I've always found the whole movie-game hybrid schtick of previous Metal Gear games like Sons of Liberty and Snake Eater to be a little off-putting, which is made worse by the fact that the story of the Metal Gear franchise itself is convoluted and hard to follow especially with its out of order timeline, and that's not even mentioning the fact that clones that are eventually thrown into the mix. Those same story issues carry over to The Phantom Pain but this is a different type of Metal Gear game.
Gone are the days of forty-five-minute cutscenes, it is just gameplay without a huge focus on the story and I like that because the story sucks due to the things I previously mentioned and on top of that the story wasn't even finished due to Konami rushing the game out the door. And I'm sure hardcore Metal Gear fans will disagree but for a much more casual player such as myself, the lack of story compared to the older titles here is a blessing.
MGSV is the most gameplay oriented in the series and it's for the better because to put it simply, MGSV is not only one of the greatest stealth games of all time, but it's one of the best open-world games of all time. You are given such an immense amount of freedom and control that it feels like a sandbox game in a lot of ways, you can take a thousand different approaches to a mission and that is a type of thing that really appeals to me when it comes to video games. It's like being a kid and playing with one of those plastic tubs filled to the brink with LEGOs, the possibilities are endless.
You can impersonate an enemy soldier or a bikini model by having a picture of them put onto your box, you can plant C4 on an unsuspecting enemy and set it off when you decide it would be most effective, you can use your phantom cigar to change the time of day to change enemy patrol routes, you can set up inflatables of yourself to deceive and distract your enemies, you can destroy things in the environment that can damage enemies or lead to domino effects, you can request air support and have crates and vehicles dropped on enemies heads, you can choose to go on missions with a buddy such as D-Dog who will perform some of the most hilarious kills I've ever seen in any game, or you can just put all your focus on customizing your mother base and add things like a zoo to it by extracting animals you come across in the wild via Fulton extraction, and you can even go in guns blazing utilizing some of your more loud and destructive tools and weaponry like grenade launchers, and your D-Walker robot in a stealth centric game if you wish, I personally would consider it a slightly inferior way to play the game but it's completely doable and the option is there for those who want it and that's what makes MGSV so great. It embraces fun, freedom, and variety over all else. And if you find the game is getting repetitive, switch up your play style or find a different approach, and experiment because the game actively rewards players who think outside the box and try something new.
You can play this game for over fifty hours and barely even scratch the surface of what the game's mechanics are capable of, and I might not care for the story much but the Metal Gear franchise's tendency to merge the serious with the silly with the supernatural is one of the coolest concepts I've seen in a game to date and it's surprisingly well-executed.
In terms of negatives, I have with MGSV the story comes to mind obviously but that's really it. As much as I want to give this game a five-star rating, that is reserved for games that are a complete package of gameplay, innovation, story, etc. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't buy this game because it's easily amongst the top best games of this generation.