At last, I can finally be free and move on with my life! I beat Peace Walker! (...Sorta.)

So, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is the direct continuation of the story that Portable Ops planted back in the day, and it's also a continuation when it comes to the gameplay since it's another recruitment base builder type of game to be played in short bursts more than the usual sneaking narrative-driven Metal Gear game... And man, I wish it wasn't.

For Portable Ops I understood why it was that way, the PSP was really new when it came out, and I think the simplicity was kind of the charm of it, it didn't really feel bothersome to binge for a long time since the stages and enemy paths were simple enough to the point where it made for a fun time especially since the story was really well paced and it always made you long for more. Peace Walker however, considering it was released five years after feels like it has enough substance and layer of complexity in order to be a normal sneaking Metal Gear game, and more of a direct continuation gameplay-wise to Metal Gear Solid 3 give or take. The characters are there, the story is good enough for it to be and the scenario and levels while not the biggest, they give enough play for the portable system for it to be, probably. However, the end result was Portable Ops but way bigger for its own good, a whole buncha grinding if you're looking out to do everything you wanna do and a whole audiobook of hours of lore dumps and character interactions that if paced evenly could've been greater for its characters if embedded in the story somehow, the absence of a Codec or actual character interactions really disconnects the flow of the story with the game itself, when you go into a new level it's pretty much certain that you're not gonna be interrupted by anything until you complete your objective or go out of your way to call someone, which is undoubtedly something that makes Metal Gear, Metal Gear. And it being missing is kind of a miss.

The game itself was also designed to be kind of a mix between an offline and online experience, akin to a Monster Hunter (funnily enough considering some of the Side Ops you can do related to that franchise) game where you could have people help you out in main and secondary missions, maybe actually make the latter fun to play somewhat. But unfortunately as this is a nearly 14-year-old game the online is pretty dead unless you plan out and go out of your way to actually do these missions online, so in terms of longevity that didn't last long which hurts the experience somewhat, it feels like a chore to go out of your way to do Side Ops all by yourself especially when later on they become sorta necessary to get the real ending of the game.

I also gotta make this point and say that every boss in this game is repetitive and kinda sucks as a whole considering the combat in this one is pretty poor compared to other Metal Gear games, the airdrop supply system is awful too and you need to spam it so much throughout that the cycle gets stale fast.

So in the end the game does really just feel half-way through of being a really neat experience considering the story is as unhinged as it is introducing the characters and concepts that it does, being the first real introduction to a Metal Gear as a weapon. Some parts are really eh here and there but overall I think it holds up nicely, I just wish it was presented in a better way because I could just not care enough about building MSF myself and sending off troops on their own and recruiting new ones, it would take a long ass while to actually do everything and I guess that was kinda their point with it, considering the fact that it had cross-saves with the PSP version as well, but unless you had nothing to do back in the early 2010's.

I really didn't have much motivation to actually push through and finish this game for the longest time, and I technically didn't finish it, I didn't get to finish Chapter 5 that requires you to do a number of Side Ops and actually finish ZEKE. I just couldn't. I had enough of this PSP parasite brethen of a hellspawn video game, so I did the next rational thing and watched like 6 hours of gameplay seeing everything that was there to do after where I left off and man, it would not have been any less worth it. Like yeah Paz's reveal was... There. And The Boss' ventures as a spacewoman narrated by the very big lesbian that is Strangelove were nice but they would not make me play any more Side Ops. I hate Side Ops.

I'd love to see it revitalized in Master Collection Vol. 2 whenever that happens, especially in an age where it could be way more accessible for everyone to play 'cuz I know for certain that would crank it up a notch when doing some of the more grindier quests or ease up boss fights a bit.