So Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 is out, it’s pretty good check out our review, if not a bit easy. There was one boss in particular though, that really annoyed me. I mean its 2am I’m still playing and I’m close to smashing some windows annoying. It got me thinking, Sonic has always had these infuriating bosses for one reason or another and here’s my top 10.

 

You know if there’s one thing I’ve learned by doing these lists (other than my choices are wrong 99% of the time) is that people generally don’t upload videos of failed boss attempts; so if you’re watching the Youtube videos remember these people are very good at the games and have probably practiced hard, then edited their videos but to mere mortals like me these bosses were a pain.

 

 

 

Sonic Adventure was the hedgehogs first true 3D outing (no I don’t count Sonic 3D because, well, it wasn’t) and Sega really tried a lot of different things probably to get a feel to this bizarre new dimension. As such we were “treated” to six characters with six different types of gameplay. Some worked, others rather dull and tacked on and then there's Big the Cat.

 

 

Big the Cat spent the whole game fishing; looking for his pet frog, Froggy, who just happened to have swallowed a Chaos Emerald. As such Big didn’t get to see much action and Chaos 6 was his only boss. What do you have to do? Fish Froggy out of this massive, walking, sentient, body of water. Not that it did anything other than slowly edge towards you, this battle (just like the whole Big episode) was a massive waste of time.

 

 

 

Sonic CD is one of the many forgotten Sonic games, overshadowed by the brilliance of the Classic four titles. Shame because it’s pretty good and many people find that Sonic CD is the best Sonic game…they’re crazy we all know that was Tails Adventure, but I digress.

 

 

Untraditionally this boss fight sees Sonic races against his robot double, Metal Sonic. Such an iconic scene that we got to do something very similar in Sonic Adventure 2 and the Anime did a nice version too. Metal Sonic is a real pain often allowing you to overtake him just to come driving into the back of you when you think you’re winning. Fail to keep up the pace and Eggman is hot on your tail with an instant-kill-laser-beam.

 

 

 

Ah Sonic the Hedgehog on the Megadrive, where Sonic started…if you don’t count the Master System version as the start. The labyrinth zones has the dubious honour of being the hated level in this game. Mostly because of the water, water levels have never been popular. Even less so when you get that evil countdown music when you’re about to drown. That just tends to rub people up the wrong way when they’re waiting for a air-bubble to pop out.

 

 

To me though; the hatred with the level wasn’t so much the zone, but the boss at the end of it. Back when I first got the game I couldn’t get past this boss no matter what I did. The combination of fire-shooting statues, extending spikes and the drag caused by the water brought an end to my game more than once. Looking back it doesn’t look that tough, but to me it’ll always be one of the irritating bosses ever; if only because he isn’t actually trying to kill you just get away from you. Which just makes the death even worse.

 

 

 

In Sonic Adventure 2 we could control the Heroes and the Villains. Then every so often we would fight each other and each would win. It didn’t make a lot of sense as the story continues regardless of who won…unless you were playing and lost. It was meant that show that each of the main characters are on par with each other and then would have tension filled fights as you battle against your doppelganger. You know, like Dark Link in the Zelda franchise.

 

 

All great in theory but the problem comes when you start giving one character an unfair advantage just to ramp up the difficulty of the battle. This is happen on the second battle between Tails and Dr. Eggman (note that video is the first battle, couldn’t find the second one). In this battle the opposing character would get their special attack which should only be available in versus mode. The only way to possibility beat the character is to destroy him quickly, linger around for oh 30 seconds and you’re going to be in for a world of hurt.

 

 

 

Sonic Rush from Dimps is one of the highly acclaimed Sonic games, it’s in 2D and it isn’t made by Sonic Team so of course it’s going to be good. The game added Blaze to the roster of friends and like Shadow a lot of people liked her so Sega brought her back in Sonic 2006 for no logical reason whatsoever….just like Shadow again.

 

 

Late in the game Sonic and Blaze butt heads over something stupid (think it was who gets to defeat the bad guys, said bad guys get away during this fight) while the battle itself isn’t too difficult right at the end you get a finger cramping QTE. You have to press A+B in quick succession; if you don’t you’ll go flying off the edge of the platform. This isn’t light tapping I’m talking about here, there is a serious pace you have to keep up and if you fail back to the start of the boss fight, again, and again, and again.