Portable Ops VS. Peace Walker

[MGWSpike]

Both PSP stealth-action Metal Gear titles. Which one do you prefer?

Here are a few questions highliting a few differences to help you choose:
- Various playable characters* from the series or Snake as the only playable character*?
- Campbell or Miller?
- Going back to the truck or using the Fulton to recruit soldiers?
- Human bosses or vehicle bosses?
- Metal Gear RAXA or Zeke?
- Ashley Wood art or the Yoji Shinkawa / Ashley Wood art mix?
- Hideo Kojima plot or Hideo Kojima full script?

* By "characters", I mean characters who were previously characterized and have a distinct look, as opposed to generic balaclava-wearing soldiers.

[Dirty Duck]

I will always prefer Portable Ops personally. I feel like it really carved the niche that ended up defining the Big Boss games post-MGS3. But even beyond that, the characters in PO's FOX Unit were a lot more memorable than many of the Peace Walker characters. Them being real, human bosses helped with that a lot-and the different cutscenes for recruitment was a great touch. I think the soldier recruiting aspect was better in general in PO-Big Boss getting kidnapped and you having to rely on your recruits was a really well done moment. Gene and Cunningham made great villains, too-far better than anything PW had. And perhaps most importantly, Calling to the Night knocks Heaven's Divide out of the park for me.

I'll answer your Qs:
-Various playable characters* from the series or Snake as the only playable character*?: for multiplayer it was fun being able to play as such a range. I also think unlocking the FOX Unit through non-lethal boss battles was the most fulfilling pay-off that has ever had.
- Campbell or Miller?: Miller. He is one of PW's real strong suits and is a lot better done than Young Campbell.
- Going back to the truck or using the Fulton to recruit soldiers?: Fulton is obviously more convenient, but in a way it trivialises recruiting soldiers. PO having it so it's a bit of an ordeal means there's a bit more decision making about when to bother taking a soldier back to base.
- Human bosses or vehicle bosses?: Human. The mechs are cool but ALL mechs is too much.
- Metal Gear RAXA or Zeke?: RAXA is more unique, ZEKE is kinda Temu REX. But I enjoyed being able to make ZEKE using the mech pieces, it was a good mechanic and one of the coolest aspects of Mother Base. The pay off of the final boss battle with it was good, too. PLUS the Vocaloid implementation.
- Ashley Wood art or the Yoji Shinkawa / Ashley Wood art mix?: Ashley Wood's grungey sketchy style worked great on the PSP, but Yoji Shinkawa is Metal Gear Solid when it comes down to it.
- Hideo Kojima plot or Hideo Kojima full script?: bafflingly I preferred the Hideo Kojima plot. PW has its moments but I actually think PO worked much better as a post-MGS3 story for Big Boss.

What about you, Spike?

[MGWSpike]

And perhaps most importantly, Calling to the Night knocks Heaven's Divide out of the park for me.

What about you, Spike?

Yeah, Calling to the Night is one of the very best MGS songs IMO.

- Various playable characters* from the series or Snake as the only playable character*? I prefer playing characters rather than generic soldiers. Was disappointed The Phantom Pain single player mode only had Venom Snake, MGR Raiden, PS1 Cyborg Ninja and PS1 Solid Snake as playable characters in that regard, too.
- Campbell or Miller? I liked Miller in MG2 as well as the impersonator in MGS1, so it was nice having him back and getting some development.
- Going back to the truck or using the Fulton to recruit soldiers? As you wrote, going back to the truck is tedious, but Fultoning everyone (even indoors!) is too easy and unrealistic.
- Human bosses or vehicle bosses? Human bosses.
- Metal Gear RAXA or Zeke? Zeke is better even if it feels like a REX rip-off.
- Ashley Wood art or the Yoji Shinkawa / Ashley Wood art mix? Shinkawa. Not too fond of Ashley Wood's art.
- Hideo Kojima plot or Hideo Kojima full script? Portable Ops feels a bit too much like a MGS1 remake and a few retcons suck (Null, Ghost, ...) but several Peace Walker characters were insufferable.

I also didn't enjoy the grind in PW to unlock everything.

[starschwar]

- Various playable characters* from the series or Snake as the only playable character*?:
Snake (or MSF stand-in) works better. Because in both cases, it's Snake that actually does stuff in the cutscenes anyway. Plus, seeing various masked allies helping out in the boss fight cutscenes in CO-OP is satisfying. Big Boss is supposed to be a leader, and seeing that in even a small scale is cool.

- Campbell or Miller: Miller. I have nothing against young Roy, but I feel that his exact role in the story could have been filled by a throwaway character and nothing would have changed. We knew very little about the "real" Master Miller before Peace Walker, and I feel that having him present as the devil on Snake's shoulder was a good angle.

- Going back to the truck or using the Fulton to recruit soldiers?: How is this a question? Dragging soldiers was tedium. I don't even like hiding the bodies in normal stealth gameplay. The fulton system is convenient, based on (if exaggerated) something real, and was established back in Snake Eater.

- Human bosses or vehicle bosses?: Portable Ops's boss unit are more interesting from a story perspective because... well, they're characters! Even Cunningham has more personality than any of the tank drivers or non-sapient AI weapons. The Peace Walker itself is compelling for obvious reasons. But from a gameplay standpoint? Peace Walker wins. Those fights are fun. As with most of Portable Ops, I just struggled my way through. I don't think those encounters were designed with the same kind of detail as any of the Kojima-directed games up to that point.

- Metal Gear RAXA or Zeke? Zeke! It makes sense as both a proto-REX, and a loose ancestor to the 8-bit weapons. RAXXA's tech seems way too advanced for the time period, and is such a radical departure that I don't think it should even count as Metal Gear. It looks super cool, but that's the sort of thing Cyborg Raiden should have fought, not Naked Snake.


- Ashley Wood art or the Yoji Shinkawa / Ashley Wood art mix?: I'll be honest - I had no idea Shinkawa contributed to either game, or how much. It all looked about the same. I think Peace Walker had the better looking cutscenes, but I'd have preferred real-time in general.


- Hideo Kojima plot or Hideo Kojima full script?: Portable Ops has its moments, but ultimately they don't matter. Canon or not, almost none of the biggest story beats ever come back - and one is outright contradicted in Phantom Pain. And teasing the Act 3 reveal that early was a mistake. Peace Walker's first four acts are very well done, and indeed, I teared up a bit at the 'initial' ending. It all falls apart at the end with Pacifica Ocean, her ridiculous plan, and foreshadowing way, way too much. Even hinting at SOP in 1974 is beyond the realm of suspension of disbelief, even if I do reluctantly accept the super advanced AI. And while "Null' and "Gene" aren't exactly inspired names, only Hideo Kojima could unironically name a character "Hot Coldman" as their actual legal name. Nope. Love you Hideo, but that's BS.


I think Portable Ops was ambitious, had a phenomenal soundtrack (Calling to the Night is among the best end credits themes in the series!). It almost had not one but two of the best renditions of the MGS theme before the Sviridov thing came to light. But in the end, it's everything that's wrong with a portable adaptation of a console series: They tried to cram a control scheme onto a platform with too few inputs, and tried to make an engine that barely ran smoothly on PS2 chug along on lesser hardware. Peace Walker punched way, way, above the PSP's weight. It may not have run the best, but it played so much better.

I feel like I'd like Portable Ops more if any of its more interesting story beats ever came up again, if it had a stable frame rate, and especially if it were playable with Subsistence style controls (C'mon Master Collection 3!). But even then, some deliberate design choices hamstring it. Peace Walker isn't perfect - the Mother Base micromanagment, R&D, outer opts, etc - that wasn't fun. But it's much closer to what I want out of a Metal Gear Solid game than Portable Ops.

[starschwar]

One more thing in Portable Ops's favor: It's the one that explains just how Big Boss persuades captured enemy soldiers to join his cause. Peace Walker and Phantom Pain never reiterate this information, and I know more than a few casual players were confused as to how and why this worked.

[Wayno]

- Various playable characters* from the series or Snake as the only playable character*? - It's neat having recognisable characters to do missions with but I never bothered.

- Campbell or Miller? - Campbell. I didn't like Miller in either PW or MGSV.

- Going back to the truck or using the Fulton to recruit soldiers? Fulton is fun. It's a cool gimmick but it breaks the game. The truck was annoying in MPO but you could also drag them to the nearest cardboard box instead. I choose the one that adds danger.

- Human bosses or vehicle bosses? Humans every day. The Gene boss fight alone is better than any generic vehicle fight

- Metal Gear RAXA or Zeke?  They're both not great,  RAXA, just.

- Ashley Wood art or the Yoji Shinkawa / Ashley Wood art mix? I like what we got in both to be honest there's zero criticisms I have with the art.

- Hideo Kojima plot or Hideo Kojima full script? The story in PW is god awful and this version of Snake / Big Boss is the absolute worst. Contrast to MPO where you see Snake recruiting through charisma and actions rather than reputation established in previously. The cutescene after you recruit Jonathan and the mission where you have to play as a recruited soldier to rescue Snake does more to establish Snake / Big Boss as a great leader of men than anything Hideo himself comes up with. This is the best post MGS3 characterisation we get and it's not even close.


Also, bonus points for MPO's online actually being good. It was basic shooter modes but the maps were good whilst being on the PSP of all things.

[VRAM OK!]

I actually prefer the environments in MPO to PW. I think generally they’re a bit bigger and better designed for more varied stealth play. It’s got crawl spaces too which obviously aren’t a thing in PW. PW’s probably feel a bit more bespoke, because MPO re-uses assets from MGS3, but yeah some of those missions in PW are over in just couple of minutes because of how small the environments can be. With MPO it just feels like there’s more to the environments in the way they are layed out.