One of the parts of Sonic games that most interests me is the boss fights. The Sonic formula, specially 2D, with the rings system doesn't seem too catered for the mechanics of a boss fight and can often have troubles having a challenging boss without outright taking away the rings and making it painfully difficult. Though this also leads to some pretty creative bosses throughout the franchise.

With that being said there's a lot of bosses I could say are my favorites, from the more cinematic ones like Sonic Unleashed's Egg Dragoon or Sonic Rush's Exception fight, to the more mechanically interesting like Sonic Mania's Spider Mobile or Sonic Adventure 2's King Boom Boo.

Though my ABSOLUTE favorite has to come from the Advance games.


(Image taken from Sonic Retro)

I already consider the Advance games to have one of the best boss fights in the franchise. But the Egg Spider from Ice Mountain Zone act 2 has to be my personal favorite boss fight in the 2D Sonic games overall.

It's an underwater fight where Eggman crawls around the ceiling and occasionally drops icicles as an attack, that you can not only dodge but stand on to reach Eggman and hit him. But since the fight also takes place underwater, you have to be careful with drowning, so the fight is not only about reacting fast enough to the falling icicles to dodge and stand on them, but also the decision of attacking Eggman or jumping out of the water for air. It's simple but it's so fun!

Now, I'd like to know what you all think about the boss fights across the Sonic games, both mechanically and presentation-wise. Favorites, most frustrating, or just outright baby easy and whatnot. Gimme!

Gotta admit, both the final boss of sonic forces and the Metal sonic mania boss fight are pretty good. But if I had to choose, I say the Fang Fight in SRB2 is the best!

I liked the advance bosses, I never got far enough for the one you mentioned but I like how a lot of them involve fighting while running.

Maybe it's just because I haven't played them millions of times but I did find Superstars to have good boss fights that were different from previous games.

I'm always interested in boss fights that take place underwater, as you said you need to be really careful abt not drowning which is why I'm always interested in the egg bubble fight from sonic cd, if you time it right you can easily hit him but if not you're bounced back and getting a gasp of air! meaning there's still a possibility of drowning, but it's not as serious unfortunately



my favourite boss fight from the franchise however would be robot carnival and robot storm from sonic heroes. I know they're just enemy gauntlets and could most likely be seen as filler (compared to the team fights) but I enjoy getting to use every formation for different robots and then halfway through all your characters are lv 3, defeating most enemies in 1 hit, it's really satisfying to me and I also love seeing how many robots I can get on screen to make the loudest explosion sound from a team blast (since we all know how great audio mixing is in GC-era sonic games, all explosion sounds play at once and almost double in volume)

I also like how in robot storm the arena changes at different points and you either have to take a cannon to the other arena or flip the switch to go upside down, I like that they used that gimmick from the hang castle/mystic mansion stages and incorporated that into its enemy gauntlet

(02-08-2024, 04:19 PM)hooligan Wrote: my favourite boss fight from the franchise however would be robot carnival and robot storm from sonic heroes. I know they're just enemy gauntlets and could most likely be seen as filler (compared to the team fights) but I enjoy getting to use every formation for different robots and then halfway through all your characters are lv 3, defeating most enemies in 1 hit, it's really satisfying to me and I also love seeing how many robots I can get on screen to make the loudest explosion sound from a team blast (since we all know how great audio mixing is in GC-era sonic games, all explosion sounds play at once and almost double in volume)

I also like how in robot storm the arena changes at different points and you either have to take a cannon to the other arena or flip the switch to go upside down, I like that they used that gimmick from the hang castle/mystic mansion stages and incorporated that into its enemy gauntlet

Oh damn, I didn't even consider the enemy gauntlets from Heroes as bosses. To be totally honest, I do find them to be a bit frustrating at times due to the lack of checkpoints, but I do appreciate the novelty of it and it can be satisfying to get a bunch of robots in a roll. And while the song that plays during them isn't my favorite, I do like the weight it has.

Makes me wonder if there are any gauntlets like that in the franchise, 'cause I'm drawing a total blank off the top of my head.

(02-08-2024, 05:35 PM)Tominique Wrote: Oh damn, I didn't even consider the enemy gauntlets from Heroes as bosses. To be totally honest, I do find them to be a bit frustrating at times due to the lack of checkpoints, but I do appreciate the novelty of it and it can be satisfying to get a bunch of robots in a roll. And while the song that plays during them isn't my favorite, I do like the weight it has.

Makes me wonder if there are any gauntlets like that in the franchise, 'cause I'm drawing a total blank off the top of my head.

 
yeah, it's really frustrating when you have to start all the way from the beginning again when it comes to the gauntlets, when I was replaying sonic heroes any set back left me exhausted  I guess since I've beaten the game and can replay the gauntlets whenever I feel like it I can appreciate them for what they are. I felt the same abt shth too, anything that was mandatory to progress felt so time consuming and frustrating for little reward in return.

... despite that, the egg albatross is still my least favourite boss, but I think it's my anxiety around bottomless pits that get the best of me

there's no real gauntlets in the sonic games similar to the endless amnt of robots like in robot carnival/storm, but boss rushes are considered gauntlets (according to internet searches) so by that definition then SA2 "technically" has a gauntlet

(02-08-2024, 05:48 PM)hooligan Wrote: there's no real gauntlets in the sonic games similar to the endless amnt of robots like in robot carnival/storm, but boss rushes are considered gauntlets (according to internet searches) so by that definition then SA2 "technically" has a gauntlet

Hm, bummer. More endless robot endurance tests would fit the themeing pretty well, but I guess it would be hard not to make it boring without Heroes's character switch to spice things up.

On a bit of a related note to the SA2 bosses, both SA 1 and 2 have to have my favorite boss intros. The camera slowly panning around the boss while their name gets slowly typed out in the middle of the screen with the typewriter sound effect. It's simple but effective at it's peak.

(02-09-2024, 10:51 AM)Tominique Wrote: On a bit of a related note to the SA2 bosses, both SA 1 and 2 have to have my favorite boss intros. The camera slowly panning around the boss while their name gets slowly typed out in the middle of the screen with the typewriter sound effect. It's simple but effective at it's peak.

I know, right? It's so nice! Kinda compares to the Yakuza games! :3

(02-09-2024, 10:51 AM)Tominique Wrote: Hm, bummer. More endless robot endurance tests would fit the themeing pretty well, but I guess it would be hard not to make it boring without Heroes's character switch to spice things up.

On a bit of a related note to the SA2 bosses, both SA 1 and 2 have to have my favorite boss intros. The camera slowly panning around the boss while their name gets slowly typed out in the middle of the screen with the typewriter sound effect. It's simple but effective at it's peak.

Out of all those on sa2 egg golem is my favorite! The music and the mechanics are fun!

(02-08-2024, 04:19 PM)hooligan Wrote: I'm always interested in boss fights that take place underwater, as you said you need to be really careful abt not drowning which is why I'm always interested in the egg bubble fight from sonic cd, if you time it right you can easily hit him but if not you're bounced back and getting a gasp of air! meaning there's still a possibility of drowning, but it's not as serious unfortunately



my favourite boss fight from the franchise however would be robot carnival and robot storm from sonic heroes. I know they're just enemy gauntlets and could most likely be seen as filler (compared to the team fights) but I enjoy getting to use every formation for different robots and then halfway through all your characters are lv 3, defeating most enemies in 1 hit, it's really satisfying to me and I also love seeing how many robots I can get on screen to make the loudest explosion sound from a team blast (since we all know how great audio mixing is in GC-era sonic games, all explosion sounds play at once and almost double in volume)

I also like how in robot storm the arena changes at different points and you either have to take a cannon to the other arena or flip the switch to go upside down, I like that they used that gimmick from the hang castle/mystic mansion stages and incorporated that into its enemy gauntlet

I feel like all the bosses in CD were crazy easy.