Kiryu Kazuma vs Solid Snake (Like A Dragon vs Metal Gear) VS Prediction Blog

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(Capejedi)


(kaiser)


(Toppat Torchwick)


(ZackPlay3r, Artworks made by Damien_V_Grimm & Count15)

“Legends remain victorious in spite of history.” - Sarah Bernhardt

Kiryu Kazuma, the Dragon of Dojima hailing from Kamurocho’s Yakuza
Solid Snake, the soldier who makes the impossible possible from Metal Gear


The idea of becoming a legend is something many aspire from all walks of life. To be remembered as being the best at what they do, and what actions that shaped the world. These two embody this the most, with one being a Legend on the streets of Japan, and the other being a Legend in military service. They stomped on corruption that brought around the world and their professions, but even when they try to retire, they always get roped back in. However, even when terminally sick, they kept going to do what is right. But what if these men faced each other? Will Kiryu hit his opponent Like A Dragon, or will Solid Snake grind him in a Metal Gear? Guns loaded, fists prepared, let’s get to it.

Before We Begin

Both of these series are ones which have relatively straightforward canons, though they are not without their oddities, as there are plenty of questionably canon spin-offs and alternate adaptations for both which can muddy the water on what’s usable. For the sake of covering as much as we can, this will be looking at both series under a soft composite lens. So while the main focus is on their original game continuities, alternate sources which can fit into the canon will also be included. There will be a separate document going over all of the media which this would apply to and discussing our reasons for including or excluding them. 

This will also be mostly disregarding crossovers, so Kiryu won’t be getting scaling through Project X Zone, Sonic Racing Crossroads, or Super Monkey Ball, and Snake won’t be getting scaling through Super Smash Brothers, Fortnite, or Bomberman. I say “mostly” as there are a few edge cases which are a bit more complicated and warrant some further discussion, but to establish this upfront, these cases won't be affecting the stats given here or the verdict. 

Kiryu Kazama Media List:

  • Yakuza

  • Yakuza 2

  • Yakuza 3

  • Yakuza 4

  • Yakuza 5

  • Yakuza 0

  • Yakuza 6: Song of Life

  • Yakuza: Like a Dragon

  • Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

  • Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

  • Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii

  • Yakuza Kiwami

  • Yakuza Kiwami 2

  • Yakuza: Dead Souls

  • Kurohyō: Ryū ga Gotoku Shinshō

  • Kurohyō 2: Ryū ga Gotoku Ashura hen

  • Judgement

  • Lost Judgement

  • Like A Dragon Kenzan

  • Like A Dragon Ishin + it’s remake

  • Streets of Kamurocho

  • Yakuza (2007 Film) + it’s prologue short film

  • Yakuza: The Dragon’s Path 

  • Yakuza (2015 Stage Play)

Solid Snake Media List:
  • Metal Gear
  • Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
  • Metal Gear Solid
  • Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
  • Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker
  • Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
  • Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
  • Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
  • Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
  • Metal Gear Ghost Babel
  • Metal Gear Solid Mobile
  • Metal Gear Solid Touch
  • Metal Gear Solid 1 & 2 Comics
  • Various Novel Adaptations

Finally, some general notes. First off, Spoiler Alert. We will be freely discussing a lot of major points of the stories for these franchises, which for Kiryu in particular will involve multiple games which are still fairly recent releases. So if you wish to remain completely blind to these series, then this is your warning to step out. The other big one is a Mature Content Warning, as both of these series tackle plenty of mature subject matter and tend to depict particularly extreme violence, so viewer discretion is advised. With all that out of the way, let’s start this mission.

Background

Kiryu Kazuma


“If you wanna die, step up!”

The Yakuza-Japan’s infamous organized crime groups. Making money through illegal activity despite posing as legit businesses, they’ve been one of the darkest parts of Japan’s history for generations-all the way in even the 17th century. But perhaps, even in what is depicted as a way to make dirty money comes a shining light from it all, one who’d be far more caring would become a legend amongst not just this band of criminals, but the entire country. That is the story of Kazuma Kiryu, The Dragon of Dojima.

Kiryu’s origins, though, were somewhat humble, as at a young age he’d find himself orphaned and living in the Sunflower Orphanage, run by yakuza hitman Shintaro Kazama. While he did make lifelong friends with the other orphans there, such as Akira Nishikiyama, his sworn brother, and Yumi Sawamura, who he’d eventually develop feelings for, Kiryu would find himself wanting more than the hand life dealt him. He ultimately wished to follow his adoptive father’s footsteps and join the yakuza world, and while Kazama tried to stop him, he’d ultimately concede and allowed him to join the clan. While his early career was somewhat unimpressive, he’d quickly made a name for himself after stopping an incident in the 80s involving ownership of an empty lot. By 1995, he'd risen to the lieutenant advisor of the Dojima Family, and was on track to start his own family. 

Then everything changed one fateful night, when Nishikiyama would take the life of the Dojima family’s patriarch while in defense of Yumi. Not wishing to see his brother taken away, Kiryu would take the fall for the crime, ultimately landing him in prison. 10 years later, he’d return to a city, with Yumi missing and Nishikiyama becoming more ruthless in his ambitions. Kiryu would ultimately be tied up in a conspiracy which killed Kazama, who revealed in his dying breath that he had been responsible for the death of Kiryu’s parents and ran the orphanage to make up for his mistakes. Both Yumi and Nishikiyama would also end up dead in the crossfire of this conspiracy, leaving Kiryu without anyone he had left behind. But he did gain someone else to fight for, as Yumi’s daughter Haruka would end up in his care. So even after he got a spot as the Chairman of the entire Tojo Clan, he’d quickly retire from the position, now recognizing that the world may well be one he can’t stay in. 

This naturally set waves throughout the criminal underworld, and in the fallout of a newly-installed chairman being violently killed by a rival clan, Kiryu would end up dragged back into the world. This time, though, he’d be faced with circumstances he couldn’t simply solve, and he barely saved those he cares about from the clutches of criminals even more deadly and ruthless. After surviving them, he’d leave the clan in the hands of Daigo Dojima, the son of the man he once claimed to have killed, and would retire to run the same Orphanage he had once lived in, inspiring a new set of kids. But this did little to stop the criminal underworld, and there’d be more new ambitious criminals trying to destroy the legend he built. While he fought them off, these developments still weighed on him, and as a way to help protect those he cared about, he’d leave the orphanage to go into hiding under a new name. 

But even this didn’t stop those who sought to end his legend, as a plan to tear down the old way of life he once fought for dragged him back into the fight, this time ending in it nearly killing him. In the aftermath, Haruka would try to reconcile with him, but another stint in prison led to them being once again separated, as her attempt to tell the world of her connection to him led to her being forced to go into hiding herself. After once again being released, he’d find her at the center of yet another conspiracy, thanks to having a child with the son of a triad boss. He’d once again work to save them from this, and the fallout of this seemingly ended in his death. But in actuality, he’d have faked his death, hoping this would finally put an end to the strife of those he fought for. 

But this didn’t end his own struggles, as not only did he get dragged into acting as an agent for the Daidoji Faction, he’d quickly discover that he had gotten cancer. Now believing his time had finally come, he’d be somewhat complacent. But his love for the song of life would be reinvigorated after one last adventure with another fledgling hero by the name of Ichiban Kasuga, which helped him realize the next generation could handle themselves. So, after putting an end to one last conspiracy, he’d end up reconnecting with a now adult Haruka, and try to spend what life he has left with her. No one’s quite sure what the future holds for him, though for a man who’s had to fight for his way of life against those who seek to end it many times, one can only hope this dragon’s fire is allowed to rest. But you’d do well not to assume his kindness for weakness, for if you reawaken this sleeping dragon, he’ll ensure whatever fire is trying to burn his world will be put out for good. 

Solid Snake

“Kept you waiting, huh?”

War truly is a cruel mistress, whether it changes or not, as the brutal and uncaring battlefield can embitter even the most optimistic man. But there are many who are still drawn to it, whether for the sake of patriotism for their own contrary, to gain control of others, or simply for love of the battle itself. As such, even in times of peace, there are many who wish to stoke the fires of war in hopes their embers will burn the world. But there are just as many men opposed to them, who are born to succeed legends that end the conflicts which might end the world. And while these men became legends, they did so from the shadows, away from the prying eyes of the public. That is the story of Solid Snake, The Man Who Makes the Impossible Possible.

Raised in the United States by foster parents, rising the ranks of the military and major federal agencies at an early age, joining the elite black ops unit FOXHOUND, it would seem that David had the perfect upbringing and a bright future ahead to become a prime soldier. His expertise that was carefully crafted over years of partaking in international conflicts would be further augmented under the tutelage of the legendary soldier Big Boss, founder of the FOXHOUND unit who would go on to teach him aspects of his own specialized training about warfare, infiltration, and CQC. David, having been attributed the codename “Solid Snake” and the importance of survival on the battlefield by Big Boss, on his first ever mission would be sent on an operation to infiltrate the military nation Outer Heaven to rescue fellow operative Gray Fox and uncover the mystery of the weapon of mass destruction being readied that the latter unveiled in a radio transmission to base, with two final words making it through before the call was cut…“Metal Gear”

From those two words alone would a sequence of events span over multiple decades. Dubbed “Operation Intrude N313,” Solid Snake stealthily infiltrated the fortress of Outer Heaven, rescuing prisoners of war, including Gray Fox who’d uncover the existence of Metal Gear, an all-terrain nuclear-equipped walking battle tank capable of launching warheads anywhere in the world. Aware of the danger this would pose on the world, Snake would destroy the weapon and confront the mastermind behind the entire plot, Big Boss, his own commander and mentor, who had used Snake as an unwitting pawn. After defeating him, he would successfully escape the base’s self-destruction, but not totally unscathed as the trauma of the operation would remain with him and prompt him to depart from FOXHOUND and the CQC technique altogether. However, Snake’s war would not end here. The Big Boss he had killed was a body double, while the real one reemerged to lead a new military nation, Zanzibar Land, and resume his ambitions with another Metal Gear. 

With no one better to turn to, Solid Snake was called back into service by FOXHOUND’s new commander, Roy Campbell, to embark on Operation Intrude F014. Once again infiltrating enemy territory, he was forced to relive the nightmare. But this time, he was betrayed by his former comrade Gray Fox, who piloted the new Metal Gear against him. Snake destroyed the weapon once more and confronted the real Big Boss in a final, brutal battle. It was here where the truth is revealed to Snake, that Big Boss was his genetic father all along, the man from whom Snake’s very existence had been engineered. Facing his father with nothing but a makeshift flamethrower, Snake ultimately ended Big Boss, and along with it the cycle of war that had bound the two together…or so he thought.

Retired to Alaska in search of solitude and escape from endless conflict, Solid Snake hoped to create a semblance of joy out of the life that’s attempted to eat away at him. But unlike him, the world could not stay in place and enjoy the moment. It kept moving on, constantly changing, shifting, and the balance of power along with it as yet another Metal Gear came into the mix, one that would threaten to destroy the US government with nuclear strikes if the demands of the perpetrators, a renegade FOXHOUND unit stationed in Shadow Moses, were not met, that demand being the body of Big Boss. Unwilling to give up a relic of the past, the US government looked to the future and brought in Big Boss’s predecessor, Snake, to fight yet another battle against the new forces at play. After reluctantly accepting the assignment under the supervision of Cambell, Snake discovered familiar and new faces alike upon infiltration, be it friends like Meryl Silverburgh, Dr. Hal "Otacon" Emmerich, and foes like Revolver Ocelot and a newly-restored cybersized Gray Fox. 

At the center of it all was the group’s leader, Liquid Snake, who not only resembled him but claimed to share his very DNA. As Snake progressed through the mission, he learned that the mission had been a plot to carry out the artificial virus FOXDIE planted in his body, not just as a failsafe to ensure the elimination of the rogue FOXHOUND members, but to eliminate the hostages who knew too much about REX. After being tricked into activating REX, Snake fought a desperate battle against the towering machine, aided by Gray Fox’s final sacrifice that sought to atone for the past. In the aftermath, he confronted Liquid atop the mech’s ruins, learning of the truth of their creation under Les Enfants Terribles; a top secret government cloning project developed in the 1970’s sponsored by The Patriots, a secret organization that had complete control over the United States, that made them both the genetic successors of Big Boss with genetic differences, with Snake being the one to possess the recessive genes and Liquid the superior ones despite the latter’s belief of it being the opposite. Following Liquid’s death after succumbing to FOXDIE, Snake’s path was more unclear than ever, but one thing was certain for him, his war had only just begun.

Snake’s endeavors would lead him around the world, after having founded Philanthropy alongside Otacon as an anti-Metal Gear organization, he’d face various perils that would come with new friends and foes alike. Becoming a mentor figure to another up and coming hero named Jack, codenamed Raiden, who’d follow in his footsteps; all the while acquiring a new enemy through the latter’s adoptive father, 43rd president and another product of Les Enfants Terribles, Solidus Snake. Solidus’s defeat only showed just how far the rabbit hole the Patriots goes, with them in actuality being an advanced AI network hellbent on shaping public belief, information, and facts throughout the globe in their favor to maintain order. This conspiracy was made all the more apparent by Ocelot, now seemingly possessed by Liquid, with his constant interferences leading to one final battle to end Snake’s war, and it would have to end with Ocelot and The Patriots. It would not be an easy victory however, as the side effects of Les Enfants Terribles approached and in turn lead to an accelerated aging process making him the weakest he’s ever been, but his spirit and will would not be hindered in the slightest.

This final adventure for the old war dog would have him employ CQC again after disowning it, and with the help of his allies, Snake would not only put down the terror of The Patriots forever, but Liquid Ocelot as well. It wouldn’t be an exact happy ending for Snake however, for not only did his accelerated aging not give him much time to live, but the FOXDIE in his system kept mutating, and with the worry of the mutation one day turning him into the same doomsday device he had been fighting against his entire life lingering, he almost put his own life to an end. But after being unable to go through with it, he would be approached by Big Boss who was secretly alive this entire time. Instead of a final clash between father and son, peace was made as Big Boss unveiled all to Snake, including confirmation that FOXDIE will not pose a threat to anyone but the former, providing his son closure in a final, true gesture of affection before meeting his own death as the virus claimed his life. After this, Snake’s long war has finally drawn to a close, allowing him to once again slip into the shadows of history. But even among battles that exceed him, he’s still yet to be forgotten, as war never truly changes and still truly rages within all men. 

Intelligence & Skill

Kiryu Kazuma

General

After living through a life of the world of crime constantly trying to drag him into it, it’s no question that Kiryu is certainly more than some common thug. In terms of his personal intelligence, while he did drop out of high school to join the yakuza, he has shown himself to be plenty knowledgeable, whether that be figuring out the answers to math problems with only 10 seconds or quickly figuring out the answers to a college exam prep book. 

Though to call Kiryu multitalented would certainly be an understatement, as his many wacky adventures in side content have shown him adapting to more than just beating people up. He’s managed to run successful businesses, including cabaret clubs and a real estate empire, he can quickly win games of shogi and has gotten ranked #1 in multiple mahjong tournaments, and he’s managed to drive well enough to keep up with multiple racers who were skilled across Japan. He also was able to quickly act well in a movie that he just read the script for, voice acted in a yaoi, and dominated a championship model racing circuit against literal children.

Combat Skill

Naturally, given the main gameplay of  the series, Kiryu has shown himself to be an incredibly skilled hand to hand fighter. He's been trained primarily by Sotaro Komaki, whose self-titled fighting style has been around since the Edo-Period. Though that’s hardly the limit, as beyond various other trainers, he’s also been able to learn moves from manuals he’s read, movies he’s watched, and even just using weapons often enough. This even gets to the point of being able to copy moves and even entire separate fighting styles just by watching others in action.

When actually fighting, he’s incredibly adaptable. He actively disarmed opponents of their weapons midfight to take for himself, and directly targeted weak spots on their bodies. He can also use various grapples and throws, and even use the dreaded Tiger Drop to directly parry attacks just as they’re about to hit him (though despite the memes, it does not actually negate all damage). Some of the distinct fighting styles he’s shown to be able to use include:

  • Brawler: Kiryu’s main style back in 0, Brawler radiates blue energy, and is the most balanced of Kiryu’s fighting styles. It relies on quick yet powerful kicks and blows to deliver punishment.

  • Rush: Kiryu’s pink energy style, Rush focuses on one thing: speed. It allows Kiryu to dodge faster, avoid blows for his block, and punch a lot faster than usual. Perfect for evading and punishing targets for missing.

  • Beast: Kiryu’s yellow energy style, Beast is slow yet hits like a tank, and allows Kiryu to take less damage when being hit. He can also quickly grab bigger objects to swing at people in wild haymakers mid fighting combo as well.

  • Dragon: The most famous of all of Kiryu’s fighting styles and his main go to for much of the series, Dragon is a red energy style that combines all 3 styles of fighting together. It has the balance that Brawler style has, high speed with Rush yet devastating power with Beast.

  • Agent: While working with the Daidoji faction, Kiryu primarily utilized this technique in order to make others believe it’s not him. Beyond using multiple gadgets, it’s primarily focused on disabling opponents quickly with bone breaks and pressure points. It combines multiple different fighting styles from throughout the world and is said to give those who use it complete control of any situation. 


Weapon Mastery & Marksmanship


Fists aren’t the only thing that Kiryu can use in a fight, as he’s also wielded a wide variety of weapons throughout the years. He’s shown proficiency with kali sticks, nunchaku, poles, spears, tonfa, and swords, though he’s not too picky, as in his hands basically anything he can pick up becomes an effective weapon for beating foes to near death, as he’s been directly stated to have skills over all forms of weaponry. This also extends to guns, which he’s shown just as much adaptability with, and which has been bolstered by some strong feats of accuracy. He’s able to take down multiple enemies from across a room with a shotgun, and perfectly hit every part of the spread shots on several grenades tossed in the air. Depending on player skill, this accuracy can also extend to being able to dominate multiple sports, including darts, golf, bowling, pool, and baseball.

Other Skills

Solid Snake

General

When you’re cloned from the man who’s commonly known as the greatest soldier who ever lived, you definitely have big shoes to fill. But Snake has shown himself to be just as legendary an operative. He has an IQ of 180, is fluent in 6 languages, and is an expert in parachuting, scuba diving, mountain climbing, military small arms, and vehicle operation. He was part of the Green Berets at a young age, taking part in missions to infiltrate western Iraq in 1991 during the Gulf War before moving on to joining FOXHOUND, a collection of the greatest soldiers in the world. 

After leaving the unit, eventually he would have to battle against them during the Shadow Moses Incident, or rather a renegade iteration composed of new elite members as well as Next-Generation Special Forces (Genome soldiers) that all underwent the same rigorous training FOXHOUND was built upon with the inclusion of VR; as well as gene therapy that spliced their genetic profiles with the “soldier genes”, which were remnants of Big Boss’s genes to which only 60% of was retrievable by the time the process took place, to acquire some of (though not all) the same benefits that Snake received, Including the aforementioned IQ level of 180.

While time would hardly be kind to his physical prowess, his skills would only keep evolving in accordance to every new threat that popped up, enough so that even far after his prime, he’d be able to test his mettle against the likes of the Beauty and the Beast unit, alternatively dubbed SNAKEHOUND in reference to their ultimate objective to take down Solid Snake, of which they’d fail at.

Martial Arts Skill

When it comes to close quarter combat, Snake is more than prepared to take enemies down. Since he was a child he was harshly trained by the best soldiers in the world at FOXHOUND, including Big Boss, the former Green Beret legendary soldier who was versed in all forms of combat, and Kazuhira Miller, who was also versed in all forms of warfare as well. His mastery of unarmed combat comes in the form of CQC, a fictional martial art created by The Boss and passed down to Snake through Big Boss, who surpassed her impressive skill. CQC is a technique based on Close Quarters Combat whose goal is disarming and defeating the opponent in as few moves as possible that also employs handgun and knife techniques. Another pillar to the foundations of CQC is its focus on restraining opponents, grappling them and putting them in a submissible state which allows one to perform a variety of follow ups ranging from knocking them down, disarming them, choking them unconscious, use them as a body shield, to slashing their throats.

He’s also kept pace with many other legendary soldiers in a direct one on one fight, including Liquid Snake, who has mastery over almost all forms of warfare and was genetically superior to him. Liquid underwent the same FOXHOUND training as Solid Snake, and also knew CQC; so did the other renegade FOXHOUND members, with their training regimen consisting of VR simulations and their combat capabilities are estimated to surpass those of Delta Force and the Night Stalkers. Gray Fox, the former best mercenary in the world trained by Big Boss himself since childhood whose skills were augmented by his cyborg suit to superhuman levels; and Liquid Ocelot, a version of Revolver Ocelot that possessed all of Liquid Snake’s memories, adding Ocelot’s GRU Spetsnaz training with Liquid’s natural talent.

Even more astonishingly is that Snake would defeat many of the aforementioned characters all the while restricting himself from using CQC, having abandoned it after Big Boss’s betrayal. Instead relying on CQB (close quarters battle). CQB specializes in using small arms and lethal/tactical gear like grenades while centering on infantry; developed by SAS, CQB’s basic law is to take your enemy out as quickly and efficiently as possible while maintaining your own escape route, which compliments Snake’s tendency to operate on instinct. Despite being a form of combat from which CQC would serve as the evolution of, Snake was an expert of the technique, unarmed or otherwise, and still successfully employed it to great effect against CQC specialists. Despite swearing off the technique for good, desperate times called for desperate measures, and he would have to employ the technique again against soldiers enhanced by the sons of the patriots system controlled by the Patriot’s AI that had extensive data on the world and regulated each soldier’s position, movement speed, reserve ammo, and firing accuracy. This system proved superior to the VR training simulations that FOXHOUND underwent their rigorous training from. Despite that, and despite being past his prime by this point, Snake still considered their CQC a “cookie cutter imitation”, given their application of it was based on operational knowledge from the system as opposed to his authentic, hands-on experience, to which his body instinctively reacts in successful retaliation when they attempt to use it on him.

Outside of direct confrontations, Snake’s status as one of the greatest CQC masters in the setting grants him skill on levels superior to characters such as Olga, a soldier instrumental to the Russian army who’s expertly trained in all forms of Spetsnaz GRU tactics, and Raiden, a veteran of over 300 VR Missions that simulated past operations by top tier agents like Snake himself, and trained under the Patriot’s Perfect Soldier Project.

Weapon Mastery and Marksmanship

Thanks to being Big Boss’ perfect clone and training CQC, Snake should have the same level of weapon proficiency as him, knowing how to utilize all sorts of military equipment and weapons, even swords, but he showcases this mostly with firearms. He’s knowledgeable on and has been able to pick up and use basically any firearm he can get his hands on. 

Snake’s accuracy and proficiency with guns is so advanced that he is capable of pulling trickshots like this one, where he manages to snipe a pretty thin wire constricting Raiden while on a moving helicopter, or landing a headshot on Vamp from a distance with iron sights. And that’s not even Snake at his prime. At his best, Snake far surpasses the best sharpshooters of the Metal Gear universe. He kept pace in a duel with Sniper Wolf, whose skills are said to be unmatched and who was able to make an accurate shot on a rope he was hanging from in the middle of a snowstorm. Thanks to being raised and trained in sniping by Big Boss himself, her sniping skill should be comparable to The End’s, who Big Boss defeated in a sniper duel before that lasted an hour, all the while avoiding his shots. The End was the original most deadly sniper and the world and is credited as the father of all sniping techniques. 

Following the trend of incredibly talented snipers is Quiet, who not only would count under the notion of Sniper Wolf’s skills being unmatched, but is heavily implied to only be “the next best thing” by comparison; Quiet’s marksmanship capabilities are so accurate she can snipe a jet fighter pilot from a distance while the jet and helicopter she was in traveled at mach speed (all the while accounting for bullet drop and wind resistance), fire at mid-air grenades to make them ricochet without setting them off, and shoot in between individual blades on a helicopter when they were at full speed, a feat which impressed Revolver Ocelot. Speaking of which, Snake should also be comparable to Revolver Ocelot as well, a genius and exceptional sharpshooter that can land impossible shots with his ricochet techniques.

Stealth Mastery

Of course, given what the series is based around, it makes sense that Snake is incredibly skilled in stealth, as he’s been described as the best stealth operative in history, and his sneaking is nothing short of legendary. 

As a former FOXHOUND member, his training would no doubt enrich him with the knowledge that’s allowed FOXHOUND, a team of the “best of the best” commandos the military has to offer, to covertly engage in numerous regional conflicts and civil wars, shaping history with sabotage, selective assassination and other covert acts of war, all the while remaining secret from the public, which falls in line with their core belief to leave no trace behind whatsoever, no matter how big or small. In his first mission he successfully infiltrated Outer Heaven, a militaristic base thought to be impenetrable that was made from the best military technology and was occupied by various exceptionally skilled soldiers, as well as cyberoids through sheer stealth, said soldiers having been gathered by Big Boss himself, whose previous private armies had consisted of members ranging from martial arts specialists to seasoned veterans. 

From here, Snake’s skills would only increase overtime and so would the challenges he’d have to overcome; he has been able to outpace Genome soldiers who have superhuman senses, and sneak past Vulcan Raven, who also has superhuman senses of spiritual nature, and tail a soldier trained from childhood without being sensed. Even when he was well past his prime, Snake was capable of handling those who donned stealth technology comparable to his own, something he’d prove when defeating Laughing Octopus, the stealth expert of the SNAKEHOUND Unit who used camouflage technology similar to Snake’s OctoCamo suit (of which the intricacies of will be elaborated on in the Equipment section) to blend in with the environment, only for Snake to deduce her whereabouts repeatedly. Thanks to being a perfect Big Boss clone and receiving his training, Snake should also have superior stealth skills to his genetic father, who could sneak up on The End, whose senses and environmental awareness are described as him being able to communicate with the forest to locate his targets. 

Other Skills

Equipment

Kiryu Kazuma

Melee Weapons

As a brawler, Kiryu is more than experienced with the idea of using a very wide variety of close range weapons to take people out. Though an overarching issue with many of them is the fact that they have limited durability and will be broken to unusability if this runs out. Additionally, there are a lot of weapons he has which are a bit irrelevant to bring up individually, so this will be sticking just to ones which are particularly notable.

  • Knuckles
    • Sturdy Brass Knuckles - Unbreakable
    • Extremely Sturdy Brass Knuckles - Unbreakable
    • Konpeito - Grows more powerful in fights with more enemies
    • Dragon Grudge Fists
    • G-B-H-G - The primary gloves of Gary Buster Holmes, which are more like spiky balls he swings around
    • Pepper Knuckles - Knocks down the enemy
    • Hungry Wolf Knuckles - Drains health
    • Bagh Naka - Indian created spiked knuckles which were designed to be covert, which staggers enemies on hit
    • Tiger Bagh Naka - Staggers enemies on hit
    • Assassin's Bagh Naka - Poisons enemies on hit
  • Pipes & Batons
    • Sturdy Iron Pipe - Unbreakable
    • Extremely Sturdy Iron Pipe - Unbreakable
    • Police Baton - Can stun on hit
    • Modified Police Baton - Can stun & shock on hit
    • Electric Police Baton - Can cause paralysis
    • Kamiyama’s Police Baton - Can cause paralysis
  • Umbrellas
    • Colorful Parasol - Causes random effects on hit
    • Antique Oilpaper Umbrella - Causes knockback on hit
  • Blackjacks
    • Ballbuster - Causes knockback on hit
    • Golden Blackjack - Causes knockback on hit & gives extra money when defeating enemies
  • Tonfa
    • Sturdy Tonfa - Unbreakable  
    • Extremely Sturdy Tonfa - Unbreakable
    • Slashing Tonfa - Can stagger enemies on hit
    • Cursed Tonfa - Causes paralysis
    • Skull Tonfa - Stuns enemies
    • Smuggled Modded Tonfa - Burns enemies while draining health
  • Nunchaku
    • Sturdy Nunchaku - Unbreakable
    • Extremely Sturdy Nunchaku - Unbreakable
    • SPARK 15000V - Shocks enemies on hit
    • Dynamite Nunchaku - Causes explosions that knockback on hit
    • Sickle Nunchaku - Stagger enemies when hit
    • Plasma Nunchaku - Buff Critical hit rate when an enemy is KO’d
    • Broken Commandment Nunchaku - Causes Stun
    • Burning Nunchaku - Causes Burn
    • Rippling Nunchaku - Removes any Debuffs on self
    • Dynamite Nunchaku - Can lower willpower
    • Evil God’s Nunchaku - Causes Curse & Silence
    • Nightstone Nunchaku - Boosts physical attacks while increasing damage received from enemies
  • Kali Sticks
    • Sturdy Kali Sticks - Unbreakable
    • Extremely Sturdy Kali Sticks - Unbreakable
    • Double Feathered Fans - Stuns enemies on hit
    • Spiked Taiko Sticks - Staggers the enemies when hit
    • Double Stun Sticks - Causes paralysis
    • Double Fire - Burns enemies
    • Cutie Girl Sticks - Increases Heat Gain
    • Love Shine Sticks - Gives maximum Heat Gain
  • Stun Guns - Handheld tasers which can all shock enemies on impact
    • Old Stun Gun
    • Stun Gun
    • Hyper Stun Gun
    • High Voltage Stun Gun
    • Breaking Stun Gun
  • Baseball Bats
    • Pummeling Bat - A bat used by Goro Majima which is unbreakable
    • Extremely Sturdy Bat - Unbreakable
    • Spiked Bat - Can stagger on hit
    • Patriarch's Bat - Prevents accidentally striking walls,
    • Superalloy Bat - Can block bullets when blocking
    • Passion-filled Bat - Can burn enemies
  • Golf Clubs  
    • Wooden Driver
    • 9-Iron
    • Patriarch's Driver
    • Iron Club - Can stun enemies
    • Golden Shaft Club - Can cause paralysis
  • Hammers
    • Sturdy Iron Hammer - Unbreakable
    • Extremely Sturdy Iron Hammer - Unbreakable
    • Big Festival Fan - Causes knockback on hit
    • Warning Sign - Can break guards
    • Frozen Tuna
  • Staffs
    • Long Lumber
    • Sturdy Pole - Unbreakable
    • Extremely Sturdy Pole - Unbreakable
    • Thunder God Staff - Can shock enemies on hit
    • Purgatory Rod - Can burn enemies
  • Daggers & Knives
    • Illegal Poison Kodachi - Stuns enemies
    • Ninja Dagger - Stuns enemies
    • Thunder Dagger - Causes paralysis
    • Sturdy Knife - Unbreakable
    • Extremely Sturdy Knife - Unbreakable
    • Super Spicy Knife - Burns on hit
  • Swords
    • Sturdy Wooden Katana - Unbreakable
    • Extremely Sturdy Wooden Katana - Unbreakable
    • Photon Blade Prototype - Laser blade which can stun on hit
    • Sacred Wooden Katana - Gets more powerful with low health
    • Sunburst - Can knockdown enemies on hit
    • Morning Tempest - Can knockdown enemies on hit
    • Exorcism Greatsword - Grows more powerful with low health
    • Ama no Murakumo - Shoots shockwave projectiles, and is said to be able to cut through anything
    • Ephemeral Longsword - Can cause Blindness
    • Fake Murasame - Lowers enemy’s resistance to ice attacks
    • Scabbard Fish - Recovers HP per turn
    • Combat Sword - Can Paralyze enemies
    • Megalodon Sword - Increases Critical Hit damage
    • Enchanted Demon Slayer - Increases duration of status effects
    • Moonflower - Attacking has a chance to buff a random stat
  • Spears
    • L Photon Blade Prototype - Laser sword but it’s on a stick
    • Great Marlin - Gets more powerful with low health
  • Unorthodox
    • Modified Lighter - Can burn on hit
    • Modified Deluxe Lighter - Can burn & shock on hit
    • Bottomless Lighter - Unbreakable & can burn people
    • Modified Bottomless Lighter - Unbreakable, can burn & shock people
    • Slime Spray - Can make people slip on hit
    • Venom Spray - Can poison enemies on hit
    • Pepper Spray - Stuns enemies on hit
    • Baseball - The most important sport in the world
    • Table Salt
    • Master Ball - A bowling ball which can strike people down
    • Firecracker - Good for just… wrecking people’s day 
    • Steel Business Card
    • Ocean King’s Board - Lowers enemy’s ice resistances and boosts physical damage at max HP
    • Fumble Force Band - When blocking an attack, damages the enemy

Ranged Weapons

While he does prefer keeping things up close and personal, Kiryu is also no stranger to using ranged weaponry to take out enemies, as he’s also kept a wide variety of them handy.

  • Pistols
    • 9mm Semi-Automatic - Based on the Makarov PM, and is typically the main choice Kiryu gets for sidearms
    • Drow-Z-A tranquilizer gun - Knocks people out, and carries 18 rounds a clip
    • Large Automatic Pistol - Modeled after the Desert Eagle, it holds 8 rounds in the clip
    • Komaki Matchlock Gun - An old muzzleloading matchlock arquebus, which can contain 3 rounds
    • Fireball Gun - Gun which can burn enemies
    • Mr. Random - Causes random status effects on enemies it hits and can hold 25 rounds in a clip
    • Tiger Pistol - Another pistol which can hold 18 bullets
    • Tiger’s Bane - A 10 bullet holding pistol which can allegedly kill a tiger in one shot
    • Golden Pistol - The strongest gun which has infinite ammo
  • Revolvers
    • Antique Gun - A Colt 1860 Army revolver, which holds 6 bullets
    • Double Action Revolver - A Smith & Wesson revolver, which holds 6 bullets
    • Lone Survivor - Causes enemies to Bleed
    • Sandstorm Django - Buffs critical hit rate and damage
    • Aqua Shooter - Can freeze enemies
    • Hermetic Scorpion - Can poison enemies
    • Roaring Lightning - Has a chance to instantly KO enemies
    • Seventh Wolf - Boosts critical hit rate by 30% per every status effect on an enemy
  • Shotguns
    • Slime Gun - Slips up the footing of enemies and does a lot of damage
    • Zap Gun - Induces paralysis while doing a lot of damage
    • Smoke Gun - Fires small smoke explosions that sends the enemies flying
    • Golden Shotgun -  Carries up to 99 shells
    • Broken M1985115 - Broken stock shotgun which has 10 shells
    • Expulsion S-12-Stronger than a standard shotgun it carries 18 shells
    • MJM56-55 Exorcist-Stronger than the expulsion it carries 21 shells and can reduce zombies to dust with almost “supernatural power”
    • Golden Rifle - Double Barrel Shotgun which carries 12 shells
    • Franchi SPAS-12 - Primarily used by Kiryu in the movie, as seen above
  • Cannons
    • Marlin Cannon - An actual fish that can somehow launch up to 7 cannonballs, though it is the weakest of the three in terms of damage
    • Cannon - The standard cannon, which can fire up to 4 shots
    • Destroyer of Lands - Takes a while to fire but it’s the strongest one, which shoots up to 5 times
    • Rocket Launcher - Carries up to 2 rockets
  • Spearguns - Used mainly in a fishing minigame that just happens to be a rail shooter
    • High-capacity Speargun
    • Standard Speargun
    • High-Impact Speargun
    • Modded Speargun
    • Kiwami Speargun
    • Ahab's Revenge

Dead Souls Weapons

When Kamurocho was filled with the undead, Kiryu and company couldn’t use fisticuffs due to risk of being bitten, so they instead got access to a wide variety of guns. A list of all weapons available in the game can be found here, though this won’t be listing all of them, as some types either have already been listed above or are unable to be equipped by Kiryu.

  • Rifles
    • 5.56mm Automatic Rifle
    • YAR-18 Tojo Model
    • Liberator
    • SWS2 Sniper Rifle
    • Sharp Shooter
    • HSG-GARO
  • Machine Guns
    • New Balalaika
    • Self-Defense Submachine Gun
    • Hornet
    • Portable Gatling Gun Prototype
    • XMG-RIMBO
    • Kagutsuchi
    • Girly Gatling Gun
    • Love Shine Vulcan
  • Anti-Materiel Rifles - These are Kiryu’s main weapon type which only he can equip, and are able to penetrate multiple zombies in one shot.
    • XK.50 Anti-Materiel Rifle
    • Zombie Masher - Can annihilate zombies even with a grazing shot
    • Tank Killer - Is capable of penetrating tank armor
    • Dragon Rifle - His strongest rifle, which is said to be able to kill any target on earth.
  • Grenade Launchers
    • Grenade Launcher - Launches explosive grenades at targets
    • Incendiary Grenade Launcher - Launches grenades at targets which burn them
    • Stun Grenade Launcher - Launches stun grenades at targets to stun them
  • Grenades - Kiryu can carry up to ten of these
    • Grenades - Standard ones which explode after three seconds
    • Heavy Grenades - Has more power and range than normal grenades
    • Molotov Cocktails - Can get tossed at an enemies to light them on fire
    • Incendiary Grenades - Stronger version of the Molotovs
    • Stun Grenades - Produces a blinding flash which can stun enemies
  • Special Weapons
    • BB Gun - You’ll shoot your eyes out...
    • Flamethrower - Burns stuff.
    • Satellite Laser - As a reward for besting the Amon clan’s zombie progenitor, they gave Kiryu access to their satellite laser. It is a satellite laser which can be used to nuke shit from orbit.
    • Anti-Tank Missile Launcher - Originally used to finish off the final boss, which is also gotten for beating the game on its hardest difficulty. It’s noted to take out tanks in a single shot and is referred to as the strongest portable weapon available.  

Improvised Weapons

While Kiryu can keep weapons on hand, he’s just as capable of using whatever random objects he finds in battle as tools to take down fools. They can be smaller objects like bricks or traffic cones, to larger ones like signs, chairs, and craters, to even very big ones like bicycles, ottomans, and electric transformers. It would be a bit redundant to list these out in full, but just know that if it’s not nailed down, Kiryu is willing to find a way to beat someone to near death with it.

Agent Gadgets

When working as a part of the Daidoji Faction, Kiryu has access to a wide variety of gadgets to use in battle. They include sunglasses which come with camera lenses and microphones for others to spy through, a Spider wire used for tying up enemies and grappling to different areas,  hidden jet boots for boosting around, explosive cigarettes known as Fireflies, and small drones known as Hornets which he can send out for area control.

Consumables

Another notable thing Kiryu shoves up his seemingly endless jacket pockets are various consumable items, which can help him in a pinch.

  • Toughness - Can restore health
  • Tauriner - Can restore heat gauge
  • Staminan Royale - Can restore health and heat gauge
  • Tatsu Brand Drink - Charges up Kiryu’s heat gauge to the max instantly.
  • Incomparable Habu Drink - Fully restores Kiryu’s health and heat gauge
  • All-Purpose Remedy - Heals and recovers all status effects
  • Quickness Lemon - Temporarily boosts Kiryu’s agility
  • Muscle Soda - Temporarily boosts Kiryu’s strength
  • Guardian Water - Temporarily boosts Kiryu’s defense
  • Food & Drinks - Can heal, though in lesser amounts than the dedicated health drinks above. Alcohol can also make Kiryu drunk.
  • Appstim RX - Lets Kiryu eat more if he’s full
  • Legendary Drinker of Ryukyu - Lets him quickly get sober if he’s drunk.
  • Firearm Ammunition - Can be used to give extra ammunition for his guns.
  • Sacrifice Stone - Will revive Kiryu from near death with full health, though it will be destroyed after using

Battle Items

When fighting alongside Ichiban, Kiryu also gets access to a decent selection of items which can be used midbattle to get an edge over enemies. A full list of these can be found here, though this is sticking to the non-redundant highlights.

  • Fulminous Bomb - May inflict blind on a group of enemies and lower their electricity resistance
  • Infatuation Bomb - May inflict charm on a group of enemies and lower their Willpower
  • Intoxication Bomb - May cause a group of enemies to get drunk and lower their fire resistance
  • Soporific Bomb - May cause a group of enemies to fall asleep and lower their Defense
  • Suffocation Bomb - May inflict silence on a group of enemies and lower their Agility
  • Hallucinogenic Bomb - May inflict fear on a group of enemies and lower their ice resistance
  • Irritant Bomb - May inflict fear on a group of enemies and lower their Attack
  • Modified Flashbang - Deals about 300 electric damage to enemies and leaves them likely to be paralyzed
  • Modified Incendiary Grenade - Deals about 300 fire damage to enemies and leaves them likely to get burnt
  • Modified Liquid Nitrogen Spray - Deals about 300 ice damage to enemies and leaves them likely to get a cold
  • Modified Rocket Launcher - Deals about 600 fire damage to enemies
  • Smoke Bomb - Gives a high chance to escape from battle

Equipment

Kiryu is also capable of equipping a variety of items to his person, which can each offer a variety of effects, and are divided between gear, which are typically armors Kiryu can only wear one of, and Accessories, which are smaller items that Kiryu can equip three of. There’s a lot of options, but to stick with the highlights:

  • Kiwami Mouthguard - Boosts the user’s fighting spirit
  • Headgear - Makes Kiryu immune to stagger
  • Cardio-enhancing Running Shirt - Decreases stamina loss while sprinting
  • Fighter’s Binding - Cloth that grants resistance to bladed weapons
  • Hawker’s Belly Warmer - Recovers health while standing still
  • Springy Arm Guards - Boosts damage of thrown objects
  • Dragon Binding - Decreases how much the heat gauge drops when hit
  • Hercules Gloves - Increases how long enemies are grabbed
  • Mad Dog Gloves - Gives a boost to hear when near death
  • Payback Ring - Increases attack power when fighting more enemies and when on lower health
  • Bulletproof Glass Amulet - Offers resistance to bullets
  • Black Belt - Boosts power of throws
  • Super Contacts - Makes Kiryu immune to blinding
  • Red Gem Bracelet - Makes Kiryu immune to burning
  • Blue Gem Bracelet - Makes Kiryu immune to paralysis
  • White Gem Bracelet - Makes Kiryu immune to stuns
  • Tranquil Tenugui - Slowly reduces heat in battle
  • Leech Gloves - Increases Heat Gauge by draining opponent’s health
  • Wild Shirt - Damages enemies who damage Kiryu at short range
  • Tiger Mail - Offers immunity to bullets
  • Dragon Mail - Offers resistances against all weapons and bullets and doubles damages to weapons he uses
  • Dragon Shirt - Immune to all status effects
  • Sacred Wood Armor - Takes no damage to bullets when blocking
  • Alertness Hood - Speeds up sobering process of alcohol
  • Sprite Belt - Doubles the durability of wielded weapons
  • High Tech Shin Guards - Immunity to leg sweep attacks
  • Strong Training Gear - Decreases time while grabbed by enemies
  • Boozer Belt - Increases damage when drunk
  • Immovable Belt - Allows Kiryu to throw bigger enemies
  • Amon’s Sunglasses - Doubles damage for all weapons
  • War God Talisman - Keeps Kiryu’s heat gauge maximum at all times.

Cigarettes

Beyond the indirect method of killing they usually cause, Kiryu has also used these to temporarily blind enemies.

Phone

He has one that does everything you’d expect one to do. Plus see weird ghost images.

Solid Snake

Pistols and Small Guns

Snake typically comes equipped with a wide variety of firearms for combat, of which he primarily prefers pistols for their concealment and ease of use.

  • Beretta 92FS - His original sidearm, which fires one round at a time and can be fitted with a suppressor.
  • SOCOM - Snake’s main sidearm of choice in the modern day, which is equipped with a laser sight and a suppressor.
  • M9 - A modified pistol which shoots anesthetic rounds instead of actual bullets, and is equipped with a silencer and laser sight. These rounds can knock out people for hours and can allegedly knock out an elephant, but the size of these rounds means he has to manually chamber each one rather than use it as a clip
  • USP - Another pistol, which is equipped with a flashlight that can be used to light up areas and stun enemies at close range
  • Makarov PMM - A simple pistol which has gotten improved ammunition
  • Compensated Glock 18 - A machine pistol which has lower accuracy but high fire rate.
  • G18C - An automatic pistol with a high rate of fire that makes it useful in close quarters, but falls short at a distance.
  • Five-seveN - A semi-automatic pistol equipped with armor piercing rounds.
  • Ruger MK. 2 - A single shot pistol equipped with a suppressor and laser sight, which can fire tranquilizer darts that cause enemies to fall asleep. It can also fire other darts which make the enemy go insane, get enraged, get depressed, or fill them with fear, all of which will lead to them eventually falling asleep after a short time.
  • 1911 Operator - Snake’s main pistol in the Guns of the Patriot Incident, which can be equipped with a suppressor and a flashlight alongside a built in laser sight.
  • GSR - Another pistol with a larger ammo pool than usual.
  • Desert Eagle - A powerful handcannon typically used by Meryl, who’s more comfortable with it than a bra.
  • Race Gun - A sporting pistol modified for use in combat, which can fire rounds quickly but without much power. These bullets are also able to ricochet off objects.
  • PSS - A soviet pistol which is completely silent but only has 6 rounds in the chamber
  • Solar Gun - A nonlethal pistol which can charge up with sunlight before firing blasts that deal stamina damage, with it being able to charge up to the point of instantly knocking out enemies at full charge.
  • P90 - A highly accurate Belgian gun which can be equipped with a suppressor, laser sight, and flashlight.
  • Ingram MAC-11 - A submachine gun which Snake can use to rapidly take down enemies. Can be equipped with a suppressor.
  • MP7 - A compact machine gun with a high rate of fire but low stopping power. Can be equipped with a dot sight and a scope.
  • Vz.83 Skorpion - A small machine gun equipped with a laser sight.
  • PP-19 Bizon - A Russian machine gun with high ammo capacity.
  • MP5SD2 - A German machine gun with an integrated suppressor and high rate of fire.

Rifles and Large Guns

When situations get more violent, Snake is also prepared with various more powerful guns which are better suited for active firefights.

  • FAMAS - A French assault rifle commonly used by soldiers in the Shadow Moses Incident
  • M4 Carbine / M4 Custom - A favorite rifle of the US military which Snake utilized in the Big Shell Incident, which is also equipped with a mounted grenade launcher. He later got access to a custom one which can be equipped with a dot sight or scope, suppressor, a built in shotgun, foregrips, laser sight, or a flashlight.
  • AK-102 - An improved model of the AK-47 used among Middle Eastern conflicts and which can be upgraded with a mounted grenade launcher
  • Mk. 17 - An american rifle with low weight and high stopping power. Can be upgraded with a flashlight, laser sight, dot sight, scope, and foregrip.
  • G3A3 - A German battle rifle which is accurate when fired semi-automatically.
  • FAL Carbine - A Belgian battle rifle which is well rounded despite its size.
  • AN94 - A burst fire rifle which is equipped with a mounted grenade launcher.
  • XM8 - A prototype battle rifle with an in-built dot sight.
  • Tanegashima - A flintlock rifle which might seem incredibly impractical, but it has a 1 in 3 chance of creating a whirlwind which will blow around objects and kill all enemies caught in it.
  • M14 EBR - An enhanced battle rifle used for long range firing, which can be equipped with a suppressor, laser sight, and flashlight.
  • PSG-1 - A sniper rifle utilized to deal with other snipers. He also has access to a version which can shoot tranquilizers.
  • DSR-1 - A bolt action sniper rifle used mainly by Liquid Ocelot’s Haven Troopers.
  • SVD - A semi-automatic soviet made rifle which is also used to snipe.
  • Mosin-Nagant - Another bolt action sniper rifle primarily used by The End, packed with tranquilizer rounds for non-lethal takedowns.
  • VSS Vintorez - A sniper rifle with an in-built suppressor and high power, though it does have a lower range.
  • M82A2 - The strongest sniper rifle with high power and range, capable of killing most human enemies in a single shot.
  • HK21E - A belt fed machine gun which can fire in bursts.
  • M60E4 - A powerful machine gun which can be equipped with a dot sight, scope, foregrip, laser sight, and a flashlight.
  • PKM - A general purpose machine gun with high penetration for taking down groups.
  • Mk.46 MOD1 - A highly modifiable machine gun which can be equipped with a dot sight, scope, foregrip, laser sight, and a flashlight.
  • Twin Barrel - A shotgun which has had its end sawed off for ease of use.
  • M870 - A pump action combat shotgun which can be equipped with a dot sight, scope, and flashlight.
  • Saiga-12 - An automatic shotgun with an incredibly large magazine and equally incredible quick rate of fire.
  • Rail Gun - A micro-version of the rail gun mounted on Metal Gear REX, suited to be man-portable and employ electromagnetic induction to an incredibly high muzzle velocity under three different levels of charge. It packs extreme penetrative power and is as potent as a tank turret, enough that it can take down Gekkos single handedly.

Explosives and Grenades

For when being subtle really goes out the window, Snake also makes sure to keep multiple explosives and grenades on hand.

  • Grenade Launcher - Can be used to launch explosives at enemies, which Snake mainly uses on vehicles.
  • MGL-140 - Another grenade launcher with greater consecutive fire and longer range that can be suited with a flashlight or foregrip.
  • M320 - A grenade launcher capable of equipping varying grenade types in the form of high explosive, smoke, stun, and white phosphorus.
  • XM25 CDTE - A rifle/grenade launcher hybrid equipped with a scope.
  • Rocket Launcher - He’s wielded a few of these, which are generally good for blasting apart anything too tough to take down with guns.
  • M72A3 LAW - A portable Anti-Tank weapon effective against armored vehicles and the like.
  • FGM-148 Javelin - A man-portable fire-and-forget Anti-Tank guided missile.
  • M47 Dragon - Launched a remote controlled rocket which Snake can manually control the movements of, though he can’t move while it’s active.
  • Nikita - A remote control missile which stays on ground level, but can be directly controlled by way of a camera showing the missile’s view.
  • FIM-92 Stinger - An anti-aircraft missile launcher which can home in on targets.
  • C4 Plastic Explosive - This can be planted on objects on a timer before exploding, or be manually detonated by Snake.
  • Sleep Gas Satchel - Acts similarly to C4, though it will instead emit sleeping gas when detonated.
  • Anti-Personel Mine - These explosives are planted, before being set off by proximity sensors.
  • Claymore - Another type of anti-personnel mine which blows up if an enemy gets in proximity. He also possesses special ones which will make themselves invisible via cloaking technology.
  • Sleep Gas Mine - …do we need to explain this one?
  • M67 Grenade - Snake’s tossed these at enemies plenty of times to blow them up.
  • Petrol Bomb - An incendiary bomb put together from simple objects used to burn enemies.
  • White Phosphorus Grenade - An incendiary grenade which can blast enemies off their feat and start a fire where it’s detonated.
  • Stun Grenade - A flashbang which can be used to stun enemies.  
  • Chaff grenade - Can be used to temporarily disable any electronic device in the area. Typically used for jamming signals, but it's also been able to stun enemy cyborgs and has been said to jam any kind of electronic device.
  • Smoke Grenade - Used to create smoke to hide in or signal enemies. He also has access to colored ones, which cause enemies who inhale them to turn insane, cry, run in fear, or turn insane for a time, before falling unconscious.

Emblem/Password Weapons (Debatable)

As opposed to weapons you can acquire traditionally, these are weapons you can only get by either by meeting ultra specific requirements during gameplay or entering a “password” which is more of a cheat code, with some weapons only being unlocked through this method. Due to the videogame nature these weapons greatly lean on, their application to Snake’s gear can be a bit questionable, but they will be included for the sake of completion nonetheless as they have no major impact on the debate.

  • Type 17 - An automatic pistol with a small magazine but lacking any tactical reload function.
  • M1911 Custom - An iconic handgun with easy handling, high firing rate, and stopping power.
  • D.E. (.L.B.) - A variation of the Desert Eagle with a scope and extended 10 inch barrel length that increases muzzle velocity, useful for long range.
  • Thor .45-70 - A single-shot hand rifle with strong power and recoil that saw use in competitive shooting and hunting.
  • Patriot - A one of a kind weapon weapon; a light carbine with shortened, dual barrel magazines forming a symbol of infinity. It has infinite ammo without a need to reload, allowing for a continuous stream of fire giving off a sound akin to a rattlesnake. When aiming the weapon, it will play the first few parts of the Snake Eater theme.

Stun Knife

While Snake tends to prefer using his fists over melee in close range, he has been willing to utilize blades at a few points. During the events of MGS4, Snake was equipped with this knife, dubbed the “ultimate hand-to-hand combat weapon” which can be used for stabbing, but is also capable of shocking enemies nonlethally via an electric charge built on the back of the blade. This shock is strong enough to leave people’s bodies smoking.

High Frequency Blade (Non-Standard)

While typically more associated with the cybernetic ninjas, Snake has actually wielded blades like this at several points. He’s actually the one who gave Raiden the sword for the first time in MGS2, and in the Digital Comic version, he was the one who used the sword to finish off Solidus. He also briefly got his hands on Gray Fox’s in the Twin Snakes remake, though in this case he immediately planted it in the ground. The sword is notable as it can cut apart enemies on the atomic level, meaning it’s a very potent weapon.

However, the big thing to note with this is that it’s not at all standard for Snake. As mentioned, in the original game he pretty quickly handed it over to Raiden and wasn’t implied to have used it himself, if anything it’s the opposite as he’s admitted to not be much of a fan of blades; and while there are instances where he used it in alternate adaptations, these are very brief situations where he essentially only picked it up to do one thing and nothing more. So we don’t really feel it’s fair to consider it a standard part of his arsenal. We just felt the need to mention it here for completion’s sake.

Sneaking Suit

This is Snake’s tactical suit that he uses in Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2. It provides thermal insulation to withstand harsh temperatures with the latest advances in poly-thermal technology, and is bulletproof enough to withstand a sniper round to the chest. Since it is a more advanced model of previous Sneaking Suits, it should have similar properties to the Sneaking Suits worn by The Boss and Venom Snake, that provided reduced thermal emissions and noise dampening on the soles as well as amplifying CQC aptitude.

OctoCamo Suit (Muscle Suit)

An upgraded Sneaking Suit created by Snake’s boyf- I mean, steadfast ally, Otacon. Unlike the previous version which couldn’t get past infrared sensors, OctoCamo regulates the user’s absorption and release of heat thanks to micro peltier arrays, harmonizing their body heat to any background infrared radiation, granting a protection to heat sensors. The suit’s namesake comes from the fact it can change its color and patterns to match any surrounding, much like the camouflage that octopi can do. It also has increased muscle power and regenerative abilities, capable of stimulating the production of phospholipids inside the user’s cells and improving circulation, which heals Snake’s health slowly in gameplay. According to Kojima, it is similar to Solidus Snake’s exoskeleton, and could be considered an improved version of it; which could in turn also make it comparable to Raiden’s Skull Suit that not only shields the body from various toxins but also the High Frequency Blade. This doesn’t mean that Snake is entirely indestructible however as this should only mean that it specifically defends against the blade’s highly specific molecular destabilization effect.

FaceCamo

Previously donned by Laughing Octopus and now tailored for Snake, the FaceCamo uses the same technology as the OctoCamo suit and with the same features, giving Snake camouflage and protection from head to toe. It also lets him alter the appearance of his face to that of his younger self, low polygon self, and even other characters.

By donning a specific mask with its corresponding camo suit, it can provide defensive and offensive effects; with the offensive capabilities inducing emotional effects onto enemies when Snake exposes himself to them based on the respective outfit, even against the likes of soldiers who are regulated by the sons of the patriots system whose nanomachines mitigate any emotional conditions soldiers could have during a battle. Some of those outfits and their effects line up exactly with their names, them being:

  • Laughing - Causes uncontrollable laughter to enemies
  • Raging - Causes uncontrollable rage to enemies
  • Crying - Causes uncontrollable crying to enemies
  • Screaming - Causes uncontrollable screaming to enemies
  • Snake - Lets Snake knock unconscious soldiers in one hit while relieving stress caused by carrying heavy equipment, back pains, or screwups by rolling. It however comes at the cost of a 10% decrease of Snake’s Camo Index.
  • Beauty - Lets Snake absorb psyche when grabbing a normal soldier with CQC, but gives twice the stress when exposed to sunlight.
  • Metal - Causes health and psyche loss at half the normal rate at the cost of a 10% decrease of camo Index.
  • Gear - Causes psyche to decrease at only half the normal rate and retains a higher camo index than normal.
  • Fly - Increases stress and causes flies to gather around Snake, but will instantly knock out soldiers when grabbed with CQC because of the stench.
  • Haven - Grants 99% camo index when standing still, but at the cost of psyche and health decreasing twice as much as it normally.
  • Big Boss / Corpse Camo - With just the mask, dubbed after Big Boss in reference to his “corpse” induces fear into enemies and causes them to pass out. Paired up with the suit, Snake can fool unmanned weapons such as Scarabs or Gekkos into thinking he is dead which leads them to ignoring him. Additionally, it can pose quite a scare when hiding in a box and an enemy pulls it off of Snake.
  • Secret Hand - Doesn’t really have any notable effects but it does have concrete slabs riddled with hand prints and signatures from the development team, pretty cool.

Miscellaneous Suits/Disguises

Every now and then Snake will don a different outfit than the ones he is typically associated with. While significantly less effective than the likes of the Sneaking Suit and OctoCamo, these other outfits that Snake used have had their merits under specific circumstances. The outfits in question are:

  • FOXHOUND Suit - A standard battle uniform that comes equipped with all the basic military gear you would expect, from gloves and boots to an attached radio to a green color appearance that adequately compliments a rookie Snake’s stealth.
  • Enemy Uniform - A disguise used to bypass a checkpoint into building 2 of Outer Heaven after the enemies were informed of a FOXHOUND member attempting to infiltrate.
  • Navy Seal Disguise - Another standard battle uniform, this time its primary usage is being a disguise concealing Snake’s true identity when he went under the alias Iroquois Pliskin, posing as a regular operative in Big Shell.
  • Tuxedo - A dashing suit that proves Snake has an eye for style, a Golden Eye you could say…
  • Middle East Rebel Disguise - A battle uniform disguising Snake as a Middle East rebel soldier and letting him walk past other rebels in certain situations
  • South American Rebel Disguise - Another situational battle uniform, only this time its a South American rebel disguise.
  • Civilian Disguise - An unassuming getup that helps Snake pass for an ordinary citizen in the open.
  • Altair - Obvious reference is obvious, and cool as fuck.
  • Suit - A suit worn by Snake when visiting the graveyard, as well as the last time we would ever see the hero.

Stealth Unit

A device created by Otacon that can make Snake completely invisible to the naked eye and security cameras, also used by Gray Fox.

Codec

Invented by Mei Ling for the FOXHOUND special forces unit to provide soldiers with secure, real-time communication that compresses transmissions into one microsecond in length, making it an innovative piece of technology superior to traditional military radio systems and functions 24/7 even in high satellite areas and low altitude areas. With this, Snake can safely contact his many allies in the heat of battle for advice and assistance in regards to whatever threat or territory he’s pit up against, of which the most important of these allies will be discussed thoroughly later in the Support section.

Soliton Radar

A radar system created by Mei Ling that detects enemies and indicates their field of vision, in addition to mapping the environment’s topography.

Solid Eye

An optoelectronic device created by Otacon with an appearance akin to an eye patch that provides Snake a level of awareness difficult for foes to overcome. It projects a visualization of everything that Snake senses within his vicinity, consciously and unconsciously; and can discern other nearby presences in the surrounding area based on sound, temperature, humidity, scent, air flow, and vibrations. On that note, It provides tactical analysis of soldiers to grant information in real-time about their weapons and gear, as well as determine their emotional and mental state by tracking their somatic symptoms. The stronger a presence they emit, the more clear they will appear on Snake’s map.

Living up to its expectation as an all-purpose goggle, the solid eye has infrared, light-amplifying night vision, image enhancing, and radar images displayed in 3D. Additionally it can show footprints left behind, separate nearby presences based on their organization to determine who is an ally or not, and even…show ghosts?

Infinite Ammo Bandanna

This is a bandanna which is able to grant Snake an infinite amount of ammo for all of his weaponry. And yes, it is acknowledged in cutscenes so it is canon.

Cardboard Box

A simple yet iconic item with a surprising amount of versatility suited for infiltration that allows Snake to hide in plain sight and remain undetected so long as he doesn’t make his position obvious, and can even use it to trick others into transporting him to a desired location depending on the address written on it.

Cigarette

Snake’s ol’ reliable for when he needs to feel at ease. While abusing this substance will affect his health bar and health in general, it still has merits via detecting the direction of infrared security beams.

Other Equipment

Snake has had a wide variety of other items which has helped him on missions for purposes besides violence.

  • Antenna - Allows for sending communications even if the user is in an area enemies are actively jamming signals from.
  • Antidote - Lets Snake quickly recover from getting poisoned by scorpions.
  • Bandages - Stops Snake from bleeding and gradually losing health.
  • Binoculars - Allows Snake to scope out faraway locations.
  • Body Armor - Halves any damage done by enemy gunfire.
  • Bomb Blast Suit - Considerably reduces the damage Snake gets from explosives.
  • Cold Medicine - A remedy that instantly halts symptoms of illnesses like the flu or common cold, perfect for ceasing things like sneezing or coughing that could give Snake’s location away.
  • Compass - Useful for finding your way through locations.
  • Flashlight - Lights up dark areas.
  • Gas Mask - Protects Snake from breathing in toxic gasses.
  • Infrared Goggles - Can be used to spot infrared lasers invisible to the human eye or spot other heat sources like enemies hiding, footprints, and traps.
  • Mine Detector - It detects mines.
  • O2 Cylinder - Used when breathing underwater.
  • Pantazemin - A drug that steadies the pulse and nerves to pave way for more accurate targeting.
  • Parachute - Lets the user safely float down from high locations.
  • Ration - Can significantly heal Snake when used. If it’s equipped and Snake drops to 0 health, he’ll automatically use it to heal instead of dying.
  • Syringe - Used to suppress the harmful effects of nanomachine on Snake’s own body but can also be used offensively against others who benefit from nanomachine regulation.
  • Camouflage Mat - Can be set up on any level terrain to hide the user.
  • Bucket - Snake can use it to hide, and presumably carry liquids.
  • Night Vision Goggles - Lets you see in the dark.
  • Hang Glider - Can be used to clear gaps.
  • Lacquer Spray - Can be combined with a lighter to form a makeshift flamethrower.
  • Magazine - Typically holds the rounds for his guns, though they can also be tossed to act as a distraction.
  • Playboy - Some “reading material” which can be used to distract enemies thanks to the articles I’m sure.
  • Emotion Mag - Contrains details on the Beauty and the Beast Unit, which will make enemies break down emotionally due to them being the product of really fucked up experiments.
  • Mantis Doll - A marionette doll themed after FOXHOUND’s resident psychic, which can send out ghosts that will instantly kill enemies they hit if they have nanomachines.
  • Sorrow Doll - Another doll themed after the Cobra Unit’s late medium, which can be used to briefly move around dead bodies.

Abilities

Kiryu Kazuma

Heat

The centerpiece of many of the abilities of Yakuza characters is tied to their heat. This is based on an inner power which seems to be connected to their soul, as well as their emotions and fighting spirit. When using it, a flaming blue aura comes out of him, which he can channel into a variety of devastating finishing moves, though they typically require specific weaponry, environmental factors, or Kiryu being in a certain state to unlock. And yes, these are canonical abilities he can use, though we won’t list them all at length as generally there’s not much practical difference between them. Other abilities which are generally tied to his heat include:

Heat Modes

After building up enough heat, Kiryu also has the ability to channel it into several devastating super modes.

  • Extreme Heat Mode - Kiryu punches the ground and becomes invincible, while also drastically increasing his striking power.
  • Dragon’s Heat - By channeling his anger, Kiryu enters a state where he’ll automatically and uncontrollably attack any enemy on the field, while any attack towards him is ignored with hefty super armor.
  • Dragon’s Resurgence - Even when his body fails him, he can use this state to pour all his energy into boosting his power, up to the point of being said to still feel as if he’s in his prime. It also lets him just ignore the RPG battle system for a bit.

Clan Creator Abilities

Kiryu can act as a unit in the Clan Creator RTS battle modes, which also allows him to use an ability to try to change the tides in his team’s favor. In Kiwami 2, Kiryu’s ability allows him to create a blast of lightning that will stun enemies, whereas in 6 it allows him to make a 10 second buff to all his allies which increases their damage by 50% and allows them to not experience any knockback.

Infinite Wealth Abilities

During his most recent adventure, Kiryu was able to unlock a new form of combat similar to that of Ichiban Kasuga. The exact mechanics of this are a bit complicated, and will be discussed more in depth Before the Verdict, but simply put, it seems to function as a form of subjective reality to those who use it, with those who aren’t channeling it being completely blind to it. It can offer a boost in strength and a variety of other abilities to use.

Job Abilities

Infinite Wealth also allows Kiryu to take on a variety of other jobs, each of which offer various other abilities for him to use in combat.

Pausing

Yeah so, in the stage show, as a way of representing someone opening their inventory to down a bunch of healing items, Kiryu was able to straight up pause the action to drink a health drink. He doesn’t seem to be able to do much else in this time, so he likely couldn’t use it to get free hits in or something like that, but that does mean he has a method of pulling out anything from his inventory without much risk to himself.

Resistances

Solid Snake

Enhanced Genetics

The Les Enfant Terribles project which Snake was spawned from aimed to make a clone of Big Boss. Thanks to genetic modifications, Solid Snake was made up of all of Big Boss’s recessive genes, and is biologically 5.3% percent different to Big Boss physically and by extension superior to others who possessed remnants of the soldier genes. The most notable effect this project had was that each of the clones had physically superhuman levels of strength, speed, and stamina. Benefits of these genes include:

Nanomachines

Before they were breaking physics, the nanomachines' purpose was to replenish the supply of adrenaline, nutrition, and sugar in the user’s bloodstream. Snake was administered older generation nanomachines alongside nootropics to improve his mental functioning and benzedrine which keeps him operational for 12 hours straight. Lastly, the nanomachines keep the batteries of Snake’s codec charged up and the nanomachines themselves are constantly recharged by his body heat. Although many of these nanomachines were lost through bleeding and excretion, 30% of them still remain attached to his cells.

Later on he would be administered a newer generation of nanomachines that functioned fundamentally the same with the addition of allowing Snake to use weapons the older gen didn’t have clearance to use as part of the patriot’s system, all the while suppressing the old ones from interfering with his new ones and prevent their malfunctions that caused him seizures. His OctoCamo suit’s features should similarly follow the Skull Suit’s capability to optimize the nanomachines and his blood stream to provide a feedback mechanism for bodily damage and blood loss.

FOXDIE

An artificially created retrovirus designed to kill specific people whose exact DNA sequence matched the virus’s designated target. Prior to infiltrating Shadow Moses, Snake was unknowingly injected with FOXDIE to serve as the carrier as a failsafe to ensure the genome soldiers, ArmsTech President Kenneth Baker, and the renegade FOXHOUND members were infected by just coming into contact with them, causing cardiac arrest. A newer strand was later administered to ensure Ocelot, who was exempt from the original FOXDIE’s targeting, would die from it this time.

Although it was believed that since FOXDIE was designed to kill Liquid then it would also kill Snake, on top of being clones of Big Boss who was also susceptible to FOXDIE, Snake’s own genetic differences prevented this from happening; and while the mutation of the virus posed a risk that it would make Snake a biological danger to himself and everyone, Big Boss assured Snake this would not happen as the new strain would supplant it.

Even though FOXDIE sounds like a very potent passive ability, it must be reiterated that it only works on extremely specific people with very specific cell patterns and is set up to protect anyone who is not a designated target from the virus’s effects. And with the confirmation that FOXDIE will not mutate to the point it kills people indiscriminately, it makes the virus essentially useless against anyone outside of the Metal Gear universe.

4th Wall Awareness

Snake has oddly shown himself to be fully aware that he’s a video game character at a few points. He’s directly looked into the camera, given in universe tutorials, and has even shown some awareness of if he’s died in previous saves. Metal Gear characters in general have shown off this kind of awareness at plenty of points.

Resistances


Support

Kiryu Kazuma

Poundmates

With a special app on his phone, Kiryu is able to summon a variety of other characters, each of whom are able to come in to help and do a special attack on enemies for a cost. As in, they cost money to summon.

  • Chitose Buster Holmes - A strong woman who can make small tornados that can stun enemies for three turns.
  • Nathan - A samurai in training who simply unleashes damage on the enemies for 3 turns.
  • Bony Kashiwa - A movie director who unleashes large explosions for 3 turns.
  • Susumu Gondawara - A Yakuza patriarch with… interesting hobbies who unleashes a large-scale cry that damages every opponent on the battlefield for 3 turns.
  • Charlie - A daredevil deliveryman who damages the opponent with wild flips while also restoring health to the party for 3 turns.
  • Mameoka - An eccentric barista who restores large amounts of health to one person in the party for 3 turns.
  • Pocket Circuit Fighter - The famous racing champion that does damage by hopping on top of a giant car to ram enemies for 3 turns.
  • Kazami Evolution - A Korean Popstar who dances up a sandstorm that damages opponents.
  • Sojimaru Flying Beta Max - A large robot cleaner which intended to create blasts of fire, though it instead just falls on enemies.
  • Nancy & Olivi -  Lesbian crustaceans appear and slash at the opponent at high speeds while inflicting poison in the process.
  • Sotaro Komaki - The master of Komaki style showcases his combat skills to every opponent on the battlefield to do damage.
  • Yuki & Koyuki - A hostess duo who will give an enemy the full treatment, by which I mean a massive beatdown with various objects.
  • Kazuki & Yuya - A pair of hosts who also show an enemy good hospitality by sending them directly to the grave.
  • Survive Bartender - A suspiciously familiar man who allows his associates to get an honest living by cooking food that fully heals the party.
  • Revolve Bartender -  Another oddly familiar man who sends them to heaven with some karaoke while making them go to hell with bullets.
  • Asakura - An actual MMA fighter who gives an enemy a beatdown alongside his summoner that can potentially instantly kill them.
  • Kaoru Sayama - Police detective and former love of Kiryu, she damages the enemy with a wooden kendo katana and various sound effects.
  • Shun Akiyama - The moneylender of Kamurocho’s Sky Finance, who kicks up a million yen in debt before hitting enemies with a freaking rider kick.
  • Makoto Date - Kiryu’s longstanding detective buddy, who attempts to snipe an enemy but is forced to improvise by crashing a helicopter directly on them.

Solid Snake

Otacon

Originally the chief weapon designer for Metal Gear REX, Hal Emmerich would end up crossing paths with Snake during the Shadow Moses Incident. While he was a bit out of his depth during the fight against FOXHOUND, he’d act as an invaluable source of technical knowledge during the incident. After which, he’d continue working with Snake while under the codename Otacon, becoming his most trusted and recurring confidant while on missions.

Otacon is remarkably brilliant, as not only was he able to graduate from college at a young age and is fluent in six languages, he created a system that helped solve the Y2K computer overflow issue, and later designed various advanced military technologies, like invisibility camouflage and the aforementioned Metal Gear. He was later able to upgrade REX with a fighting program, allowing it to keep up and defeat the superior Metal Gear RAY. He's also a particularly skilled hacker, with some of his more notable feats including:

Though he’s also good for more than just hacking. As he has access to Snake’s codec, he always has silent communication with Snake at any time in the field. This lets him inform Snake of information on his enemies, including their weaknesses, equipment, and capabilities, and this gives him the ability to form plans of attack with him. He typically prefers to stay out of the fight personally, though he has come in for support by flying a helicopter in if needed, as well as utilizing a Stealth Unit device to remain undetected and provide Snake ammo and rations.

He’s also acted alongside Snake on missions while piloting the Metal Gear Mark III, a miniature version of the model. It has a small arm which can be used to shock enemies, grab objects like traps, transport weapons and gear, or interface with electronics, and it’s typically used to provide additional mission support ranging area assessment to recon and providing map data to better analyze the state of battle. It also comes equipped with inbuilt stealth camouflage and a geiger counter for detecting radiation.  

Feats

Kiryu Kazuma

Overall

  • Officially titled the Dragon of Dojima
  • Acted as the fourth chairman of the Tojo Clan
  • Personally had a hand in ending at least 9 massive criminal conspiracies
  • Became one of the biggest Beat-Em Up game series of all time
  • Defeated Daisaku Kuze, Keiji Shibusawa, Goro Majima, Futoshi Shimano, Akira Nishikiyama, Ryuji Goda, Joji Kazama, Andre Richardson, Yoshitaka Mine, Shun Akiyama, Masayoshi Tanimura, Taiga Saejima, Daigo Dojima, Masato Aizawa, Takumi Someya, Toru Hirose, Kanji Koshimizu, Tsuneo Iwami, Yuki Tsuruno, Kosei Shishido, and Masataka Ebina.

Power

Speed

Durability

Solid Snake

Overall

  • Destroyed several Metal Gears time and time again
  • Saved the world from the plot of the Patriots
  • Officially titled “The Man Who Does the Impossible Possible”
  • Still has one of the best Death Battle episodes even after a decade
  • The granddad of quite literally every stealth game ever
  • Defeated Gray Fox, Big Boss, Revolver Ocelot, Psycho Mantis, Sniper Wolf, Vulcan Raven, Liquid Snake, Olga Gurlukovich, Solidus Snake, Vamp, The Beauty and the Beast Unit, Liquid Ocelot, and Sam Fisher.

Power

With Equipment:

Speed

Durability

Scaling

Kiryu Kazuma

Overall

Kiryu has repeatedly demonstrated himself to be one of the strongest characters in the Yakuza series. He’s taken on many legendary fighters, busted entire armies of goons at once, and has been broadly recognized as the strongest fighter in the world many times. So it makes sense for him to be able to scale to practically every major figure in the series.

If a feat has a red asterisk (*) next to it, that indicates it was done as a part of the battle animations in Ichiban Kasuga’s titles, and therefore is questionably applicable. See Before the Verdict in regards to the broad validity of these feats.

Main Series Leads

Kiryu isn’t the only fighter defending Kamurocho’s underground, as plenty of others along the way have helped him take down various criminal conspiracies. Kiryu has taken on everyone here in various fights and proven himself to be superior, so it makes sense to say he should broadly scale to these guys.  

Spin Off Protagonists

While Kiryu hasn’t personally interacted with these guys due to  their stories being narratively disconnected from his, based on his status in the world and how they all fight fairly similar enemies, it should be fair to assume he compares to them as well.

Bosses And Enemies

Kiryu and company have taken on many foes throughout the series, a lot of whom have their own examples of powerful feats. Kiryu has either defeated these guys personally or scales to someone else who has.

Other Characters

Whether that be fighting them in story, dealing with them in side content, or just generally being seen as the best fighter in the world, there are many other characters from the series which Kiryu should scale to with their own share of impressive feats.

Solid Snake

Overview

Solid Snake’s reputation in his series certainly precedes him, as he’s been recognized as one of the best soldiers ever, and has taken down a wide variety of impressive enemies, so it makes sense to assume he should be comparable to a lot of the major feats from the series.

The Snakes

Given his status as a direct clone of Big Boss who was able to defeat him, it should stand to reason that he can compare to his clone dad’s capabilities. The same goes for his body double Venom Snake, whom he defeated in the original Metal Gear. He should also be superior to his fellow clones Liquid and Solidus, given they were born from the same project, meaning they have the same body, and Snake has directly fought both at a few points.

The Cyborg Ninjas

Snake has had experience with two particular cyborg ninjas. Gray Fox was someone he took on early in his career, directly keeping pace with him in a fight. Raiden, meanwhile, was someone he helped on his first big mission, during which it was shown he was superior to him physically. And even after Raiden gained cybernetics, Snake has kept pace with others that are on par with him, indicating that he at worse downscales his most impressive feats. Though it’s unlikely this extends to Raiden’s later upgraded bodies during his solo adventure in Revengeance, which will get discussed Before the Verdict.

Various Bosses And Enemies

The Snakes have all had encounters with various enemy operatives all around the world who all have their own set of impressive feats, and all of whom were ultimately no match for them.

Metal Gears

The titular Metal Gears are walking battle tanks wielding weapons of mass destruction that constantly shift the balance of power throughout the world, each new model more advanced than the last, and each time Solid Snake and company retaliate and destroy them. While the Metal Gears are narratively portrayed as far beyond anything Snake can stack up against, even with weapons and often having to exploit weak points to survive, there is still room to argue for a certain amount of comparability through instances where he and others on his level successfully defeated Metal Gears or contended with similarly designed albeit inferior adversaries. However, only anything relating to those instances will be mentioned, and by no means do the characters scale to their full power (Barring MGR) or nuclear armaments that the Metal Gears are equipped with, which will be discussed thoroughly Before the Verdict.

Weaknesses

Kiryu Kazuma


Everyone has weaknesses, even the titular Dragon of Dojima has his fair share. For starters, he may be insanely strong, but he still is human and can be put down by conventional means. This has been especially shown in sneak attacks, as there have been many cases of Kiryu being critically injured due to a surprise gunshot or stabbing. Kiryu’s ranged options also run on limited ammunition, and his melee weaponry mostly consists of tools which can break after overuse, meaning most of his weaponry can only provide a temporary respite.

As for more personal issues, a big issue that he’s always had to deal with is being headstrong and quick to anger. This has led to him actively jumping into fights without much of a plan many times, which has landed him in sticky situations or occasionally actively made situations worse. He also has a pretty innate sense of honor and makes him want to handle issues himself, which craftier opponents have taken advantage of to predict what he’ll do and lure him into traps. In more recent titles, he’s also well past his prime physically due to cancer, and is only able to channel strength comparable to his prime in short bursts.

Finally, perhaps the biggest issue Kiryu has struggled with throughout the series is that his self loathing and history of watching those he cares about suffer due to his enemies has given him a massive martyr complex. He’s constantly thinking that those he cares about would be better off without him, and at many points where he’s presented with a chance to sacrifice himself to help them, either spiritually or sometimes literally, then he’ll take it without question.

Solid Snake

Much like his opponent, Snake isn’t exactly invincible and still could die by conventional means. Any decent shot on Snake would definitely affect his ability to fight. While the bandanna makes him have infinite rounds, he still has to reload in combat like any other person. He also has struggled with PTSD, and has a tendency to question things a lot. Finally, the biggest issue he has is that cloning and nanomachines do not mix, as he began to age rapidly by the time he’s 35 years old, even suffering heart issues and seizures.

Before the Verdict

Kiryu Kazuma

Higher Tier Yakuza Arguments

There are quite a few arguments which have been pushed for Yakuza getting scaled much higher than it’s been placed at here. However, after looking into these arguments, we feel a lot of them run into issues when placed under scrutiny. For the sake of fairness, we’ll be looking through each of them here and discussing our issues with each.

Nuke Scaling

There have been a couple methods people have used to broadly scale Yakuza characters to nuclear weapons, but these cases aren’t really that reliable once you actually discuss them. The most notable argument for this idea is in regards to everyone’s favorite Yakuza game, Dead Souls. First off, this game is definitely not canon at the moment, but it can comfortably slotted in under soft composite rules, as storywise it does fit in kind of naturally between 4 and 5. Anyways, during the story of the game, Majima ends up getting bitten by a zombie, and while this was later revealed to be the result of several coincidences, a bit earlier in the game when it was still believed it was real, he asks Kiryu to kill him if he turns. Notably, in this scene he directly states that if he were to be a zombie, it’d be the end of the world, and that only Kiryu could stop him. As you might imagine, this is a statement that can be fairly strong if you look at it with VS brainrot. But there are many issues in doing that.

First off, this kind of statement in general is very easy to write off as hyperbole, and that can certainly apply here. Sure, this is meant to be a serious moment in the story, as Majima does genuinely believe he’ll be dead soon. But that doesn’t mean Majima wouldn’t overstate what he might be capable of, as if he were a mindless zombie, then he would not be able to fight Kiryu again as himself. This is also not a state you can really argue Majima scales to normally, as the entire point of the scene is that Majima thinks he would be this dangerous if he were to become a zombie, not that he’s this dangerous normally. To assume otherwise would be ignoring how Majima’s next onscreen action is trying to fight his way through zombies on his own to die before he turns, an action that would make little sense if he was normally far stronger than anything besides Kiryu. And to get back to the main point of this section, this statement doesn’t automatically mean he’s saying nuclear weaponry wouldn’t work. This game, as well as the series in general, has rarely brought up nuclear weapons, and never in the context of them being a direct threat to the characters, so automatically assuming this is meant to refer to nuclear weapons being useless on him is assuming a lot of intent.

Moving on, there’s also a statement from promotional material in which Kiryu is described as being able to hit with the force of a warhead, which is another statement which some have used to say Kiryu is as strong as a nuke. Beyond the fact this would also be very easy to write off as hyperbole, the big issue with this interpretation is that warhead is a term which is used to describe the explosive ordnance of any kind of missile, rocket, or bomb, not just nuclear ones. So saying this means he’s as strong as a nuclear weapon is quite literally the most generous interpretation of the statement possible. Something that will become a recurring theme for this section.

Finally, even if you were to use this kind of argument to support Kiryu being city level or above, that would be ignoring how most of the more powerful nuclear weapons in history either have been long since decommissioned or were only launched as a test. Even in 2011, when Dead Souls came out, the strongest nuke that was still in active use as a weapon was only worth 9 Megatons. And that’s also ignoring the fact that this would assume the characters would be taking the full brunt of these nukes, when any amount of cover or just movement from the epicenter would significantly cut down on the amount of energy they’d be enduring due to surface area. So just broadly assuming they can fully scale based on just vague statements like these are a bit generous. As you see, there is not any support from the series for directly scaling Yakuza characters to the full strength of nuclear weapons, so this argument is inapplicable.

The Mountain Gods

In Yakuza 5, Saejima’s training missions involve confronting Tendo Oshida, a man who seemingly channels the power of actual gods. In his last mission, it’s revealed that these were just parlor tricks done by Tendo, but in a twist, this pissed off the actual gods of the mountain, so he promptly ends up getting possessed by one of them for real, and Saejima ends up fighting this god. This can be seen as particularly impressive when it comes to scaling, given it was previously established that these gods made the mountain this takes place on. However, once you break down the details, this idea becomes a lot less supported.

First off, the only source we have on the gods making this mountain in the first place is Tendo, who as mentioned was deliberately lying the whole time and had no idea they were actually real until after he got possessed, so taking him at his word at all is already a bit suspect. Though more importantly, there’s the fact Saejima did not fight the mountain gods, he only fought one of them. While the gods are referred to as a group at a few points in thai sequence, these are clearly more just speaking generally about the group, with nothing actively supporting the idea that all of them are channeling themselves into Tendo for this fight. Meanwhile, the boss subtitle, the god directly referring to themselves as an “I”, and Saejima recounting the event after the fact to Tendo all indicate that he’s only directly fighting a mountain god, singular.

Considering the statement of them making the mountain directly notes it took multiple of them to do it, that leads to a big issue with their mountain creation being viable for scaling, as we have no reliable way of knowing how many gods there are or how strong this one is in comparison to them. Even if you were to assume that Tendo was basing his act off preexisting myths that depicted these gods, an assumption which isn’t supported by much given they’re not directly mentioned in any dialogue besides his missions and the real god going unnamed, we also lack any context for how long it took them to make the mountain, the exact method used to create it, if their full power is being channeled into Tendo, or even if their creation of it should even be applicable to their physical power in the first place. All of which are potential factors which would significantly decrease the hypothetical power of this god.

And regardless of how much of the feat applies to them, to say Saejima directly defeated this god in the first place is itself a bit of an overstatement of what actually happened. While he does defeat them mechanically speaking, the cutscene after the fight depicts the fight ending inconclusively, as the god just decides to stop fighting due to being impressed by Saejima, and lets him go while still calling him a worm. This doesn’t indicate Saejima actively competed with them in power, just fought hard enough to make the god not want to bother smiting him, meaning Saejima at the absolute best would be heavily downscaling this god. And Kiryu’s upscaling arguments on Saejima are far from enough to argue he would somehow fully scale himself, given Saejima is a fairly high tier and has actively stalemated Kiryu at several points in the story. At the end of the day, you need to make multiple generous assumptions to view this moment as anything particularly powerful for scaling, so this is ultimately inapplicable to the stats of the series.

Ichiban’s Imagination

The more notable arguments for pushing higher stats for Yakuza series primarily came out thanks to the new series lead, Ichiban, and his propensity for making shit up. A lot of the elements of his games seem a bit insane even by the standards of this series, primarily because, as is established near the start of his game, he imagines and sees himself in battles through the lens of a Dragon Quest game. This leads to a lot of visually impressive feats with battle animations, which many initially wrote off as just products of Ichiban’s imagination. And when you’re just looking at his original game in a vacuum it was possible to just broadly ignore a lot of these, as these animations were mainly just treated as funny animations and not anything more.

But then Infinite Wealth came out and muddied the water significantly by implying these are somewhat real, which would indicate he has a level of subjective reality. There are of course plenty of cases of imaginary enemies from the imaginary battles getting acknowledged as real, but the biggest example comes from the post-game dungeon seen in the Big Swell DLC. This  dungeon is one everyone was able to perceive, was acknowledged as feeling like it was real, and which was noted to be the result of unconscious thoughts manifesting. And while it does seem to end on a “it was all a dream” twist, Ichiban in real life still has golden tentacles he gained from the final boss of the dungeon, which indicates that it did happen for real, and therefore that would suggest thoughts can manifest as tangibly real.

Now this does seem fairly odd to consider, but the series has had examples of this as far back as 5, when Saejima ends up imagining himself in a world through so called “image training”, during which he’s fully capable of getting EXP and being perceived by others that are also aware of it. And even in Yakuza 7 where things were a lot more coy, originally the game directly described Ichiban’s imagination as just adjusting the appearance of the enemies, which implies all the other things he can do in it are still somewhat real. And this also isn’t a localization change, as the original japanese version of the games have had these details as well. Finally, just the fact that enemies still take damage and effects from these moves as if they are real is itself already suggesting that they can be seen as having a real effect on the world.

Now there is the question of consistency, but a lot of the feats the characters do in these animations are not actually anything too out there by the standards of the series. Saejima making a tornado? Majima’s done the same. Majima attacking alongside lightning? He has electric attacks in his pirate adventure, and Kiryu’s done the same. Daigo raising the dead? Previous substories directly establish ghosts existing. And of course, this is a world where gods, kappa, and other such beings exist, so it’s not like it’s a super grounded setting where this would be breaking the lore. Even when trying to calculate the feats done in them, while they are typically more visually impressive than average Yakuza feats, the vast majority of them are still very in line with the standard scale of the series. The best feats for Ichiban’s imagination peak at the lower end of town level, and while this is a bit of a jump from Kiryu’s best feats without it, the amount which can get in this range would certainly knock against the idea of these being outliers. This is of course barring a few other feats, which we feel have issues on their own merits separate to whether or not they’re real, and which will get a more detailed analysis below.

As for what Kiryu gets from this imagination for abilities, it’s also not quite as impactful as you might be assuming based on this description. Beyond the various abilities he gets within battle that were already mentioned, there’s not really too much he or Ichiban have been capable of doing when they’re actively fighting enemies that’s particularly impactful. And there’s not much to suggest he’s now some reality warper who could just imagine people instantly losing, as the various battles are still treated as life or death affairs where the gang could lose if they misstep.

Admittedly, this case is far from definitive at the moment, and would definitely depend on how the individual reader sees all this. This is especially so given Ichiban is far from done as a protagonist, and his next game could very well give more evidence on either side of the case. However, we do feel there’s enough evidence in favor of it that broadly writing them off entirely is not fair, so the blog will be treating these abilities as if they are arguably real.

The Orbital Laser

A major feat seen throughout Ichiban’s games is his ability to blast people with a fucking orbital laser, which is strong enough to disperse clouds. This feat itself is fine to use here, since you can potentially use it on every enemy and boss in these games, including Kiryu himself. It also arguably doesn’t even hit the issue of being part of Ichiban’s imagination, given it’s a power you get access to as a part of his very real business management. The issue is more in regards to how strong the laser actually is. First off, the big calculation this has had which clocks in at 1.89 Petatons is a ridiculously inflated result. While the shot of it firing from orbit seems to depict it as dispersing a large portion of clouds, if you look closely you’ll see the actual area which the clouds were cleared from is just a far smaller amount near the beam’s impact site. Accounting for this alone would drastically cut down this feat’s scale to only 56.67 Gigatons.

However, the bigger issue here is that this shot of the laser impacting the clouds from orbit is contradicted by literally every other depiction of satellite lasers in the series. Particularly, you can see this with the Amon clan’s recurring access to one. When Ichiban fights Shin Amon, he can utilize this satellite on him, which reuses the same animation as Ichiban’s satellite. However, all of the other times they can actively weaponize this satellite, it’s shown to be far less extreme in power, whether that be in other boss fights or when Kiryu can directly weaponize it in Dead Souls. This is most notably seen in the fight against Juzo in Lost Judgement, as this fight takes place in an arena that is overcast, and yet the clouds will not fade even after he busts out the cannon multiple times. This fight also takes place 2 years after Ichiban’s fight, so there’s no reason to assume the cannon should be weaker considering the clan’s whole thing is getting progressively stronger. And if you were to argue that the cannon has multiple power levels or they have multiple satellites, then it makes very little sense narratively for their strongest satellite to be solely used on Y7!Ichiban, as in this game he was directly shown to be weaker than other series leads that the Amon clan actively wanted to defeat and his fight with Shin was explicitly just a test of his limits.

Even just in Ichiban’s games, this is inconsistent, as not only does the satellite’s use in the Dragon Kart Racing mode show it with a far smaller beam in line with the other examples in the series, the end of the attack’s animation showing the beam actually hitting the enemies is completely incompatible with the earlier orbital shot. For starters, the beam in the shot from orbit would be over 2 kilometers wide, but when the beam is actually hitting the enemies it is now only 4 meters wide, making it suddenly over 500 times smaller. And there’s no reason to assume the beam is somehow shrinking here, as it visibly stays as a consistent size in the orbital shot, and the end of it directly cuts off rather than slowly shrink into a triangle like it should if it was shrinking. There’s also the fact that the animation of it hitting the ground doesn’t actually show the clouds overhead being dispersed at all, despite the massive amount of them which should be gone. If this beam was actually dispersing all the clouds in a radius of over 25 - 300 kilometers, like the orbital shots suggest, then the impact shot showing several clouds near the horizon visible from ground level which would be less than 5 kilometers away is massively contradicting this. Finally, the orbital shot directly shows the clouds moving as the beam impacts the earth, and yet no cloud movement is visible at all when it’s shown going through the cloud and hitting the enemies. So the higher numbers here are internally inconsistent on top being inconsistent with the rest of the series.

Any higher interpretations of this feat would get completely shut down if you were to account for the beam’s actual size, as seen here. Even if you wanted to take the orbital shot and use the beam’s lower size to guess the actual cloud distance (which for the record is questionable and only being done here due to lack of an alternative), the beam’s power would be worth about 68.048 Tons of TNT. Even if you were to use the full effect of the clouds effected instead of just the actual hole, which as mentioned is even more invalid, that at best would only hit 23.194 Kilotons. Both of these values are far more in line with the scale of the series, as well as being more in line with the shot of the beam actually hitting the ground. So ultimately it’s far more consistent to say this feat is far lower than what the orbital shot alone suggests.

Storm Scaling

If there’s anything which can quickly muddle the conversation with stats in grounded series, it’s the characters who can make storms, as these are repeatedly able to get to fairly high numbers, and Yakuza does have its fair share of them, though the ones you could say Kiryu scales to are not quite as impressive as the better examples of this. First off, there’s Il Yu-Jin, the Korean actor whose Poundmate summon involves him creating a small snow storm. While this has gotten some high numbers in the past, the issue with those calculations is that there’s really no way to guess at how large the storm is, as the fog around the area means we can’t see the edge of the storm. As such, the best you could really attribute the size from is the overhead shot of the storm rotating around Yu-Jin and his co-star, which at the absolute best clocks in at 73.321 Tons of TNT.

A better case for this would be Kazami Evolution, another Poundmate summon who attacks by summoning a large thunderstorm. Now this can get impressive numbers at  8.226 Kilotons of TNT, and is definitely one of the strongest feats you can scale Kiryu to that we find valid. However, while some might argue for him scaling to the full creation of this storm, which would be fairly powerful, it’s really hard to say Kazami is actively creating the whole storm here. The substory you unlock the move from is based around him wanting a storm to be brought into the area for a music video he’s shooting, a problem which Ichiban solves by getting a local shaman that makes him do a storm dance to bring one in. This naturally brings in several issues with assuming he created it all on his own. First off, if Kazami could just casually summon a storm whenever he wanted, then naturally Ichiban would have no need to help him out here, so this is something we have to rely on Ichiban’s imaginary buff to justify scaling. This is an important distinction, as with said storm dance the shaman notes that manipulating weather is the work of spirits who get summoned by the dance, not the person actually doing the dance. And while in this case it’s later shown to have been faked, party members with the Geodancer class are capable of performing a similar feat in clearing a storm with a storm dance, something which is also noted to be the work of these spirits. No one should really scale to said spirits, as beyond being fairly vague figures, they clearly possess capabilities above what Ichiban’s party can do, and in this game Kiryu is directly a part of said party so he definitely shouldn’t scale. This all means scaling Kazami to the power needed to make the whole storm is invalid, and as such, at best, you can only really attribute the wind needed to destabilize the storm to Kazami for scaling, which is what the town level calculation estimates.

Though Ichiban’s not the only one who’s dealt with a storm maker, as during his most recent adventure as a pirate, Majima ended up in a fight with a giant squid. Rather notably, this squid seems to directly create a storm when it first starts the battle, as it goes from clear day to stormy weather when the squid first goes on the attack, it attacks by making lightning strikes, and the storm quickly clears after it’s defeated. And unlike the examples from Ichiban’s games, this one doesn’t have any potential imagination shenanigans that would lead to it being inapplicable, as the ending of the game pretty directly establishes that everything that happened in it is real. However, the issue here is that there’s not much reason to actually scale anyone to the squid in the first place. It’s blatantly shown to be well above Majima physically, as not only did his attempt to personally kill it before the game starts end with him getting knocked out in a single hit hard enough to get amnesia and he was directly overpowered by its tentacles when it grabs him during the rematch, his defeat of it was one he needed to use a massive pirate ship with cannons for. And not only does Majima only kill it after it had just been the target of a long boss fight in his ship, he also kills it not by directly overpowering it, but by stabbing out it’s eye while it’s seemingly exhausted. The best Majima does is briefly stab into its skin at a few points, which is hardly a conclusive method of scaling him to its full strength. And back in Infinite Wealth Ichiban and his party did fight another giant squid, but this one has nothing suggesting it shares the weather based abilities of the one Majima’s crew fought, especially since parts of it are outright weak to electricity, and their similar designs can easily be written off as just a case of asset reuse. So this feat is ultimately inapplicable.

Majima’s Moon Madness

The most infamous argument for higher stats that come from Ichiban’s imagination would be going to the wacky stab man’s poundmate animation, in which he seemingly carves his tattoo into the moon, which has been calculated to be worth 726 Teratons. But that’s under the assumption that’s what this is, which is… questionable. The zoomed out view of the moon and the fact the lightning strike reveals it without any other effect that would signify this kind of carving taking place does mean we don’t really have any context for if this is him actually carving something into the moon, rather than this instead being some kind of illusion or projected image. Which is especially so given that, if this was his doing at this moment, he’d also need to be doing some sort of attack which could reach the moon in a single frame at a speed of almost 77 times faster than light, which the effect and his lack of movement also don’t support. It’s also vague to the point where it’s unclear what kind of attack he’s even doing, as despite the memes people have made about Majima in this game, there’s nothing in his kit of abilities which would suggest he’d be capable of doing something like this, as he’s never shown telekinesis or energy projectiles with the range to hit an object in orbit. That’s all also assuming this moon tattoo is actually diegetic in the first place, as the description of the move making no reference to his moon image means it could very well just be a visual effect rather than something that Majima’s actually responsible for in universe. This moment is just far too vaguely defined to really act like it’s much of a solid feat in the first place.

Though even under the assumption that Majima pulling a Todd Ingram is actually what’s happening here, there’s still another issue: This is a massive outlier. The gap from the more consistent building - town scaling of the series to this is a gap in the millions. And as the rest of this section notes, all the other feats which can even approach this scale are incredibly questionable on their own merits, so this random background detail would not be a valid means to buff the verse this significantly. Additionally, while Majima is a relatively high tier character in the overall scaling of the verse, keep in mind that the main justification for the feat being usable relies on Ichibian’s imagination essentially buffing Majima. So this would actually be a feat done by someone who, at the time of the game, was a good deal weaker than the series leads, most blatantly including Majima himself. Therefore, there’s really no good reasoning against this simply being written off as an outlier, and as such it is inapplicable.

Treasure Scaling

In yet another case of random bullshit from Majima, another source which has been cited as being particularly powerful is going back to his newest adventure as a pirate. In this game, there are several collectable treasures which you can collect, some of which have statements that indicate they were used for powerful feats in the past. These would be good, but there are issues in them being usable. First off, these vague descriptions mean there’s no real details you can pull from the feats and any extenuating circumstances they might have, such as it being done over any kind of time period or there being some kind of amp in play. Additionally, this is a game that directly delved into showing that these kinds of legends aren’t always true. This is particularly seen in the main plot with Majima initially going on the adventure in the first place to find the Heart of the Dragon, a supposed source of immortality that can cure any disease, and the truth of which turned out to have been misrepresented by these legends by being a lot more benign. So there is reason to question the reliability of these statements. Finally, even if you take them at face value, there’s really no reason to actually scale anyone relevant to them. They’re feats done by vague figures in backstory we know literally nothing else about, and these treasures can’t be actively weaponized by any of the characters in the modern day. While there are other treasures you can actively weaponize, they have no lore connection to the ones these statements relate to besides being unlocked in a similar context, which means treating them as comparable in power is assuming a lot of intent. As such, these statements are inapplicable.

Kiryu’s Upscaling

A general idea for pushing the higher tier scaling of Yakuza stats is the idea that Kiryu should upscale absolutely everything in the Yakuza world just based on his status as the best fighter of the series. And sure, it is undeniable that him being the top dog has repeatedly been stated and showcased both in story and in side content. This is particularly seen with the Amon Clan,  a group of assassins who typically act as the superbosses of each game which you can fight if you complete all substories. The clan has been repeatedly reinforced as consisting of some of the strongest fighters in the world, and members of the clan have been able to fight basically all the leads of the series, which acts as another method to broadly scale Kiryu to everyone.

The issue here is that assuming that means he can scale to absolutely everything in the franchise. First off, there are plenty of feats mentioned that Kiryu and company can’t scale to themselves due to the one doing it being portrayed as far stronger than them, such as the mountain gods, the Hawaiian spirits, or the giant squid. It would be a logical paradox to say the characters can suddenly scale to them because they beat the Amon clan who are supposedly the strongest, as the main point of the Amon clan being relevant in the conversation at all is in the fact the characters can defeat them. And in these cases the characters in question were ones that were far from common knowledge and who the leads end up encountering essentially by chance, so the Amon clan even being aware of their existence, let alone going to fight them, is fairly questionable. Especially given their primary MO is killing people who they defeat, as they are, well, assassins, so logically these characters being alive and available for the leads to lose to is a big contradiction to the idea of the Amon clan having been proven as superior to them.

But what about the Pirate Yakuza treasure feats? Given the Amon clan’s influence, couldn’t you argue that they may have been aware of the guys who accomplished these feats? Well, in this case, we need to look at the timeline. The earliest point we’ve directly seen in the Yakuza timeline is Kenzan, which takes place in 1605 during the Edo period. This is notable given two things. First off, the age of piracy wouldn’t start for several decades, which is the time period that is the absolute latest these feats could have happened, given they are found within treasure chests, implying at some point they were taken by pirates as treasure. Additionally, the Edo period also was during a time when Japan was under Sakoku, an absolute isolationist policy in which few could leave the country which first started in 1633. This is all relevant because Miyamoto’s fight with Jonoshin Amon is implied to be before the clan officially formed, as he was mentioned to be working alone, Jonoshin makes no reference at any point to having the backing of a clan, and his death has him declare that he’ll be following Miyamoto’s soul even through future lives, which seemingly is meant to act as the origin of their grudge on Kiryu. This means that the formation of the clan could have only happened after Kenzan, and considering it’s always been depicted as being primarily based in Japan, it couldn’t have gotten a worldwide range until after Sakoku was lifted, which wasn’t until 1853, well after the end of piracy. This all means the idea that they encountered the figures who accomplished the Pirate Yakuza feats is, while not technically impossible, incredibly improbable, and as such it’s hard to argue that the Clan is a viable way to scale anyone to these feats either.

The other point worth bringing up in this section would be on the idea that there is meant to be a constant growth in power throughout the series, meaning that later games have to be much stronger than the first ones. First off, as this section demonstrates, that’s not too supported by the validity of a lot of the higher tier feats, especially given feats that are more in line with the original games are much more common even in later titles. That’s also been contradicted by the multiple prequel games which show levels of power that are also in line with said feats, whereas if this idea were to make sense these logically these prequels should depict characters that are far weaker. Regardless, there’s also very little suggesting the growth in power seen in the series is extreme enough that characters who started at small building level have to be city-country level by the end of everything. As an example, simply doubling in power each game would make modern day Game Kiryu multi-city block level. You might write that off as a low ball, but the point is illustrating that a growth in power is not as explosive as you might imagine anime makes it seem. While this can be easy to forget if you’re focusing on pure numbers, simply doubling in strength is itself pretty insane, given that alone would indicate the jump from an average human to an athlete by VS wiki standards. And this is also without pointing out that Kiryu is not some anime protagonist that’s constantly training, as the games very consistently depict him as trying to keep himself out of the violent life of crime between stories, so saying that he’s constantly pushing himself to the limit in a way where each game represents a growth in power in the tens or even hundreds is hardly believable.

Relativistic Yakuza

There’s also been several major instances of arguing that Yakuza characters can scale to relativistic speeds, but all of them aren’t valid once you look into them. To give a brief run down on the issues with most of the examples people have cited:

The only comparatively more solid case for this is going back to the satellite laser. While its massive impact does show its invalid as a light speed laser, as it’s presented in Yakuza: Like A Dragon, the beam’s speed can hit 4.67% c. Rather impressive, but the issue is there’s no method of actually scaling anyone to it. While technically characters are able to block and dodge the attack in Ichiban’s titles, both mechanically are only done on the impact the characters receive after the whole attack’s animation is done, meaning it’s impossible to actually calculate the speed they would be reacting to it. Meanwhile, in the beat 'em up games where it’s weaponized and characters might be able to potentially move in tandem with the beam, it’s consistently a 1 frame impact.

The only time the Amon Clan uses a cannon that moves in more than one frame is So Amon’s cannon in Yakuza 0, but there’s no solid reason to assume that this beam should be comparable to their later satellite lasers. It does have a similar visual effect to its depiction in the other PS3 games, but that’s easy to write off as simply a case of asset reuse, such as how the laser effect was originally used within in-universe arcade machines. Some have also assumed that it’s an early prototype of their satellite, an assumption which has no backing whatsoever and would require assuming this prototype beam’s speed is at the same speed it’s at in the modern day despite the over 2 decades of development it would have to go through between 0 and its first use in 4. There’s also nothing backing up the idea of So’s cannon being a light speed laser on its own merits, given it has no evidence in favor of that idea and it actively shows force. So ultimately Relativistic Yakuza is inapplicable.

Lost Paradise Scaling

RGG Studios has made a game about another stoic and infamously brutal Japanese hero with Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, a game which adapts Kenshiro’s story to the beat 'em up gameplay of the Yakuza series. More relevantly for our purposes, It also features appearances by Yakuza series regulars Sotaro Komaki and Jo Amon in side stories, both of whom Kenshiro ends up fighting. Given both are characters that Kiryu has defeated multiple times, you can argue that this gives him a scaling chain to Kenshiro and his series’ feats. But there are quite a few issues with this when you break it down.

First off, there’s very little to actually support the idea that their appearances here are actually canon to Yakuza. There’s never been any statements out of universe supporting the idea that these are meant to be canon, nor is there any acknowledgement of the events of this in the two’s later appearances in the main series. This is primarily due to the fact that Jo ends up dying in the end of his fight with Kenshiro, so naturally it’d be a bit weird for him to bring it up later. While initially this was Jo’s last use as a character for a while, which could imply this was his canon death as a character, his reappearance in more recent games sinks that idea. And while you could also argue that them going to the FOTNS universe is just going to happen in the future, given Komaki’s appearance in Infinite Wealth has him note he’s fairly close to death, something which is not implied at all in his appearance in Lost Paradise, it’s very doubtful that can happen as the series stands. And there’s not really anything implying the two should hail from different points in the Yakuza timeline.

Even if you were to assume this is canon to Yakuza, another issue is there’s absolutely no reason to assume this game is meant to be canon to the main Fist of the North Star manga. While the series does generally have a loose sense of continuity, unlike something like the Gaiden stories which depict events that can slot into the series with some minor contradictions, this game has so many contradictions to the original series that it being set in a completely alternate continuity is a far more likely scenario. This means using it as a method of scaling Kiryu to any of the stronger feats from the canon FOTNS series is fairly ludicrous. Especially something like Jagi’s infamous nuke survival, which itself is only confirmed in a Gaiden story and not the main manga.

Finally, even if you were just utilizing direct feats from this game, including this doesn’t change anything. The vast majority of the feats seen in the game are already at a scale which Yakuza can get to on its own. The one exception would be in regards to the dome which covers the city of Eden, which was designed to protect those inside it from the nuclear war which started the series. And this isn’t just a lore thing, as In the ending of the game we directly see multiple nukes go off within it, which it successfully contains. This is important, as earlier in the game, Raoh attempted to break his way into the dome from the outside, which could imply he’s as strong as these nukes. While Kenshiro does stop him before he can, it is still narratively treated as something he could do, and as Kenshiro later takes him on in a fight, he should scale, right?

Well, not only does the game not give any method of calculating how strong these nukes are without falling back on depictions from other sources in the series, it’s important to note that Raoh intended to break the dome by tossing a spear to punch a hole in it, not break the whole thing himself. This means his cracking would be done as a form of piercing damage, meaning his attack’s strength was more focused on a smaller point rather than getting spread out on the entire surface area of the dome like a massive explosion would. This is especially so given his goal in this scene isn’t punching a hole in the dome for himself to go into to invade or anything like that, it’s just killing Yuria, who’s lying helpless within it, so there’s no real reason to assume he’d be punching a significantly large hole or even breaking the dome entirely just for the spear to travel through and kill one person that’s incapable of moving. Therefore, him being able to crack a hole in the dome doesn’t mean he should be comparable to these nukes.

Obviously this isn’t knocking against FOTNS characters scaling to nukes in their own series, but as mentioned there’s no reason to scale Kiryu to anything in the original series, as even if you did it would still be a major outlier for Kiryu’s stats. Also no, Kiryu being playable in DLC for Lost Paradise does not mean he should get the Hokuto Shinken as part of his abilities, as not only would it definitely count as a crossover only ability, this is just an alternate costume for Kenshiro with no story differences, not Kiryu himself being playable in story terms. As such, this game is inapplicable to the discussion here.

Extra Arguments

Seonhee leveling Yokohama - While the statement is from a minor gag scene, some have argued it should be usable, given that Joongi is generally treated as a character who always takes things seriously. That could be a good counterargument if anything said by Joongi in this conversation actually supported the idea that she could personally level a city, but his “sea of flames” comment moreso implies she would use multiple bombs or some other equipment based method to do this over time, which is more befitting of her character in this game as a schemer that sticks to the background. It’s Ichiban who comes to the conclusion that means she could level a city herself, which is both a lot harder to treat as reliable here given his lack of familiarity with her at this point in the story and his tendency for dramatics, and is a comment that is completely different in the original Japanese version of this conversation.

Sojimaru reducing Honolulu to rubble - Beyond the fact this statement was made in the middle of a high pressure situation so treating it as completely accurate is a bit suspect, the fact it’s directly preceded by Okita, the scientist that made her, saying “if we don’t stop her” is pretty directly suggesting this is a feat that would be done over time, not all at once. The original Japanese version of the game makes a directly literal interpretation even more unfounded given he directly says she only “may be” able to do that.

Saejima shaking the earth - This is a general statement typically used for referring to someone being strong enough to cause the ground to shake, which Saejima is. It does not mean he can shake the entire planet, and there is no reason to interpret the statement that literally, as nothing he or anyone else has done has ever been shown or implied to have this kind of worldwide effect. This statement specifically is also from Like a Dragon Online, a mobile gacha game which has many story elements that are actively contradictory to the main games, and which has been noted by developers as being treated as a completely separate story to the main games, meaning it has no place here under a soft composite lens.

Sujin’s Demise cutting down the ocean - The issues in applying the Pirate Yakuza treasure feats, in that it’s a vague feat we have no context to that was done by an irrelevant figure in the backstory there’s no reason to scale anyone to, also apply to this statement. In this case the lack of details is an issue that’s even worse, given parting the ocean is a feat which can vary wildly in power depending on how large the parted area is or how quickly the ocean was parted, which are details that this vague statement can’t provide. This means pulling any kind of feat from this would require essentially assuming all the details for it, in which case there’s quite literally no way to say a stronger calculation is more valid than a weaker one because both would inherently be assuming everything about the feat.

Kiryu’s “No Kill Rule”

A common meme that circulates around the Yakuza series is the idea of Kiryu supposedly not having killed anyone. This was particularly started by Yakuza 0, where a major point in the ending is around Kiryu getting pulled back from nearly killing Shibusawa, as well as the game starting with him being framed for murder. This has led to a general belief that Kiryu has a no kill rule, which some have said could hurt his chances in a fight, but this isn’t really a thing in the series if you’re looking at it seriously. For one thing, there’s of course the many cases of Kiryu actively causing actions that would definitely kill people, which of course have been memed to death. But it’s also worth noting that Kiryu has never really actively gone out of his way to stop or shame his allies from killing, such as when he willingly took the fall for Nishikiyama killing Dojima or when Daigo shot a bunch of goons that had him cornered. He was part of an organized crime family for about a decade and regularly associates with active members of them, so he clearly is generally fine with illegal actions. And if that’s not enough for you, Kiryu himself has directly denied the idea that he follows this kind of rule several times in the series. The point of the scene with Nishikiyama is more against the idea of murder, or actively killing someone who can’t fight back, not killing in self defense, which Kiryu has never shown an aversion for, and is a distinction that got a bit lost in translation. And even this is something he’s also willing to ignore, given in 6 he clearly intended to kill Iwami and was only interrupted due to saving Haruka. So no, Kiryu does not have an anti-killing rule that would hold him back in a fight.

Solid Snake

Higher Tier Metal Gear Arguments

There have also been a significant number of higher tier arguments for the Metal Gear series which we’ve also found to be fairly unreasonable. We’ll also be breaking these down individually and discussing our issues in using them here.

Revengeance Scaling

The feats done in Raiden’s most popular adventure are fairly powerful, especially by the series’ standards. There have been some arguments people have spread that Snake can arguably scale to this game, but these arguments aren’t valid once you start applying scrutiny to them. While this topic was covered in a previous Metal Gear blog, we might as well recap in a bit more detail why we don’t see this as legit. The argument goes that Raiden mentions Snake in one of his CODEC calls, talking about him and saying that he’s “one of the greatest soldiers I’ve ever seen”, and that “no one can stop him”. Raiden was talking relatively casually in this call, and given their history there’s not really a good reason to say that he’s outright lying or overhyping him. Some supporting evidence could be argued that Jetstream Sam was a match for Raiden, and he was shown to be an unenhanced human save for a robot arm. DLC for Rising also depicts Sam as being able to keep up with Armstrong before he lost that arm, showing his strength is likely all natural. Given its noted Sam was active as a fighter during the time Snake was active and said to be the best soldier, this could imply Snake should be comparable to him and therefore the MGR cast.

However, the big issue for this is that Snake never actually interacts with Raiden while in his Revengeance form at all. This means there’s no real scaling chain for him to scale to the events of Revengeance, given the start of the game shows Sam as far superior to MGS4 Raiden, and Raiden needed to get upgraded to match and eventually defeat him and the rest of Desperado. Rather notably, said later body he had for most of the events of Revengeance was directly stated to be too strong for any non-cyborg to be a threat to him. This means arguing Snake should scale based on Raiden’s description of him is fairly inconsistent narratively speaking. Beyond that, Raiden simply having respect for Snake is hardly a definitive way of confirming he’s as strong as the foes Raiden is fighting now, especially given in this very conversation, Raiden directly states that he considers Snake the greatest soldier “in terms of pure combat ability”, implying he just thinks Snake is just more skilled than him, not stronger. And the fact the conversation is presented as Raiden recounting his experience with Snake, who at this point in the timeline is long dead, it’s really hard to interpret this statement as being something in the present tense.

As for scaling Snake to Sam, the issue with arguing this is that this would be ignoring the decade and a half time gap between when Snake was active and when the events of Revengeance happened. Metal Gear is a series that regularly tackles escalation and how war progressively gets more deadly, so to argue that Sam just somehow did not get stronger at all through his entire career would be really questionable. And while the fact he is a mostly normal unaugmented human makes him impressive, that doesn’t mean he should be treated as automatically inferior to someone designed to be superhuman, especially given he fights many characters well beyond normal humans over the course of Revengeance. He’s just essentially a living outlier for our purposes. Finally, at the end of the day, the only reason to treat Sam as a normal human is because the game doesn’t actually offer any kind of explanation for him being so strong. Him being a normal human would be just as valid an explanation as saying he has good nanomachines or weird samurai magic.

There’s also been an argument that Jetstream Sam’s suit is meant to be comparable to Solidus’ suit, which could give another indirect scaling chain. However, there’s never actually been anything solidly connecting the two’s suits in-universe. The only time they’ve been directly compared is this concept art, but this isn’t saying they should be considered as comparable in universe, this is just pointing out they share a design element. Some have also cited this promotional statement where Soldius’ suit is referred to as the “best ever”, but this statement was made as part of what was essentially an official popularity contest, so it’s pretty hard to treat this as definitive evidence of his suit being stronger over just being a subjective opinion that it’s cooler. As such, the idea of Snake scaling to essentially anything from Revengeance is inapplicable.

Gray Fox and Nuke Level Feats

There are a couple big arguments for the other big cyborg ninja of the series getting to high levels, but these end up running into issues. The big point here would be in regards to Fox surviving the destruction of Metal Gear D, which was said to be the strongest war machine of the time. Some have said this acts as a way to scale Fox to models from earlier in the timeline, particularly the Peace Walker’s Mammal Pod, which was said to be able to survive nuclear wars. This can lead into a general scaling chain with saying every Metal Gear in the series has progressively stronger armor which can tank the progressively stronger nuclear weapons each of them are armed with, but just to cut all this off at the pass, the biggest issue is the context of this original statement. To recap the scene in question, Boss tries to shoot his way into the pod and is unsuccessful, and when he asks how to get past the armor, Huey, the guy who made it, suggests an atomic bomb would work. The issue here is pretty self evident, as the point of the scene isn’t that it could tank a nuke, it’s that it would tank anything weaker than a nuke. The gap in power between the basic guns and small bombs Boss was carrying at the time to a nuclear bomb is pretty significant, so something being able to tank everything short of a nuke hardly suggests something meant to be superior to it can now suddenly tank nukes.

Beyond that, one of the big issues with scaling anyone to nukes in Yakuza, namely that it would require assuming characters would just take the full brunt of the blast with no cover or moving, also applies here. One of the main relevance points of the titular Metal Gears is the fact they’re able to move in order to not be retaliated on, so inherently that’s suggesting that they would be surviving a nuclear blast by not being in the epicenter. This is especially so given it’s specifically noted as being able to survive nuclear wars, not just bombs in general, meaning the enemy launching nukes would not be aiming at them. While VS brainrot can make this easy to forget, nuclear wars are less about directly nuking enemy combatants and more about taking out the enemy’s country, mainly targeting bases, where leadership lives, and general large population centers. This means that acting like there would be a nuke directly aimed at the Metal Gears doesn’t really make much sense, as firing a nuke towards one target that could very well move out of the way before the missile even has time to travel that distance would be a fairly inconsequential use of them.

You might also argue about how the Metal Gear exploding meant it was also setting off the nuke it was carrying, but nuclear bombs require a very specific internal process to be activated, which is something that an explosion from the outside would not trigger. This is actually something that nuclear weapons are specifically designed to avoid, as if a plane were to crash or be shot down, that could lead to the nuke blowing up an area unintentionally, so nukes are typically designed with safety mechanisms that will only activate them if they’re launched intentionally. This means no, the nuke did not go off when Metal Gear D was blown up, same deal for Liquid with REX.

The other big point would be in the comic adaptation of the first game, in which some have suggested Gray Fox was only critically injured by a blast from Metal Gear Rex’s railgun. But this isn’t exactly something that works as a way to directly scale anyone to the nukes it fires either. First off, this interpretation doesn’t make much sense in the context of the rest of the comic’s events, as if a full sized nuke did go off here, then the rest of the comic couldn’t have happened since it’s directly established a nuke would be able to destroy the entire base. And the effect of Fox getting hit makes more sense to be done by a laser cannon rather than an explosion. Some have countered this by saying Fox was jumping directly on the nose of REX in the scene, and therefore he physically couldn’t have been hit by the laser here. However, that’s more the fault of how the Digital Comic version edited these panels, as his positioning in the original comic still leaves room for the laser to rise up and blast him.

Finally, as a more general point against this idea generally, while the Metal Gear series has brought up nuclear weapons a lot more often than Yakuza, the issue is that they’re always narratively treated as a massive threat. The first game’s official guide has a pretty direct statement regarding REX’s railgun being far too powerful for Snake to survive, and while Snake can survive missiles from REX, these are from its anti-personnel missiles which are listed as separate to its nukes. And while Snake and Big Boss have been regularly recognized as some of the best soldiers of their world, keep in mind their reputations as the greatest soldiers has always been based more on their skill and accomplishments, not their physical strength, so treating them like anime protagonists who could just wipe out a city in a clash is just not supported by anything in the series. As such, scaling Snake to any kind of nuke is inapplicable.

The Skulls’ Mist

One pretty big argument for Metal Gear getting higher in stats is from the Parasite Unit known as the Skulls, a recurring group of enemies seen throughout the Phantom Pain who are capable of summoning mist around themselves whenever they confront Venom Snake. This has been calculated to be worth 9.968 Kilotons, but we feel this is a bit generous. The logic for it being this strong was based around the idea that the mist covered an entire world map, with the size of the storm being how large the map is. However, there’s not really anything suggesting the mist’s size should be this extreme. While the fog does cover up Venom’s view of the horizon, that’s more due to the fact it’s particularly dense, to the point where he wasn’t even able to tell a large robot was about to attack him until it was within a few meters of him.

And while the effect of the mist forming can appear to cover areas that large, that much distance is only visible on the Mother Base map, which the Skulls never actually show up in, and likely only appears as such because the visual effect of the fog forming is tied to Venom’s location. Beyond that, it also doesn’t make much in-universe sense for the mist to cover a several kilometer wide area, as these fog producing units were designed specifically as a stealth ambush unit, so it would be a bit counter productive for them to also form enough fog to cover half a city whenever they’re deployed.

So how can we measure the distance more accurately? Well, by using the basics of infiltration. In the mission where the unit is first introduced, it’s possible to avoid combat with them and escape the mist’s area directly. Using the map marker to the objective where you exit the mission, we can tell Venom first enters the mist when said destination is about 1000 meters away, before leaving it when he’s about 300 meters away from it. This suggests the mist only covers an area approximately 700 meters in diameter, and the energy needed to form this would be equivalent to 72.556 Tons of TNT, which is both significantly lower and much more in line with the standard scale of the series. Now while there are 4 members of the unit and Venom Snake can defeat them in combat, which might prompt one to multiply the result by 4, it should be noted that beating up several guys in succession doesn't mean you can overpower all of them at once, and is certainly not the case here.

Psycho Mantis

The resident psychic of FOXHOUND has been at the center of multiple arguments for higher stats. Starting off, there has been the statement of him being potentially comparable to other psychics that could cause natural disasters. While this could be arguably impressive, the issue with pulling any kind of feat from this is that we don’t really see any other canon psychics who are capable of feats like these to really pull any numbers from, and with the lack of a proper comparison to other feats corresponding to this statement it's even less justifiable to apply real world large scale disasters that reach tremendous numbers far beyond the standard scale of the series. There’s also the fact that Mantis has been actively described as not reaching his full potential by Liquid Snake, who knew Mantis from a young age so he likely is fully aware of his limits. And while he did say this while in disguise as Miller, meaning you could argue he’s lying, this conversation happens right after Mantis dies, so there’s not really anything he’d have to gain by making Snake underestimate Mantis.

Another argument pushed in regards to the psychic is how through an unstable expulsion of mental energy that killed the population of 1,000 inhabitants in his village instantly, he ended up burning his Russian hometown to the ground. With these factors in mind, calculations have been made to estimate the amount of energy Mantis generated to pull off such a feat, getting all the way up to 2.54 Gigatons of TNT. The problem with this is that it assumes that Mantis incinerated every single cubic centimeter, as well as melting it in its eternity. For an area to consider burned, one shouldn’t conclude that every single millimeter was engulfed, not to mention that fire spreads and given the fact that Mantis was presumably unconscious for a very long time, it stands to reason it was more than enough for the fire to expand far and wide overtime rather than the energy being generated all at once, which is typical of how similar incidents in the real world where populated areas being set ablaze are done so through a chain reaction that allows fire to spread rapidly through a village even after the initial igniting point has passed. On top of that, Mantis's killing of his village was done primarily through creating a "mental shockwave" which caused a bunch of brain hemorrhages, and as such it’s hard to argue he’d be the full cause of the village burning.

There’s also a potential speed feat where the official strategy guide for Twin Snakes describes Mantis as being able to react to your attacks at “computer hyper-speed”. Some have said this is meant to imply Mantis has speed comparable to a super computer, but considering the context of what the statement is describing, it’s more likely that this is referring to him being able to react to the speed a controller’s inputs will be put through wires towards the device you’re playing the game on. Regardless, considering it’s also describing a state in which it is impossible for Snake to hit him at all, it’s hard to justify anyone scaling to it in the first place. Not even Mantis himself, as we can tell this isn’t tied to his own reaction speed thanks to the events of MGS4. In them, Mantis’ ghost does attempt to use his 4th wall breaking powers again, but is unable to due to the PS3 not having a memory card. This pretty directly shows this is more akin to a specific ability rather than any kind of natural speed on his part, as if he could just react and scale to these speeds, then he’d have no need to connect in such a way.

Last but absolutely not least in this trend of Mantis high ends is an argument involving the novels where Mantis created an illusion with a starry sky. Since Snake was presumably interacting with the illusion, this has led to some concluding it to be a legitimate feat that scales back physically. Ignoring for one second the fact that this takes everything we know about Psycho Mantis’s powers and stretches them to high heaven beyond what is reasonable, this would very obviously be the outlier of all outliers and completely unacceptable for the scale of which Metal Gear as a whole is portrayed on. In conclusion, all the high end arguments pushed for the famous FOXHOUND Psychic are inapplicable.

The Sorrow’s Storm

One of the major characters first seen in Metal Gear Solid 3 is The Sorrow, a late member of the Cobra Unit who shows up several times throughout the game as a ghost. Rather notably, his various appearances feature him seemingly summoning a storm, with the largest one being one that stretched along a long chase Snake did near the end of the game. While this can get impressive numbers, the issue here is in the question of how people should scale to it.

First off, there’s the idea that the Cobra Unit should scale to it by virtue of being allies of his in the war before his death. However, while he did possess supernatural abilities before his death, there’s not anything to really say he could create storms in life, as the discussion of his abilities was more focused on his ability to sense and speak with spirits, implying his role in the team was more on gathering intel through those sources rather that any kind of direct fighting skill. In terms of more direct scaling chains, some have pointed to Volgin getting struck by lighting from one of these storms. Beyond the fact that said lightning strike put him in a 2 decade long coma, and the fact that a single lighting strike is nowhere close to the energy needed to make a storm, it’s very easy to say Volgin’s survival was more due to his body being made to resist electrical powers like his own, meaning that’s not a solid method of saying Snake ought to scale.

Finally, there’s the argument of Mantis scaling thanks to the aforementioned statement of psychics being able to cause natural disasters. First off, while Sorrow does show several abilities which are typically associated with psychic powers, he is explicitly a medium. This is a distinction the series has made between him and other characters with powers that are more explicitly psychic, so it’s a bit of a false comparison to say they ought to be comparable for that reason. Beyond that, saying Mantis is comparable or even superior to him is kind of ignoring the fact that the Sorrow was later responsible for defeating Mantis’ spirit for good in MGS4, which is pretty clearly demonstrating that the Sorrow is superior to him. As such, we feel this line of scaling is inapplicable.

Relativistic Metal Gear

While this level of speed (and beyond) is the consensus for Metal Gear Rising era characters, Relativistic speeds for Metal Gear Solid characters can be divisive depending on who you ask. Let’s go over every argument to see if they check out.

Snake moving in tandem with lasers in Metal Gear (MSX)

Perhaps the most popular and blatant example. In the first game in the series, Snake is capable of moving in tandem with lasers from camera sensors, more than once. These lasers are described as infrared sensors in the game’s manual, and you specifically need Infrared Goggles to see them. In real life, infrared light is part of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum, and therefore travels at the speed of light. The laser comes from a technological source with narrative backing that renders it impossible for it to not be an electromagnetic radiation wave, and it being real light has no contradictions as it travels in a straight line and shows no force.  One could argue it’s wacky for Snake’s tandem movement to count, given he can only walk in this game. This can, however be chalked up to technical limitations of the time, which is corroborated by the fact that it’s stated in Metal Gear Solid Master Collection that he is, in fact, dodging the lasers.

Metal Gear RAY dodging Metal Gear REX’s Free Electron Laser in Metal Gear Solid 4

In a boss fight in the fourth chapter of the MGS saga, Solid Snake pilots Metal Gear REX to fight against Liquid Ocelot piloting Metal Gear RAY. Naturally, you are able to fire the Free Electron laser from the piloted Metal Gear, a weapon described in detail by Otacon that matches the description of its real life counterpart, which fires beams moving at 99% the speed of light. It is possible in gameplay that Metal Gear RAY will dodge out of the way of the laser to avoid damage, a feat that has been calculated before ranging from Relativistic to FTL values. If you look at this clip only, the tandem movement looks valid. Unfortunately, looking at higher quality footage of the game frame by frame, we can see that the blue laser beam reaches the target in one frame, and it takes a few more for it to actually cause damage, as it charges up. Therefore, there is no actual tandem movement of the Metal Gear with the beam, as it is only able to avoid the hurtbox of the higher charge that causes damage, and not the laser itself.

The Solar Gun from Metal Gear Solid 4

In the same game, Snake can get access to a weapon called the Solar Gun, a pistol that fires non-lethal rounds in the form of concentrated solar energy balls. The intent is obvious here, it fires sunlight. Bosses such as Crying Wolf can move in tandem with its projectiles. So what’s the issue? Well, the projectiles themselves. While it’s true the rounds are composed of solar energy, they are concentrated spheres of light, and not beams. The way light and other electromagnetic spectrum radiation waves propagate in real life is in the form of, well, waves of photons. It is impossible for light to take a spherical shape like the projectiles of the weapon, which leads to the conclusion that they are just energy spheres that do not necessarily move at the speed of light. This is corroborated by the fact the gun has recoil, which, as per Newton’s Third Law, suggests the projectile exerts force, something that would be impossible if it was truly a light beam. In a vacuum, this could be ignorable, but the safest assumption is that the projectile is not moving at the speed of light.

Misc. problematic feats

The other big feats that have been proposed to be in the Relativistic to FTL ranges have simpler issues, so here’s a more rapid fire list of their issues.

Considering all of this, we conclude that the only Relativistic feat the pre-Metal Gear Rising era characters scale to is Solid Snake dodging infrared lasers in the first Metal Gear game. That being the case, can you consider it an outlier? It’s possible to argue so considering that Cyborg Raiden in MGR performs a feat worth almost 12% the speed of light in Blade Mode, while the laser dodge by Snake is worth 19% the speed of light. Since Raiden by MGR is supposed to be absurdly superior to a rookie Snake, you could argue that it’s an outlier for Snake to have the superior feat. HOWEVER, that’s not necessarily Raiden’s speed cap. In the same game, Raiden is able to jump away and slash in tandem with the expansion of electromagnetic pulses. These pulses are described as EM attacks in the official game guide (supervised by the directors of MGR) and have the same disruptive effects and look of Raiden’s EM grenades, directly stated to create electromagnetic pulses as well. Such grenades’ EMP blasts are also not frame 1, and can be viewed in slow motion in Blade Mode as well. The results for these feats are well beyond Snake’s 19% lightspeed feat, which adds consistency to the fact Raiden vastly upscales Snake. In conclusion, the fact Raiden has a feat that’s lower than Snake’s doesn’t make the latter’s an outlier, as he has more feats to support being far faster than Snake.

All in all, Relatavistic Metal Gear is applicable, but most of the stuff argued for it aren’t the best, with the MSX game being the best and most blatant example of it. You could use some backing from Metal Gear Ac!d, but that has no place being in any soft composite Metal Gear debates.

Metal Gear Infinite

There’s also a particular statement in the Metal Gear Solid Substance novels, which has been fan translated to say Snake and Ocelot were able to process an infinite amount of combat scenarios. This could certainly be a significant jump for the series, whether that be implying he’s capable of infinite amounts of skill, or turning it into infinite speed by applying Alex Mercer logic (everyone’s favorite). However, the issue we have is in the question of if the translation was accurate. Looking through the original Japanese text, we can see that in this paragraph it used the word 無数 (Musū), which can be used to refer to something being either literally infinite or just countless. And in this case, this exact word was earlier used in this same paragraph to describe an amount of soldiers, something which physically cannot be literally infinite, meaning it’s a bit unlikely that the intent of the later use of it for the scenarios statement refers to the scenarios being literally infinite. In any case, even if you were to try and use this for speed, it’s also pretty clearly something you can write off as flowery hyperbole, on top of being a blatant outlier, so we feel this is inapplicable.

Another statement brought up in regards to speed that falls under the same problem of flowery hyperbole and far too ludicrous for the standards of the series comes from the recent installment and remake to Metal Gear Solid 3, Metal Gear Solid Delta, claiming that Volgin transcends time. Except it’s even worse because it's not even stating that he actually transcends time, its wording makes it clear that it’s meant to be a dramatic comparison saying it’s only “as if” rather than in actuality. Therefore making this line of logic also inapplicable.

Ape Escape Scaling

Yes, this is a real thing, and yes, we have to talk about it.

Snake has crossed paths with Specter’s monkeys as part of a side mode in Metal Gear Solid 3 and Ape Escape 3, and both do involve a decent amount of story so they can’t just be written off as a random one off event. However, as funny as this would be, there’s not much reason to bring it to the table once you start actually interrogating the idea seriously. First off, there’s not much reason to actually treat these as canon to Metal Gear. Beyond the fact these worlds are so different in setting and tone that assuming they’re meant to be the same is fairly ludicrous, both series have dealt with so many world threatening threats that the idea that no one from either series mentioned anything about the events of the other outside of these crossovers stretches believability significantly. Even ignoring that element, there’s not really any definitive evidence in favor of this being treated as canon in the first place. While these crossovers existing at all were due to each series’ creator being friends, that doesn’t mean we can just ignore the fact there’s never been anything confirming they’re canonically linked. Especially with a series with incredibly intricate and detailed lore that makes no mention of Monkeys trying to take over the world outside of this mode.

And even if you were to include them, neither of them really give a solid method of scaling Snake to the Ape Escape cast in the first place. In the MGS3 mode, while Snake does end up capturing a bunch of the monkeys, it’s explicitly presented as a rescue mission and he never does anything that would qualify as actively fighting them in this instance. This is even more clear in the Ape Escape mode, where near the end Snake gets actively overpowered and captured by them, with the Snake Monkey you play as having to save the day. This pretty clearly shows that he shouldn’t actually scale to anything these monkeys have done. He also never interacts with any of the humans of the series personally so there’s no reason to argue he would scale to them, especially given a lot of the better feats for the series were only possible with tech he has no reason to be comparable to. As such, Snake scaling to this is inapplicable.

Canon Saving?


(fanart source)

With a series that can get as meta as Metal Gear, there have naturally been some arguments that Snake could hypothetically get access to saving and all the chicanery that could result from that. Particularly, the games pretty consistently contextualize the concept of saving the game as the Snake you’re playing calling one of his codec contacts. And there have been other conversations in which Snake has implied he has some awareness of if he previously died. So does this mean he could save scum til he wins like Frisk? Well, no, we don’t really feel that’s a fair factor to consider. First off, while the Metal Gear series has broken the fourth wall a lot, this is typically just in small moments, and never in ways that straight up override the in-universe story. Whenever these moments do intersect with the story significantly, such as with Psycho Mantis, it’s typically more as a way of extending mechanics of the story to the player, as Mantis’ memory card reading is simply a meta way of depicting his ability to read minds. The saving system is no different, as typically Snake “saving” is meant to represent him resting. You can see this most clearly in the fight with End, where if you try to load a save mid fight before he dies of old age, the End will outright ambush Snake while he’s in the middle of resting.

But what about the business with him remembering if he died? Well, this is pretty simple to write off as simply another instance of him having awareness of the fourth wall. To reuse an analogy from an earlier blog, simply having awareness of previous save files like Sans does not mean he has the ability to actively exploit them like Frisk or Asriel. And this is something that’s even more clear when you take into account the story of Metal Gear, as unlike something like Undertale where saving is an active part of the worldbuilding, no one at any point in the franchise actually implies death is something a Snake could just reset, as the possibility of him dying permanently and that leading to the threats he’s trying to stop succeeding is always treated very seriously narratively speaking. This is even more clear in the fact that many of the non-game adaptations which ignore the game based fourth wall breaks have been directly approved by Kojima. If the idea of Snake being able to reverse death with a save was an important and relevant detail, like it would need to be for it to be considered at all VS relevant, then logically the fact it’s never been mentioned in this alternate media would be a pretty big knock against it being treated like this big broken ability. As such, we do not believe that Snake could potentially use save files to reset his death.

Both

Shouldn’t They Be Bullet Proof?

When it comes to semi-grounded series like these getting discussed in VS, a common trend would be to argue that the characters realistically shouldn’t be hurt by each other’s guns, as they scale much higher than the energy any real bullet would output. However, that idea really doesn’t make much sense when you try to apply it to these series. Kiryu has been critically injured by gunfire many times, and someone pulling a gun on him out of gameplay is regularly treated as a genuine threat. There’s the same deal in regards to Metal Gear, as being shot was how Big Boss lost his eye. And of course both series have many characters that are comparable to the main two here that canonically die to gunfire or similarly benign methods. There’s also the variety of bullet dodging feats for both series, which don’t make sense for the characters to do if they could just naturally no sell bullets entirely. And while out of cutscenes both can shrug them off in gameplay, that’s likely more so for the sake of game balance rather than suggesting they just can just naturally shrug off a bullet all the time.

While this might seem odd, there are reasonings for why it makes sense to not treat guns like their stats suggest. There’s of course the obvious point that most fictional writers are not VS debaters, as are most audiences, so this logical inconsistency isn’t something that most people would be aware of in the first place. And there are many arguments others have made which can point out how it would make sense from a VS perspective, whether that be going back to the idea of piercing damage, or just broadly handwaving that as just these fictional guns being much stronger than they are in reality. If you want a fuller explanation on guns vs stat gaps, go to Bang’s Rick Vs Joel Vs Bill blog where they went over this. Regardless, with how consistently both series treat gunfire as a threat to their characters and how a lot of these two’s kits are directly based around them, we feel it would be fairly disingenuous to essentially ignore them entirely due to a technicality. As such, both of these two’s guns are being treated as if they could potentially kill the other in one shot.

Verdict

Since this match has so much to go over, we've decided to break it down into 6 categories. 
Power

The Dragon of Dojima & The Man Who Makes The Impossible Possible. Both legends in their own right, and both have a ton of impressive physical showcases against each other. But who has the edge overall? Well, let’s get to it.

Let’s start with Kiryu. He’s easily the biggest powerhouse in the entire series of Yakuza, and has gotten plenty of feats on his own. He’s able to shatter statues, yank great white sharks out of the water, and send tigers flying. He’s also able to survive the Millennium tower exploding, putting him around small building level, as well as fight through 100 men. When it comes to scaling, he also has plenty of building-city block feats, from Majima smashing a hole in a marble floor,  Musashi destroying a large rubble formation, and Okiazuchu surviving a big explosion, all of which consistently get around that level. The best Kiryu can safely get however, is scaling to Jingu’s helicopter making shockwaves around Kamurcho, getting around 490 tons of TNT, and safely to the Multi City Block range. Neat stuff!

Then let’s get to Solid Snake. Snake’s showcases are actually pretty similar to Kiryu’s-he’s able to survive several explosions from bombs and missiles, knock out Vamp in one punch, crack necks with ease, and tank Metal Gear REX’s laser-getting around 99 megajoules. When it comes to scaling, Snake also averages around the building-city block range as well, with Skull’s mist, Naked Snake being blasted by Volgin’s electricity, and Gray Fox surviving the destruction of a Metal Gear. However, Snake can also get around the multi-city block ranges and more consistently; Higher ends of REX’s free electron laser get up to 214 tons of TNT, and MGS2 Raiden’s own durability against RAY’s water jet cannon that operates as a rail gun reaching 504.17 tons of TNT. Even when past his prime, Snake would be scaling to 1/4th of Raiden’s power through 4 Gekko Units being able to restrain MGS4 Raiden, with Snake being able to contend with one Gekko at a time. Using that metric gets it around 39-214 tons of TNT, due to that same Raiden being able to hold back Outer Heaven-getting around 156-859 tons of TNT.

Comparing the 2, they match each other in strength pretty well. At their peak, Snake IS stronger, but it’s only a 1.7x difference. It seems Power is a tie… until you factor in Infinite Wealth. If you take Ichiban’s powers as real or subjective reality, Kiryu does get boosted pretty well to where the strength advantage is in his court. With Kazami being able to destabilize a violent storm getting around 8 kilotons of TNT and Tosanoyama's earthquake feat getting around 15 kilotons, this turns a 1.7x difference in Snake’s favor to 19x in Kiryu’s. This is pretty big, and can put Snake in the back foot if you buy it. 

This is especially so when you consider the upscaling arguments. The town level feats are ones you can definitely argue Kiryu would be upscaling a good amount, given his portrayal in 7 showed him as significantly stronger than Ichiban. Even without it, Jingu’s helicopter is a feat from an equivalent of the events of Yakuza 1, meaning it’s something Kiryu should likely be upscaling by a lot. Meanwhile, while how exactly Snake and MGS4 Raiden stack up is a bit hard to gauge, there’s not too much to suggest it would be by a comparable margin.

It is debatable whenever you take Ichiban’s stuff as real or subjective reality, but if you do, Kiryu would take this category by at least a 19 times difference. If you don’t, Snake normally takes this category by 1.7 times, though it can shift depending on how you interpret Kiryu’s upscaling. Meaning ultimately Kiryu Kazuma would hold the edge in overall power. Of course, as we mentioned before, even with a disadvantage in power, it’s still completely possible for Snake to hurt and kill Kiryu due to his weapons and piercing damage, but it is a notable factor in how the fight would play out.

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Speed

Of course, as important as strength is, in a battle where both can be put down by bullets, speed is vastly more important in terms of landing a kill shot first. Though unlike strength, Kiryu is pretty clearly pulling the shorter straw here. He’s still pretty impressive, with bullet dodging being very common for his series, getting around Mach 1-17 overall when it comes to his speed. However, while Snake also has plenty of bullet timing to compare to, generally there were a lot of examples of him scaling to characters faster than this range, like Big Boss dodging a tank shell or Raiden slicing bullets and dodging a railgun, all of which can hit around Mach 200, or over 10 times faster than Kiryu’s more consistent range. 

When accounting for high ends, Kiryu’s best possible feat would be scaling to Majima, as he is able to move as fast as lightning, which can get around Mach 1283. But Snake has a direct feat in being able to outpace infrared lasers from his MSX games, which puts Snake anywhere from 19% the speed of light to about 1.37 times that. This is a pretty huge gap when it comes to speed. Even with Ichiban’s usage, he’s still vastly slower no matter what, making a 129 - 931 times difference when it comes to speed. And upscaling arguments would only make this worse, as Majima’s example is from one of his most recent titles, whereas Snake’s is from his earliest known mission, so there’s little reason to say Kiryu would be upscaling enough to match it. Solid Snake takes this category no matter what, allowing him to get a shot on Kiryu first.

Arsenal

With Snake taking speed and Kiryu taking strength, their arsenal matters way more in this fight than usual. Fittingly enough, both have big advantages based on the series they’re from.

Kiryu, being more of a street brawler, has more melee weapons to use against than Snake does, from staffs, swords, blunt weaponry, brass knuckles and more, as well as the ability to use any type of everyday item as a melee weapon. Snake on the other hand, being more stealth focused and having more training with guns, has a lot more ranged weaponry to dish out as well. While both have what you'd expect (pistols, shotguns, rifles, etc.), Snake has much more explosive tools to dish out from rocket and grenade launchers, mines, claymores, and more. Even with his expanded arsenal of guns from Dead Souls, Kiryu definitely pales in comparison to Snake’s sheer amount of options for ranged firepower, which means that any ranged battle would quickly be in favor of Snake. 

When it comes to specialized tools, Snake has an unironically big advantage: His infinite ammo bandanna. May not sound like much, but Kiryu’s ranged options can run out pretty quickly and he either reloads or more likely discards his guns when they’re empty. Snake on the other hand, does not have to worry about this one bit, and can continue to lay down fire on Snake no matter what. This means Snake will win any war of attrition at a distance. Both also have plenty of options to refill each other’s health if they’re ever taken down, but given how both have ways to kill each other in a single hit with guns, that isn’t going to mean much in the long run. And both had temporary options for reviving if they died, which would essentially cancel each other out in the long run. 

Kiryu does have a few more dangerous weapons like his laser swords, his various Agent gadgets, and summoning the satellite laser to smite Snake, but Snake can directly counter all of them with his tech disabling options like the Chaff Grenades or Otacan shutting down his gear, which we will explain in more detail later. Somewhat surprisingly, Kiryu has never had to deal with an enemy that can actively disable technology like this, so this means his few more notable pieces of equipment are going to be quickly rendered useless. 

And Kiryu doesn’t have a good reliable way to close the gap just with his standard equipment. While he did have a few armors that could protect against gunfire, not only are they typically chest based ones meaning it’s a bit questionable if they’d protect against a headshot without game mechanics, Snake pretty directly was able to counter this thanks to his access to armor piercing rounds, which Kiryu had no counter for. And while the question of stealth will be discussed in more detail later, Snake’s various bits of stealth technology with Stealth Camouflage and OctoCamo being something Kiryu’s not had any experience countering, whereas Snake’s radars meant he would always be able to detect Kiryu. This means that if Snake were to get the chance to slip away, he’d easily be able to control the tide of the fight, giving him a much better position to shoot down Kiryu.

All in all, despite having plenty of melee options to toss out at Snake, Kiryu’s arsenal is firmly outclassed to where it matters most, and has not enough tools to make up for the speed gap before he gets shot down. Solid Snake takes this category.

Abilities

Despite Snake having a clear advantage in arsenal, he’s not out of the water yet, as Kiryu’s abilities could give him trouble if he isn’t careful. Kiryu has plenty of different options to toss at Snake, from Heat enhancing his physical abilities and giving him some way to slow his perception of time. He’s also able to attack things with his non-physical interaction and pause to heal from any injuries. Of course, Kiryu also has plenty of status conditions to go over as well, with his fire abilities, as well as his ability to stun Snake with certain Essence attacks. Kiryu can also shoot electricity, and use poison attacks with certain Action Jobs.

Snake, oddly enough, does have similar stuff to Kiryu. His suits can allow him to amp himself in power, his Codec works under a Microsecond-allowing him to gain vital information on his opponent with Otacon in the heat of battle, and also has elemental attacks with some of his weapons like his shock knife, and has ways to stun people to even making them unconscious with certain disguises with FaceCamo. 

They both, surprisingly, could resist a fair amount of their potentially game ending haxes. Snake’s darts masks would likely be moot to Kiryu because of his resistances to sleep and emotional manipulation due to his equipment, as well as his shock knife being resisted by Kiryu being able to resist electricity. Additionally, potentially broken on paper options like FOXDIE and the Mantis Doll would be useless just by virtue of Kiryu not existing in the Metal Gear universe. However, Kiryu also cannot affect Snake with electricity for similar reasons, and his tech won’t be disrupted due to surviving being inside a massive microwave. Other element powers like poison and paralysis also won’t do much to Snake, having clear resistances against them, and trying to Silence Snake wouldn’t change much given Snake’s more focused on equipment. Kiryu’s fire powers could prove some trouble, but Snake’s suit is able to resist being set on fire as well, so that won’t do much as well. 

Outside of Time Stopping to heal-since Kiryu can only heal while time is stopped and Nanocommunications with Snake contacting Otacon to gain information on Kiryu, both counter the best of their elemental abilities and both can amp their strength well beyond their limits, making the safest verdict of this a Tie.  

Support

On paper, Kiryu did seem like he had a pretty overwhelming advantage in this category. After all, he has the ability to summon over a dozen other fighters to his side with the Poundmates, whereas Snake’s support is some anime nerd that canonically pissed his pants at the first sight of danger. However, context matters a lot, as while Otacon certainly wouldn’t help that much in a direct fight, he had everything he needed to be an absolute menace here without ever needing to step foot on the field. First off, and most relevantly for this category, is his hacking abilities. Beyond being able to disable certain pieces of Kiryu’s tech, like the satellite laser, he’d definitely be fully capable of stopping Kiryu from trying to call in any poundmates, whether that be cutting off his phone’s signal, draining his bank account so he couldn’t pay for it, or just outright disabling the app entirely, all of which is well within his capabilities and are things Kiryu had no way to deal with. 

That factor alone would probably be enough to unquestionably give him this category, given he essentially invalidates all of Kiryu’s potential support options. But there’s also the context of what their support actually could do for them. While the poundmates are powerful, they tend to just show up for a quick attack before leaving, which is directly how the app works, meaning Kiryu would still be on his own for much of the fight even if they were relevant. Otacon, meanwhile, would be able to connect to Snake with his Codec at any time, which is good considering the other thing Otacon excels at: research. Given Kiryu’s a fairly well known figure, he’d definitely be able to pull up a lot of information on what he’s capable of and which would allow Snake to learn plenty about his capabilities. This, again, was something Kiryu had no counter or equivalent to, and that meant that if the fight dragged out for long enough, Snake would be able to learn a lot of Kiryu’s tricks while Kiryu would still be working blind. This all meant Otacon was going to be a far greater source of support here.  

Skill

Skill is a very important category in a battle where both combatants have such a wide arsenal and hand to hand combat showings. Starting with Kiryu, he has quite a few feats to back up his mastery in fighting. He has defeated a computer simulation specifically meant to beat him that studied all of his moves and is considered the best fighter in the world. He has mastery over several versatile styles of fighting and is stated to be able to use any weapon that exists. That of course is a big deal considering how versatile he is in techniques and arsenal. All of his punches, kicks, throws and parries are being executed with masterful precision and all his melee weapons and guns are going to be extremely deadly in his hands. 

Snake, however, is a different beast. He was trained since childhood by several masters of martial arts and knows CQB and CQC, which should cover every basis that he’ll have to deal with from Kiryu. Kiryu knows how to use every kind of weapon, but so did several people that trained Snake, and he has far surpassed them, in addition to being a master of a martial art focused in disarming opponents. Any hand to hand fighting would be a nightmare especially when you consider Snake’s monstrous lifting strength edge, as the thousands of kilograms Kiryu can carry paled next to the millions to billions Snake can. While it was unlikely Snake could just directly overpower Kiryu given the AP edge, that did mean any of his attempts to grab or disarm Snake would end in him getting ignored. 

Stealth is also a big factor here. Allied by his camouflage gear, Snake has a talent for stealth that makes him sneak past opponents with superhuman senses like Genome Soldiers and Vulcan Raven, and so did Big Boss by sneaking around The End. On top of that he’s dealt with those like Laughing Octopus equipped with stealth technology equal to his own during an all time technological high in the Metal Gear universe, all the while past his prime. As good as Kiryu is with his instincts and reflexes, Snake can disappear and sneak around to get the jump on him from any direction with his multiple guns for a killshot. Kiryu has never had to deal with anyone as sneaky as Snake, and frankly has no answer to this at all. While Kiryu has had some occasions of stealth, there really wasn’t much question Snake had him beat in pure skill, and while he has dealt with sneak attacks, he’s never had to deal with them from someone who’s snuck past people with enhanced senses and who can literally turn invisible at will

Thanks to his training Snake was also granted a skill that is key in dealing with Kiryu: his mastery of firearms. While Kiryu is no slouch in handling them, he is by no means even close to the level of absurd marksmanship as Snake. Being superior to the father of modern sniping and people of similar caliber in precision like Quiet, Sniper Wolf and Revolver Ocelot, Snake is in a different league when it comes to ranged combat, given that with his level of precision, basically every shot is going to land where he wants. This is especially dangerous when you consider that Kiryu doesn’t wear any kind of protective headgear and is at a speed disadvantage, which means basically free headshots for Snake, who can also use his gear and stealth to slip away and… you get the idea. 

Despite the gap of power being notable if you buy Ichiban’s stuff being viable, it’s not a situation to which Snake is not familiar with. He’s fought multiple targets and weapons of mass destruction powerful enough to one-shot him physically, and his stealth skills are designed to avoid direct conflict and get to a position to take a shot on Kiryu first. While Kiryu is a formidable fighter, Snake has far superior training and is a master of a combat  method meant to deal with anything Kiryu can dish out. His marksmanship and accuracy are also incomparable, and, combined with his speed and stealth, can make him end the fight in a single shot. Solid Snake takes this final category.

Conclusion

“It took me forty years to realize this. But for guys like us... our lives aren't really our own. There's always someone new to help. Someone we need to protect. These past few years, I fought that fate with all I had. But I'm done fighting. It's time I accept the hand I was dealt. Too many people depend on us. Their dreams depend on us.“

Advantages:
  • Stronger with Ichiban’s usage
  • More melee options to use from
  • Special fighting styles are more unique forms of martial arts
  • Poundmates could be a nuisance if summoned…
  • Resists Snake’s electricity and sleep attacks
  • Could safely heal with how his time stop works…
  • Can amp his strength  with Heat
  • Would definitely stomp if this was a karaoke battle
  • Canonically supports trans rights
Disadvantages:
  • Vastly slower no matter what
  • Inferior ranged weapons that will run out
  • Will die to a bullet regardless of power
  • … but they and his tech are shut down by Otacon and CHAF Grenades
  • Inferior skill and experience overall
  • … but he can’t do much with it and it doesn’t defend against a instantly lethal attack
  • Cannot defend against Otacon giving Snake free information
  • Worse marksman as a whole  
  • RGG refuses to let this man retire in peace
  • 10 years in the joint made him a-

“Life isn’t just about passing on your genes. We can leave behind much more than just DNA. Through speech, music, literature and movies... what we’ve seen, heard, felt anger, joy and sorrow, these are the things I will pass on. That’s what I live for. We need to pass the torch, and let our children read our messy and sad history by its light.”

Advantages:

  • Far faster no matter what
  • Infinite ammo is unironically a huge advantage and automatically makes Snake win any war of attrition  
  • Otacon and CHAF Grenades shut down every bit of Kiryu’s technology, stopping him from summoning Poundmates
  • Otacon’s information and research allows Snake to easily adapt to Kiryu
  • Far more skilled and experienced in combat
  • Resists Kiryu’s elemental attacks
  • Enhancements can amp Snake’s strength
  • Better at marksmanship with ranged weaponry
  • Dummy Thicc
  • LIQUID

Disadvantages:

  • If Ichiban’s stuff is taken as subjective reality, Snake is much weaker physically
  • Will die to a bullet regardless of power
  • Kiryu resists his sleep and electric attacks
  • Less melee weapons to toss out
  • Can’t safely heal as quicker
  • “Then it’s only me…”
  • <Insert Konami jab here (take your pick)>

Both these legends have absolutely earned their place in history, and both have fought dozens and dozens of unique foes before. However, comparing the 2 side by side, Kiryu generally had less going for him in most cases. Despite having a power advantage, his piercing durability is subpar, and Snake being much faster would allow him to take advantage of this weakness. Snake also had much better ways to control the pace of the fight with his stealth abilities, something Kiryu would have no reliable counters to.

None of their special abilities are able to help them take the win, so this is truly a test of their gear and skill sets, and Snake has exactly what he needs to put Kiryu down. He has superior weaponry, counters Kiryu’s best options, knows what he’s dealing with thanks to Otacon, can shut down Kiryu’s only support on multiple methods, can control the entire fight with his stealth abilities, and has far superior skill and experience to Kiryu. Thanks to this, Snake would know exactly what he needs to do to put Kiryu down. And while Kiryu does have some options which could hypothetically turn the tide if he got the chance to use them, his massive speed disadvantage means he’s getting taken out before that chance comes more often than not. 

Kazuma Kiryu may have power Like A Dragon, but The Man Who Makes The Impossible Possible has the speed, stealth and toolkits Like A Snake to bite him down, leaving his chances of winning not very Solid. He may have tested his Metal, but The Dragon Of Dojima was not Geared nearly enough to rise to the challenge. 

The winner is Solid Snake.

Final Votes

Team Kiryu (0) - Dame da ne dame yo dame na no yo

Team Snake (4) - Capejedi, Toppat Torchwick, Kaiser, Zackplay3rHD

(Massive thanks to cabbage for making this image)

Sourcelist:

Bonus: Alternate Matchups For Both Series

Ichiban Kasuga vs Maruo Kaido (Ayashimon)

Capejedi: Recently I got back into the series thanks to playing through Ichiban’s intro, and I enjoy him a lot so I would love to see him get something. I’ve seen quite a few matches for him tossed around, with his big popular match at the moment being Josuke. But I did find this match for a lesser known manga, which I think sounds pretty sick. To briefly sum up Maruo, he’s a down on his luck teenager who reads a lot of manga and wants to be the protagonist of one, and was able to train himself to be absurdly strong and fight using techniques inspired by actual popular manga characters. While these skills didn’t fit him getting an actual job well, he’d end up falling in with the yakuza, who in this world are the titular Ayashimon and are basically yokai, who he helps start fighting to fulfill his dream. Just hearing that does kinda sell why this would be a cool idea for a fight, and I think there’s a lot of potential. Maruo’s power of anime can definitely match Ichiban’s madness, and Ayashimon is definitely a great match for the standard scale of a Yakuza battle, and of course the two being massive fanboys who have a lot of funny reactions means the banter would get pretty sick. The biggest issue here I can see is that there is a bit of a content gap, as currently Ayashimon is cancelled and only has 25 chapters, but Ichiban’s also not got a massive amount at the moment so I do think it wouldn’t be too jarring. As for the debate, I hear Maruo can get up to city level thanks to fighting a guy that can make snowstorms, but he’s also kinda lacking in the speed department so I feel Ichiban would definitely get the chance to clutch it.

Goro Majima Vs Roman Torchwick (RWBY)

Toppat Torchwick: If you know me anywhere near decently, you’d know I absolutely love this idea a ton. It’s not the richest thematically-with them being flashy and flamboyant criminals who used to work with a certain group (Tojo Clan & Spider, respectively), but eventually left due to one of their partners to pursue their own lifestyle associated with crime. Why I love this idea however, is everything else. The fight dynamic can be very, VERY fun with LOTS of close quarters potential, bat and cane colliding, having some of their goons battle against each other all the while them coming up with plans to absolutely one up the other. Their ideals on how the world is cruel yet do what their do best to have the fun could make for some very fun banter, and their charismatic personalities would have tons of potential with how the dialogue would go. Roman’s experience with Blake allows him to play off Majima’s clones well, could have Roman in a clash try to burn Majima’s eye with a cigar only for him to toss him away, Majima’s dance moves with Breaker to try to combo Roman but Roman using his Cane’s grapple hook to hook his leg to toss him, there’s a lot of really cool power escalations. I should definitely write this script one day huh… but yeah, me likey!

Capejedi: Majima definitely feels like the biggest Yakuza character in terms of just how many matches he has, to the point where I would not be surprised if ends up on the show before Kiryu. This is an idea I’ve liked, though my lack of experience with RWBY has made it one that I feel more just vaguely positive on. It’s the kind of match I’d want more because my friend likes it and I would like to see him happy. I’m also not sure how the debate goes here just because I feel like Roman is a character where half the intrigue is figuring out where exactly he can scale, but it does seem like it’d be pretty close.

Goro Majima Vs Inspector Zenigata (Lupin The 3rd)

Zackplay3rHD: A matchup I’ve long had a fascination for, and to see it only grow in popularity with time fills me with joy. Zenigata vs Majima has so much going for it and extensively covers what both characters have to offer to a point that it has something for everyone, whether it be their eccentric personalities clashing, a natural setup making use of the “cops and robbers” theme, providing a deep dive into their respective backgrounds, professions, and arcs that simultaneously parallel and contrast very well, a godly series combo that hits the right balance between silly and serious, or a fight dynamic that allows both to go all out with what they have to work that’s been acquired over years of stories. More on that note, I LOVE the fight potential, they already mesh very well with their respective styles (Majima’s Mad Dog style that makes use of his dagger and Zenigata’s Judo, Karate, and mixed martial arts that makes use of his jitte), but as the battle ramps up you can throw in things like elemental clash (lightning vs fire) or Zenigata’s giant robot paired up against Majima’s summons introduced in the latest Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii game; speaking of which, the game’s additions to Majima’s arsenal has only made the dynamic even better, with his new Sea Dog style meshing with Zenigata’s past experience with sword wielders, his pirate ship and crew pit up against Zenigata’s police vessel and officers which makes room for an army battle! Of course I would be remiss to talk about this matchup without bringing up the excellent dedication of Nitrox and the commendable work she’s committed to do it justice. It’s truly inspiring and magnetic how much passion she displays for this matchup as well as other things, and there are no words adequate enough to show my appreciation for her and all her efforts and endeavors, and I for one look forward to what she has in store for the future.

Toppat Torchwick: Shoutout to Nitrox for this one!

Capejedi: Now this is a Majima match I know works really well. Lupin the 3rd is a series I’ve always enjoyed looking into, and Zenigata’s funny antics are definitely a highlight for me. And this is a match that kind of writes itself, and could definitely be a lot of fun, especially if it feels more like a constant chase with both doing all sorts of wacky antics to take each other down. I have heard Lupin stats get kind of comically high so I feel like Majima’s a bit screwed, though I do feel Lupin is a big series that hasn’t gotten a fully in depth look through yet, so who knows.

Kaiser: My favorite matchup for both series. Incredible in themes, series pairing and dynamic. My favorite aspect is how similar they are, despite being on opposite sides of the law. Usually Zenigata is paired against other detectives or policemen, and it’s nice to see him get a matchup against a criminal that’s still so thematic, it makes for a great setup. I assume Zenigata wins, but Lupin stats are all over the place nowadays thanks to pachinko (damn you pachinko).

Liquid Snake vs Zeke Yeager (Attack on Titan)

Capejedi: As mentioned, I have made a blog on this match before, and unlike the Yakuza match I previously made a blog on which is at best a guilty pleasure now, I still feel this is really good. The thematics are pretty strong, both series are ones I enjoy a lot, and these two are some of my favorite characters in either. While it does have a notable tech difference, I think Metal Gear and Attack on Titan are series mesh really well in their complex lores. And of course the big thing it has going for it is that I feel this is by far the best Liquid match for playing into an army fight, as FOXHOUND and the Warrior Unit both offer a lot of potential for teamwork and character interaction. I’m fairly certain Liquid still wins here, given even with recent AOT buffs he’s gonna be way faster and that means Mantis is still free to carry. And I just would love to see this happen.

Toppat Torchwick: This is definitely my favorite for Liquid Snake-doing an army battle is very unique for his type of matchups, my sister loves Attack on Titan, and I think there’s a lot to offer in this fight. Having BOTH a kaiju fight with the Metal Gear REX and Beast Titan is insanely fun, and to my knowledge makes the most out of Liquid’s mech. It is very cool!

Kaiser: Robot nukes monkey funny

Zackplay3rHD: Definitely my favorite alternative for both animated series King Kong & Jason is Zeke’s best don’t @ me. Easily the best army fight potential for Liquid, the themes of ancestry and war as well as purpose intertwined with the existence of war is really cool. I honestly would not mind if it became an episode despite my other preferences. AOT’s side of scalers have done a good job at helping in buffing the verse in recent times but I must agree with my colleagues that Liquid should still comfortably take victory. Psycho Mantis just kinda singlehandedly breaks the debate of not just this but all of Liquid’s matchups completely, which is funny considering how much we kinda dunked on him in before the verdicts.

Gray Fox Vs Jack Krauser (Resident Evil)

Zackplay3rHD: It’s no surprise that Metal Gear and Resident Evil is a godly series combo, and I’ll always triumph it as the best for both verses. The two obvious and most prominent picks are Albert Wesker vs Liquid Snake and Chris Redfield vs Solid Snake, but one I feel has gone under the radar and is severely underrated is Gray Fox vs Jack Krauser. While the connections are definitely in need of an update (for the sake of accuracy if nothing else), as someone that knows both characters, I can see the vision. I love their parallels as mercenaries who were former US special forces that were allies with the protagonist who they’d fight alongside with only for their ambitions and philosophies stemming from how they viewed their place in the world as soldiers impact their decision to turn against that which they used to stand for (with said protagonists serving as physical representations of those former beliefs and in turn, a foil). On top of these parallels there is also contrast in how after both were severely injured in combat, they would essentially get an opportunity to claim more power than ever before to test their might against those they believed their enemy; with the difference being that while Gray Fox was forced into becoming a Cyborg, Krauser was infected with the Dominant Plaga by his own free will, illuminating the light that starts the separation of both their ideologies with Gray Fox’s path leading him to seek redemption with the hero while Krauser’s lust for power keeps him at odds against the hero. That being said I still think the best way to portray this fight is while Gray Fox is still the antagonist and determined to fight Snake in a fight to the death, it meshes well with Krauser’s desire to fight Leon and prove his worth as a powerful soldier once and for all that leads to a more natural setup and I think would lead to both seeing each other as kindred spirits. Fight Dynamic is very straight forward, they both have blades that can mesh with each other (Gray Fox the HF Blade and Krauser dawning an arm shield and sword), and I like the contrast in that Krauser’s proficiency with traps and ambushes alongside a versatile amount of weapons hold at bay the unstoppable force nature that Gray Fox is portrayed as with him surviving the encounters again and again leading up to a bloody climax where both while worn down can have a good old fashioned masterfully skilled fight to the death. Unfortunately I can’t delve much into the debate since the Wesker vs Homelander blog that I’m part of that will extensively cover Resident Evil as a whole is still in the works, so stay tuned for that!

King Bradley (Fullmetal Alchemist) VS Solidus Snake

Toppat Torchwick: I WAS MADE FOR THIS WAAAARRRR!! Yeah, this is a CLASSIC match, and one of few mus I have never seen anyone outright dislike at all. It’s pretty thematic with two eye-patch wearing duo swordsmen who held high power in their countries (Bradley being the Fuhrer and Solidus being President), but contrast in that Bradley continued to serve his purpose while Solidus rebelled against his superiors and determined to make their mark in history. Lots of fun potential with their swords clashing, banter with both hating each other a ton, and Bradley’s Ultimate Eye trying to deal with the Exo Suit. Only downside is its debatability, since Solidus imo takes basically every other advantage besides power which can be overrided with the High Frequency Blades-Solidus’s main weapons. With Metal Gear speed saying, ahem, Solid, Bradley has no hope to catch Solidus in time before being cut down. Either way, it’s a very, VERY fun match, and I wish that DB cast didn’t bomb. Oh well!

Capejedi: This definitely feels like the most popular Metal Gear match for someone that’s not in Revengeance at the moment, which is kind of crazy given it feels like Solidus isn’t too well known outside of fans of the series. But it does sound sick, and I would be interested in hopefully getting a FMA episode that’s not godawful.

Zackplay3rHD: Pretty awesome matchup and I’m glad it’s as well-renowned despite the fact that you wouldn’t expect Solidus to be so recognizable. Thank god though because he is cool as fuck and so is this matchup, the sword fight dynamic is epic, their ideologies would have them at odds that can be built up naturally and seep into the banter, etc. I agree with Toppat that Solidus should safely take the W.

Snake Eyes (G.I. Joe vs Gray Fox)

Kaiser: Unsurprisingly, G.I. Joe vs Metal Gear is a nice series pairing. The serious political thriller aspect of Metal Gear and the commentary on the nature of war and its effects on people is there on the more grounded versions of G.I. Joe, and the silly campiness is also to be found in versions such as the original cartoon. This brings us to these two, in a  matchup that’s surprisingly old (you could find discussions dating back to 2008!). It’s not particularly deep, but I think the themes do their job well. Both are futuristic ninjas that worked for military government organizations and suffered severe injuries that changed their lives. Both were orphans trained to become warriors since their childhoods and lost their adoptive father figures (or at least Gray Fox thought he did). Both are named after animals and have rivalries with other high ranking orphan super soldiers.  Like I said, pretty simple, but it works, and more importantly, it looks super cool. I like how it can be a fast paced sword fight with a lot of cool acrobatics and using both’s stealth. Gray Fox would naturally be the heel and his masochist cries contrast nicely with Snake Eyes’ silence, which brings an obvious comparison to his own rival white ninja. Also Gray Fox fighting someone named Snake is just very ironic and fitting. I have no idea who wins, as research on G.I. Joe is pretty much non-existent and I don’t really buy them scaling to Cybertronians. Who knows? Maybe I’ll do a blog on this in the future, pretty cool match.

Next Time


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  1. MacedaaceNovember 2, 2025 at 8:37 AM

    This was a really good blog. I was a little sad it wasn't Darkwing Gadget, but you more than make up with it for next time. Speaking of which, is Darkwing vs. Gadget still happening or has it been delayed again?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CapejediNovember 2, 2025 at 9:09 AM

      It's a bonus blog which should hopefully come out later this November

      Delete
    2. MacedaaceNovember 2, 2025 at 9:15 AM

      Thank goodness. I was worried. Keep up the amazing work, for that and Sparrow vs. Threepwood. You're one of my favorite blog makers, and both of those are two of my all time favorite Matchups. If anyone could do them justice, it's you.

      Delete

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