WARNING - MAY BE A BIT POLARIZING:

Before I begin, let me preface this list by saying that I don’t consider ALL of these fights bad. In fact, I quite like a lot of them. But there are flaws that cannot be ignored, and thus, I have to put it here for one reason or another.

Metal Gear Solid is a series renown for many things, one notable aspect being iconic boss fights. Look up any Top 10 or Top 100 list for boss fights, and you’re bound to see a good few MGS fights somewhere on that list. However, all too often, MGS fans mistake great characters for great boss fights. And when all is said and done, functionality is what matters most in these battles. And whether it's design flaws, control issues, difficulty, or other things in between, not every boss battle is as astounding as some others.

So, here is my Top 12 WORST Boss Fights in all of the MGS series!

12) The Fear (Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater)

This is a fight I actually have a lot of fun with, and don’t consider bad in the slightest. So, why is it on this list? For one, despite The Fear's intro cutscene about the poison now coursing through Snake’s veins, literally as soon as the fight starts, you can go into Survival Viewer, fix The Fear’s poison and bolt like any other wound, and jump right back into the fight like nothing happened.

And the prospect of fighting an enemy you can’t see is great! Too bad NVG’s exist, which also happen to expose his many traps layered across his arena. Sport those and a shotgun? And The Fear’s boss fight can be even quicker than his death scene. The Fear had the potential to be a truly incredible boss fight, if in a larger arena, with poison that actually affects you and the way you play, or him being much harder to spot. As it stands now, it’s a perfectly fine and fun battle, better than almost anything MGS1 had to offer, but it’s far too easy to break this fight, and far too many opportunities were missed.

11) The Man on Fire 1st Encounter (Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain)

Ironically enough, MoF’s second encounter is my number 11th BEST boss of MGS. Unfortunately, his initial face off is less than stellar. Because while we're being chased all mission long by this fiery demon, it's all in cutscene. Once we're finally face to face with him, all we have to do is turn right around and jump. Then, we engage in a rail shooter, that's nearly impossible to lose. The challenge isn’t so much surviving as it is, not getting hit, for the sake of meeting the Optional Objective of the Mission and S-Ranking it.

Now, the challenge of not getting hit is pretty intense, I’ll admit, which is why it’s so low on the list. But the fact remains, Awakening's biggest problem is it's an hour long, and only ten minutes of that is actual gameplay. Had we been the ones actively running away from the Man on Fire all mission long across the hospital like an Outlast encounter, this could have been genuinely intense and incredible. As it stands, it's functional, but underwhelming, especially when compared to every other boss battle in the game. And you never want your first boss to be the weakest battle, and least representative of the game at large, which is exactly what this first fight is.

10) Liquid Snake (Metal Gear Solid)

This one, I suspect many will disagree with, and I’m sorry to say this, but you’ll be seeing quite a few MGS1 bosses on this list. Liquid isn’t a boss I consider bad. Despite the bare basic CQB of MGS1, it kind of works during this fight, and Liquid himself gets increasingly more difficult to take down as his HP dwindles. Add the ticking bomb in the background and you have a genuinely intense final showdown.

One that is, simply put, too damn frustrating to enjoy. For everything that works about Liquid himself during this fight, what doesn’t work is the controls. It’s so incredibly easy to miss a combo if you’re not directly in front of Liquid when you attack him. And half way in, if you’re angled in a way where you only land one punch and not the full three attacks, Liquid will just automatically start hitting you with his combo. And half the times he knocks you down, you’ll stumble off REX. It’s a fight that could have worked with better controls or hardware, but on the PSX, there’s just too many moments it becomes incredibly unfair.

9) Vamp (Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots)

Vamp is a tricky one, because, for all intent purposes, this is a strong showdown with a great environment, and Vamp himself possesses a considerable amount of attacks. In fact, I actually really like this showdown. Unfortunately, it's just way too easy.

For all of Vamp’s many attacks, you really only have to do one thing all fight long; keep shooting and don’t stop. His attacks when he’s on the ground and charging at you require you to start moving and jumping out of the way, unless you just use a shotgun to knock him down and force him to flee.

You might ask, “What about his trick?” For those who don’t know, Vamp is “immortal.” So, every time you kill him, he just gets right back up and regenerates his HP. That’s the problem with gimmicks in MGS. They’re only tricky the first time. Once you know the gimmick, if you ever replay the game or replay that save file, all you have to do is just grab him and inject him immediately after.

8) Metal Gear REX (Metal Gear Solid)

Everything I said about Liquid’s boss fight, times twelve. REX is our first Metal Gear battle…and it is insufferably frustrating for many reasons. First, unless you have a bunch of Chaff Grenades before this fight, which you’d have to use just to backtrack TWICE and bypass the guncams BEFORE this fight…you’re looking at nearly impossible to evade rockets that take out a LARGE chunk of HP. On top of that, your Stinger Missile isn’t always reliable because unless you’re directly in range of the Radome, it’ll miss, or it will take too long to lock on the Radome, and REX’s rate of attack is borderline cruel.

Finally, there’s one itty-bitty thing that just makes this fight a massive middle finger…

It’s two battles, with an unskippable 40 second “Gray Fox speech” in between the first and second part. And if you die when Liquid’s exposed? You get to start the WHOLE thing all over again.

Metal Gear REX is a challenging boss, and don’t get me wrong, a boss fight SHOULD be challenging. But it should be challenging because your skills are being put to the test. Not challenging because your controls are unreliable, your character is too slow, and certain attacks seem nearly impossible to avoid. The RAYs from MGS2 were incredibly challenging, but the controls gave you to a fighting chance, making the battles both hard but enjoyable and rewarding.

REX is not that. It’s hard for all the wrong reasons, and there’s nothing fun about fighting it whatsoever.

7) Raging Raven (Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots)

Raging Raven is another case where it’s a perfectly sufficient battle that’s just far too simplistic and one note. She only really possesses three attacks, and one bombing run, as well as surrounding herself by a flock of Irving Drones, but they all go down in one hit, and similar to Vamp, all you do is just keep shooting at her until she’s done. Only, due to her surprisingly limited means of attack, this fight just isn’t nearly as fun as any of the other MGS4 battles, and that’s disappointing because her Rail Shooter segment showcased some true potential for an intense Arial Boss Fight. Sadly, Raging Raven did not deliver.

6) Lt. Cunningham (Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops)

Raging Raven wasn’t that fun as an Arial Battle, Cunningham wasn’t fun in the least. You’re on a narrow platform, and you’re ultimately just pumping rockets or bullets into Cunningham’s flying hovercraft before it lowers and gives you a chance to pump him full of bullets. I wouldn’t call this fight bad, because Cunningham does force you to think on your feet when he lobs grenades on your platform, “Mouse Traps,” or fires rockets that you have to either shoot down or evade. But the PSP made it difficult to really have fun with its’ convoluted control scheme. On top of that, there are two other major factors that make this fight disappointing.

First, Cunningham is, arguably, our most recurring enemy in MPO. This is a fight that would have much better been served as a mano-y-mano showdown across a MUCH larger arena. Cunningham deserved to be faced head on, not like an advanced Hover Trooper from MGS3 and nothing more, since he's skilled with various heavy weaponry, and the heavy hitter in a large chamber with plenty of hiding and cover spots makes for an engaging showdown.

Second being the arena. It just doesn’t work. The hovercraft is an interesting idea, and if it were across a much larger battle arena, it could actually be an AWESOME boss fight because then it can incorporate stealth. And the perfect place for that would have been the Guest House, when Snake’s imprisoned. Having to evade or escape while Cunningham seeks you out across THAT map would have been a really great use of the hovercraft idea. As it stands though? Cunningham’s battle is sufficient, but thoroughly unremarkable and unenjoyable.

5) Gear Rex (Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker)

…Everything I said about Liquid? About Metal Gear Rex? MULTIPLY IT BY A BILLION AND YOU HAVE GEAR REX!

For those who don’t know, Gear Rex is a Dinosaur version of Metal Gear Rex, a bonus boss fight in Peace Walker’s Extra Ops you can unlock after defeating the other Monster Hunter Guest Bosses. It’s also INSUFFERABLY difficult. I know there’s a market for gamers who truly only ever enjoy games that are uncompromisingly difficult. I am not one of them. I HATE this boss fight.

Gear Rex’s attacks are devastating. They’re frequent. And his HP is just unbelievably high. You essentially have to keep shooting it, keep calling for supply drops, and always have to evade its’ many range and charge attacks, and any one of them will knock out an entire Ration in one hit, and if, for any reason, you DON’T have them equipped…? Sayonara…

Forget bad, because this fight isn’t bad, and it CAN be played with three other players…or rather, it could if people still played PW online, but this fight goes beyond difficult, and just borders on cruel and unusual. And I don’t dig cruel and unusual when it comes to video games.

4) Sniper Wolf (Metal Gear Solid)

Our very first sniper battle in MGS, and against what many seem to regard as one of the best boss characters in the series. Too bad the sniping in MGS1 is terrible. Until Twin Snakes, any time you go into sniping mode, you immediately lie down, which automatically sets you at a big disadvantage, especially in the second round where there are hills blocking your vision. To make matters worse, moving your scope in MGS1 is MIND NUMBINGLY slow, and in that time, Wolf can line a shot, shoot you, and mess up your entire line of fire.

And unfortunately, even when Twin Snakes fixes all that, this fight then just becomes a breeze, both times. Neither one is especially challenging, rewarding, or fun.

3) Revolver Ocelot (Metal Gear Solid)

MGS1 has a mixture of average battles, frustrating battles, and mediocre ones, with the one genuinely great battle being Vulcan Raven. But there’s one fight that just straight up SUCKS. And sadly enough, it’s against the mad gunslinger himself, Revolver Ocelot.

Why? Because quite literally all you are doing is running in a square, shooting him until he’s beaten. That’s…literally it. You can try fighting him head on, but the mechanics of the game and the arena won’t allow for that. You can try tossing grenades, but you’ll just blow up Baker, and have to start it all over again. Quite literally, your only option to beat Ocelot is run in a square, shoot repeatedly, and hold for cutscene. This fight is absolutely terrible, which made the omission of a boss fight against him in MGS2 all the more jarring considering how much better the bosses in MGS2 were as a result of the better controllers.

…Well…ALMOST all of them…

2) Fortune (Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty)

Fortune’s intro was effective. Seeing how devastating a force she was against Seal Team Ten earlier in the game. Then, we actually confront the supposed witch, and low and behold, our bullets don’t work either! So, how do we beat her?

You can’t!

Alright, then how do you survive?

Well, just stand behind a crate until it breaks, then jump behind another one, and then, just…stand there. That’s. Literally. It.

There’s so much wasted potential in this fight, that it blows my mind. Take the exact same premise, but stretch it across a much larger arena, with a lot more cover spots that aren’t nearly as durable against her Rail Gun, and have it take place for more than a minute and a half, and you have an honest to God incredible showdown.

Two crates in a tiny corridor, on the other hand? Forget disappointing, and forget underwhelming. That’s just straight up terrible. This battle is nothing more than a loud waste of time before having a REAL showdown later against Fatman. It’s nothing more than that. And what’s crazy is, Fortune appears again at the end of the game in Arsenal, and there could have been a vastly better boss the second time around across the longer corridor of Arsenal Gear. But, nope! Cutscene only. That first minute and a half waste of time is literally all we get.

There is no doubt in my mind. Fortune is the WORST boss fight in all of MGS. Period.

…So, why is it number two?

Because, for as bad as a terrible boss fight like Fortune might be, there is one thing that’s even worse, and that’s the omission of a boss fight. An omission so incredibly unnecessary, so unfathomably asinine, it brings about more disappointment and frustration than literally anything I’ve just listed.

So, let’s not waste any more time. Let’s get right to it, and be warned, this one’s gonna be LONG…

1) Skull Face (Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain)

How fitting that Skull Face, my favorite villain in all of MGS, and arguably, one of, if not, my all time favorite character in the series, should be number one on this list, when, as I was playing MGSV and adoring the boss fights, I was excited for what kind of shootout I’d have once I finally came face to skull face with, well, Skull Face. If he’d have Parasite Powers, if he’d be like Ocelot, what his boss theme would be like, all that fun jazz. I was AMPED once Episode 30 began and as soon as I hit the menu, my Elimination Target was Skull Face. I was ready, and I was eager for whatever showdown awaited me…

…Only there was no showdown.

No, instead, right as Skull Face is about to carry out his master plan, Eli comes along, hijacks Sahelanthropus, and wipes out not only all of XOF, but Skull Face as well, and all while trying to get to Venom Snake. Suddenly, after an entire game of building ourselves up to be strong enough to take Skull Face down and exact revenge against him for all the horrible things he’s done, right at the finish line, he’s defeated by a character who contributed nothing to the story, and by the time we’re finished dealing with Sahelanthropus, Skull Face is reduced to a stump of a man, crushed under rubble and too weak to even fight back as Venom Snake and Kaz THOROUGHLY exact revenge against him.

Now, I believe Skull Face’s death scene is one of the most visually interesting and gruesomely satisfying ends to any main villain in MGS to date. Not just because he doesn’t get off easy like a lot of villains tend to, but for one simple reason; Skull Face, a nihilistic monster of a man who can’t feel pain, who isn’t afraid of anything, who ASSASSINATED JOSEPH STALIN…is reduced to begging for death. To see that, was beyond satisfying.

It just wasn't earned.

We didn’t defeat him. We didn’t stop him. We weren’t the ones who REDUCED Skull Face to this. Eli was.

Was it because Skull Face; like Coldman, wasn’t a soldier? Nope. Literally right before Eli hijacks the behemoth, Skull Face had revealed he was right in the trenches with us, along with his XOF strike force during Operation Snake Eater. After his death, Ocelot reveals that Skull Face was a renown assassin and an SAS operative. In the Devil’s House, we see how much of a quickdraw he is when he gets the drop on Venom Snake, but instead leaves him to the Man on Fire. We see how frequently Skull Face just saunters right in Venom Snake’s face, and how he actually is notably taller than the man, and utterly un-intimidated by him.

No, here is the actual reason Skull Face doesn’t have a boss fight; a direct quote from Hideo Kojma himself in the MGSV Piggyback Guide:

“Skull Face is the story's villain and main antagonist, yet his character is not simply about good and evil. He has lost something, which makes him suffer from the phantom pain. When he, the target of the player's vengeance, is gone, his absence leaves a lasting phantom pain.

We often see good versus evil encounters in the closing scenes of Hollywood movies, which are meant to satisfy their audience. But this game's theme is the chain of revenge, the phantom pain - the continuous chain that you experience when the target of your vengeance is gone. It is not possible to convey the subtleties of this theme in a standard boss battle."

That was the reason, by Episode 30, that Skull Face is not confronted in a boss battle of any kind. Instead, what we get is a very long winded and PROFOUNDLY criticized Jeep Ride in which Skull Face spells out his entire plan to the one guy who can stop him, along with his entire backstory, while Venom Snake says absolutely nothing…and then gets crushed before his plans can take off.

The omission of fighting Skull Face was a decision made that was supposed to enrich the story and make the players actually both appreciate the character more and become more active by feeling that sense of loss when Skull Face was finally dead.

But instead, what we have, is a phantom pain created for the wrong reasons. A phantom pain created by a sense that the story’s end was incredibly abrupt, not that revenge itself wasn’t satisfying. Think about it. Eli is the one who ultimately defeats Skull Face and steals his Metal Gear, making us fight him in Episode 31 through proxy, but Eli doesn’t really fit into the story of MGSV. His introduction comes out of nowhere during the latter half of the game. And after he’s introduced, he doesn’t do anything or even appear in any cutscenes apart from a few bonus scenes whenever visiting Mother Base. Yet, this kid, who doesn’t even matter to the story, whose reason for being at OKB Zero is flimsy at best, just HAPPENED to be within range of Young Mantis, and that sheer coincidence is what brings about Skull Face’s downfall. Not anything organic, like us being the ones to stop him, but sheer and utter coincidence; a Deus Ex Machina, the WORST way to solve a problem in any story, and one that not only solves a problem, but RESOLVES the main threat of the game!!

To have everything building towards stopping something from happening, only for a Deus Ex Machina to do the effort for us? Just pure insanity.

To make matters worse, it’s in these final moments when things go wrong that they also start to get a bit ridiculous. The jeep ride, the hangar scene with the infamous, “WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO?!?!” line, THESE are now the moments most people remember Skull Face for. Not those horrific tapes. Not the visually wonderful and elusive scenes he appears in before the end, where we just the right amount of him and see several different sides of him. Instead, as a result of this choice to have Eli interrupt everything and have him deal with Skull Face, most MGS fans now regard Skull Face as either a joke or a disappointment.

WatchMojo.com has Skull Face listed as the SECOND worst villain in a video game because he’s regarded as a quote unquote “Saturday Morning Cartoon character,” despite his actions and despite his vast complexity…and despite the fact that every single reason they listed for him being a bad villain applies to literally EVERY MGS villain in the series, even Armstrong! But the main reason so many fans seem to regard him that way isn’t just those final moments, but because, according to them at least, “He doesn’t do anything.” He’s a strategist, but in terms of physical presence, all he does is appear in a select amount of scenes, lay out several death traps, and monologue vaguely at the player. And this moment happens RIGHT after we learn he was there in Snake Eater watching our backs from the shadows all game long.

Not only did the omission of the boss fight significantly hurt the end of Chapter 1, which, lest we forget, is the main game, but it also made Skull Face a significantly underappreciated character. One many fans outright call a “terrible villain.” It’s all in execution. By choosing a thematic point, Kojima compromised both the conclusion of his main story of MGSV, as well as the way the character himself would be regarded by the vast majority of his fans.

But was Kojima right? Was it worth risking the story and making the character so infuriatingly underappreciated?

In short? No.

Kojima stated that the phantom pain wouldn’t linger if we satisfied our revenge by battling Skull Face himself, because we wouldn’t feel his absence. He’s forgetting one simple thing, however, Chapter 2 exists. The epilogue of MGSV is us continuing the game without an enemy. Aimless war without end, literally, since Episode 51 isn’t even in the game, and in that time, nearly every remaining mission is a dangling loose end left by Skull Face. We’re cleaning up the remnants of his operation, and then the Epidemic hits us again in the horrific “Shining Lights” Mission. Whether direct or indirect, Skull Face was responsible for the epidemic that plagued Mother Base in Chapter 1, and then, despite our best efforts, it comes back in Chapter 2, and we have no options but to mercy kill anyone infected. And the man responsible is far too dead by that point to answer for his crimes. His final act; Quiet being infected by the third English Strain, results in her having to sacrifice herself to save Venom Snake. Even in death, Skull Face has the last laugh, which makes whatever victory we had over him in the first place feel empty and meaningless. More to the point, killing him didn’t bring back anything regardless. Kaz is never made whole again. Those who are dead because of Skull Face are still dead, and the loss of our soldiers in Episode 43, and the loss of Quiet in Episode 45 instill a genuine phantom pain and sense of loss, especially with Quiet, since, after that, she’s no longer available as a buddy…well, at launch, at least.

…Soooo, if we’re still going to feel a phantom pain regardless, if the characters are still going to never be made whole…then what was the point of robbing us of a battle against the main villain? What did it ultimately serve?

Nothing. It was a bad decision made for a redundant point, and one that harmed not just Skull Face’s character in the eyes of many, but the conclusion of the game, arguably the most important part of the entire game.

And you might be asking how throwing in a boss fight against him changes anything. Well, for starters, it lends a sense of weight to the journey itself. Revenge isn't just about making the target of vengeance suffer, but defeating them to get them to that point. More importantly, if Skull Face really was watching our backs during MGS3, then doesn't it make sense that those skills that kept Big Boss alive all that time would be put to use, so it would hold more weight when we actually confront the man himself? I'd say so personally. No matter how I look at it, giving us an actual boss battle against Skull Face is only a plus, for the story, for the game, and for the character. The decision to omit it for an artistic point was a poor decision that did more harm than good, and it's hardly the first decision Kojima's made with this series that's done that.

So, for that, the lack of a boss battle against Skull Face is the worst offense any boss encounter or potential boss encounter could commit, and one of the absolute worst decisions Kojima has made when it comes to his games. One of them, because sadly, there are vastly worse decisions he's made.

Honorable Mentions:

- The Extra Op Tank Battles (Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker) They’re way too grindy with way too much HP, and too many back up units, making fighting them a chore, and not the genuine fun experiences the Main Mission bosses were.

- Eli (Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain) This one’s actually an honorable mention for best boss fights, because I really do like this fight a lot and think it’s a genuinely well designed battle with a lot of challenge and intense chasing taking place. But, it has one design flaw which breaks the fight…you can just walk up to Eli and just throw him down at any time, and it’s really easy to do…aaaaand that’s what most players opt to do, sadly.

- Revolver Ocelot (Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty) Another omission of a boss fight being the disappointment, because Ocelot’s fight in MGS1 was terrible, but with MGS2’s control scheme, a truly wonderful showdown could have taken place, but instead, Ocelot isn’t encountered once, despite his constant action sequences taking place entirely in cutscenes.

- The Man on Fire 3rd Encounter That Never Was (Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain) Yet another omitted boss that should have happened. Ocelot leaves a tape warning that The Man on Fire might still be alive, and is COLONEL VOLGIN…so that we should tread lightly because “it’s not over yet.” And when he came back to life in Chapter 2, I was pumped! Buuut then he dies as soon as he realizes we’re not really Big Boss. It’s a shame because one final showdown with that news in mind could have lent just a little more weight to Chapter 2’s bones, and could have fully utilized The Man on Fire, given how almost criminally underused he is in MGSV. But, it’s not necessary, and his second encounter really is awesome, so I can’t complain.

I still love this series, and most of its’ characters, a lot on this list included, but let this be a reminder of what wasted potential and genuinely bad decisions or bad design can do to harm any overall product in a game.

To any MGS fans out there, do you have any particular bosses that you weren’t especially thrilled with fighting? Any characters you wish we could’ve fought?

I’d love to hear some of your lists if you have any!