Tart Turtle

Tart Turtle
Game: Sonic Triple Trouble
Level: Great Turquoise Zone
Fought by: Sonic / Tails

Tart Turtle is the boss of Great Turquoise Zone, and the first in Sonic Triple Trouble. As in Triple Trouble's predecessor, Sonic Chaos, our old friend Doctor Robotnik apparently thinks he's too important to face Sonic or Tails personally this game. Instead the Doctor deploys larger, tougher, nastier badniks as boss robots.

Great Turquoise Zone's boss is a giant, levitating, robotic sea turtle. However, it posesses essentially no offensive capabilities at all, and simply flies back and forth from one side of the screen to the other. In the first (semi-submerged) section of the boss fight, Sonic or Tails simply have to jump up and smash it a few times. Damaged, the Tart Turtle ascends to the surface. Now our heroes have to make use of the smaller spring-backed turtlebots, in order to gain the necessary height to land a hit. Sonic Triple Trouble was unusual in enabling Sonic and Tails to perform a midair spin jump off springs, which is precisely what you have to do to defeat this first boss.

After the boss, you run into Knuckles, who has (now for the second time) been tricked by Robotnik into thinking Sonic and Tails have their own malign reasons for seeking the Chaos Emeralds. The echidna sets off a fiery tower trap which blasts the player all the way into Sunset Park Zone.