Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain: The Complete Official Guide Paperback – September 1, 2015

Metal Gear Solid V is a huge game. It's a very huge game. It's also a game that introduces a lot of new elements for series fans. A strategy guide can come in handy. Piggyback Interactive has made tons of Metal Gear Solid guides and they've all been very helpful. But Metal Gear Solid V is a totally different beast. With how unique it is the focus of a guide might also need a unique focus as well. This is what that guide does. It provides the tools for you. In short, Piggyback Interactive is more about helping you understand Metal Gear Solid V just as much as it is about helping you get through it. This is the most exhaustive and unique Metal Gear Guide I've ever seen.The guide begins with a fairly touching foreward from Hideo Kojima. Seeing as how this may very well be his last Metal Gear game, Kojima lets us know that he gave Metal Gear Solid V his all and that he also wants you to enjoy this particular strategy guide. Once we've gone from this we jump into learning about the basics of the game itself. Even veterans of the Metal Gear Solid saga might want to make a stop here. Things are incredibly different in Metal Gear Solid V and you'd do well to make sure you know how all of its systems work before really diving in. This is all the stuff for beginners, though. Once you learn the basics of the system, the guide has more information you may want to utilize later. We'll get to that. First, the part that most of you are wondering about: The Walkthrough.Is the walkthrough good? Yes, but it also has to take a different approach than most previous guides by Piggyback. In previous games, Metal Gear was particularly... predictable. Not so in this. Thus Piggyback can always tell you what to do and where to go, but it can't always offer up strategies for how to do everything. It can't tell you much about patrol routes or even how many patrols are in an area because Metal Gear Solid V is changing this stuff up constantly. It doesn't mean you can't get help. You can. The guide provides a few basic tips before it actually dives in. It's going to let you know how the guards can change and show you a few "points of interest." Each mission always begins with a few "notes" and addresses your first play through. Each section also has very detailed top down maps. It then utilizes a waypoint system. It'll show point 1 on a map and then you need to find the "1" in the walkthrough and read it. But for those who just want a quick reference, you can just look at certain call outs on the map itself. It also takes some time to map out how you should go about your mission. As I said, though, it can't really show you guard routes or account for certain things like environmental changes or what happens during the night. It can always point out objectives and intel, though. And it's a good thing the guide comes with a huge map of both Afghanistan and Africa.This layout means that each mission it can detail quickly. But whenever new enemies are introduced or there are new boss fights, the guide goes into a lot more depth. It might seem like the walkthrough is flying by, but you'll get quite a bit out of it. You won't always learn patrol routes, but the guide will actually help you out in other ways regarding that. The guide also covers side ops, but not with the same amount of depth. Since the side ops are typically not as long or as important you mostly get a screen shot and the details. The guide and walkthrough are organized the way they are so that it can avoid as many spoilers as possible and so that it can be used more so for a quick reference rather than being used in an in depth way.The guide also has a section dedicated to Mother Base. You'll get a lot of details here. There are maps and information on your entire arsenal here. You can also learn about development and how to manage it too. This section of the guide is valuable because you'll get the most out of development and recruitment this way. Players new to the concept of the mother base should spend time in this section. Probably even more so than the walkthrough at times.In most strategy guides, the walkthrough is the meat and bones. It's the section you buy a guide for. I would argue that in the case of Piggyback Interactive's Metal Gear Solid V guide the reason you should buy it is the analysis and references chapter. The guide cautions against using this section until you've completed 31 missions, but the first couple bits of advice are valuable to beginners and experts alike. In particular, if you want to learn more about how your enemies function and work... this is where you want to go. And believe me, you want to know how your enemies function and work. But you'll get more than that. Here I was able to learn about Metal Gear Solid V's dynamic difficulty and learn more about the response system and how the game changes based on your style of play. All of these things were important to the core experience. How your enemies work is invaluable, though. How far can you enemies see? This section tells you. How about their health levels and various body parts? It's all here. Yeah, the walkthrough can't tell you about patrol routes or anything, but the enemies section can help you understand everything about them to aid you in how you go about it. The guide also details the entire score system to help you get the best rankings on every mission.There are some spoilers in the references and analysis chapters, however. In particular, a certain recruit is detailed in full that might be a spoiler. The guide, of course, has already warned you that there would be some spoilers in this section. You'll also get information on a lot of bosses here as well. This section is here primarily for advanced players of Metal Gear Solid V. In reading this section you already need to understand the basic systems of the game to begin with.The Extras chapter can help you learn some secrets about the game. This is nice, but the real treat in the extras chapter is actually the entire story recap. Piggyback has always done this with their Metal Gear Solid guides going all the way back to Metal Gear Solid 2. And in each new guide they release they always recap the entire story and give an interpretation of the events that have happened. This particular guide opts to cover every last detail you need to know in the story. It'll also do so in chronological order. Meaning it details the events of Snake Eater, Peace Walker, Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid V before it goes into the plots of Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2 and finally Metal Gear Solid 4. The guide also provides profiles for other characters throughout the saga. If you've gone through the entire saga, this guide will help you begin to make sense of it.The paperback guide ends after you've read the whole synopsis. The collector's edition, guide, however, has an art gallery with commentary by Kojima himself. This alone makes the collector's edition worth a buy. Here you'll get to learn about some of he development of the game and learn about some of the symbolism found in the game itself--directly from Kojima. And it's brilliant looking artwork as well.Most strategy guides tend to be about making sure you get through the game. They have a walkthrough and some secrets but that's about it. Piggyback's Metal Gear Solid V guide, however, is trying to enhance your experience of the game. It provides advanced data on enemies, environments, mother base etc., but give us more by providing a story analysis and some artwork with commentary. For a collector, the guide is worth the purchase because you're getting far more than just a strategy guide. You are getting an analytical tome. This guide will really help you understand this complex game. The most helpful bits aren't even in the walkthrough but rather in all the data which surrounds it. The guide is more about helping players understand the game and its unique systems more so than just getting you through it. This makes the guide helpful to beginners and experts alike. If you want to understand Metal Gear Solid V and still find enjoyment in the game's surprises then this is pretty much the perfect guide.

Have played all games in this series starting with Metak Gear Solid on original Playstation. This particular game has massive potential. Takes awhile to start and get the hang of it's new game machinations. After you master that it's a pure adrenalized blast to play. After a year my machine died had to start over which turned out tobe a blessing. Warning on the saved games; what happens in the game ,stays in the game. No restarting from a previous saved game so be forward thinking while playing the game. Still haven't finished the game yet but it's a great addition to the Metal Gear Worls.

Awesome! This guide is totally worth it. I'm a Metal Gear fan and was hoping to get the MGS:V TPP Collectors Edition with the Bionic Arm Replica. Unfortunately, the price went up and I couldn't. I started playing the game and saw this and thought that it would be a nice addition as a collectors item. I had never bought a Game Guide ever before.I received it when I was around mission 28 of the game. At first I was impressed with the quality. Hardcover really makes it feel like a great quality product. The aesthetic is amazing, goes well with the game's art. How the guide is organized is awesome as you will be able to find what you need easily. One thing I liked is that is not like watching a video on youtube of how to do a mission (duh, obviously), but it gives you suggestions on how to approach different missions and aspects of the game, which help a lot in getting higher ranks and it stills lets you discover what the game has to offer on your own. It's really nice to check a mission on the guide before doing it on the game and visualized how you will play the mission out. It also helps a lot in new game mechanics, as this game brings a lot of things to do out of missions, (i.e. Mother Base, FOBs, etc.). It has maps, pictures, items location, routes suggestions, and many, many things that increase the value of the Guidebook.It also brings some extras on information, and it lets you know when some parts are spoilers for the game. It came with a map, that I really don't care for, but I guess for some it might be interesting and it also brought an art print of Snake, really nice.I really, really recommend this, specially if you're a fan of the series as it will be a great collectors item to have, with tons of information on the game and with a great art and style that really shows the time and effort that was put in doing this. I suggested a friend that he should get it to, and he is more than happy to.Totally worth it! Get the Hardcover.