[test-object]

Read Title and description. But before you start designing, read this:

Boss fights are amazingly fun to design, but one must not get carried away with complexity.
Easy routines to remember but hard to dodge is adviced. Not vice versa.

Try to stick with a true Sonic spirit, and not the Sonic Advance 2-ones. Sure, they weren't bad, but they aren't Retro Sonic enough.
(Yes, I am aware of Sonic and Knuckles' first boss)


The List of bosses:

1 -Tropical Zone
MB:
B:

2 -Circus Zone
MB: FAKE SIGNPOST (STHX)
B: ROLLERCOASTER [needs cleaning up] (STHX)

3 -Rainforest Ruins Zone
MB: EGG SAW (test-object + Phoebius)
B: BOLT MOBIL [idea to be worked out] (STHX)

4a -Canadian Zone
MB:
B:

4b -Underground Zone
MB:
B:

5- City Zone
MB:
B:

6- Blue Mountain Zone (this ought to be a fun one to design )
MB:
B:

Technochemical Plant Zone (I just invented this name, you like it? :3)
MB:
B: Egg Vortex (BlackHole)

Death Egg Zone
MB: Metal Sonic Fight (Amistat) [Tails' Final Boss]
B:


Please, we live in a democracy, give a yell what bosses you think should be accepted





Information Chart that goes with each boss:
-When this boss is hit 6 times, he will...
Do an additional roll over the ground.

-The Zone most fitting?
The Ruined Rainforest Zone.


PS: This topic is made for a clear overview.

This post has been edited by test-object: 20 January 2009 - 04:01 PM

[Phoebius]

Fixed.

[test-object]

Phoebius, on Jan 16 2009, 09:49 PM, said:

Fixed.

Definitly fixed. This is one amazing starting post : D

This post has been edited by test-object: 16 January 2009 - 05:30 PM

[Afti]

Egg Mother

Behavior: Spits out badniks to attack Sonic and flies around. Defenseless, but too high to reach. There is one automatic one that will shield the actual eggpod. Bounce off badniks to hit it.

Graphics:

Mockup:

-When this boss is hit 6 times, he will...
Start generating selfdestructing bomb badniks.

-The Zone most fitting?
City Zone.

[ICEknight]

Just throwing out badniks doesn't seem like a too elaborate plan for a boss.

In all the previous games, they tried to showcase stuff that the player had never seen before, many of the times based on connected sprites and complicated algorithms... or just plain innovative ideas.

[Afti]

Here's an idea: what if it were to control the badniks remotely?

You couldn't damage it in this scenario. It would be a war of attrition- RC badniks with ridiculous AI and two hits worth of health would come after you (and dodge blows!) until Robotnik's machine was drained of the resources to manufacture them, at which point he would flee.

[test-object]

I'm not really keen on this idea. You mean like an endurance round?
That doesn't really sound Sonic material since if you press down and tap A repeatedly, you'd win in no time.

[Afti]

test-object, on Jan 16 2009, 05:29 PM, said:

I'm not really keen on this idea. You mean like an endurance round?
That doesn't really sound Sonic material since if you press down and tap A repeatedly, you'd win in no time.

No, because they'd have good enough AI to jump over Sonic in this battle. Robotnik would be controlling them from the pod, and it'd be a fairly even match between Sonic and one of them. Utilizing their own friendly fire would be key to winning, because they wouldn't just walk towards a spindash to their doom like normal badniks- they'd be intelligent enough to avoid Sonic while he was rolling.

[Ridiculum]

test-object, on Jan 16 2009, 05:29 PM, said:

I'm not really keen on this idea. You mean like an endurance round?
That doesn't really sound Sonic material since if you press down and tap A repeatedly, you'd win in no time.

If by that you mean sitting there spindashing, clearly they'd pop out badniks that could still hurt Sonic, even while he's spindashing. However, I'm still not too into the idea either.

A better idea would be for him to basically suck in random parts off the city off screen, it goes into the machine, and it spits out a sort of weaponized version of it. Or a badnik, if it sucks in an animal. So sometimes you might get hit with a light post being dropped, and other times a badnik will drop. And, on occasion, a spring, which would allow you to jump up and hit him. So you'd basically need to keep an eye out as to what he drops. Perhaps make some "spiked springs" that could be confused for normal springs if you didn't look hard enough after a few hits, so you'd have to pay attention.

[muteKi]

Insanity, on Jan 16 2009, 05:35 PM, said:

test-object, on Jan 16 2009, 05:29 PM, said:

I'm not really keen on this idea. You mean like an endurance round?
That doesn't really sound Sonic material since if you press down and tap A repeatedly, you'd win in no time.

No, because they'd have good enough AI to jump over Sonic in this battle. Robotnik would be controlling them from the pod, and it'd be a fairly even match between Sonic and one of them. Utilizing their own friendly fire would be key to winning, because they wouldn't just walk towards a spindash to their doom like normal badniks- they'd be intelligent enough to avoid Sonic while he was rolling.

I wouldn't mind this, but it would have to appear in one of the last levels as it's a rather complicated battle. I kinda like it, and it reminds me a bit of the boss for Chaotix's Amazing Arena.

[PC2]

I think one problem I'm seeing with these ideas is that the bosses don't seem to interact with the environment enough - there's not enough "pizazz" to them. So far all I'm seeing is a bunch of bosses that consist of, primarily, Robotnik just hovering around the place. Remember that you can use the stage setting to your advantage. Be creative. I'll see if I can come up with something soon. Right now, no time. :x

This post has been edited by PC2: 16 January 2009 - 07:25 PM

[STHX]

I have the impression I'll post a lot in this topic ;P
My only question is if this topic applies also for mid/sub bosses as well.

Oh well. I suppose it is to late to ask:
Caterkiller Omega (pending name)


0 - I guess it is obvious this mid-boss was based over the Caterkiller family. He has the general appearance of the classic Caterkiller (minus some added things here and there), but it has the tipical agility of the Crawlton and the Sandworm. He suddenly appear from the ground when Sonic reaches the end of the Act.
1 - Most of its moves are based over the other members of the Caterkiller family, and similar to its cousins only the head is its weak point. Hitting any other part of its body will cause damage. Its most common attack is based on the Sandworm, and like it the boss will jump out of ground to bite Sonic.
2 - Another attacks sees it to jump out of a wall at high speed, homing at Sonic. There are 2 versions of this attack:
- a - The boss jump out of a wall and directs its attack at Sonic, it moves in a straigh line and enters the floor/roof/opposite wall, depending on the position of Sonic
- b - Occasionally, instead of entering the opposite wall, the boss will suddenly stop and will reenter the same wall he originally came out, in the same way of the Crawler. In both versions of the attack, 2 fangs come out of the head, as an omage to the Crawler fangs.
3 - An original attack. The boss jumps out of the ground like the first attack, but, instead of moving towards Sonic, he launch the last sphere of its body towards him. The sphere bounces of the boundaries and the ground, and after a while returns underground.In Sonic 1, if Sonic jumped on the wrong part of the original Caterkiller, all of its part would have detached from the body. This attack is an omage to this feature.
4a - (What a horrible bg art) If the battlefield is in the Canadian/Autumn Zone, the boss will move inside one of 12 holes in the the giant tree, and then it will quickly come out of one of them to enter another hole. It keeps doing this for a while, then returns into the ground (to better understand this attack, imagine the first mid-boss of Ristar, just faster).
4b - If the battlefield is in the Underground Zone, the boss will jump out of the ground and will stick to the roof. It will then start to shake the area, and spikes will fall down from the roof. What? This attack was used already 2 times in Sonic games. But this time the boss doesn't enter the roof, and the place where it comes out is random, so part of the battlefield will be temporary unaviable, since the boss blocks it with its body. You may be lucky, and it may appear near the opposite boundary, but it may also happen the opposite.

-When this boss is hit 6 times, he will...
Well, apparently nothing, but after being hit 3 times, occasionally during attack 1 and 2a the last sphere will detach and it will bounce around for some seconds. After 6 hits 2 spheres will detach instead of 1.

-The Zone most fitting?
This is the wierd part. As you can see, the 4th attack is different depending on the battlefield. Why? Take a look at the zones in the fourth attack. Canadian and Underground. Yeah, the splith paths zone! So basically this boss may appear on both routes, with the only difference of one attack based on the enviroment.

[Ice Sonic]

I think 3 is the best and 4a is good too. The boss fits Underground Zone more though.

[Amistat]

Here's a quick idea for the Metal Sonic fight, something a little retro...

Sonic enters the area, laser fences turn on. He is faced by a freaky looking double of himself.



A battle occours not too dissimilar to the Silver sonic fight in Sonic 2, however your opponent is not twice your size and is as fast as you making it a tad more interesting this time around.



After a few hits (6 is good) the mysterious foes skin shatters revealing...



The battle continues, you are evenly matched!



With his cover blown however, he resorts to a few old dirty tricks; hovering out of reach and summoning the crushers!



Naturally your robotic nemesis has a few nasty surprises up his sleeves...if he...had...sleeves...<.< >.> ahem.



Added to this is a dive bomb after his crusher attacks and occasionally launching two rapidly successive crusher strikes in a row (sometimes changing which crushers he uses and sometimes not to keep the player on their toes).

12 hits in total (6 before and 6 after revealing himself) should see the metal moron explode/fly off/dance the timewarp, whatever is convenient to the plot.

I personally would love to play that fight, how about you guys?

[Jof]

I still think the final Metal Sonic boss should be kept to Tails. I agree with Chimpo that it would be the most climatic ending for Tails, facing off against the one person he looks up to kinda thing.
However, I also thought about something else. If we include Metal, we have 3 main villains right ? Eggman, Nack and Metal.

What about, depending on your character, each zone has a different end boss, and they alternate ?

E.G

Sonic
Stage 1 >>> Eggman >>> Stage 2 >>> Nack >>> Stage 3 >>> Metal Sonic >>>etc. Final Boss : Eggman

Tails
Stage 1 >>> Metal Sonic >>> Stage 2 >>> Eggman >>> Stage 3 >>> Nack >>> etc. Final Boss : Metal Sonic

Knuckles
Stage 1 >>> Nack >>> Stage 2 >>> Metal Sonic >>> Stage 3 >>> Eggman >>> etc. Final Boss : Nack

This way, we have to design 3 unique bosses per zone, which might take a while, but ultimately offers more replayability ?

This post has been edited by Jof: 17 January 2009 - 12:03 PM