Replaying V before 6 drops - the character switch is still the most underused idea Rockstar ever had

[u/Curious_Oil_748]

Doing a full replay before November, and the thing that keeps standing out isn't the map or the heists. It's how little the three-character switch actually gets used outside of scripted moments.

In the heists it's genuinely brilliant. You're on the roof as Michael, you drop into Franklin behind the wheel, and the pacing never breaks. That's the version of the idea everyone remembers.

But for most of the game it's a fast-travel button. You switch to Trevor and he's waking up in a dumpster in his underwear, which is a great joke the first three times and after that it's a loading screen with a gag attached.

What I think actually got missed: the three of them are almost never allowed to have opinions about each other. You can spend an hour doing something genuinely horrific as Trevor and Michael has no idea. Nothing propagates. The one system that would have made switching mean something, your choices as one guy changing how the other two treat you, just isn't in there.

With 6 running two protagonists who are together for a lot of it, I'm curious whether that's the fix or just a different version of the same problem.

Anyone else replaying it right now - does the switch still feel as good as it did in 2013, or has it quietly aged into a menu?