The FBZ boys is a great idea and I never had a problem with it personally, but it's very flawed. If he was always solid and it was clearly signalled when you could push him and your attacks would do nothing, he'd be great in execution too. Also the spikes should be part of the wall, not sticking out from it. I've rebounded under the spikes several times and been crushed. The boss fights in Mania are definitely not the strongest bunch. Whilst having a boss at the end of every act in 3K was a nice feature in that game, it was only the case because none of the bosses dragged on for too long and we're all engaging... except maybe Lava Reef 2. Too many of the bosses in Mania are a slog (Studiopolis 1, Titanic Monarch 1) or are just messy and could do with a lot of refining (Flying Battery 2, Mirage Saloon 2). Chemical Plant 1 is one of my personal most hated. You spend ages waiting for him to gay out of the slime, and when he does he bounces around slowly whilst protected by a shield that will hurt you. Thank God you can damage boost. It's not great design when i always resort to damage boosting because the fight is otherwise so dull and dry. The game probably would have been better if it just had bosses in act 2s.
I think that FBZ2''s boss is kinda fun to bully into the spikes for a quick kill, but the collision is awful and way too often it just stays rooted in place while Sonic flies away at high speeds. It's a boss with a lot of jank and you just have to learn to deal with it, which is really not something I like to see in a boss. I'd absolutely have enjoyed this game more if the bosses simply didn't exist. Way too many of them are way too bad.
Am I the only one, then, that actually likes the bosses in Mania? Sure, there are some times where I think I would have done something else had I made the game, but I found them to be pretty fun on the whole. The Flying Battery 2 boss? Just hit the bumper. Oil Ocean 2? I felt bad that the game had to soften that one. Stardust Speedway 2? Look at that big ol' Metal Sonic. At best, the sorts of complaints I could end up having on Mania's part are either personal, nitpicky, or otherwise things that I only care about as someone who has invested lots of time and energy into the game. Having spent USD$17.99 on the base game due to a sale and an extra USD$5 for the Plus DLC, I believe it has been every penny and then some.
Yep, I feel the same way. And even then, the only boss I really have a nit to pick at is Studiopolis Act 1. It's WAY too long to be so easy. It amounts to a minute and a half of holding right while jumping over extremely easy-to-dodge missiles. I could beat the rest of the act twice in the time it takes me to get through him. I wish he at least put up more of a fight, like changed his attack pattern or fired more/different missiles as the fight went on. Though I get not wanting to make something TOO difficult that early in the game, and in any case, it's not something I even noticed my first couple of times through. The spider boss has become one of my favorites, actually. I totally agree that it's a problem that he's only solid sometimes, BUT, it's lots of fun to spin dash him into the spikes and finish him off as fast as possible.
The one Mania "boss" I truly disliked was the CPZ2 one, as it was a pointless, out of place Puyo Puyo match. I know it was a nod to Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, but just copy-pasting the Puyo Puyo engine into a Sonic platformer and shoehorning it in place of an actual boss wasn't clever, it was just lame and befuddling IMO. The other easter eggs and nods in Mania weren't that intrusive
I have always had a problem with the Studiopolis Act 1 boss as well. Sure, it's a spectacle, but it's too much. I have a hard time keeping track of Sonic and the missles among the busy background. Sonic also controls oddly in that section and never jumps quite as far as I expect him to.
Surprised no one mentioned the Oil Ocean mini-boss yet, I really desliked how the plataform just insta-kills you.
Perosnally i think every single classic Sonic boss sucks because they're basically all sitting in a room with absolutely zero gameplay connection to the actual stages. You go through these big multi-layered stages with momentum physics and then you have to sit in a tiny box and whack a big enemy (when enemies in Sonic are 95% borderline pointless window-dressing). Mania having a bunch of gimmick bosses only makes that worse. Banger music though
Do you also dislike the pre-Unleashed 3D bosses for mostly putting you in tiny arenas to fight in then?
And go flying through it into the spike wall on the other side because it's not solid for some reason.
Yep. As someone who personally really enjoys that boss fight... It's jank by design and execution, and deserves all the criticism it gets. @Brainulator Mania's bosses are such a mixed bag. It's very rare that boss fights in 2D Sonic games area are anything particularly special, mostly being "oh yeah that was decent enough, I guess". They're inoffensive and, unless they're a final boss, cap off the levels in perfectly serviceable way that's neither amazing nor bad. Mania though has so many stinkers. The worst regular bosses in S1-K are things like the so-easy-its-pointless Hill Top boss or tediously slow Lava Reef boss. And whilst CD also had some overly easy bosses, they were never so aggravating or annoying. Looking back on it now, Mania really tried to up Sonic's boss game with more unique and creative fights that played differently to previous bosses. It's a commendable effort, but the results just varied a ton.
It took me a little while to figure out the FBZ 2 boss because of all of the mentioned reasons. It seemed like nothing was working on it until it just did. The Puyo boss was a cute reference, but I prefer good game design over cute references, and it doesn't really work for a Sonic boss, and people who are unfamiliar with puzzle games could be confused by it.
I found it weird so many people had issues with the Flying Battery Act 2 boss, I figured it out first time (Although I did Game Over twice on the Oil Ocean Act 2 boss....)
The Puyopuyo boss is actually one of my favourite created for Mania. It is a fun change of pace that fits the aesthetic of Chemical Plant exceptionally well. I also enjoy how it is one of the fastest bosses to takedown. Gotta say though, like everyone is familar with Tetris at the very least so I really don't see how anyone could be confused with this boss.
I just found it was awfully anticlimactic and out of place. I was expecting a real boss fight as with every other level, only to have to play a pointlessly easy Puyo Puyo minigame instead. Made worse by the fact it was a complete copy copypaste of the Puyo Puyo formula, no tweaks at all, making it feel like a gimmick that added nothing and was only there as a "clever" reference. It would probably have been less offensive (but still out of place) if we had gotten a proper boss fight after beating it.
Yeah, I can see that @Blue Spikeball. I enjoy the boss and find it thematically pleasing, but I honestly was baffled on my first clearing of it that it wasn't a prelude to a proper boss.
Really? You have to hit the core, the core is at ground height, so you only have to time an instant spindash to avoid the hands. You can die once or twice if you don't see clearly the core is asking you to hit it, but, through spindashing, the "bounce back to safety" technique still applies and isn't too hard to find out about. I sometimes hit it twice in a row this way because hands also timed right for it.
I played through all of the bosses today as Sonic in Mania Mode, including the two reserved for Knuckles, as well as the Flying Battery 2 boss as all characters, normal and Super. Any time I was hit on that boss, it felt like it was my fault for being careless with my timing, rather than the game being at fault.
