Solid Snake vs Cyborg Raiden

Could Raiden have beaten Psycho Mantis? No, he'd have his mind invaded, couldn't tell reality from illusion, and would be rendered curled up on the floor, sobbing in the fetal position pretty quick. Would Raiden be able to destroy Metal Gear REX? Not when Liquid is piloting it, the Metal Gear series makes it abundantly clear that nothing surpasses a Metal Gear with genuine piloting skill, EXCEPT Solid Snake. Raiden has never proven he can stand up to a skillfully piloted Metal Gear. Does anybody seriously believe Raiden could take on Vamp? Because you SHOULDN'T, when the game itself clearly showed Raiden having an excruciating time keeping up with Vamp, and eventually being defeated by a beaten and depowered Vamp fair and square before resorting to trickery to take the advantage. Who was it that beat and depowered Vamp before that? Solid Snake.

Raiden.

By feats Raiden, by plot Snake.

@marshall_long: I think you are using the term 'feats' inappropriately. You mean by STATS Raiden, not by feats. By feats Snake has defeated enemies and faced odds like nothing Raiden has encountered.

@nickzambuto: Yeah your right my mistake, I was trying to say Raiden does have the superior stats, but if Kojima wrote the fight, Raiden would be put down in a close fight.

Snake.

To be fair, all of the examples your using of Snake, Raiden has done as well, albeit it was VR. I don't think we can assume Raiden can't replicate Snake's feats, when he's the only non-Big Boss clone to reach the code name of Snake ever, and has successfully completed every single Solid Snake mission through VR, including beating Psycho Mantis, Gray Fox, and Rex being piloted by Liquid.

That was the whole story of MGS2, showing that given the right scenario, a Snake can be created without being a clone, which led to the huge increase in soldier's capabilities in MGS4 due to the data they received from Raiden's experiences in MGS2, and his confirming that he IS a Snake level soldier. This data was used to create the nanomachines kicking every soldier into near super-soldier status without really doing anything to earn it. That's why soldiers like Meryl became complete bada$$es when years before they were barely even competent in a battle.

Even the biggest genius in the entire MGS universe agreed that Raiden was a Snake level soldier, and he orchestrated the entire Big Shell incident just to confirm it was true. He lays it all out here.

"The S3 plan was conceived to create soldiers on par with Solid Snake."

I don't think any of us can disagree with Ocelot. He's by far the most intelligent character in the MGS universe, and one of the top in fiction in general. I feel like we should take his words as truth.

While I'm not trying to say human Raiden beats Snake, because I do think Snake would win, but it would be quite possibly his toughest battle of all of Snake's battles before, and I think there is enough of an argument to say Raiden can take a few wins even.

Raiden lacks the shear super human physicals of Snake, but it's pretty much confirmed that Raiden is on par with skill, tactics, and basically everything besides physical abilities when comparing the two as soldiers. There is also not a single other person in the MGS universe that knows how Snake works as well as Raiden. Raiden had to do everything Snake did in VR. While VR is just VR, Raiden also has loads of field experience to back this up as well, as he is described as quite possibly having more field experience then possibly any other character in the MGS Universe from his child soldier days, then non-stop killing throughout his whole life, and then VR training where he replicated Solid Snake's feats in his toughest missions.

I believe there is a reason we never got a Snake vs Raiden fight, because I don't think Hideo knows who would win. Hideo flat out wrote Raiden as a Snake copy, that also is a super skilled violent ninja. We even got a Raiden vs Snake fight, when Raiden beat Solidus. Solidus was even wearing cyborg ninja armor, that enhanced his physicals to ridiculous levels, that let him dodge bullets from marksman as incredible as Snake. Even when Snake beat his Snake counterparts in Liquid, Big Boss, and to a lesser extent, Ocelot, he was either on par in physicals, or the superior in physicals. To be honest, I think Raiden's defeat of Solidus was the most impressive defeat of a Snake level soldier in the entire series.

Solid Snake's defeat of Big Boss was the culmination of overcoming the Master, and becoming the new legend. Big Boss taught Snake nearly everything he knew, and Snake was a literal clone of the man, with enhanced physicals to boot that put him as a superior to Big Boss. From my playthrough of MGSV so far, there is nothing to suggest that Big Boss of the time of his battle with Snake would put him anywhere near Snake's level of physicals compared to Snake in his prime. Snake is simply superior to Big Boss when it comes to every physical aspect IMO.

Raiden was also taught nearly everything he knew by Solidus, and when Raiden beat him, he not only had to overcome the man who taught him to be the ninja soldier he was, but he had to beat the man who taught him everything he knows, while he's wearing a suit that enhances his physicals by huge amounts. Solidus was Raiden's Big Boss moment, but amped by a cyborg ninja suit. Raiden stepped into a whole new light at that moment, he was no longer under the shadow of a superior. He became the single greatest ninja soldier on the planet, by defeating the only one who could rival him, just like Snake did with Big Boss, when he became the single greatest stealth infiltration soldier on the planet by defeating the only one who could rival him. Both Snake and Raiden in their primes (as human not cyborg) are both very different, but I don't think either is necessarily superior given the lore of MGS.

I think we put Snake and Big Boss on a pedestal in MGS, and believe that no other character can touch what they do (and rightly so normally), but the entire storyline of MGS2 was to prove that an individual pushed to unheard of limits like Raiden was, can be pushed into the Snake level soldier, even without being genetically designed for it. The proof is in the pudding, he straight up beat a Snake character at his own game when he beat Solidus, solidifying him as a Snake level soldier.

It's too bad that there was so much dialogue necessary in MGS2 that we don't get a ton of awesome action cinematics to cement this, but I believe the dialogue and story of MGS2 is proof enough that Raiden became a Snake level character. The entire theme of MGS2 was this very concept, and Ocelot confirms it for us in the end.

No matter how cyborg or ridiculous Raiden gets, Snake will always be his superior.

Mismatch

@tparks: I think you might be misinterpreting the themes of MGS2, because from my perspective the game was saying the exact opposite of what you're saying. That Raiden's VR training literally amounted to nothing because culturally remembered solutions are futile to formally similar problems. Snake himself stated that the VR Missions Raiden went through were likely nothing even close to the real thing, and this rings true in the narrative, Raiden was almost completely inept for most of the game and routinely embarrassed by Solid Snake and other characters, because he was trying to emulate Solid Snake and failed. Only when Raiden adopted his own identity towards the end of the game, with the child soldier backstory and using a sword as a weapon, two traits completely unique from Solid Snake, did he start to become competent. But regardless, both in canon and thematically, the VR simulations that Raiden went through did not accurately represent the missions they were based on. If they did, Raiden wouldn't have been whining and half losing his mind over the insane crap happening at Big Shell.

That was the whole story of MGS2, showing that given the right scenario, a Snake can be created without being a clone, which led to the huge increase in soldier's capabilities in MGS4 due to the data they received from Raiden's experiences in MGS2, and his confirming that he IS a Snake level soldier. This data was used to create the nanomachines kicking every soldier into near super-soldier status without really doing anything to earn it. That's why soldiers like Meryl became complete bada$$es when years before they were barely even competent in a battle.

This right here is the complete OPPOSITE of what the game's theme was trying to say. Raiden only became a Snake-level soldier AFTER he stopped trying to emulate Solid Snake, and I still wouldn't say he was exactly Snake level. Not until Revengeance at least, where Raiden's character begins to parallel Big Boss on a thematic level. In MGS2, the whole idea was that memes are just as inconsequential as genes, and if you try to abide by them and follow them, you'll just be a pale imitation, like Raiden was to Snake. And although beating Solidus is an exceptional showing from Raiden, Solidus lacked all of Big Boss's training and experience. Remember, despite his accelerated aging, Solidus was even younger than Snake, and he spent a good amount of his life as a politician for the Patriots instead of out on the battlefield. MGS1 showed us that genes mean virtually nothing, it's about the individual and their experience, so that means Solidus being the perfect clone of Big Boss has no barring on his abilities at all. He might as well just not be a clone, and Raiden defeating him would not be any more or less impressive. So we have to think of his skills as an individual, coupled with his exoskeleton's power -- in both of those areas, Frank Jaeger absolutely outstrips Solidus by a mile, and Snake beat him. Snake >>> Raiden.

@nickzambuto:

Raiden was almost completely inept for most of the game and routinely embarrassed by Solid Snake and other characters, because he was trying to emulate Solid Snake and failed. Only when Raiden adopted his own identity towards the end of the game, with the child soldier backstory and using a sword as a weapon, two traits completely unique from Solid Snake, did he start to become competent. But regardless, both in canon and thematically, the VR simulations that Raiden went through did not accurately represent the missions they were based on. If they did, Raiden wouldn't have been whining and half losing his mind over the insane crap happening at Big Shell.

This really is not quite true. A lot of people seem to have this misconception, as it was led to believe that Raiden was an inexperienced rookie. It wasn't until it was revealed that he has a boatload of experience, that what he was doing made sense, and Snake acknowledged him as an equal.

I mean, just look at the ridiculous level of feats he pulled off in MGS2 even before getting his hands on the HF Sword.

He took on Fortune, and pulled off an impossible shot using her own power against her to take out Vamp. Not even Snake was able to figure out a way to pull off a victory against Fortune.

He took out Fatman, who is sometimes considered a joke of the series because of how obscure of a character he was, but it does not make the feat any less impressive. The guy was completely bulletproof other then a very small target. He was moving very erratically with his skates, and to top it off, Raiden had to disable several explosives while fighting at the same time. This feat really is pretty ridiculous, although people pass it off as not that big of a deal for some reason. Disarming bombs, avoiding automatic gunfire, and taking out a nearly completely bulletproof enemy moving at speeds above a peak human is top tier.

He sniped an entire platoon of soldiers, cyphers, and C4 Explosives from across a long distance between sections of Big Shell, all while keeping Emma from ever getting touched while she moved slowly across a pontoon rail. To top it off, he lands a head shot on Vamp while he takes Emma hostage in this same scene. Snake was even in position to snipe at this point, but Raiden was the one to pull the trigger and land the headshot before Snake even managed to get a shot off.

He took on a Harrier Jet being piloted by Solidus. Solidus had enough skill to force Snake to flee the battle in his helicopter, so it was up to Raiden to bring him down. Raiden had to dodge barrages of missiles, and bring the Harrier down with his own stinger missiles.

He beat Vamp in one on one combat. We all make a big deal about how crazy Vamp is as a street leveler, but Raiden beat him in one on one combat without any sort of plot weapons or plot devices involved in the victory. It was a straight up win, in a location of Vamp's choosing, that benefited his abilities. He had multiple platforms to blur between, and he used his "float on water" ability to travel across the majority of the location that was water made impossible to swim in. Raiden had severely limited mobility, where Vamp was completely in his element and able to blur from floor to ceiling and across the pool of unswimmable water with ease, yet Raiden somehow beat him.

Besides Raiden being called a rookie, which ended up being completely false anyways, he never really had a feat that was not flawless, or at least nearly flawless. A lot of people forget that about him and his game, because admittedly, his game is the most forgettable of the series. That doesn't leave what Raiden accomplished any lesser though. He really never had a single bad feat, or anywhere near bad. The feats we get from him are all incredible, even by standards set by Solid Snake.

Even Ocelot thinks Raiden is on par with Snake, so I tend to agree with him. Raiden may not have the superhuman physicals Snake has, but he has the ability to complete missions that were otherwise reserved for Solid Snake.

Frank Jaeger absolutely outstrips Solidus by a mile, and Snake beat him. Snake >>> Raiden.

I also disagree that Frank Jaeger outclasses Solidus by the margin you claim, besides in physicals. Compare their feats.

Frank Jaeger has lost to Gene, Big Boss, Snake, and was cut down by Liquid piloting Rex. I'm not trying to bring him down, because he's one of my favorite characters, but to be fair, his track record in fights with named characters is pretty poor.

Solidus on the other hand, was capable of dodging and deflecting Snake, and forcing Snake to flee the battle. The only reason he was eventually brought down was because of Raiden.

He completely speed blitzed Olga, who was a decent match up for Snake on the Tanker, and showed her own impressive displays of speed and reaction times.

He manhandled Reys with ease, and disabled them nearly instantly.

He deflected a barrage of gunfire from a Rey being piloted by Ocelot with ease.

His only feats that do not show him as a complete powerhouse, are the ones where he faces Raiden.

Pre-Cyborg Raiden has a bad rep on this site. It's similar to the rep Snake had before you changed it. I'd like to see Pre-Cyborg Raiden to start being seen in a better light as well. I see him compared to lesser street level characters and could never take on the serious threats Snake does, but there are only a small number of street levelers that could replicate what he did in MGS2. Snake is certainly one of them, but that's good company to be kept in.

@tparks: Wow, you've convinced me lol. Alright maybe Raiden is a bit more competent than I've given him credit for.

As much as I hate to say it, Raiden stomps.

This solely depends on if Snake is able to use stealth in this battle. Because Raiden can get shot in the head due to it having a clear hole in the front.

If stealth: Snake.

If not: Raiden.

@nickzambuto: lol. You're a good convert to have on this site for a MGS character.

The only problem he has, is that he never had a chance to fight another highly technically skilled character. Big Boss beat The Boss. Snake beat human Jaeger, Big Boss, Liquid, and Ocelot in CQC.

There wasn't really a highly skilled CQC character in MGS2. Beating Vamp one on one makes me believe he is skilled at CQC somewhat, but until he gets his sword, close quarters is never featured much in MGS2 like it has been for Snake and Big Boss. It's probably because this was the first MGS to allow first person view, so they made guns more of a priority.

Raiden beat Vamp and Solidus, who are skilled in their own methods, but not quite the same as the CQC knowledgeable characters Big Boss and Snake have beaten.

@tparks: Jack proved against Armstrong that he did adopt Snake's CQC techniques, which for a quick little scene I thought was genius fan service. You're thinking Raiden's sword is gone, there's no way he can fight now, bam he reverts to CQC. It was awesome, although it wasn't necessary. I don't see why Raiden NEEDS to be a CQC expert if he's a swordsman. That's his skill right there, and he proved the extent of it against Vamp, Sam, and Armstrong.

I think Solid Snake will win because he got a whole Dimension up his ass from where he can pull out stinger missles, shotguns, machine and handguns, grenades, mines, and billion nother thinks...

And if Raiden comes with his speed toward snake, snake just has to point his butt to Raiden so his big ass Dimension can absorb Raiden, trapping him there FOREVER.

Well, worth it...

@pokergeist: Raiden said that Snake was the greatest fighter he've ever met, and he taught Raiden CQC

seriously?

you guys trying to compare solid snake who is a clone to the ALPHA MAN "big boss" himself to a kiddy who is just a wannabe ballet dancer and a weakling who doesnt even look like a soldier and is a weakling compared to gray fox.

even gray fox is miles better than raiden.

and face it or not solid snake is the clone of the ALPHA MAN.

so yeah even old snake or rookie solid snake can take down and kill raiden and . normal raiden and skake will make mince meat of him. cyborg raiden and snake will use emp and trash and junk him.

snake finds a way

@vickysaiyajin: Snake is the alpha man in this equation. Big Boss is beta b!tch.

Despite MGR ruined his character so much Raiden is still a tough fighter and gonna be the real challenge for any other fighter from Metal Gear series, but there`s also big difference between when you might put up a good fight against anyone else and when you`re sighnificantly stronger than anyone - Raiden might put up a good fight against Solid Snake but he`s still far away behind of Big Boss / Solid Snake league.

@nickzambuto: big boss is always the alpha man. solid snake comes next.

This is MGS 4 Raiden and Prime Solid Snake.

He takes it due to CQC which Raiden confirmed himself to even suck at.

Raiden doesnt even use CQC. He used judo in MGS2 and has his completely own fighting style in MGS4...

GOP Raiden would beat even prime SS due to superior strength and agility.

Only Comic/Novel Solid snake i can see beating MGS4 Raiden because that snake Two shotted solidus casually.

I haven't logged on in forever but this one caught my eye again during my break, and I wanted to leave a more updated comment. After digging more and more into MGS over such a long time, I think that this is the only fight that Hideo Kojima would never have happen, because it's the only one where he wouldn't want either character to lose, and couldn't decide who would win or lose. Hideo did not intend for Raiden to be second-class Snake in MGS2, but people hated him so much that he needed to become a Cyborg for people to finally like one of Hideo's babies. That's one of the biggest reasons Raiden gets no respect pre-cyborg, and why he gets wanked as a cyborg, even by myself at times in the past.

I think an in-game battle against Raiden would be one of Snake's toughest, with him winning due to tactics and stealth, which Raiden forgoes a lot of as a Cyborg. He just doesn't fit the mold of someone who Snake can't beat, as Raiden's just not as smart as a cyborg.

I mean, he had an epic fight with Vamp in MGS4, which is dumb, because Raiden had no problem being a pain in the a$$ for Vamp in MGS2 when he had no enhancements, and only street level weapnry, not even a blade on him. Raiden beat Vamp in a location that heavily favored Vamp, and was of Vamp's choosing that he prepared for, yet still human Raiden won with his tactics.

What I'm trying to say is, I think human Raiden with his sword at the end of MGS2 vs Snake would be a better fight then cyborg Raiden vs Snake. He understood tactics, and knew Snake better then any other character ever, as he completed every one of Snake's previous missions via VR, being the only soldier to ever obtain that feat, and the code name of Snake before it was changed to Raiden. He probably knew Snake more then Big Boss knew Snake, and TBH, I'm more impressed with human Raiden's accomplishments then Big Boss's. I think human Raiden would be one of Nsake's biggest challenges.

Snake would still beat human Raiden 9/10, because he's still friggin' Snake, but I think that would be the better fight IMHO.

Raiden slaughters Snake

Solid snake has beaten worse opponents so he has a chance against jobbing raiden in mgs4

But he has no chance against MGR Raiden