30 Days of Sonic DAY 20 - Music Track of the Week 3: 'Boss Themes' [30DOS22]

[Solister]

Since people are posting more than one, I also want to give some shouts for a few tracks:

First, if the subject is "Boss music start playing and I just shat my pants" this definitely is the first to come into my mind:

On the opposite side, I just love how techy the beta version of the Sonic 2 boss music was:

Two other interesting takes would be the OG one which started it all:

And the S3&K Mini Boss is just a great song overall:

From the already mentioned, I'd like to give shouts of both Sonic 3 & Knuckles final boss and The Doomsday as well as Egg Viper/Walker from Sonic Adventure which is just a cool song. I could also mention Open Your Heart (Perfect Chaos first battle), but I think this could well be my third or fourth time Open Your Heart was a contender for my choices in one of these topics.

 

But no doubt the Sonic CD one is which answers the topic the best.

[Iko]

I already posted mine, but...

this thread is about our favorite boss theme, I know, but... can I do a dishonorable mention? like, the least favorite, or favorite but for the wrong reasons (memes):

I don't really like it, but it's so weird that it becomes funny. Clown music, yeah! You can feel Sonic calling Eggman "Baldy McNosehair" even just from the tunes.

 

1 hour ago, TheOcelot said:

I really like Cosmic Angel's boss music in Sonic Advance. Makes the fight feel tense which compliments Eggman as he moves menacingly from the left to right-first slowly and then much faster with only a few hits remaining.

That's also cool and very overlooked. I don't know for some reason it reminds me of Super Mario World's castles around 0:44 onward.

[NikoS]

Open Your Heart plays during the Perfect Chaos fight, hence it is my favorite boss theme, but I'll post the theme that makes me fight harder while playing it (even though I never played the game it comes from)

 

FIght the Knight is a great song, but this is a case that I feel the instrumental version (with added strings) is better, beautiful melody and hard hitting riffs, put this over any boss and make it better to fight it.

[Dr. Detective]

I can't not make this addendum now that it's been pointed out. The Deadly Six Theme is fucking excellent. I never get tired of it. The violin version that plays when you fight Zor and Zeena is especially good. Way to utilize a banjo for a chaotic villain song too.

[WanderingBleats]

3 hours ago, qt.steeph said:

The way these gnarly, dirty guitars compliment these beautiful strings playing throughout the track paints such a vivid picture of urgency that fits the tone of a final boss fight stemming from betrayal so well.

obligatory "ah, but he didn't betray them, the terms of their truce extended to the Deadly Six's defeat and the machine being shut down and those were both fulfilled". But yeah this track is great. It reminds me of Bravely Default, and that is never a bad thing. (also the energy cape on that robot was so cool)

I've posted Live and Learn for the last two music topics and I'm not going to stop now so I'll choose something different this time. There are at least a dozen tracks I could pick, so I'm just gonna go with this one.

This track has held a special place in my heart from back in the days before the PS3 port, before YouTube, before Sonic Gems Collection, and before reliable MAME emulation/computers necessarily being powerful enough to handle it. I heard about this obscure Sonic arcade game that I had no way of playing. This was at the peak of my Sonic fandom, so of course I looked up everything I could find about the series, and that included soundtracks for the games I couldn't play. I had to rely on crappy, low bitrate streamed versions from Team Artail, and you know what? I listened to them over and over!

The soundtrack of Sonic the Fighters fascinated me. It was a very different style from any of the other games. I remember a friend describing her experience playing the game, and it felt so incredible to imagine it. (The actual game, while fun, didn't quite live up to the version in my mind.) This was also a time when Metal Sonic was a rare occurrence in the series, rather than showing up every other game, and most of the games he was in in any major capacity were for relatively obscure systems. So any content with or about him was a big deal. Then a certain friend of mine (COUGH COUGH) used it for a scene in his RPG Maker 2000 project, which I still make a habit of replaying at least once a year. All of this means this theme is wrapped up in a lot of nostalgia for me and evokes a very specific period of my life.

Also, the music itself is great! I don't know what I can say about it that I couldn't say about most of the boss themes in the series, but it has its own unique vibe that really screams "mid 90s arcade game". And that's pretty rad.

[Dr. Mechano]

 

The Egg Dragoon theme really captures Eggman's seething fury in Sonic Unleashed. He beat Sonic. He beat Super Sonic, even. He tossed him into space, split the world apart, and created Eggmanland. He should have won, it should have been over. But Sonic - that stubborn little pincushion - keeps coming back again and again and again.

This theme just feels angry, but also majestic and powerful at the same time - really nailing that dichotomy between Eggman the attention-loving, theatrical showman and Eggman the petulant, enraged bully. Eggman may not have been the final boss of Unleashed, but damn if this battle didn't have the presence of a final boss fight.

[Kuzu]

Gonna go with Infinite's final theme. As mind numbingly boring Forces was, the OST was good when it counted. I'm a sucker for orchestrated versions of character themes and this is no exception...if only the actual fight wasn't already used for Metal Sonic :V

[Celestia]

This is actually really hard to choose, uhhhh.

So I'm torn because of various final boss themes (ranging from Big Arms to Nega-Wisp Armour to Dr. Eggman Showdown) that are of course amazing, but I really have to go with none other than CRAZY ROBO aka E-101β Mark II's theme from Sonic Adventure.

It's just so perfect. The somber intro that soon leads into one of the absolute best tracks in the game, in my humble opinion. It suits the fight too, in fact I think part of the reason the theme is so memorable is the fight itself. I vividly remember how shocking it was, as silly as this may sound, seeing him dodge your shots if you just fired at him normally.

 

"Runner ups" except it's just (relatively) underappreciated stuff

• idk why I just really like Sonic 2 Game Gear's boss theme. The MS version has a different one that's not as fun!
• Fang's boss theme from Triple Trouble (also huge shout out to the SRB2 remix of it for bringing the song to my attention in the first place)
• For some reason I was obsessed with the Day stage boss theme in Unleashed when I was a teenager? It's still pretty good
• Metal Sonic's first boss theme from Sonic 4. Yes, really, even with the grating nature of Sonic 4's music it's hard to hold this track down for me. I really wish this one got remixed more, officially or otherwise...at least ASRT had me covered and (once again...) SRB2's OST references in the level where you race Metal Sonic
• Also yeah I really love the Deadly Six theme, happy to see it mentioned a couple times even it hasn't been anyone's actual answer.

[Sapphirine Wind]

my favorite is With Me, because it's a straight up banger

 

[A super No.1 washedupgamer]

 

 

Ok, this remix isn't officially in a game but it's still awesome.

The guitar, the thrill and sense of intense action it gives you, it doesn't fail to deliver. My favorite boss theme from the genesis era. It's just so climactic, like it really gets your blood pumping to overcome the final obstacle in a long adventure across 3 games.

Also, special shout out to ruby delusions:

This theme just screams "Eggman is back baby!" It stands out among the classic boss themes to me as sounding more dangerous and just that "not playing around" feel. Proof is that eggman just starts off fighting sonic with the freaking death egg robot in the first zone. Those deep piano notes are just intimidating. Fans have waited for something like this after seeing eggman treated as a joke for so long. 

Shout out to the modern era, 

Bomber Barbara-It's so fun and energetic, I didn't know if I wanted to fight the boss or just dance.

Egg mega wisp phase 1 and 2- Such an epic boss theme. It really gets overlooked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the adventure era

This boss theme captures a great feeling of danger. Eggman has almost reached his goal, chaos already has six emeralds and is getting stronger, it feels like sonic's back is against the wall in this fight (until mr. 300 IQ starts throwing ice bombs in the arena,) this tune reflects a tough fight with more challenges ahead.

[Penny]

Favorite boss theme? Easy peasy, Sonic 2's final boss. Not only my favorite boss theme, but also my favorite video game track of all time. However, since someone else already posted about it, I want to bring attention to a boss theme that I can't believe hasn't been mentioned yet:
 

The Sonic 3 (alone) mini-boss theme, of course. Such a unique track that punches you in the face right from the get-go, helped along by the cool vocal samples. MJ's team really knocked it out of the park. It's just really sad that this track never gets its due, thanks in part to the fact it gets overridden when S3's two halves are together. You might be relegated to the dust bin of history from here on out, S3 mini-boss theme, but I, at least, will never forget you~

[JonoD]

 

I absolutely have to give some colossal props to this... Nightmarish noise from Sonic Spinball. If there's one thing that Spinball 100% got right it was a creepy atmosphere when it counted. The wailing scream of Scorpius, The gut-wrenching visuals of a hit on the Roboboiler heads, the chilling sight of animals passing through the Veg-O-Machine... This song punctuated all of it.

 

 

I also absolutely have to give a shout out to "Wrapped In Black" from Sonic Rush. I just... Really like it.

[Muscles Maximum]

Lots of great choices mentioned here already. I can't really say this is my favorite boss music, though this song is the one that first sprang into my head when reading the title of this thread. This song manages to find it's way into my head every once in a while despite me not having played S4E2 since it came out, and never listening to its soundtrack. I still think this is a really catchy underrated little tune.

I think this song is really fitting for Metal Sonic. During this time Metal Sonic was just starting to really show up in the games again and playing this boss for the first time with this track playing and the aesthetics of the amusement park (I love amusement park levels) just made me so hype.

[Spin Slasher]

Personally, I really like all of the boss themes in Every Sonic Game, My Main Favourite might be Sonic CD's boss theme in Japan because I think the Song is kickin' in my Opinion, and my Second Favourite Boss Theme might be the Perfect Chaos Boss theme from Sonic Adventure.

[Piko]

And the "I'm surprised no one's picked this yet" award goes to...

The bosses in Sonic Rush are a bitch to fight, but hearing this makes it all worth it.

[Multikaris]

Whilst it’s not necessarily a Sonic game, he’s playable in it and it was one of his biggest and most anticipated roles, especially for the time:

 

 

This theme tells you everything you need to know about this boss; an incomprehensible force between angelic and demonic, a being who rules over subspace and is a threat to the entire Nintendo multiverse, and beyond. All video game universes may be in danger from him, so keep on fighting. 
 

This is a great fan remix of the Sonic 3 boss theme that expands the melody greatly, turning it into a more modern experience that feels like what the composers intended for the piece.

Alright, alright. For an OFFICIAL piece…

The ambiguity of the “slam” lyric to make it sound like “who’s there” sells the melody well, making the lyric fit both King Boom Boo and the Egg Golem, as well as even the player. 

[Tornado]

There's absolutely no reason Sonic 3D Blast needed 3 different boss themes. The game is structured like Sonic 1/Sonic 2, so it didn't even have minibosses to fight.

 

There's definitely no reason that the second boss theme needs to go *so hard* so fast that it overwhelms the boss music used in The Final Fight.

[Strickerx5]

I'd be lying to myself if I chose anything other than Unleashed's final boss track. When I first heard that shit I absolutely popped off. I love Endless Possibilities to bits so to hear an orchestrated rendition of it at such a hype moment at the tale end of one of my favorite games of all time was simply unreal.

I need more final boss themes that are orchestral version of the main vocal theme Sega pls. All of them have been top.

 

Though, a runner up for me (and something that isn't a final boss theme) has to be Eggman's boss theme from Unleashed as well.

Special note for going into the main theme at around the 2:05 mark. I am a sucker for this stuff. Not only is it stupidly well done but it's also kind of has a mocking sound to it for me now because there's no way you'd actually here it in-game unless you were completely failing with a boss lol.

[Mr. Ion]

Both of these were already posted earlier in this thread, so I'll just say that Egg Reverie and Doomsday Zone from Sonic 3K are both my favorites. Great songs, I always play these before big exams to get in the groove.

It's unofficial so I'm not sure if it counts, but the SRB2 boss theme, but especially the Final Boss theme, both hit it out of the park. 

 

 

 

[Sonictrainer]

Also going to go with the Sonic Generations Remix of Big Arm

That track just slaps

[Teoskaven]

Gonna go with Egg Dragoon as well. I was tempted to put the Egg Genesis/Cerberus from 06, but this one is just better to me and fits the climax of Unleashed for how much of a marathon Sonic has to go through.

[RosaRosaRosalina]

DAY 20

The Saturn version was mentioned on an earlier post, so I'm going with the Genesis version.

 

It might not really feel all that "final boss-y" like its counterpart, or even earlier boss themes do. But it sets the mood of the zone you're in PERFECTLY in my opinion. You're alone. Lost in a dark void of Robotnik's making, with only each other standing in the way of breaking free. It was all so serene, and as it's one of the last songs you get to hear for a Sonic game on the Genesis/Mega Drive, it's got its impact as a final challenge to me. It genuinely scared the shit out of me at first, but I loved it the more I appreciated how much of a bop it is.