Between the♋ non-stop plot twists and the cinema lengthy cutscenes, there’s one element that keeps fans coming back to Metal Gear Solid more than anything: the boss fights. Sure, the se▨ries’ claim to fame is the story and the stealth elements but if you ask a🦂 fan what their highlight of any given game was they’d probably answer with one of the bosses. Starting with the series’ 3D debut in 1998, Hideo Kojima introduced the video game to a gauntlet of antagonists never seen bꦍefore.
E𓃲ach game since has tried its best to top the original’s Foxhound and —collectively— you could probably make the case that they’ve all failed. That said, there are certainly individual boss fights and character that blow MGS1 out of the water. And some that don’t. For every amazing boss🍰 t🗹hat Metal Gear Solid has seen, there’s been a bad one lurking in the shadows behind it. You get Psycho Mantis, but you also get a tank with some soldiers in a snow field. You get Vamp diving and jumping out of a pool of water, but you also🅘 get Vamp standing on a pipe holding a girl hostage. It’s a mixed bag.
So what does make a good boss fight? For Metal Gear Solid, it’s having ꦿa great gimmick, making use of the mechanics, and having a fun personality to boot. When the series gets it right, its bosses end up being some of the best in video game history, period. When the series gets it wrong, however, you’re left wondering how Kojima could have made such an obvious oversight. Thankfully, it doesn’t happen often enough to ruin any individual game, but it happens just enough to tarnish the memory of the “perfec💖t” Metal Gear Solid. Whatever you consider that to be.
15 BEST: Vulcan Raven
When people think of boss fights from the original Metal Gear Solid, most remember the mind-boggling shenanigans Psycho Mantis forced players through and the adrenaline rush of sniping Sniper Wolf in a snow field, but few recognᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚize the sheer genius of Vulcan Raven’s boss fight. It’s not like it isn’t an ic🐭onic moment in Metal Gear Solid history but it gets forgotten in the greater scheme of things since the biggest draw to Vulcan Raℱven’s fight is just that it’s a really well-designed boss fight.
Out of all the boss fights in the original Metal Gear Solid, Vulcan Raven’s has the most variety, by far. His arena is an open room with plenty of cover. It's a sterling use of the game’s stealth mechanics, exploiting them to their fullest. This allows for plenty of different strategies. You can drop claymores and bait Vulcan Raven into walking into them, you can shoot him fro🙈m afar normally, and you can even follow him around with a missile. All the while, Vulcan Raven is slowly hunting you down waiting to shred you with a gatling gun in one of the tensest fights in the series.
14 WORST: Cyborg Ninja
Gray Fox is an incredible character. His relationship with Solid 🌺Snake is one of the most interesting things about the l🃏atter’s person. He only has a big role in Metal Gear Solid and the original Metal Gear games, but Gray Fox made an impression on the franchise thaཧt could never be forgotten. It’s a real shame about his boss fight, though.
On a thematic level, the Cyborg Ninj🔯a fight ⛦is great. If you played the original Metal Gear duology then it’s an excellent and emotional callback to Snake and Gray Fox’s fight in Zanzibar. If you’re new to the series, 🍸then it’s an awesome introduction to an awesome character. Unfortunately, the gameplay leaves a lot to be desired. The whole boss boils 🎉down to punching Gray Fox three times, waiting for him to 🧸try to attack you, and then punch him three times again. There’s little to no variety whatsoever. Chaff grenades make the fight a bit more manageable, but it doesn’t make it fun.
13 BEST: Metal Gear RAY
There are few cooler moments in Metal Gear Solid thanꦦ when the titular Metal Gear 🌃finally gets unveiled. Liquid operating Metal Gear REX, Ocelot stealing Metal Gear RAY at the beginning of MGS2, and Volgin piloting the Shagohod like 🐼a lunatic remai𒐪n some of the best moments in the series’ thirty year history. Naturally, it makes sense that one of the best boss fights in the franchise would feature Solid Snake finally piloting a Metal Gear to fight another Metal Gear.
A sudden chang💙e in gameplay is a rarely a smart decision on the developer’s part but leave it to Hideo Kojima to actually make it work. Metal Gear REX has weight to every action it takes, and its move set is simple yet thoughtful. RAY is significantly faster meaning REX needs to be controlled with precision and consideration for every action. Metal Gear RAY is a fight that takes a lot of skill with a newly implanted system that works far better than it should and fulfills every fanboy’s inner desire to pilot a Metal Gear.
12 WORST: Revolver Ocelot
Metal Gear Solid is in no short supply of a🧸mazing characters. Revolver Ocelot has been a series mainstay since thဣe original MGS where he masterfully played Liquid and Solid Snake against each other while conspiring for the Prꦫesident of the United States all along. His presence has been felt in every main game since, but his boss fight isn’t exactly the best first impression for the character.
His personality is there, and his deviousness is emphasized, but the fight itself is an incredibly simple and basic shootout that comes down to running around a room ꧃and shooting Ocelot from afar while he ricochets bullets off the walls. The concept of a boss maneuvering his bullets would be revisited and perfected in Ocelot’s boss fight in MGS3 but here it’s little more than a minor nuisance. It’s a g🅺ood thing Kojima kept Ocelot around after his boss fight, because this battle doesn’t do him many favors in the gameplay department.
11 BEST: Solidus Snake
Solidus Snake, the soothsayer antagonist that predicted the plot of MGS4: Guns of the Patriots. As right as he was, he was also heartless and cruel taking any possible measure ⛄to achieve his goals. His boss fight features him and Raiden sword fighting on top of Federal Hall, and it’s just as ridiculously awesome as it sounds.
Since Metal Gear Solid 2 gives you a solid half hour to learn the sword controls before you actually get a chance to fight Solidus, the controls feel well learned and natural by the time the boss starts. From a narrative level, the boss fight represents just how much the player has lost. If Raiden dies, Olga’s daughter dies, a🏅nd Solidus succeeds in wiping New York off the🐬 grid. If Solidus dies, the Patriots are safe and continue their tyranny. It’s an incredibly fun boss fight with high stakes that hammers in the theme of the game near perfectly.
10 WORST: The Pain
Metal Gear Solid 3 is oneꦺ of the greatest games of all time, balancing gameplay and story better than any MGS game out there. It’s an incredible ride from start to finish, but it’s not without its problems. For as memorable as he is, The Pain is far from a good start to the Cobra Unit’s tenure. Ocelot’s boss fight was boring, but his character was at least fascinating, and he set up Foxhound well. Fortune is a mess of a boss that we’ll get to later but she at least had a personality and her fight made sense. The Pain i🔴s ridiculous on a level that doesn⛎’t really work in his favor.
He’s a man made of bees but he fights Snake in a water filled cave and he has no discernible personality outside of liking hornets a lot. All Snake has to do is swim back and forth, toss the occasional grenade, and pump The Pain full𓄧 of lead. Out of all the boss fights in MGS3, he is by far the worst.
9 BEST: Metal Gear RAY Units
Fighting Metal Gear RAY in MGS1 was a tense, endurance match as Snake dodged Liquid’s rockets and had ꧒to take every chance possible to fire at REX. The 𝕴Metal Gear REX fight in MGS2 amps things up by having Raiden take on up to twenty Metal Gears bef🅰ore 🌠he’s allowed to rest. In a surreal landscape that’s nothing like Metal Gear Solid had seen before or seen since, the Metal Gear R✱AY Units challenged everything the player was capable of.
Survival requires legitimate skill since you’re taking on the RAY Units three at a tim𓂃e. One stands on the platform with you while the others shoot you from afar. One misstep can cost you the entire fight, but it never feels unfair. It’s a matter of figuring out patterns and keeping♛ cool in a tense situation. The fight can be a bit overwhelming on higher difficulties, but that’s half the fun of taking on twenty Metal Gears at once.
8 WORST: Man On Fire
You’d think that one of the biggest monsters in Metal Gear Solid would offer a better bos🦄s fight as a ghost-zombie hybrid who’s perpetually caught on fire. His appearance at the beginning of The Phantom Pain gives him a good introduction thanks to near invulnerability, and the horror atmosphere the first hour has but the actual confrontation with him near the end of the ꦿgame feels like a massive wasted opportunity.
The whole boss fight consists of Snake trying to drop water tanks on the👍 Man on Fire to put himꦐ out and ... that’s pretty much it, honestly. You don’t even get the satisfaction of beating him since the fight is about making him wet so you can get on your helicopter and escape. The fight has no real story significance, it’s repetitive and short-lived, and it’s a waste of not only an interesting character but also the best game engine Metal Gear Solid has ever had.
7 BEST: Metal Gear Sahelanthropus
Not all the bosses in The Phantom Pain are bad, however. Where the Man on Fire failed, Metal Gear Sahelanthropus succeeded. In fact, Sahelanthropus is pretty much the exact opposite of the Man on Fire. Taking on the largest ⛄Metal Gear to date, Venom Snake has access to a huge wasteland with plenty of cover to take on Sahelanthropus along with his entire arsenal of weapons to choose from, each weapon actually capable of doing damage even if it’s just a bit.
You can stealth around Sahe🐻lanthropus and disable his weaponry, you can face it head on, and you can call in missile strikes to help you in a pinch. Everything that works to your advantage in the regular game can work here. It’s a rarity for a boss fight which makes it all the better. The best part is that Sahelanthropus is a legitimate danger, constantly hunting you until you take it down.
6 WORST: Liquid Snake
As far as fi📖nal bosses go, Liquid Snake is easily the worst one in the series. The premise is great, fist fighting on top of Metal Gear REX, but the actual execution is lackluster and aggravating. Snake’s combos just aren’t refined in the original Metal Gear Solid, so you’re left doing three hit combos and running around the top of REX until Liquid gives you an opening like in thꦫe Cyborg Ninja fight. To make matters worse, you ꦆcan’t even cheese the fight by throwing chaff grenades. It’s just a repetitive fist fight.
The “second phase,” if you can call it that, doesn’t really help make the fight any better since you’re just clumsily aiming 🔥a turret at Liquid so that he doesn’t shoot you down. It’s a huge shame, really, because the Metal Gear REX fight that precedes it is fantastic. The ending itself is still great but it’s hard not to ima🔜gine how much better it would have been had Liquid actually been a fun final boss.