The Bosses

[turbojet]

When playing Sonic Unleashed, I have to say that these bosses(Daytime Sonic) were some of the best in the series. Sure, we all get caught up in the levels for Sonic and not give a damn about the bosses. So what would you expect out of bosses in the series?

[Diogenes]

I've never had much interest in the bosses in the series. Even the ones I'd generally rate as "good" aren't all that much fun when you get right down to it.

The Rushes actually hold some of the few exceptions to that. While they have a few pretty terrible ones, the ones that are good, are really good. They're really the only games in the series where I'll intentionally replay the boss battles.

[Silencer226]

I really don't like the bosses in the games, I think they're boring. But I expect something that presents an actual challenge yet not be really boring *cough*Dark Gaia vs Golem*cough*.

[EXshad]

I love a lot of the bosses in the series. From the classic games, to the current ones, I've enjoyed almost all the bosses. Whether it be seeing what Dr. Eggman has cooked up this time, or just marveling at the sheer scale of things, or whether it be running non-stop after a giant robot, the bosses have almost always been constantly fantastic, at least IMO.

Basically, I expect the bosses to be balanced. Sure, I think it's fun to fight giant mechs piloted by Dr. Eggman, or giant evil monster things, but I also like cool character battles, a la Sonic Rush, Sonic and Knuckles, or Sonic Adventure 2. Seeing 2 super-powered furballs go at it with techno rock in the background just works for me in this series

Edited April 5, 2009 by EXshad

[SuperStingray]

The bosses are one of the things I love so much about the series. I love anticipating what the next boss is going to be like and since it's generally a random robot, you can rarely foresee what the battle will be like.

And I have to agree that the Unleashed day bosses were some of the best the series has to offer; the Egg Lancer is probably my favorite in any Sonic title. The Egg Beetle was very easy, but I just love repeatedly ramming it while it spins helplessly.

The only Sonic games where I really thought the bosses sucked were Sonic Adventure and Sonic Advance 3. As far as I'm concerned, the only bosses in Sonic Adventure that seemed good to me were the E-series robots. Primarily the last battle with Beta. And in Sonic Advance 3, I was just bored with every boss before the Act 7 boss (which is incidentally one of my favorites. Go figure.) And the Ice Tunnel boss was just cheap.

But beyond that, I don't think there's any boss I didn't like in the 2D games. And I love most of them in the 3D games, so yeah.

[Blacklightning]

The main thing I have against Sonic boss battles is that most of them are ridiculously predictable whenever they're not sheer trial and error. It's bad enough that most of them have less than a half-dozen possibilities of attack, but almost all of them you can see coming well in advance. I'm also getting really tired of the trend of making gigantic bosses all the time when we could easily have something smaller for a change of pace, and preferably much faster. I mean, this is the kind of crap I expect out of a Zelda game, not a Sonic one.

As much as I enjoyed Unleashed in particular, its bosses were an absolute joke. Most of the daytime ones consisted of nothing more than boosting up to a boss's face until it lowered its guard for an attack, than gluing the button down and juggling the bastard at high speed until he started glowing. And assuming you're stupid enough not to think of that, they take AGES to kill, so either way they're all ass. The nighttime ones aren't much better - you can't even hit the bastard most of the time, and even when you can, you only get about three hits in before some arbitary event stops you from laying further smackdown (the QTE in Dark Gaia Pheonix's case). Egg Dragoon follows much the same pattern, though comes off much more fun and climactic in a way I've yet to actually discern. Maybe it's the illusion of adrenaline caused by the fact the platform you're on is falling into a hole that leads to the fucking centre of the earth.

Even the Genesis bosses aren't anything special, save for being genuinely wacky and eccentric like I'd expect out of the ol' doc. Most of them consist simply of bouncing into Eggy repeatedly until he dies - there's almost no strategy involved whatsoever. The ones that do have it are, yet again, trial and error (bonus points to the Sonic 2 final boss here - at least Silver Sonic actually made it clear and obvious when you could actually hit him without dying), and I've even seen some that take up to the full 10 minute time limit to kill. And I might actually tolerate a boss that long if it didn't consist of the same pattern of wait-attack-wait-attack the whole time.

I guess the moral here is we don't know what a Sonic boss should be like - quite frankly we don't even give a rat's ass, it's the levels themselves we play Sonic games for, right? If they manage to make them not boring, predictable or trial-and-error though, I'll be happy either way.

[Flame Lance]

Personally, I didn't care for the Unleashed day bosses. I like the bosses battles better when you can actually do more than run and avoid attacks forward. The day bosses in Unleashed are all nearly the same thing, too. I loved the night bosses though.

The oldschool Sonic games had some great bosses, and the same goes for the Rush series and what I've played of the Advance series. 2D Sonic games usually have some wonderful boss fights. I'll replay the Sonic Rush bosses anytime just for fun. 3D Sonic games have some good some bad. I wholeheartedly detest nearly every single boss in Sonic Heroes. Sonic 06's were quite mediocre as well. The Adventure series bosses were decent.

@ Diogenes: If you don't mind my asking, what were the bosses in the Rush series that you didn't like? I'm curious, as there's a small handful of them that I disliked as well.

[JezMM]

I mean, this is the kind of crap I expect out of a Zelda game, not a Sonic one.

As much as I enjoyed Unleashed in particular, its bosses were an absolute joke. Most of the daytime ones consisted of nothing more than boosting up to a boss's face until it lowered its guard for an attack, than gluing the button down and juggling the bastard at high speed until he started glowing. And assuming you're stupid enough not to think of that, they take AGES to kill, so either way they're all ass. The nighttime ones aren't much better - you can't even hit the bastard most of the time, and even when you can, you only get about three hits in before some arbitary event stops you from laying further smackdown (the QTE in Dark Gaia Pheonix's case). Egg Dragoon follows much the same pattern, though comes off much more fun and climactic in a way I've yet to actually discern. Maybe it's the illusion of adrenaline caused by the fact the platform you're on is falling into a hole that leads to the fucking centre of the earth.

Zelda games have awesome bosses. O.o

As for your Unleashed criticism... as you said, before you work out you can boost into them, of course they'll take a while. Did you really work out you could boost juggle first time? I didn't so I guess I had a more fun experience when it came to S ranking and getting the satisfaction of beating the bosses in under a minute. Besides, Egg Lancer is unjugglable. In fact boosting into him only speeds up the battle by one lap's worth of the arena, and is pretty tough to do too.

As for the Werehog ones... they're bad because you have to wait until you've stunned them to hit them? Isn't that the whole point of the type of boss they went for? Otherwise they'd just be no different from regular enemies but with more attacks and a bigger health bar. Boring.

Oh well, to each their own.

On the whole Sonic games tend to have awesome, inventive bosses I find, and I really enjoy them. Heroes and ShTH were a bit lame though. Rush Adventure and Adventure 2 had some of the best bosses I think (though in the latter's case I refer to the major boss battles, not the hero vs dark encounters). Big Swell and Biolizard remain my favourite bosses in 2D/3D respectively to this day.

[Rusty Spy]

Peobably some of my favorite bosses come from Black Knight and Heroes.

One thing I hate about bosses is when they're short or when they are so ridiculously easy. I want a boss that actually takes some time to take down and can actually give you a hard time.

[Blacklightning]

Zelda games have awesome bosses. O.o

I didn't deny that. It's just plain unsuited to a Sonic game for the most part, seeing as the trial and error approach has been a big part of Zelda puzzles and bosses practically since the start. Sonic on the other hand always tended to have a bit of variation, even if some of the bosses can still be beaten in the same way.

As for your Unleashed criticism... as you said, before you work out you can boost into them, of course they'll take a while. Did you really work out you could boost juggle first time? I didn't so I guess I had a more fun experience when it came to S ranking and getting the satisfaction of beating the bosses in under a minute. Besides, Egg Lancer is unjugglable. In fact boosting into him only speeds up the battle by one lap's worth of the arena, and is pretty tough to do too.

Therefore making the only way to defeat it slow, repetitive and time-consuming as shit. Not exactly what I'd call a fabulous boss battle. Conversely, turning the other bosses into an X-button hold-a-thon made it too damn easy AND repetitive. Not to mention hearing Eggman saying the same thing over and over gets really annoying, but I can't blame Unleashed for that since he's been doing that since SA1.

As for the Werehog ones... they're bad because you have to wait until you've stunned them to hit them?

No, because they never actually give you a chance to kick its ass personally, defeating the whole point of making them fightable in the first place. The "stunning" part is completely besides the point - either way, when I DO get a chance to attack, I shouldn't have a QTE interrupt me EVERY SINGLE TIME when I could easily be doing this kind of stuff ingame. And let's not even get started with Dark Guardian. One must wonder whether it can even be considered a boss fight when there's almost no actual fighting involved.

Dark Mooray has slipped my mind at the moment so I can't really comment on it, but I'm sure there was something about it I couldn't tolerate.

Big Swell

This I can agree on though. =3

[Djawed]

The first boss in unleashed surprised me and i liked it. But didn't expect every boss to be almost the same,, very dissapointing and the fact that the bosses were divided in 2(werehog and sonic) having even less daytime bosses

sucks ass

[Meow]

I liked the Werehog bosses moreso in Unleashed than the normal daytime ones. The Sonic Advance 2 -ish boss system just didn't really do it for me.

I much preferred being able to roam around in a circular arena (though I think one of them was square xD) and actually FIGHT the boss rather than just boost into it. However, the bosses were okay for what they were, the Adabat boss was still fun.

Egg Dragoon though was one of the most epic bossfights in a Sonic game...ever 8D

[JezMM]

Long post removed here to save space

Okay, the QTE was a bit annoying on the phoenix but I considered that it's gimmick really... well, I guess Egg Dragoon had it too... oh well.

As for Egg Lancer, I still don't understand the criticism really. Three laps and it changes its attacks on each one. Five minutes to beat doesn't seem too long to me... With regards to the first two bosses, I work on a basis of "Nothing forces you to use boost" with Unleashed gameplay. If I want a long boss battle I enjoy restraining my boost and just using homing attacks and I have a more fun, varied, challenging experience. Or I can just run in there and blast the crap out of him with boost for funsies. =D

[Phos]

The Egg Devil Ray would have been an awesome boss if not for the boost. He threw tons of crap at you that you would need to actually avoid, rather than just boosting past it all at once when there's an opening.

Doomsday Zone is an obvious pick.

Another favorite of mine is the Mecha Sonic fight in Sky Sanctuary. While you don't have equel abilities, it feels like a "worthy opponent" battle.

One that really sticks out in my mind is the Secret Plant Zone boss from Sonic Pocket Adventure. He has a pair of platforms on either side of him, they both have spikes on the bottom. To hit Eggman, you have to jump on either none of the platforms, but doing so causes them to rotate around Eggman from Sonic's weight. It sounds simple, but it's intense in action.

The Act 1 Death Egg Zone boss would have been awesome if it skipped right to shooping art you, rather than making you fight it's irritating first half.

I'm probably in the minority, but I really like the Death Egg Act 2 boss, I know it takes a while to swap gravity, but if you miss with the little spikes guys, you can spin dash into them to throw them back at Eggman.

Not content with a great BGM, Star Light Zone has a pretty fun boss. You have so many options as to how you can hit him, you can stand on the see saw while he's dropping the bomb, throw the bombs at him using the See Saws, or use the bomb and see saw to launch yourself at him. It's a great fight.

Special Mention about Quartz Quadrant for having a boss that takes advantage of Sonic's speed to beat it. I know a lot of people seem to like the Metal Sonic race in Stardust Speedway, but it's honestly just an irritatingly laid out stretch of track with a non standard timer. This needs to be revisited in 3D where it can really shine.

Special dishonor for all of Sonic Adventure 2's bosses, there are probably eight unique bosses in that game and none of them are any fun.

JezMM: The problem with the Egg Lancer talking 5 minutes is that you spend so much of it doing nothing but waiting for the thing to give you a chance to hit it.

Edited April 6, 2009 by Phos

[Mollfie]

I don't really find the bosses all that memorable. I like one boss alot

dark pheonix

but the rest of the night time bosses seemed to be a little pointless and to just appear because...there had to be a boss. The day time ones make sense because it's Eggman being Eggman though, but they seem very samey. However that sort of makes sense as Eggman upgrades each time.

In other games I don't really care about the bosses. I'm not going to replay the bosses, I'm going to replay the levels.

Edited April 6, 2009 by Mollfie

[JezMM]

JezMM: The problem with the Egg Lancer talking 5 minutes is that you spend so much of it doing nothing but waiting for the thing to give you a chance to hit it.

20 seconds of dodging + chance to hit per attack + major damage at the end of each lap seems fair to me. It's not like you're just running along doing nothing, lol.

The only bit of Egg Lancer that kinda annoyed me was possible death-by-QTE on the jump pads causing you to start again. Strange how I find the last boss QTEs perfectly satisfying yet not on Egg Lancer mind you... Probably because on Dark Gaia I feel like the QTE command is making me hit his arm, whereas on Egg Lancer it makes me feel like I'm just jumping off the pad and the automated event gets the glory of scoring the hit... but then the boost hits make up for that.

Ramble ramble badly structured post etc but hopefully my point comes across, lol. Just focus on my first mini-paragraph there.

[Diogenes]

@ Diogenes: If you don't mind my asking, what were the bosses in the Rush series that you didn't like? I'm curious, as there's a small handful of them that I disliked as well.

Let's see...the second fight with the snake-like robot in Rush, because the window where you can hit it is so short and it tends to waste a lot of time between chances, plus it's got an instant kill attack...the bird robot and the Sonic/Blaze fight would be alright if not for the button mashing, but with it they're really annoying...I don't like the T-Rex in SRA, but that might be more because most of the other bosses far outclass him...I don't like the big ghost pirate boss either, because the strategy seems to be mostly just forcing your way past his attacks, likely taking a hit just for the temporary invincibility.

As for what I do like, the scarab boss in Rush is great, and the carnival zone boss is pretty good too. In SRA, the pendulum tower, the whale, and...whatever Sky Babylon's boss is supposed to be are all great. Also the final and semifinal bosses in both games are good, the Big Swell boss in particular is one of my favorites. Everything else pretty much falls somewhere in the middle range.

[Thirsty Pocket]

I miss the Egg-o-matic hovercraft and it's many attatchments. I don't think we have seen anything remotely close to that since the first boss in Sonic Adventure, or the walker in Sonic Adventure 2.

[Erazor]

I usually expect some cool moments out of most Sonic bosses. Alot of my favorite bosses in the series come from Secret Rings since they're so fast pace and often require very quick reflexes. It's just a shame that all of the bosses in Black Knight were so awful.

[Unknownlight]

Hmm, I don't really care for most of the bosses in the Sonic series, but there are still a few I like. I liked the Egg Wizard from SRA, and the Egg Dragoon (for some reason) from Unleashed. Though, I have to say my favourite Sonic boss by far was Lancelot Returns from Black Knight. I really wish Sega would do more of these one-on-one battles in the series. Black Knight had quite a few but they were all too easy (other than Lancelot Returns of course). SA2 also had the hero vs dark battles, but...something seemed to be missing from them. I'm not sure what, they just weren't very fun to me.

And, for the classic games...well, I didn't really like any from the classics, they were all too repetitive and similar to each other. I think there was one from Sonic 2 that I liked but I can't remember which one it was now...eh, whatever.

EDIT: Oh yes, I forgot about this one; the final unpronounceable boss from Secret Rings was great.

Edited April 6, 2009 by Unknownlight

[ovarloard]

The bosses are better than in any other games, but they're not something I would buy a game for. I really don't care for boss battles aside from the final boss. I'd rather just run through normal levels.

I feel the same way about the battles as I do about the Werehog. It's okay the first time around, but I wouldn't play them again.

Edited April 6, 2009 by OvErLoRd Darkspine

[Semi-colon e]

I think the levels in general are better than bosses. I also don't see why everyone bums the classic and Rush bosses when the former is just hitting them loads of times when you can, and Rush's bosses take fucking ages as you just sit and wait (Sonic/Blaze and the unfinal boss are damn awesome though). Rush Adventure's, however, are epic as they do mix it up a LOT and there's always something to do - long health bars and getting many hits in works a lot for me. They mixed it up with things like the Ghost Whale and Pendulum too.

Egg Viper is also good as it changes it's attack pattern as you hit it, and the suicide attack is just evil. Character battles in SA2 and Heroes can go to hell though, it's just button mashing and hoping you get lucky. I lose count of how many times PER PLAYTHROUGH I die in Green Forest/White Jungle's Sonadow encounter because of fucking terrible camera angles. The Eggman/Tails fights are annoying too, and if you use the drill attacks, Rouge/Knuckles can go down in 16 seconds ._. if not, prepare for frustration as you try and find the damn characters.

Other bosses I do enjoy though are all of the Death Egg act 2 bosses, Biolizard in SA2 (fuck Final Hazard, the lasers made it just nearly luck based as you struggle to not get hit by the bastards, but still it's easier than Biolizard, just not as good), Tidal Tempest (such a good concept), and Starlight.

I just want to see more SRA style bosses, with as much if not more variation. Huge Crisis's boss in Rush was so lazy, and they made it SO MUCH MORE ANNOYING NERDRAGE.

[Serperior]

Mostly I find the bosses really unmemorable simply because they have an extremely repetetive attack pattern and once you've memorised that attack pattern the boss becomes extremely easy. Also I dont like it how sometimes the bosses just leave themselves open for a hit (Although this is a chiche for all games) but it wold still be good for Sega to make it less abvious as to when you have to hit the opponent.

[SuperStingray]

Oh yes, I forgot about this one; the final unpronounceable boss from Secret Rings was great.

Alf layla wa-layla? Yeah, that one was epic.

[The Adventurer]

My favorite bosses were the SA2 bosses. Particularly the Hero vs. Dark fights. It was the way that they were so similar to the player character that made it feel like an even fight, whereas against one of those super-predictable bosses we see most of the time, I feel like I'm beating up a retarded infant. Bigfoot comes to mind, although it gets points because I dig giant robots.

Unleashed bosses? I only got it for the Wii, but my favorite one was Dark Gaurdian, since I didn't have to stun it to attack. I could just get up in there and smash the punk. And it was still reasonably challenging, too. And the Dark Gaia fight was kind of ass, I only replayed it so I could hear the music/watch the transformation again.