Gaming My Way

So, I’ve finished Sonic Colors in the past week or so and figured I’d give writing a quick guide a shot. The final boss of many games is where most people have trouble and would like some help, so I figured that’s as good a place as any to start.

Sonic finds himself chasing after a wisp powered monstrosity called the Egg Nega Wisp, a flying fortress capable of dishing out some serious pain… well, ok, not really a fortress, but a decently well protected contraption compared to the rest of the robots you’ve seen this game.

First thing’s first: stay in the center at the beginning until you get those rings, you’ll want them unless you’re used to this battle already, and they always come in handy in any case. Luckily, the game telegraphs most of the attacks by shouting out different wisp names as Robotnik (Eggman, for those who didn’t grow up on the old Sonic games) uses Nega to launch them at you. Unfortunately, depending on your reflexes, you may have to get hit by them a few times before you get the timing down on dodging them. But hey, it wouldn’t be fun if there were no challenge at all, right?

Now for some strategy. First, you need to know his attacks:

Cube: Robotnik launches a bunch of energized cubes on the ground in front of you in differing patterns. Sidestep to the left and right to get into the open spaces to dodge this one. Toward the end of the fight these patterns get longer, faster, and harder to navigate, but it gets easy as you get used to it. You can also note the pattern as they land to give you a bit of a heads up on where to dodge.

Spike: Robotnik launches spike balls at you which roll along the ground. Just jump over them. At the beginning, he shoots two rows, which can be dodged by a double jump. As the fight goes on, he’ll shoot out three rows, which will require a double jump followed by a single jump to clear. Jump immediately after landing from the double jump and you should be fine.

Laser: Robotnik will sweep two laser beams across the ground, one after the other. Stay in the center and jump over them as they pass through your space. Later in the battle, he’ll shoot six, one after the other, and they’ll move across the ground progressively faster. For the fast ones, namely five and six, I like using short jumps, but as long as you jump quickly, even higher jumps should get you beyond them. I’ve also occasionally seen three lasers at intermediate steps in the battle, so watch out for a third at times you may only be expecting two.

Cube – Spike: Robotnik will launch this attack after flying behind you, usually only after you’ve freed some of the wisps from his machine (more on that in a minute). Similar to the cube attack listed above, except there will also be spikes rolling through the pattern. I like to boost to get ahead of the pattern, then let the blocks block the spikes for me. You’ll still likely need to be in an open space as spikes come through at some point though, so when this happens, just jump over the spikes.

Cube – Laser: Robotnik will set out a pattern of cubes, then shoot a laser that bounces cube to cube. This attack always comes from behind. If the cubes are in a triangle shape, dodge by pressing up to move to the center of the triangle. If the cubes are on all of the sides, boost to be at least next to the cube at the very front (if you aren’t there already), if not further ahead, then dodge to the side opposite that cube.

Now, after hearing everything he can do, you probably want to know how to take this crazy robot out. At the beginning of the battle, Robotnik will move up right next to you after each attack he makes. This is your chance. Jump up, and you should see a target switching between his two handlike appendages. It doesn’t matter which one you hit, so just do a homing attack to hit one. After that, the homing target will move up to a spike above you, so hit that, then hit two more spikes as well to climb up to the cockpit. After hitting the final spike, you’ll fly up into the air, then slowly fall in line with the cockpit. As you do, you’ll see a target here too, so do one last homing attack (or just mash the jump button before the target pops up if you wish) to land a hit. Don’t stop here though! Hold forward to land right in front of Robotnik (and land in the middle of some rings), then jump up and hit the dash button to slam him again for a second hit and send him flying backward. Yes, you have some dash now, it fills up a bit every time you land a hit on the cockpit, but not on the second dashing hit. You’ll need to land seven hits, so going through this procedure four times will get you there. Just note that as the battle progresses, Robotnik will begin to use multiple attacks before moving up close and giving you the chance to get your attacks in. Also, after a few hits, you’ll see wisps you’ve freed from the machine running alongside you.

After landing seven hits on Robotnik, you’ll have freed a wisp of every color. They will proceed to assist you in using the wisp attack “unlimited colors”. Just hold down the wisp button until all the wisps are circling Robotnik, then jump up and do one last homing attack to end the battle. Congratulations, you’ve just defeated the final boss. Just a short run through the final (very short but slightly irritating) stage until you’ve finished the game!

One final note: in case you’ve already unlocked Super Sonic, you can not use him in this battle, or any boss battle, for that matter. I’ve already tried, no matter how many rings you get, the option just isn’t available.