Final Weapon

Sonic & Knuckles

»

Bosses

»

Final Weapon

show;hide First phase Second phase
Final Weapon
Game: Sonic & Knuckles
Level: The Doomsday Zone
Hits to defeat: 16 (8 per phase)
Fought by: Super Sonic, Hyper Sonic

Final Weapon (ファイナルウェポン) is the very last boss of Sonic's story in Sonic & Knuckles (and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles), and the Death Egg Saga as a whole (at least, before Sonic 4), encountered in The Doomsday Zone.

After being defeated on the Angel Island and on his orbital battlestation, Dr. Eggman flees the exploding Death Egg in an escape spacecraft, still in possession of the Master Emerald. Transforming into either Super or Hyper Sonic, the hedgehog tears off through asteroid-choked space for one final chase.

Strategy

Before catching up to the ship, Sonic has to contend with a barrage of torpedos being fired his way at the same time as dodging the space rocks. The ship is fought in a meteor-free (and Ring-free) patch; the hedgehog has enough to contend with as three point-defence cannons spit out energy bolts and triplets of homing warheads continue to spew out of the spacecraft's launch tube. Although these munitions can't damage Super/Hyper Sonic, they can knock him backwards, costing valuable time and depleted Rings.

In order to beat the ship, Sonic has to exploit the homing torpedo's tracking mechanisms to get them to hit the boss' face. Enough damage and the ship goes down in flames... but the Doctor still isn't finished, with his escape or the Master Emerald. There is one final trick up his sleeve; the Final Weapon itself.

The Final Weapon rises up from the flaming wreckage, continuing to clutch Knuckles' Master Emerald. An Eggman ego-trip robot almost exactly like the Giant Mech, this final escape vehicle speeds through the asteroid field, hurling precisely the same Eggman-shaped bombs as the Giant Mech did in Sonic 2 (as well as little blue mines from its underbelly). The final robot can be defeated by just ramming it. Success with Hyper Sonic brings about the game's Best Ending, while beating it with Super brings the Good Ending.

During the final section, the level layout loops every 20 seconds or so. At the start of this loop, there is a group of six Rings (3 long x 2 high oblong) in the middle of the screen (vertically). There is another group (same configuration) about 4 seconds after this a bit higher. If the player goes below the mid-line after these and grabs the groups of 3 Rings, where there is a gap of no Rings for a few seconds, they should head up to the mid-line again for the 6 Rings at the beginning of the layout loop. The loop and 6-Ring captures will vary in duration/intervals due to the scroll slowing every time Sonic hits a meteoroid plus his horizontal co-ordinates on-screen is defined partly by use of buttons - and D-Pad /.