I just finished the game, and I agree with pturtle about the cassette tapes. Unfortunately, the story-telling was dampered a bit for me from the Skullface episode on-wards. Many of the cassettes should have been cut scenes, since the audio is tuned out by others talking or cut off while in a mission. Plus they aren't much of an incentive to listen to when you're having to go back and forth to that menu in the middle of being timed to get a good rank. Cassettes should help build background for fans, and not have vital story points. I had to listen to them while doing nothing, which defeats the purpose of them. I love the cassettes, but that's just my complaint.
Having said that, I love the game, but Metal Gear Solid 3 is still my favorite game. I think I'd rank them MGS3, MGS, and MGSV for my top 3 favorite games of all time. They're very different games, so it's tough to compare.
MGS3- Favorite melding of story and gameplay, favorite boss battle line-up, and favorite character piece in a video game (MGS still has a better overall cast, but I like the relationship between Big Boss, The Boss, Eva, and Ocelot the best).
MGS- Favorite plot, music, and atmosphere in a video game. While I need story to be invested in a game, deeper gameplay mechanics help me get into a game more, and this game had one of the weakest of the series. They aren't bad, but when I play it, I only play segments of the game and end up watching parts of the youtube movie cuts with the gameplay segements I'm not fond of. I didn't want to write anything negative, but I guess I had to if anyone was confused why I didn't rank it above my 1.
MGSV- The most enjoyable gameplay experience that I had in my life. I mentioned the Souls games being my previous favorite, but it's not even close to how much I enjoyed MGSV.) I want to rank it higher, but I have too many story issues to do so (Not that MGS3's story was by any means perfect). Plus it didn't have any emotional highs of MGS3 and MGS.
Alright, spoiler time:
I thought that Ishmael was Big Boss from his voice, but I got confused when our Phantom changed Kiefer's voice after the prologue (Is there an explanation for that). That hallway scene in the trailer showed that this was Big Boss' transition from MGS3 and Peace Walker, so I figured there would be a clever twist to say we were the real Big Boss. I saw that we could still edit our avatar, so I knew something was still fishy.
However, during the Episode 30 and on wards, I wasn't feeling that Venom Snake was Big Boss, and that avatar part came back to me. Then, after hearing Ocelot say that Liquid was not our clone, I knew it couldn't be Big Boss, and I was glad. I didn't like Ocelot ordering Big Boss around, so I was happy with the twist. I would understand if Ocelot needed to help him out in the beginning, but Big Boss should have been pulling the strings. Thankfully, he was!
I love that a phantom was Big Boss in the original MG game, and I love how the legend has gotten so much bigger than the man now. This made me reconcile with how Big Boss' followers in MGS4 became cult-like with their worship of him. This game made me like MGS and MGS4 even more! My one big complaint is that I think the game should have focused more on Liquid, since we aren't playing as a established character. There's more problems with the story, but I'd rather focus on the positives right now.