Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition Review

DMC5 was a game I played at around the time of release and remembered being completely underwhelmed by it. I wasn't as big of a fan of the series by the time 5 came out but if I was, I'd consider it to be a massive "disappointment". I still feel similarly now but instead I view the game as a game with great combat system held back a weak campaign. The best way of describing DMC5 is that it's a DMC game designed by hardcore fans made for hardcore DMC fans. It's hard to overlook that whenever I'm playing the game. Everything from the story to the way the campaign is structured gives me that vibe.

The story of DMC5 I found to be terrible even at the time of release. Everything about it feels it follows the same logic of stories like Metal Gear Solid 4, Final Fantasy Advent Children and JJ Abrams directed Star Wars movies where it's just a series of throwbacks and refrences and that's it. To give an example, V and Urizen aren't even their own characters, they are both two halves of Vergil. Say what you want about Arius and Argosax from DMC2 but they were at least their own characters. Vergil himself just wants power because reasons so he summons a tower...again. Nero is Vergil's son and this is revealed so late in the game that it almost feels like a desperation attempt to connect Nero to the overarching plot. Then there is the fact the game will just throw in stuff like, "remember Morrison and Patty from the anime?" Remember Nelo Angelo and Mallet Island?" "Remember Credo?" "Remember Cerberus from DMC3?" The final boss is even against Vergil like DMC3.

Everything about the story is designed to made for diehard DMC fans first more so than because it wants to be interesting on it's own. Sure, some can say you don't play DMC for the story but it's an example of an overarching point I'm making.

The gameplay does fare better by comparison but it does have it's own issues. Nero can be pretty enjoyable to play as. I'm used to playing as him from 4 so coming back to him in 5 did feel I was right back at home. Devil Bringer and Trigger are gone but now he has Devil Breakers, I do think this system is interesting but the problem is that the game gives you so many Devil Breakers to choose from and throws so many at you in the first few minutes that it's hard to really know which one you'll like the best. As a result, I stuck with the same Devil Breakers you start Nero's sections with like Mega Buster and Overture ocasionally using random ones. Anything else felt like it wasn't worth the effort. Exceeding does seem to have it's fans but not something I want to do in the moment.

V has been criticized to death and yes, he's bad. The problem with his sections is that it's just a game of moving around the character model on the battlefield and watch your familars do all the work. At first, I thought it was a game of using melee and projectile attacks to build up Devil Trigger to do massive damage. Eventually, I realized that you can cheese many of the V sections by mashing square and triangle constantly. Due to this, I never needed to buy any moves as V and just relied on the above mentioned tactic and Devil Trigger. To add more insult to injury, you can get high style points doing all of this. I'm wondering why these sections exist when it introduces a playstyle that is worse than Dante and Nero on top V not being an original character. At best V's parts can be used a way to stockpile orbs for Dante.

Dante is and unsprisingly the best character to play as. You got Style Switch and the awkward progression system from DMC3 is gone now. At first, I was annoyed by how much using Stinger in DMC5 caused a knockback effect on enemies which makes it harder to continue to combo on them after doing it but that encouraged me to used weapons like Balrog and the Motorcycle. Balrog is interesting in that you can transition between punches and kicks and using Swordmaster attacks with that as well as the Motorcycle while OP can be very fun to watch.

However, late game you get a new weapon as Dante but by that point it turns into a boss rush so it doesn't give you enough time to be familar with that weapon and putting orbs into isn't worth it.

You are also better off saving up as many red orbs as you can since along with that and the gold orbs you can cheese the very challenging Vergil boss at the end. Hard to believe that the gold orb system was worse in the vanilla release.

Remember what I said about how DMC5 was made for diehards? This is what I mean. If you play DMC games over and over again on higher difficulties and to get S ranks all the stuff I'm saying won't even be an issue for you. Coming from someone who considers himself a casual fan of the series, I consider DMC5's campaign to be too underwhelming on its own and doesn't make enough of an impression on me to want to do those harder difficulties and S ranks.

Overall, DMC5 can have great combat but the underwhelming campaign structure really can sour it.

Sonic Generations(Playstation 5) Review

I played the PS3 version of Sonic Generations back in 2017 and I didn't get very far because of the forced challenges needed to unlock bosses and to continue the game. I did play it again in 2021 and finished it however apart of me found it to be a miracle since the later stages got so challenging that I was like, "how was I able to do all that with limited continues?" I mainly played this again because of the recent Shadow Generations release and the best part, this version of Generations has no lives system meaning a replay of the game sounds much more appealing.

As a whole, Generations is a solid game even if much of the nostalgia the game tries to envoke is lost on me since I never grew up with the series. Classic Sonic for some reason reminds of Kid Goku. I did find him to be cute and adorable with the faces he would make. I do like Sonic music so hearing City Escape and Live Learn from Adventure 2 was nice. There's barely much story which I don't mind. Not even familar enough with the overarching Sonic narrative to be attached.

The game can be summed up like this, you do the same stages twice one as Modern Sonic and one as Classic Sonic. There's some challenges you need to do on each of the stages(mercifully it's just one on each stage to get the boss key) and there's 2D and 3D variations of all of them. Fight some rival battles to get the Chaos Emeralds and bosses.

Sonic Generations is a pretty short game but I don't mind, most of the length however especially if you aren't 100%ing it is finding which of the stage challenges is easy enough for you to complete. This could be the first one you attempt or it could multiple ones. I was lucky to finish most of the first ones I tried. This is going to be the biggest hurdle for many first time players of the game.

An issue I notice upon playing Generations again is that the Modern Sonic stages are supposed to be in 3D but they aren't or at least not 100% of the time. There's sections of his levels that are in 2D. The thing that bugs me about this is that the Classic Sonic stages are already in 2D anyway. If you want to play 2D Sonic, that's what the Classic stages are for. It can make the Modern Stages seem misleading. Shadow Generations would improve this since the 3D portions of Shadow's stages are in 3D and no random 2D transitions.

Another issue is that Modern and Classic Sonic have moves specific to them. Modern Sonic has boost, slide, stomp and the homing attack while Classic Sonic has different jump physics and the Spin Dash. Due to this, you may have to get reaquainted with playing as either Sonic. It's not bad but it's yet another improvement Shadow Generations made where 2D and 3D Shadow stages have the same move set and controls.

Still in spite of all might compliants, Generations is a solid game and these aren't overly big issues, for the most part Sonic Generations is fun to play in the moment. However, the later stages can be a problem and it always seems that a lot of Sonic games, they get hard due to some really unpolished and unrefined platforming. Everything past the Dreamcast era feels like I'm messing up due to the homing attack not always working or just how much longer later stages can feel. Planet Wisp in particular can feel especially jarring considering it took the Wisp mechanic from Colors and just has that very gimmick be featured for one level only and never pops up again. The platforming on the Wisp stage is more challenging than any other in the game due to this on top of being very long too. How I was able to do this with limited continues I'm still trying to figure out.

The bosses are pretty enjoyable especially the rival battles. They feel like high speed set pieces where you need to dodge their attacks and wait for an opening to attack them. Silver's battle was my favorite of the bunch.

Overall, Sonic Generations out of all the games in the series I played is one of the better games in the series. Shadow Generations does overshadow it since it feels more refined and consistent by comparison.

Portal 2(Nintendo Switch) Review

Portal 2 was a game I owned on PS3 for a while and when I originally beat it, I just wanted to beat it for the sake of saying I did. This was mainly because of the fact that I'm not big on games purely dedicated to puzzles, however after beating Portal 1 recently I decided to replay Portal 2 and for the most part, I'd say the latter game holds up mostly well. I do prefer the brevity and quick pace of the first game. With that said, considering Valve was already fighting an uphill battle of making the idea of Portal into it's own fully fledged game that didn't need to be packaged with other titles, they did a very admirable job.

The story is very entertaining with the voice acting and writing carrying much of it. It keeps the first game's idea of always being in control when major story beats are happening and creating attachment with fun and quick dialogue interactions. Wheatly is an entertaining villain in that he's esstentially a narcisstic man child who thinks he's way cooler than he actually is. First he tricks the player and then lets his arrogance get to him. It's also nice that Glados even turns face for a little bit. I have a soft spot for the trope where a previously established villain turns face for a little while due to bigger threat and Portal 2 executes it pretty well. JK Simmons also has an entertaining performance as Cave Johnson too.

The gameplay is of Portal 2 on a mechanical level is the same as the first game. You got the blue and orange portals and momentum jumping. You also have the various tools to help you solve the various puzzles like lasers, pressure plates, switches, and cubes(blocking lasers and pressure plates as well as redirecting lasers). Turrets are also back with water and death pits hazards.

Portal 2's early game does a good job at reintroducing the player to all of these concepts without it being overly slow and meandering. It's paced well enough that it feels natural and not overwhelming. What helps is the fact all of this is done before the major twist happens later on the game so it does a good job at being a rehash of the first game without feeling like one.

There are new concepts introduced in Portal 2 like hardlight beams, tractor beams, and aerial faith plates. There are also the various "gels" introduced. Orange propulsion jel, blue repulsion jel, and conversation jels.

The best part of all this is that it does a great job at making the puzzles more complex and varied without even introducing any brand new gameplay mechanics. Portal 2 is the same game as the first but with the addition of the various jels and beams as well as adding on to everything from the first game, the act of playing Portal 2 does not feel like you are going through the motions.

When it comes to being a full fledged game and being a sequel that expands on Portal 1, Portal 2 does do a very commendable and admirable job. My replay of Portal 2 was me playing the game for hours upon hours on end so playing Portal 2 in the moment was a great time.

With all that said, I do prefer the quickness and brevity of the first game. In Portal 1, it never felt like things dragged on but Portal 2 can feel like it can take a little too long for the plot to move. I also felt that while I enjoyed all the new gimmicks Portal 2 due to the nature of it being a puzzle game and all the gameplay revolves around is getting to the end of a test chamber or getting to a test chamber, it gets harder and harder to sustain the length. You ever wondered why there was never a Portal 3? This is a big reason. Portal 2 pushes the concept of Portal to it's absolute limit especially considering there are no new gameplay mechanics or anything else to the game besides solving puzzles. This could be a me thing, if you love puzzle games, Portal 2's length might not even bother you but for me, the more the game went on, the more I really wished things started to wrap up.

Portal 1 never really had this issue due to everything moving by at a brisk pace and the game's nature of solving puzzles never feeling it was slowly hitting into the wall of diminishing returns.

Overall, Portal 2 is a very good sequel and is a well made game especially considering the first game was there to give the Orange Box more value but at the same time, Valve's endeavor to make the concept of Portal it's fully fledged game does remove some of the charm the first Portal had. It's a still a good time with all that said.

Onimusha: Warlords Review

Since I beat all the mainline Onimushas with the remaster of Onimusha 2 and especially with the recent Onimusha Way of the Sword coming out, I decided to play Warlords once again. I recall this game being well made and the first good 3D beat em up that I can recall and after playing the game again, I say it still does.

I'll start with the weakest aspect of the game first and that is the story. What I find so frustrating about it is that it can't decide whether it wants to be an excuse plot or have a geniune attempt at a story so much of the characters and their interactions expect you to feel like you should know everything already before playing the game. On top of that, the characters feel underdeveloped. The monsters you fight being called the "Genma" was something that was introduced in the sequels. Samanosuke's speech seeking knowledge or something felt unearned and barely had any build to the reveal.

There is also other early installment weirdness like Oni Form being just a cutscene to finish off the final boss or Nobunaga popping up at the end of the game and the player never actually faces him despite being a built up antagonist the game reminds you of. The Onimusha sequels do have a far better attempt at telling a story than Warlords does.

Gameplay is where Warlords shines. If you can get past the short length and the fact that the game is even shorter knowing that you have to upgrade the Oni Jewel for all 3 weapons to unlock level 3 doors early on in the game then a enjoyable game can be found here. Cutscenes also can't be skipped which is why I played on emulator and not pick up the remaster since you can't skip them in that either which also helps alleviate the frustration from that infamous drowning puzzle.

What makes Warlords such a stand out game in terms of combat is that it has a pick up and play feel to it. Sure, play the game on normal difficulty and dying to combat might happen here and there. The thing is, the game has enough going on that players like me who are average at best at action games if even that can feel competent at the game.

There is a block button but there is also a lock on button and Samanosuke can strafe around enemies using the d pad while the former is held down. This really helps at avoiding enemies attacks especially larger enemies that can break blocks. The large enemy attacks generally have enough telegraphing to know when to get out of the way. The only big issue with this system is knowing when to strafe left and right in the heat of the moment. There are also times where Samonosuke will try to attack enemies you don't want him to but this never got in the way.

The only two big issues I can say is switching to between ranged and melee weapons during the heat of battle.

Camera is competent here too especially how it's better than the first Devil May Cry, the latter of which came out around the same time, on the same system and under the same publisher. Warlords camera complements it's more methodical, "wait for an opening combat" system. It's always framed enough to the point where the player has a good idea of where enemies are coming from. There are moments of getting attacked off screen here and there but it is not as numerous by comparison to the aforementioned Devil May Cry.

What also helps makes Warlords easy to approach for newcomers is that enemies always give health, magical and currency upon death and due to this combat never feels like a dull boring chore of you being a tank living off borrowed time. Each weapons has it's own magic attack which has it's own meter which also helps even the odds against tougher encounters.

There is the counter attack isshin system but that is mainly for players who want to learn the extra step.

Level design also has that classic Resident Evil feeling too. There isn't as much backtracking but there is a sense of the overall setting being interconnected. The way level loops back after Samonsuke gets the second half of a seal to open a closed door late game is a good example. My only big gripe is that some doors don't look stand out enough to use the various colored keys on. The blue or red keys don't have designs that much their color for example.

The Kaede sections aren't very good. Later Onimusha games would do a better job at multiple player characters but the problem with her sections on top of not being as fun as Samanosuke is that there is no reasons to fight enemies as her. She has no Oni Gaunlet so no upgrade, health or magic orbs meaning no reason to fight enemies so you can run past them. Outside of bosses, you can run past most if not every enemy with her which is for the best since she takes less hits and is more limited in terms of moves. It's weird how considering how the Samanosuke parts avoided this potential issue.

Overall, I don't mind the breezy length and really enjoyed the game in the moment. Some questionable design and story here and there doesn't detract from Warlords' quality.

Asura's Wrath(Playstation 3) Review

I have a weird history with Asura's Wrath in that playing it was the first time I ever learned what a "bad used game disc" was, where they are so badly damaged that reaching up a certain point in the game, it will simpily freeze and not load up the next section of the game. I thought it was my PS3 not being able to run it but I later learned what this was and this is one major reason why I don't care for physical copies of games nearly as much as I used. I thought there was something wrong with game itself or my PS3 but it was neither. Other than that, there are other much more infamous hurdles regarding the game in that the ending was locked behind paid DLC. This was during Capcom's "heel" run after all. On top of this, there is no modern version of the game with the DLC included which hurts the game even more. Anyways, I decided to play AW again with me buying and beating the Part 4 DLC this time since I doubt there will be a modern port of the game.

With that out of the way, the best way of describing Asura's Wrath is that it's basically about as much of a 6 out of 10 game as one can get, however, it is a entertaining and enjoyable 6 depending on your suspension of disbelief levels.

Since this a CyberConnect2 game when it comes to production values as usual, it's top notch. The way characters look and are animated are very expressive and since this is not based on an already established license, it's rather impressive how many of the characters I can recall based on their looks alone. The music is also some of their best. The main theme and Yasha's music in particular is great stuff. The level of over the top scale the game has is really commendable, there will be parts where the player will be fighting enemies as big as planets or ripping through large fleets of spaceships. AW is definitely one of those where the visuals and specticle carries much of the game which isn't too far off for CyberConnect2.

The story is decent but it is mostly carried by the production values, music and immense scale. Contrary to popular belief despite the game being compared to God of War, outside of featuring "angry" protagonists and being based on myths, AW's story is a combination of the Gungrave anime and fighting shonen anime like Dragon Ball and Naruto among other media. The thing with AW's story is that it's not so much "bad" is that I just wanted to know more since a lot of the characters and their relationships aren't really shown that well in the game itself. Outside of Yasha and Augus and maybe Durga and Mythra, a lot of the characters usually have one or two scenes that don't do really do enough to create attachment towards them. The villains like Deus and the Golden Spider are on the underdeveloped side and don't really do much outside of monolouging or just angering Asura. The interludes don't do enough. It is awesome that there is an interrupt monologue button, I'll commend it immensely for having that.

The scene at the end of Act 2 where, the girl that looks like Mythra dies and causes Asura to go full on rage mode falls flat since there was barely any interactions or anything to the girl other than looking like Mythra.

A large part of me wishes the game got an anime adaptation of some kind with adaptation expansion and a protracted prologue like the aforementioned Gungrave since I can picture it improving the story. AW's story is arguably too ambitious for the kind of game it is.

The gameplay is where things get a little on the dull yet frustrating side. AW is basically a shoot em up and a 3D beat em up. Both of them are basically a means to an end for QTEs. The concept of building up your rage is interesting but it never goes behind being nothing more than a "win" button. The shoot em up sections is just dodging projectiles and spamming fire until you press the rage burst button.

The 3D beat em up combat has slightly more going on but not much. AW's combat is basically what if the Kingdom Hearts 2 reaction commands system was the basis for the entire combat. It's a cross between that and the Naruto Storm games' QTEs.

When not using the QTE reaction commands to build up rage, your fist attacks don't do much damage. The "heavy attack" is a 360 degree area of effect swipe which can't be chained with light attacks. Projectile attacks needs player to stand still in order to hit things and is only needed for flying enemies.

The hardest enemy is the camera since the bosses can move at high speeds faster than the camera can track them and the lock will follow them making them harder to keep track of. They can dart across one end to another end of the battlefield and Asura's has no distance closing moves making combat more of a game of, "waiting for a QTE prompt to pop up to do massive damage". You get no new abilties or moves on top of level design being scripted.

Overall, it's funny how a game where it's major selling point was being an "interactive anime" was better off being an anime.

War of the Monsters Review

This was a game I played back a couple of years ago on PS4 but recently got a PS5 and a Premium version re release so I decided to play it again. When I first played War of the Monsters, I remember liking but there were a number of weird and awkward quirks about it that held the game back, however there were things about it that prevented me from dropping the game. Now playing it again, there is still fun to be had but it all really depends on how much you are willing to put up with all of those "quirks" I mentioned.

WotM is an arena fighter with a fully destructible 3D environment where the player characters can run and jump around, climb buildings, use weapons, grab enemies, or even have have a building collapse in an your opponent. In the moment, the amount crazy over the top specticle the game can provide is pretty impressive. The way buildings can tear apart or how the player can be thrown all away across the map with the scale the game has is quite impressive especially the kind of over the top giant monster movies the game is trying to emulate. It's also nice that the game comes with an adventure mode similar to the campaign routes of Twisted Metal Black where you need to fight bosses from time to time all though the lack of mid campaign route movies is missed.

With that said, in order to appreciate this stuff, there are the aforementioned quirks.

The first major one are the controls. The way WotM controls, it very much feels like it began it's life as a Sony Playstation game, not a Playstation 2 game. What I mean is that the game has tank controls in a fully 3D environment where you can turn the camera but can only see what's in front of you. So turning the analog stick left or right will turn your character to that direction but not move it the left or right side. In order to strafe, you need to press L1 or R1. The former to strafe left and the latter to strafe right. To top everything off you need to hold L1 and R1 to lock on and the right analog stick has no actual camera control. This is what I mean that it controls more like a PS1 game than a PS2 game. It sure did started to hurt my hands holding L1 and R1 together to remain locked on especially during bosses. You could bypass this with the PS5 emulation control options but I'm not sure about the lock on system since I never bothered to try to see if you could have a dedicated button press for holding L1 and R1.

The 2nd quirk is he opponent AI. If it's one on one fights then it isn't too bad. Just remember to hold L2 when they are about to attack you but when it's more than 1 opponent, it feels more like a handicap match than a geniune free for all battle. It's very easy to get attacked or thrown across the map after wailing on an enemy and then they can retreat, get health and recover from the massive whailing you gave them.

The final quirk is when you get impaled or the fatigue system where you need to mash certain buttons like crazy to remove the object out of your body. You can get fatigued when can do special moves and on top your special projectible attacks do very little damage to enemies, it takes awhile for the character to break out of his tired state and the meter can take a while to regenerate.

If you can get past all this then there is fun to be had with this game. Something this game does shockingly well is the lives system, it's done much better than any Twisted Metal game. You get 3 lives and a health refill upon each respawn. The battles usually not being more than 5-8 minutes. Combine that with health pickups scattered all over the map and the fact that you have all 3 lives refilled upon new battle in the campaign and it's a lives system in a game I can say that feels balanced. It's one big reason why the game can feel beatable in spite of it's many odd design decisions.

The bosses are decent too minus the final boss, they strike a decent balance of not being a damage spongey version of regular enemy fights with the puzzle element of throwing objects at them with every opening after evading their telegraphed attacks. The only exception being the final boss since it's laser beams can destroy the pillars in the arena that is supposed to block them with ease. Get past the 1st phase and it gets noticeably easier.

Overall, WotM in spite of it's issues I had with it's design is a game I still enjoyed there is still a lot of specticle and carnage to be found with it's over the top scale, production values and it's very premise. If you don't mind what I have mentioned there is fun to be had. It's a shame that the planned successor never really went anywhere with it's development.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Review

The Metal Gear game that is controversial due to it being not being directed by Hideo Kojima and it's place in the canon of the series or is it canon? I've dabbled in superhero comics and many long running franchises in different mediums, canon in a lot of them tends to be fickle in the long run. Metal Gear itself is a series with many retcons over the years so it's better not to get hung up over it. With that said, I did play it on PSP over a decade ago, what turned me away were the controls and the lack of voice acting during the "codec" calls and the reading needed to be done. That and Peace Walker was considered to be Portable Ops but much improved on top of the former being on the MGS HD collection with improved controls. I ultimately just ended up watching a cutscenes movie compliation of PO. In recent years, I did start to get obessesed over portable spin offs and I decided to give PO a proper go from start to finish. 

As a whole, PO is just an okay game. It's easy to see where Peace Walker and Phantom Pain would improve upon this in terms of gameplay. This isn't even a case where this is a "non canon" portable Metal Gear that does certain things better than the main canon series like Ghost Babel was. In terms of gameplay, everything in PO is done better in PW and TPP. One improvement is that there is no grinding for the "true" ending like in those two games. In PO, you beat Gene and its done and due to that PO despite not being something I consider good doesn't overstay it's welcome at least.

The best things about Portable Ops is the music and story. The ambient sneaking music does a good job at getting the player in the mood. The story is pretty decent. I'm not an MGS story super fan but it's rather impressive how many voiced cinematics they snuck in considering it was on a UMD and for a portable system like the PSP. The comic art is well drawn if some of the shots can be awkward with the lack of backgrounds drawn for some them and it can just look like the characters are in a void empty space. Not all of the cutscenes are like this but some of them can be. 

Gene and Cunningham are decent villains. You surprisingly know them more than majority of the villains in MGS3. Gene is also an interesting mirror reflection of what Naked Snake would become later in the series much like God of War's Persphone or Star Wars' Count Dooku. He even does more villainous things than the Boss does outside of beat up Snake or tell him to go back. He managed to make Snake scream and get him angry. The whole prophecy with Elisa is a little a weird with the whole destiny thing but I can overlook it since it takes more than a destiny reveal to ruin a story for me. Roy Campbell being my favorite character in the series didn't even need to be there since he had barely anything to do outside of being Snake's advisor. You could've had anyone or Kaz Miller since the latter would pop up in later games in the Big Boss timeline.

This is where the praise ends, if you play Metal Gear for the story, you might get your fill with PO especially if you disliked TPP's excuse plot.

Gameplay side of things is not so good. Not bad but also not good and much of the potential frustration could've been alleviated with right stick controls and save states on PPSSPP. 

Stealth is much like MGS3 and much like the issues I had with that, guard sightlines are inconsistent. Sure you get a radar of sorts giving vague locations on where guards are but it doesn't include sightlines so there's a good chance that you could get caught and not have any idea where the guard saw you. Sometimes, they will investigate, other times it will be a full on alert. This was never an issue with the "fixed camera" MGS games since the soliton radar showed the player where guards were and if you were in their sightlines or not. TPP would have detection arrows that gave a better idea of  enemy awareness to the player. 

To add to this, both long and close range tactics to take out guards are unreliable. Knocking out guards with the tranq gun can be a game in of itself due to the game's aim sensitivity in first person. CQC is heavily nerfed too. CQC slam is not the powerhouse it once was. You need to press the CQC button multiple times for the slam animation to activate and if it works you need to slam than one or two more times to take them down. Sneaking up on them can also be a game of chance too since it could lead to an alert due to the grab animation not always working. 

The recruitment system which is what the game is based around is tedious and also half baked. Much has been said on dragging guards to the truck but if you do this early game and actively recruit every guard you find in early levels, you are set. The thing you need to use the recruits for is the "spy" unit. Just reassign the same recruits in the spy unit on certain levels and use the day waiting feature and then you can get past much of the game. Only issue is that you can do it 3 times but just load up a level and abort mission and it resets. 

This is also how you bring health and stamina back since it doesn't refill automatically inbetween missions. Stamina only matters on the final boss since Gene's mind control attack can quickly drain the stamina bar and can cause a game over.

The bosses are challenging because they have hitscan attacks that you have to tank while also being damage sponges except Null. With the Null fights, you can't shoot in third person with default controls and hit him while he reloads. 

Overall, PO is okay with it's story and brevity being what saves it. Peace Walker and Phantom Pain are better in terms of gameplay but this was an interesting first attempt to what the later Big Boss games would do.