It is not easy to say goodbye, just ask Hideo Kojima. For over ten years he tried to tear himself from Metal Gear Solid, but time again and again it has concluded with that he has returned for one more last game. But now it seems to be over. Hideo Kojima and Konami has fallen into a dispute, and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is apparently the last game of the series with the star producer behind the helm.

At first glance it seems we'll get a completion of the traditional Metal Gear Solid twist. To the theme of David Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World, Solid Snake wakes up in a hospital bed after a nine-year-long coma. After that, it does not take long before the building is being stormed by a smaller army.

Dazed, badly injured and highly confused Solid Snake is forced to flee with what appears to be an imaginary companion following him. Soon supernatural threats rise in the form of a floating figure with a gas mask, capable of inducing some kind of weird golem that is immune to most things you can dish out.

After the somewhat chaotic start, which incidentally serves as an hour-long tutorial, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain takes a 360 turn and instead becomes a sandbox game in true Grand Theft Auto-style. Snake arrives at Afghanistan and this is where the player is completely free to explore at his own discretion.

Not totally unexpectedly, the game world is riddled with hostile siege camps, and this is where Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain really shines. Either you can patiently scan the area at a distance and then sneak past the enemy, or you storm the place with your automatic weapon on full blast. If you want to be even more extreme, it's great to call bomb attacks from the air, attack with the aid of a sniper or destroy most in your way in a fully mayhem-equipped tank.

However, as soon as you equip some really effective weapons, the quality somewhat drops. The AI can not work together, and it will never be a real challenge. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is primarily a stealth game and as such it works well. The point is, however, that you can always decide how to take care of a situation but having in mind that this primarily is focused on the stealth aspect, which shows.

There are also no shortage of things to do. All the time you'll have a couple of main missions to choose from, but it is equally possible to pass the time with some of the countless side quests or by just exploring the world in search of wildlife, healing plants and precious diamonds. By completing assignments you get experience points that can be spent on better weapons and accessories.

As if all this were not enough, you also have access to your own military base. On the base Snake keeps all the soldiers he captures with the help of a kind of portable air balloon (do not ask). These in turn can be set into different classes, for example, you can make some of your captured victims being able to research new equipment for you.

While Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain offers far more game variations than its predecessors, the story has fallen back. During the advent of the adventure, we encounter both new and familiar faces, and the story contains plenty of twists and turns. The number of intermediate sequences is also considerably fewer - something that is exclusively positive.

Unfortunately, the story occasionally tips over in the wrong direction. There are a huge number of missions, but missions that drive the plot forward are relatively few. The vast majority, instead, consists of the type "free soldier x" or "stop hostile gun transport". The gameplay in that aspect is entertaining, but because it is not always crystal clear why you perform a specific task, it is easy to see our motivation suffer.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain therefore looks like more of a creative sandbox than a regular Metal Gear Solid game. It is reinforced by Solid Snake himself being almost silent throughout the game, and the Harry Gregson-Williams composed music is not nearly as epic as that same music that was written for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Many of the characters also feel carelessly written, others are simply wasted. Classic Revolver Ocelot is, contrary to how he performs in the predecessors, plain and proper in his behavior.

But at the same time as Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain takes a step away from the series's incorporated formula, it's brave and bitwise brilliantly designed. In its best moments it radiates pure gaming magic. Unfortunately, it also contains plenty of things that feel like pure stuffing.

Hideo Kojima's farewell may have happened untimely, but we will never again be able to accuse him of being traditional.