How would you do Generation's Final boss?

[Cortez]

(Man, I haven't started a topic here in yearsssss... -.-)

I've been replaying Generations lately and, as much as I'm well aware that the Time Eater is universally disliked, I can't help but feel like an original boss as the climax for an anniversary game was completely the wrong direction to take.

For a game made almost entirely out of famous moments from the franchise's history I'm so disappointed that the final moments of Generations wasn't the ultimate boss battle love letter to the series. So much wasted potential.

Like, off the top of my head, maybe have the final boss as some huge mega evolution version of the Sonic 1 wrecking ball through time and space and stuff. I dunno. I'm not even sure how this would look or whatever but just anything with even the slightest heritage would have been more appropriate than we got.

How would you guys change the end game to Generations if you could?

ffs Professor-J, get off SSMB when you're drunk

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I've no complete idea how. The whole final boss was about flying through to actually hit him, so maybe I'd have the Super Sonics dash into the homing shots and redirect it back at the boss. Or maybe use the debris flying around to send it straight at him.

 

That, and I'd seriously retest the flying mechanics of Super Sonic. The sensation of flight is awesome, but it's so lacking here that it can be a pain trying to collect rings to stay in your superform, at least with Modern Sonic.

 

I'd probably do the whole thing from scratch, but then again, I think this boss fight shows a lot of the problems in the whole Unleashed formula's boost-dominating gameplay.

[KHCast]

Actually using what the player learned from throughout the game instead of just random super sonic clunky battle?

I know SS is a tradition, but come on. I would much rather have a boss battle where part one would have you as classic in 2d making your way to the TE and the second part would have you control modern in 3D making your way to it THEN going SS for the final attack. At least then the game could throw everything that it taught you back at you one last time instead of giving you a completely new gameplay that had little to no explanation on how it worked. I mean hell, Unleashed, Colors and LW despite their bad/piss easy battles, at least somewhat used things the player had learned throughout each game instead of ditching it completely.

[LATER BUDDY]

I always thought it would've been neat to have like a tear in time and bosses from all the generations suddenly start mixing and matching in both machine and environment. Having the location and mechanics change up for some past bosses would throw in new twists to old favorites, and new locations could involve new hazards making them more difficult. Could do without Super Sonic but I know that's a big staple for the series so it'd be neat if they could throw that in there too without being too OP. Maybe make it more of an endurance fight or something? IDK. It'd be cool if they had both Eggmans doubling up on past mechs too, or combining certain two. Like a wrecking ball + angel island one or something, for example, just throwing out first two that come to mind lmao.

 

But yeah the Time Eater was kinda not climactic at all. Would've preferred something like this, a sorta wrap up of all the history in one amazing showdown through the ages.

[Splash the Otter]

I think it would have been interesting if there had been a phase representing each zone in the game, kind of like when you fight Zant in Twilight Princess. The boss fight itself would be similar to the Perfect Chaos fight, but with 9 phases instead of 4 and each one being set in a different zone. I'm not sure how the Super Form mechanic or switching between the two Sonics would have worked though.

 

Oh, and the Time Eater would use different attacks based on the zone you were in. Also the characters you saved would actually help you during the fight, instead of just shouting at you through a communicator.

[SlickEvan]

Wolfy I like that idea! Very much.

As for me, as ChaosSupremeSonic said, I'd like to have been like Eggmanland. Like a Super Sonic 2D, 3D awesome mash up. Modern taking on the Boost yet super intense, Gaia like (you know before the Chip and SSonic part) except toned down a little. And 2D to be maybe, like, doomsday zone before SS part. Kinda. But you'd hit like a.. maybe time warp hour glass thing to switch inbetween the two like SA2 and Unleashed. I'm trying to fully think this through... hmm

But what Wolfy said would be quite awesome!

[Nepenthe]

I wouldn't waste that awesome CGI of Time Eater appearing in an overcast Green Hill Zone and the modern and classic incarnations of Sonic and Tails were rushing into action. An arena level boss fight with the normal Sonics akin to Perfect Chaos, but with more difficult platforming and a multitude of attacks, would have been simple but far more effective.

[azoo]

Alright, so imagine where modern and classic Sonic enter the void alone, with the emeralds intact. Like a "this is it" moment. The Tails duo do not follow, there's just assurance that Sonic and Sonic have this all under control. The Tails, both worried about them, wish them luck and both the Sonics show them some brotherly love before jumping in.

 

After going in, both Sonics appear to be floating in the same area shown in the beginning of the game after the first cutscene: a dark purple, swirling cosmic void with floating golden clocks as the back-drop. Suddenly, the Sonics look at the emeralds as they're holding them and watch in shock/awe as they drift away from their possession. They try swimming through the space to grab them, almost in a panic state, until they see a bright flash followed by a violent rupture and roar... suddenly, we see Time Eater, which immediately has absorbed them. As the surrounding void continues to make sounds of loud quaking, disturbing screeches and starts to break and deteriorate, we see the Time Eater start to convulse as everything fades to white.

 

There's nothing but pitch black now. Remnants of the white world are floating by: broken, crumbling, suspended. Large strands of radiant, monochrome energy are waving through the sky, slicing through the floating rubble, some large gears out in the nothing. The only color left is of the Sonics... and the neon eyes of a glowing, massive, almost incomprehensible blob creature oozing out from a far away fixture screeching it's massive, Jack-O-Lantern like face: a monster of the week to end all monsters of the week.

 

You have a counter. It's an 8 minute countdown until everything evaporates into space dust (it's at least implied). You mad dash across a dangerous obstacle course which is constructed with cluttered various set-pieces from every main stage in the game, a la Wolfy's idea. As you step across each area, you're recoloring the terrain (much like this video). In these obstacle courses, your objective is to make it towards the Time Eater and whack a good one on him. Each hit gives you one of the Chaos Emeralds he absorbed, and thus ups the difficulty a tad each time. After each hit, you switch to the other Sonic, so that you hit him 3 times as classic and four as modern; and each section of the battle has where the stage's obstacles become much more apparent as hindrances to your progress.

 

As you manage to lash out those seven hits and obtain the emeralds once more, it seems you've won the battle. Both Sonics start to absorb the energy of the Chaos Emeralds to go Super, until the cloudy blobs fade from the Time Eater as it accumulates energy in it's core.. revealing the Eggmen. This, throwing both Sonics off guard, interrupts their transformation, and thus said distraction keeps them from seeing coming the massive beam that blasts them back onto whatever floor is left.

 

Tattered and bruised, both Sonics are very weak from the blast. Descending from the machine are both Eggmen, rambling about how this entire plan folded out to begin with (possibly stating the finding of the space matter from what seemed to be an unstable time origin (nod towards Solaris??)), and knowing from studying Sonic all these years how he'd react. How he'd make it where he goes alone and not accept help. How he'd let his guard down and act before thinking. How he'd be so foolish to think neither of the Dr. Eggmen were behind this after fooling him into thinking they're also of the victims. They monologue about finally being able to give him the demise they've truly been waiting for, to take this reality and rewrite it to suit their own warped perception, and that while they've loved the competition that they cannot wait to finally rid their lives of him, preparing the final blow..

 

Until Sonic's friends start appearing, cheering him on and on, while booing to Eggman and his idea of a new world. Each character gets their own individual say, further distracting the Eggmen while the Tails regather the emeralds around the Sonics and help them up. By the time the Eggmen are screaming for silence at them, they turn at the sight of a bright yellow/gold light, realizing their distraction was a terrible mistake. Not one, but two Super Sonics. Shit's going down.

 

Enter phase two of the battle, which would essentially be the final boss battle as we know it in Generations as-is, however with a shorter length to get to the end of the chase, as well as instead of primarily controlling based on flying, you actually have a floor in the path. Super Sonic controls are the same as the on-ground ones (except where you fly with boost / spin dash launch), and at some point Time Eater splits into two different currents where you fight modern Eggman as modern Super Sonic and classic Eggman as classic Super Sonic. They later re-conjoin and start to zoom far ahead and start up their final shot; which is the same as the original but twice as tense due to being a longer scene that shows both Sonics straining followed by Sonic's friends encouraging him to finish him off.

 

The final blow shows a climactic animation of the Time Eater being absorbed into the blast, as everything starts to fade to white with black silhouettes, violent shaking, and you see everything sort of do a teleport "zip" out of sight one by one, with the ambient sounds growing louder, and then...

 

Silence. Fade to black. Results music (no afterward music though). Score/rank screen with a black background. Success.

 

We then experience the last cutscenes as they are.

[TheOcelot]

For the final boss I would have preferred something like; as classic Sonic you would fight the final bosses from Sonic 1, 2, CD, 3&K. As Modern Sonic you fight the final bosses from SA, SA2, Heroes, 06, Unleashed, Colours, with the Generations final boss (with a slightly better design) added to the end. So it's like a boss rush with all the final bosses tweaked to suit the gameplay from Generations. A simple idea which would have made more sense with Gens being an anniversary game.

 

Or they could have done something like Wolfy said where they combine bosses. How about a final boss where; you do the S3&K final boss sequence (in Doomsday zone) fighting Eggman in space in 2d, which then switches to the final boss (Perfect Dark Gaia) sequence in Unleashed where Sonic starts off travelling as Super Sonic though space in 3d. So effectively it's a seamless transition from Super Sonic in space (2d S&K) to Super Sonic in space (3d Unleashed) which would look really good. Then they could switch to the final boss in 06 - which is sort of in space, I guess - followed by the Generations final boss sequence.

[Salamander]

I think the essential concept of the Time Eater is sound, it's just the fight itself that's weak.  So I'd have the same boss, but completely reworked - probably to lose the whole "flying through the time vortex" bit.  Something more akin to previous bosses, but with Super Sonic amplifying the abilities of each Sonic, would be more fitting.  I like the idea of each phase of the fight taking place in a different zone from the game, too; maybe just the last one could take place in the time vortex, or in the White World itself, perhaps.

[Emmett L. Brown]

One thing Sonic Adventure and Sonic Heroes did was let you be Super Sonic in the final boss fight without changing the controls in any way, and I think that's the right idea. The final boss of any video game should be one that tests the skills you've been training all throughout the game.

 

You can definitely have a fight portion that's nothing but boosting towards the boss while dodging attacks. Just have our heroes running on a flat plane immitating flight, and then have them quick-step out of the way and jump occasionally. You can upgrade the quick-step to some kind of flashy teleportation move if you like, but keep the mechanics the same. Hopefully more than just that or the fight would be as boring as the regular version.

 

I actually quite enjoyed the 3DS version of the Time Eater. It was nicely challenging and didn't feel too cheap. I really like the idea they used of having the amount of rings that appear vary depending on how many times you've been hit. If you do really well in the earlier phases then you're much better prepared to survive a screw-up or two towards the end.

[Gabz Girl]

I really like Wolfy's idea for Time Eater.

My main gripe with Time Eater is that you're thrown into it with no understanding of what to do. You're moving around the tunnel, trying to navigate into rings which is almost impossible because of how they appear at random moments (as modern Sonic anyway). There's no sense of flying like there was in previous boss battles, the other characters repeat the same damn line over and over and over AND when you get hit by the meteors or debris both Sonic's don't even flinch like they did before. It really is a mess.

I would've liked to have seen the Time Eater travelling through the different zones, mimicking the different final boss battles from each game. You play the first part as Classic Sonic (Sonic 1, 2 and 3 final boss battles) and then Modern Sonic (SA1, SA2, Sonic Heroes, Sonic 06, Unleashed, Colours). Of course they have to be shortened considerably especially in Modern Sonic's case, but leave them not Super...until the very end!

How about a final climactic battle in Doomsday Zone, so we can get some S3&K representation? Plus epic Doomsday remix, proper meteorites flying at you in space...with both Super Sonic's! You can still switch to both 3D and 2D like before, but trust me it would've been a lot more epic than some tunnel with floating debris.

[Diogenes]

The first thing I'd do (well, second, after disabling every line referring to homing shots) would be to ditch the "flying down a big near-featureless tube" aspect, since it gives you no sense of movement and almost nothing to interact with. What I might do instead is turn it into a tube-shaped version of the Perfect Chaos battle (the original moreso than the one in Generations). Have the gravity work like the inside-tube levels from SLoW, scatter chunks of previous levels with dash pads on them, and challenge the player to build up to a certain speed by hitting dash pads while dodging attacks. Maybe the time tube surface would act like mud and slow you down, encouraging you to jump or ramp to the next chunk of level as often as possible rather than falling in the muck.

[Autosaver]

I wasn't entirely sure when to prepare for a homing shot. SEGA should've brought even more characters to explain when and where a homing shot was coming.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

The 3DS version of the Time Eater was better, so I guess I would make the console version go to that route.

 

But if I were to completely change it, it would be more like a level. You swap between the two (Manually) and get past enemies and platforming to get to the core and attack. Sonic Unleashed's Final Boss is a good example of that concept.

[Adorkable]

Oh, this is a good question!

I have also thought about this recently, and thought of a good idea myself.

Ready? Okay, I thought it would have been a cool idea to make the Final Boss a series of multiple bosses (if someone hasn't already taken this idea ^^")

First, you would get to PICK how you want to win the game, as Modern or Classic Sonic, not both switching back and forth. You pick on, and you win the game with the option open to go back and fight with the other Sonic.

The Boss would consist of Sonic's greatest bosses of all time. (I don't know the Classic bosses, I didn't play anything before '99) but I would guess a level similar to where the Time Eater was fought. Just, you know, actually looked cool. As Super Sonic, you would be flying through the level to be fighting separate Final Bosses from Sonic's past games. You would fight Perfect Chaos, once he was defeated your 50 rings would replenish, then you would fight the Final Hazard, then Metal Overlord, Solaris, and Perfect Dark Gaia.

Oh! Know what would be cool? If Sonic was fighting them in the same situations as before. While fighting Perfect Chaos, Sonic would again be fighting for Station Square's survival, Final Hazard against saving the world from the ARK colliding, and so on.

Wow, but would that be too much? Hey, it's just an idea. ^^