I'm surprised how close that one is to the original. I don't think anyone had any fond memories of the original OOZ boss. So what do they do? Make it look like an Octopus and throw in some more BS. Seems kinda silly. I would have been more for a HBH boss there and then LRZ could have had a Knuckles fight vs Metal Knuckles instead :v:
Master System Sonic the Hedgehog's bosses were fairer than Oil Ocean Zone's, in spite of you getting no rings! Saying something quite a bit here that a game with inherently insta-kill bosses is fairer in this department than a - simply - frustratingly designed boss, even with forgiving rings. Weird bit is, some very close friends of mine had no issues with the boss at all. So there's clearly something going on here. Must be the new Barrel.
I haven't really had an issue with this boss, I mean I get hit, it's just not that fun of a boss as it's notable for being almost exactly the same just more annoying. Hydrocity had remixed bosses too but I found those fun. Wasn't happy seeing the DEZ Act 1 boss return either...
The OOZ boss is one of the hardest in the series indeed, specially if you don't take the time to develop a strategy, but even I who am far from being the greatest Sonic player ever only lost 1 or 2 lives to it. If you have rings and take things slow, you can beat any boss. At first I thought that Studiopolis' act 1 boss was the new barrel, but that's because I didn't notice the blue missiles were doing anything.
Sure. And that's why recent Mario games give you free unlimited invincibility when you die a couple of times on the same level, and why Pokemon Sun & Moon bombard the player with constant tutorials (and even go as far as to label all attacks as "super effective", etc) to name just two examples - because a lot of modern games don't hold your hand ;p The old Mario games didn't do that nonsense, and neither did the Pokemon games prior to Sun Moon. "Git gud" is a valid argument. For example, I was pretty bad at Undertale when I started playing it - and yet, in the end, I kept at it and improved my skill level sufficiently to beat the infamously difficult Sans boss. I didn't go on the internet and shout at Toby Fox to make it easier, I just made sure I got better at it. Video games are about more than just a challenge, I completely agree - but there still needs to be a certain element of skill involved otherwise it becomes a vaguely interactive story rather than a playable video game. Look at how brutal some of the classic Sonic bosses are when you first play them! The Underground Zone boss of Sonic 2 Game Gear? The Death Egg boss in Sonic 2 16-bit that has two phases and no rings (and can sometimes even crap out so that you fall through the Death Egg Robot and die after hitting it)? Hell, even the mere fact that Sonic games didn't even have a save feature until Sonic 3 came around. A lot of 90s era games were hard as nails compared to Mania - but when we were kids, we just got on with it. Calling for a boss to be nerfed (and getting 12 game overs on it lol) is just absurd, I'm sorry. The only thing in Mania that needs fixing is the abundance of bugs (not that the classics were bug-free or anything) and perhaps the inclusion of the seemingly-missing zone transitions. The game isn't that difficult overall and really doesn't need to be dumbed down.
I lost way too many lives to that boss because it took me a while to get used to how to jump on the blue missile, I often hit it in the wrong place and lost my rings. OOZ's boss really didn't bother me. Initially I was a bit confused because Robotnik always pops up just off the screen and I wasn't sure what to do, but got the hang of it pretty quick. The only times I ever died against it was once when I let go off down too early and got hit by a laser and once when the octopus went back under the oil and somehow dragged me with it. I was streaming it on my first playthrough so my cousin could watch as we used to play through 3&K in coop, neither of us were pleased to see that one reappear.
It certainly isn't fun. Its really slow and lame, but it not hard. Maybe as knuckles its a bit garbage, but as Sonic/Tails it was fine. Its not worth nerfing to me. Thats just silly.
That was also a boss though where the insta shield really helped. Not having that already makes it harder since you have to wait for the right time, or just get smacked around alot. Also @Jen, git gud is fine, but the Underground Zone boss is just bullshit. It was not designed for such a small screen in mind and should have been scrapped for the GG version. There's difficult, there's bullshit difficult, and then there's that. I will say though that this OOZ boss is better than the original in one way at least. This one quickly comes up and quickly goes down. It doesn't linger resulting in taking damage because the game says you should be in the oil and not in a ball even though you're trying to jump on the boss.
I had little trouble with the boss, but I always have the emeralds before Oil Ocean so.... :v: Kidding. I do see why the OOZ boss is frustrating, as most bosses in Sonic are pretty easy to understand from a standpoint. The OOZ boss is kind of different, and has a lot of things that can piss you right off. I feel like keeping your fire shield for this boss is good and just trying as hard as goddamn possible not to get hit + position yourself well, because the elemental shields will deflect his projectile things. I find that the Fire Shield is very easy to keep through OOZ2, and they have some spare ones should you screw up, but I do get the frustration rooted in it's design. Now if we want to talk *annoying* bosses, that god forsaken Mirage Saloon Act 1 boss. Depth perception be damned in that fight.
Had little trouble with the OOZ boss as Sonic & Tails. Playing while really exhausted the other day, I had a lot of trouble as Knuckles and lost a bunch of lives; yesterday, however, I beat it first try with no trouble thanks to a clearer head, so not sure quite where I stand on the whole debate! = P Figured out that with the correct timing and positioning you can actually defeat it quickly enough that it can only rise from the oil a couple of times - not had the chance to watch the video posted further back, but I'm guessing it shows pretty much the same method. A fire shield definitely helps too, as it deflects the Heat Arms' projectiles basically rendering them useless - with one of those you can get in 4 more hits the second time it rises! Even without, though, you'd be able to get 4 hits in on its initial appearence by timing your jump right, and then a hit or two each time it rises subsequently, dashing in to avoid the Heat Arms projectiles. To be honest, the main problem I'd had on my initial Knuckles run-through was that if I slipped up I could never seem to grab any of my rings back before they fell beneath the oil! Since I didn't have a shield and wasn't having much luck keeping track of the Heat Arms' projectiles due to tiredness, they usually finished me off shortly after.
After I died a few times on the first playthrough, OOZ's boss doesn't bother me now. However, TMZ1's boss as Knuckles...fuck that. In other news, I just got Super Tails by Studiopolis Act 2. Not bad, considering I don't actually know where half of the big rings are.
When we were kids, we didn't have that many games to play and didn't have other shit to do so we kept on playing the same games even when they threw badly designed bullshit at us. I "just got on with it" with lots of badly designed and tedious games (usually licesned games) as a kid, doesn't mean I actually had much fun playing them. And I certainly wouldn't bother with those games now that I have other responsibilities. The problem here isn't even just that the boss is hard. It's not any fun either. Once you figure out all of the different bullshit it throws at you it just means avoiding the same attack pattern using the same method a bunch of times. And I guess some games have gotten handholdy, though if it doesn't actually impede players who want a challenge like in Mario then I'd argue that that's a good thing. For players who don't want to (or can't) spend a ton of time getting good at a single level in a game that invincibility thing is great. It's only really a problem when it's handholdy by forcing the player to do a lot of tedious tutorials, like in Pokemon Sun & Moon. Though Pokemon has always had slow tutorials at the start, really it seems more like the problem there is that they've added so much extra stuff that now also needs to be explained to the player. :v: Still, the incredibly long tutorials thing at the start is something video games in general have been moving away from for a while now. There's also a lot of games these days that don't really hold your hand at all or are too easy. You yourself just gave an example of one: Undertale. But also there's all the Souls games (and Bloodborne), Breath of the Wild, Prey, XCOM 2, Hitman, DOOM, basically all multiplayer games these days, etc. Also that Undertale example isn't really comparable to this because that's a boss that's supposed to be incredibly frustrating and hard, and it fits because it's + - punishment for all of the horrible shit you had to do to get to the point where Sans fights you. It's purposefully designed to be a really shitty experience for the player.
The blue missile is easy; just roll into it. If you hang back near the left side of the screen, use jumping only to dodge red missiles, and roll into the blue ones, this boss is such a breeze. Really, I think it kinda exemplifies the boss design throughout the whole game. So much of it is hard if you don't know the trick, and easy if you do. This pattern can even be seen as early as GHZ2; the nerfed Death Egg Robot is pathetically easy once you discover he feet don't do damage.
That's fair though, as it's now the first boss of the game. It was mostly just meant to be a "wow look at that pulling out the Death Egg Robot immediately, so cool" thing, I don't think they intended for that fight to be hard.
Well of course not, and even if you hit him exclusively from the top it's not terribly hard. But it's a trick that isn't immediately obvious (because who would walk into the feet on purpose?), and once discovered it makes it substantially easier than it otherwise would've been. The fact is, that "moderately hard until you find the trick" design is prevalent throughout the entire game, and I suspect it was deliberate.
Yeah, I've played Sonic 2's Death Egg Robot so much, I literally NEVER would have even tried to walk through the feet if I hadn't seen someone else do it on a video. As for OOZ's boss, which is apparently now the Dark Souls of Sonic bosses... I got it on my third try the first time I played. The OOZ boss is a substantial improvement over the original, which was probably my least-favorite boss in Sonic 2. It's more mechanically interesting, has a more memorable fight, and rewards you for holding onto a shield. It's also fairly easy to beat in one cycle once you know how. I rather agree with Jen here - many games are way too handholdy and accommodating. I'd much rather struggle to overcome something and get that RUSH when I finally do than sleepwalk through something that merely gives the appearance of being hard. (Which, by the way, is why newer Mario games offering to make you invincible doesn't bother me. Because TimmiT also has a good point. Giving a player the _option_ to play it the way their time or skill level allows is fine, as long as it doesn't force you to do so.)
I understand the OOZ2 boss complaints and all, but it really isn't hard if you take your time and deal with it slowly if you have trouble killing it quickly. It's very methodical and very different in this way, but to me it's no different than fighting the Death Egg Robot as Knuckles in Sonic 2 (or most any boss as Knuckles to be honest. His low jump makes him kinda have to wait on a lot of bosses in the original games too). OOZ2's boss basically only ever killed me a lot when I tried to rush (before I learned the ez pz quick kill), but when you slow it down and destroy the tentacles first, it's laughably easy. Just treat it like Lava Reef Act 1's boss from S3&K and mentally segment each phase. WOrks wonders and takes about as long as that boss (maybe a smidgeon longer?) To address this, this is largely a QOL change that does not effect first encounters at all, it only reminds you of info you can already access to begin with. YOu're only told about type effectivity on the menus after you've fought the Pokemon in question at least once, as it is then registered on the Pokedex where you can access its typing at all times. Let's not confuse little QoL tweaks with dumbing things down, because all it does is save you from having to menu into the Dex or arbitrarily remember info in that way.
I think a big reason people have trouble with the octopus boss is because your lost rings sink in the oil, so you can't just cheese it like most other bosses.
