I take issue with two pieces of faulty reasoning I see here. One is, "no that was part one"/"the power scaling was different" etc. There is no evidence to support a different "power scale," and the idea is inherently meaningless. Characters are as powerful as they are shown to be, whichever part they are in. The other is, A>B>C>D. That isn't realistic - any matchup is more complex than that. Tsunade can beat Orochimaru who can beat Jiraiya who can beat Tsunade. Hiruzen (imho) can beat Hashirama who can beat EMS Madara who can beat Hiruzen. Hiruzen would have a much better matchup against Hashirama than Minato, but it wasn't for nothing that Minato took over the Hokage seat during Hiruzen's lifetime.