I'd say it's much better than MGS's plot, and even a majority of Square's own plots at the time. If anything, because it exercises a lot more restraint. It's pretty tight from beginning to end, with no twists that are thrown in for the sake of it.
Yep. Nothing really to add here, except that I love me my tinkering.I actually like the item building system, its simple enough to where you can get some solid benefits with just the basics of the system but its deep enough to where you can spend hours just tinkering away to build the highest grade material and optimize your effectiveness to kill things.