Boss Battles

Yeah, I agree. Thats the major reason I like Stardust Speedway's boss. That, and SS's boss is just an awesome concept all together.

I'd say LZ's boss is probably my second favorite of the series. LZ is my favorite zone in Sonic 1, though, so I might be biased.

 

The most useless boss battle to me has to be the laser dodge boss in Flying Battery from S&K. I mean, you don't have to hit anything and as long as you can switch sides every time the laser fires, you're fine. It's just time-consuming and boring.

 

Yeah, first time though it does terrify you because all the while when the walls closing in you feel that you desperately need to do something.

I liked it anyway. I consider it a minor challenge though, not a boss.


On a seperate note- With the Sonic 3 and Knuckles bosses, I did like the little extra effort it took to make Knuckles' fights more difficult. Unfortunately, this did have the adverse effect of making me not appreciate any boss fights the developers hadn't changed in Knuckles' story.

However, I did hate the fact they made Knuckles miss the Carnival Night Act 2 zone boss entirely. This is why each time on Knuckles' story I go out of my way to climb the tube just to fight Egg-Robo in the alternative act ending.

 

And that the area right before that is completely made out of those things that push you... and is half the map... Knuckles knows all the shortcuts in Angel Island, indeed.

 

Yeah, same. Isn't it weird how the level just doesn't feel complete without fighting him?

However, whether the option was intentional on the developer's part or not remains to be seen.

 

Gotta go with Knuckles' fight against Metal Sonic on Sky Sanctuary. That's always been epic in my eyes.

Also, try debugging the game and playing as Sonic- it's slightly easier, but nonetheless interesting :3

 

Race against Metal Sonic in the Stardust Speedway Zone

 

I always liked the novelty of Character vs. Character bosses. That's why I loved fighting Knuckles in Hidden Palace.

 

I have to say that my favorite boss battles are the ones in Sonic Rush Adventure. Probably due to the massive step up in fun-factor that went from SR1 to SRA. Sky Babylons boss is in full 3d. Of course its only on rails and you pick moving left or right, but it just trips me out how they could do that in a DS sonic game.

 

Fourteen seconds? Piffle! I can beat it in thirteen

To make this post worth something, the only few bosses I actually hate are from the modern era, and even so, the number is very few. Cosmic Angel Zone from Sonic Advance, and similar bosses really annoy me. Still, some play factor. The most memoral boss I have played would be the Egg Golem from Sonic Adventure 2.

EDIT: Spelling

 

Wow, this is a topic I really wanted to see. For me, the bosses are the most important part of any (non-trivial) game.

My favorite Sonic boss of all time has got to be Lava Reef act 2. The immense build-up with Robotnik nuking the place, the descent down the lavafall and then not being able to directly hit him at all is absolutely brilliant.

I liked most of the S3&K bosses actually, but when I think about it the S1, S2 and SCD bosses were pretty boring imo. I /loved/ Advance's Cosmic Angel boss, especially when playing as Knuckles so that you can hold on to the wall. Of the Advance 2 bosses I guess my favorite would be Egg Utopia as it had the interesting gravity maneuvers. Though that game had all running bosses apart from the final boss - one or two running bosses per game is nice (Mushroom Hill) but all of them is just stupid. Advance 3 would have to be the Gemel fights. I don't really remember many details of the Rush games but I know I liked the one with the 3 balls you need to hit (can't remember which zone or even which game that was XD) and the final bosses were awesome in both games.

Egg Golem I /hated/, thanks to the 50Hz bug in Sonic Adventure 2 which turns a sixth of your A button presses into double A button presses, making me constantly accidentally homing attack and fall in the sand and die. I gave up playing that game at that point until I bought a TV capture card which allowed me to use 60 Hz mode and thus got rid of the bug. I don't particularly remember any 3D games' bosses that I liked a lot, apart from Egg Breaker and Egg Dealer in Shadow. The Werehog bosses in Unleashed were pretty awesome though.

 

The Sonic 3 & Knuckles bosses were good to play, especially Angel Island, Marble Garden, Mushroom Hill, Flying Battery and the final boss at Death Egg. The Lava Reef boss level had a nice sequence to go with it.
I also liked playing the Sonic CD bosses, they were very different than the usual format but still a great play.
On the 3D Sonic games: Egg Hornet and Egg Viper (SAdv), Egg Emperor (Sonic Heroes), Egg Breaker and Egg Dealer from Shadow the Hedgehog. The Sonic Unleashed bosses were pretty cool.
A few bosses that I hate are the Death Egg Zone Miniboss from Sonic & Knuckles, Devil Doom (ShTH) and Perfect Dark Gaia from Unleashed was a bugger to do, especially that large move it does which deducts 10 rings.

 

Alright, I have two lists, one for myself and one from my friend who happens to be at hand to give an opinion.

First, me:

Sonic 1:
Best: Spring Yard Zone: If you know how to do it, you can hit him without him dropping to break a brick, and can even move fast enough under him for him to not come down and get a brick. If you suck, you pay the penalty and he breaks all your bricks.
Worst: Labyrinth: I have only ever beaten this boss ONE TIME. EVER. That is to say actually made him explode. I always finish the climb faster than the water, but never fast enough to get that eggman!

Sonic CD:
Best: Tidal Tempest. Simply because I fucking love Tidal Tempest and it's the only boss that I can remember, aside from the Metal Sonic race wherein the real boss was not Metal Sonic OR Eggman, but was - in fact - the level designer.
Worst: Metal Sonic Race. I love the level, but the real boss is never on screen! I hate having to run that level at that speed!

Sonic 2: Emerald Hill. The drillcar is the most awesome idea I wish I had one. End of story.
There is no worst, period, I loved all the bosses from this one.

Sonic 3:
Best: Marble Garden. Mostly because I have all seven chaos emeralds by this point and time and that makes the boss easy, but even if I'm not Super Sonic, the tails mechanic is interesting and innovative.
Worst: The Doomsday. Kickass music, and it sounds nice on paper. And sure, I can complete the boss. But it isn't FUN. Not to mention the crappy rip-offs that modern sonic game final bosses are.

Too lazy to come up with favorites from other games.
My friend likes all the sonic 2 bosses, and actually enjoyed fighting egg emperor from Sonic Heroes.

 

The big ass Robotnik robot from Sonic 2, Death Egg Zone. That thing is epic. It gave me the chills first time I got there.

 

The gigantic Robotnik Robot in S&K :D

It's juts so AWESOME :D

 

Ah yes, the boss battles. Alright let's see here.

Sonic 1
Best: Green Hill Zone
Worst: Final Zone
Beyond Worst: Labyrinth Zone. That's not even a boss D:

Sonic 2
Best: Casino Night Zone, Emerald Hill Zone, Death Egg Zone, Metal Sonic
Worst: None

Sonic 3 and Knuckles (Robotnik bosses only)
Best: They all had their fair share of awesomeness.
Worst: Lava Reef's boss was tedious and annoying because you couldn't actually hit him.

Sonic Unleashed
I loved pretty much all the day time Sonic bosses in this game, except the final boss (You pilot a building... ok then). WereSonic vs. the Egg Dragoon also is awesome. Basically Robotnik is awesome in this game again.

 

Actually, the maximum number of his you can get on S2's metal during the first part of his move is 4. Then you can plug in the last 4 hits immediately when he stands up again by either a well timed roll with Sonic and then going into a spindash while Metal is still invincible (and thus incapable of hurting you with his body) or if you are Tails, you'll be short enough that his back spines don't hurt you so you can just spindash through to start with and go back into the spindash pose (significantly safer). In any event, I don't think it can be done in under 11 or 12 seconds one including the start up segment even with tool assistance.

Alternatively, if you are feeling ballsy, you can use well timed jumps that hit him while you are still going up right when the invincibility wears off.

You can use a similar method on S&K's metal Sonic, but his patterns are more erratic and so it's a little harder. I have a video of that on my youtube profile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvRvFnVEYIg...re=channel_page

Not a bad time overall, but not really among the best.

 

Sonic 1
Loved: Green Hill - You can't beat the wreckin' ball.
Hated: Starlight - It just never did anything for me.
Honourable Mention: Labyrinth Zone - Say what you want it's a good challenge to try beat him.

Sonic 2
Loved: Casino Night - Great fun as long as you don't fall through him.
Hated: Oil Ocean - Too much standing around/dodging.
Honourable Mention: Metropolis zone - I love his second attack method and I would love it more remade into a new boss.

Sonic 3 and Knuckles (Robotnik bosses only)
Loved: Death Egg Final - The hands, the head, the final chase... mostly the head though!
Hated: Death Egg - The single most annoying boss EVER!
Honourable Mention: Mushroom Hill... I just love chasing Robotnik.

Sonic CD
Loved: Stardust Speedway - No question about it
Hated: Collision Chaos - Damn those physics... and when you finally reach him... what the point?
Honourable Mention: Quartz Quadrant - How did they come up with something so original?

 

Hmm, boss battles, eh? There are so many I can name. I'll just try to pick the top five that stand out to me.

(in no particular order)

1. Green Hill Zone (S1) - The first ever Robotnik encounter is of course going to be a great and memorable one. It seems a very fitting introduction for what would come in the series.
2. Metropolis Zone (S2) - This one frustrated me when I was young until I learned some patience to not try and attack with those things spinning so violently around Robotnik.
3. Wing Fortress Zone (S2) - This one was difficult for me as well, just in a different way. There's literally nowhere to hide, so having a good balance of offense and defense is imperative.
4. Final Robotnik boss (S2) - I'm not including Metal Sonic because he's just way too easy. But taking on Robotnik's giant machine with NO rings is still very exhilarating to play after all these years.
5. The entire Death Egg/Doomsday sequence at the end of S3&K. It's just so freaking EPIC, and a perfect end to all the buildup in the few prior levels.

Honorable mention goes to the Biolizard/Finalhazard combination in SA2. It was back before they started needlessly spamming the "final boss battle in space" idea, and the fact that Shadow "dies" in the end doesn't hurt, either. Too bad they had to bring him back...

Most bosses (save for a few) in the 3D games just don't seem as well designed or thought out to me. Especially all the bosses in Sonic 2006. Too many extended periods of needless waiting while avoiding the occasional attack just to get a five-second window to counterattack....ugh. That's not fun or challenging. It's tedious.