Summary
TheMetal Gearseries is famous for its inventive boss battles, from Psycho Mantis’ memory card reading in the originalMetal Gear Solidto discerning Laughing Octopus’ disguises inMetal Gear Solid 4among others. Some could even be quite difficult, like taking care of the Harrier jet inMetal Gear Solid 2or taking care of The End inMetal Gear Solid 3.
Others could be surprisingly simple, either by having a special trick behind them (killing The End at the pier) or just by design. They could be opening bosses, or mid-game bosses that have a plain strategy to taking them down. Either way, theseMetal Gearbosses won’t be making players sweat anytime soon.
The Vehicle Battles inMGS: Peace Walkerare more frustrating than difficult. With each new machine, the game increases the number of soldiers and increases the vehicle’s defenses. But otherwise, the strategy remains the same: blast the vehicle until the driver pops out, then kill/tranq him to obtain the vehicle. Or just keep blasting it until it blows up if the player doesn’t care.
The later vehicles can require more advanced tech like the Infinite Ammo bandana and Fulton Launcher to take care of the troops. Yet the very first vehicle, theLAV-Type G APC, is designed for the basic weapons. It’s not exactly tricky with the standard rocket launcher, but they go down in a blink to better hardware. By then, players will be farming its improved models for Outer Ops, skipping past this basic vehicle entirely.
Fans will know this guybetter as Grey Fox, withMGS: Portable Opsbeing his chronological debut. He was a child soldier from the Mozambican War of Independence who was rescued by Big Boss. But then he was captured by the CIA for their Perfect Soldier Project. His emotions and memories were suppressed to enhance his senses and agility, giving him his new codename “Null.”
He could be tricky to hit inMetal Gear 2: Solid Snakeand his strikes hit hard inMGS1. InPO, he chases after Big Boss with a submachine gun. He’s too nimble to be hit with mere bullets, but he can’t avoid explosions. If the player baits Null around the corners of the cover, they can blast him with rockets. He appears twice, and this tactic works both times.
Fortune is less of a boss battle and more of a survival challenge. When Raiden makes his way back up from Strut A, Dead Cell’s Lady Luck will dare him to finish her off for good. The problem is, despite her woefully small life and stamina bar, she can’t be hit at all. Any bullet or grenade will just bounce off of her, so attacking her is a waste of time.
All the player can do is dodge Fortune’s railgun blasts, which pack a heavy punch, especially on European Extreme. Still, she’s not too hard to dodge on the other difficulties. Show-offs can even dodge her shots by going into First Person view and pressing L2/LB or R2/RB to lean away. But it’s more reliable to equip the Cardboard Box and crouch-run back and forth between cover until she stops.
MG2was where the series really began to feel likeMetal Gear, from Kojima’ssignature verbose storytellingto the creative boss battles. But they couldn’t all be winners. When Snake finds himself in a room full of tripwires, Red Blaster crawls along a ledge above him to blow the FOXHOUND agent up with grenades.
Except those tripwires aren’t connected to anything. They’re just meant to trap the player in place long enough for Red Blaster’s grenades. Then they can chuck his grenades back at Blaster to stun him, then split enough wires for more space to avoid Blaster’s grenades. After that, they just need to keep throwing grenades until he’s done.
The Metal Gearmeant to fight other Metal Gearshad the number advantage inMGS2, and wasn’t too hard for its supposedly inferior predecessor REX to beat inMGS4either. But byMetal Gear Rising, Metal Gear RAY became an old hunk of junk bound for the proverbial scrap heap, as suggested by its now infamous theme song “Rules of Nature” (“a prisoner on the verge of death, close to its last breath”).
As the opening boss, it wasn’t meant to be too hard. Newbies could just ninja-run rings around it and attack its legs. However, once they get the hang of parrying, RAY goes down in a blink. Each parry of its attacks opens it up for punishment that whittles its lifebar down fast. Even its second and third phases just require holding L1/LT down and slashing away, and deft running respectively before it’s done for good.
Metal Gear’s most famous chopper has the ignominy of being the easiest fight in two games. Sniper Wolf’s second phase inMGS1is arguably easier as she’s very weak to Nikita missiles. But it’s much easier to find cover from the Hind-D’s fire and shoot missiles back at it. It just goes on longer, which can drag if not for Liquid Snake’s hammy reactions.
Then there’s the originalMetal Gear. Most of its bosses are easy, especially when up against Snake’s remote-control missiles. The Hind-D gets the spot because it doesn’t actually fly. It just stays in one place and fires its easily avoidable machine gun. There’s even a spot to the upper left where players can throw grenades at it if they run out of missiles. It wouldn’t learn to fly untilMG2, where it was much more of a challenge by comparison.
Like The End, taking Quiet on in a proper sniper vs. sniper duel inMetal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Paincan be hard. She leaps from point to point quickly, shrugging Snake’s tagging off in the process. Then, when she’s damaged enough, she can jump into a nearby pool of water to replenish her health. It’s all too tempting to just sneak past her and continue with the story.
However, there’s a way tobeat Quiet easily. All the player has to do is tag her once, and then call for a supply drop on her location. Mother Base will then dump a box on her head for a decent chunk of stamina damage. Drop it twice on regular, and four times on Extreme to take her out and achieve most of her mission objectives for extra heroism.
Dead Cell’s Vamp isactually quite hardinMGS2. Even if the player did shoot out the lights to avoid his Shadow Binding trick, his knives dealt a lot of damage. There is a trick where players could bait him by hanging off the fence, then climbing back up to punch him a lot for a quick stamina victory. But it still had to be done carefully to avoid getting killed by his swipes.
He potentially could’ve been harder to fight inMGS4, as Snake is older and much less nimble than Raiden. But Vamp forgot most of his old tricks, beyond throwing a few knives and flamenco dancing on Snake’s carcass if he lays down. To finish him off, players have to get his life down to 0 (he’s particularly weak to the Solar Gun), then grab him with the Syringe equipped when he gets up. That’s it. Easy peasy.
Like Fortune,MGS3’sThe Sorrowis a survival challenge. Snake can’t beat a boss that starts with an already empty life bar. But the challenge depends on how fans played up to that point. If they went lethal on anyone and everyone, they will have a whole horde of ghosts to walk around, alongside the Sorrow’s random energy blasts.
Though if they went non-lethal, they’d only have the ghosts of the other COBRA unit members to dodge, and their life-sapping touch doesn’t do that much damage. Once they reach the end and “die,” players can just use the Revival pill to wake back up. If they already have the Sorrow’s special Spirit camo, they can just lay down, drown, and then use the pill to skip it. OnlyMetal Gearwould have a boss where the best way to beat it is to die.
