full army at your disposal in those games and the controls can be frustrating, but you certainly feel like an army of one sneaking through bases successfully. They're basically OG MGS without going so far back that you have to deal with a pixelated Snake and pretend you're invested in the story and characters.

If in his second sentence he is not alluding to some sort of final mission and/or ending where its like a mad final battle with army vs army then great. Idk, I haven't finished it but just from the way the 1st and second sentence are written I've no idea if its a spoiler or not.

People who don't call Phantom Pain MGS5 are just so funny...the game is literally called "Metaru Gia Soriddo Faibu: Fantomu Pein" faibu = five pronounced phonetically in Japanese...christ people are such crybabies. The (red) "V" has a symbolism in the story of Phantom Pain and Peace Walker, it's a stylization.

Anyway 5 has the best gameplay (some of the most fun I have ever had with a game), 3 has the best story, and 2 is pretty neat too. 1 is fantastic in its right, but don't expect it (or most of them tbh) to be a very smooth experience without priming yourself.

Gameplay

5 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 1

Story
2 - 3 - 1 - 4 - 5

Overall

2 - 5 - 3 - 1 - 4

I just came here to say that MGS2 is horseshit.

Gameplay

TPP/GZ>4>3>2>1>PW

Story

1>3>4>TPP/GZ>PW> ................. ..................... ............................ ........................2

Overall

1>3>TPP/GZ>4>>PW>2

Note that the overall is almost identical to the story, because the story is generally the reason to play MGS

For my money, I enjoy the gameplay most in this order: 5 > 3 > PW > 2 > 1 > 4. My personal favorite overall game is 3.

5 is almost undisputably the most versatile and has the best feel to it. Not really much of a competition.

3 has a lot of fun goofy stuff you can do and all the bossfights are pretty good.

PW is the halfstep to 5 where they made a lot of good changes on the gameplay, but it's hampered by being developed for the PSP and the bosses are bad.

2 plays very similar to 3 but I don't like most of the encounter designs or bosses

1 is just old, quirky and unforgiving. Not great

4 sucks

I think that the other MGS games, specifically MGS2 and 3, have a huge amount of gameplay depth and variety. But it's all happening at a much smaller scale, so I don't know if you'll dig it. MGSV is really its own thing in a lot of ways.

I would recommend MGS2 to anyone though, I think that game is such a breeze to play. Even knowing how much you liked V, it's hard to say if you'll like or dislike the other games at all because they are completely different.

uncharted 4 is the best one dude