Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake topped Japan's sales charts for six months in 1990. It had nowhere else to go.
In 1990, Konami released Snake's Revenge for the NES in North America. It was a sequel to the Famicom's Metal Gear, made without Hideo Kojima, same as before. That same year, in Japan only, Kojima released the real continuation: Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, for the MSX2. It topped MSX Magazine's sales chart that October and held a place in the magazine's top thirty for six straight months. Konami had already ended MSX sales in Europe, and North America never had a real MSX market. A game selling briskly in Japan had nowhere else to go. In 1998, Metal Gear Solid reached players everywhere and changed what a game could be. The first legal way to buy Metal Gear 2 outside Japan did not arrive until 2006, inside Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. Everyone who was astonished in 1998 was eight years late.
About this game
The true 1990 sequel Kojima made himself for the MSX2. A hit in Japan that took sixteen years to reach the rest of the world officially.
Key Features
The direct continuation of the first Metal Gear's design, released in Japan in 1990 and popular enough to top the format's own sales chart, on a machine that was already fading from the market everywhere else.
The Story Behind
Konami released Snake's Revenge for the NES in North America in 1990. It was made without Kojima, and it has no connection to Metal Gear 2 beyond sharing a year and a publisher. One account, reported in a GamersToday interview, describes Kojima meeting a member of the Snake's Revenge staff by chance on a train in Tokyo, who asked him to make a real sequel. We have not read a primary source for that meeting, and we will not dress it up as more certain than it is. What is documented is what followed: Kojima made Metal Gear 2 himself, and it was released in Japan in July 1990. It topped MSX Magazine's sales chart that October and stayed in the top thirty for six months. Konami had already ended MSX sales in Europe, and North America never had a real MSX market, so there was no official release outside Japan. The first legal way to buy it abroad came in 2006, inside Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence.
Tricks & Tales
The name "Solid Snake" was on the box in 1990, four years before Metal Gear Solid carried it to the rest of the world. The game saves to a floppy disk, or to a Game Master II cartridge, which has a battery inside it, and if you have neither it gives you a password instead. And Snake's Revenge, the NES game released the same year, shares nothing with it but the year and the publisher.
Collector's Guide
Region & Compatibility
There was no official release outside Japan until 2006. There is no Western MSX2 cartridge of this game to find, and any listing claiming one deserves a very close look.
Maintenance Tips
As with any MSX2 game, the machine ages faster than the cartridge: leaking capacitors on the video and audio board, and perished floppy-drive belts on later models. If you intend to save to floppy disk, the drive is not an optional part of the plan.
What to Watch Out For
Before buying, these are the points worth knowing — from someone who handles original Japanese Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake copies regularly.
How does this game save?
Not the way the first one did. Metal Gear 2 saves to a floppy disk, or to a Game Master II cartridge, which carries a battery inside it. If you have neither, the game gives you a password to write down. Do not assume the cassette-tape method from the 1987 game carries over. It does not.
Is there a Western cartridge of this?
No. There was no official release outside Japan until 2006, when it appeared inside Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. There is no Western MSX2 cartridge, so if a listing offers one, look very closely at what is actually in the photograph.
Is Snake's Revenge the same game?
No. Snake's Revenge came out on the NES the same year, from the same publisher, and Kojima had nothing to do with it. There is no NES cartridge of the game Kojima made. If a listing pairs "Metal Gear 2" with "NES", that combination does not exist.
Is it expensive?
It was a genuine hit at home. It topped MSX Magazine's sales chart in October 1990 and held a place in the top thirty for six months, on a format that was already dying everywhere else. That popularity is still in the Japanese market today, and the price tends to reflect it. Patience is worth more here than speed.
Unexpected Discoveries
Games you weren't looking for — but might be glad you found.
Rooms this game lives in
Wander deeper — explore the themed rooms where Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake sits alongside its kin.
Memories from around the world
This is a young museum, and this page is still waiting for its first voices. The memories people send reach Taisei personally, and the ones that move him find a home here over time — always with the writer's blessing. Yours could be the very first for this game.
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