Big Mother

"A maternal force for evilkind. Let them live and they'll only make trouble."

- Description of the Big Mothers in Sonic Unleashed (Wii/PS2)

The Big Mother (ビッグマザー) is one of the types of Dark Gaia's minions that appears in Sonic Unleashed. These bulky monsters stand amongst the elite of Dark Gaia's minions, and get their name from their ability to create Rex variants of Dark Gaia's minions. They serve as mini-bosses in the game's acts. They only appear in the game's nighttime stages.

Overview
The Big Mothers and the rest of Dark Gaia's minions came into being when Dark Gaia broke apart in the beginning of Sonic Unleashed due to its premature awakening by Doctor Eggman. These fragments were then spread across the Earth and became Dark Gaia's minions, with the Big Mothers some amongst them. They first appear in Rooftop Run Night Act 1 on the PS3/Xbox 360 version, and in Jungle Joyride Act II: Restless Coastside on the PS2/Wii version.

Being a mini-boss, the Big Mothers stand as some of the toughest enemies in Sonic Unleashed. They have large amounts of health and their attacks can deal a fairly large amount of damage to the player. They also only flinch when hit by Sonic the Werehog's most powerful attacks, meaning the Big Mothers can continue executing their movements nearly undisturbed. However, they have rather slow movements, meaning their attacks can be avoided with good time to spare. When combatting Big Mothers, an advisable strategy is to strike when they are not doing anything, and run away when they are about to attack.

Upon the recreation of Dark Gaia, all of the Big Mothers were returned to the beast, who was later defeated and sealed within the planet's core.

Physical Appearance
The Big Mothers are very large creatures, about four meters tall, with oxford blue and cyan skin with magenta glowing markings. They have a dopey look to them and have a large belly with a large mouth stretching across it. They have rather large feet, with the upper parts of their legs covered by their stomachs, and long sleek arms. They have no visible neck and they have curved spike-shaped appendages on their shoulders and upper backs, and horns on their forehead.

Powers and Abilities
The Big Mothers are able to move around by emerging from black puddles on the ground. As a Dark Gaia minion, the Big Mothers can possess people by latching onto the deepest, darkest part of the heart, and generate despair, negative emotions or even erratic behavior that are completely opposite to the person's personality.

Being one of the toughest members of Dark Gaia's minions, the Big Mothers are powerful creatures in their own right. They possess large amounts of physical strength, enough to send shockwaves through the ground by hammering their fists into it, and immobilize even Sonic the Werehog through the brute force of their strikes alone. Due to their large size, the Big Mothers also have large amounts of physical endurance, enough to be completely unfazed when hit by most of Sonic the Werehog's attacks.

Like the Nightmare variant, the Big Mothers possess elastic arms, allowing them to stretch their arms over a larger area to increase their attack range.

The Big Mothers' signature skill is their ability to produce the Rex variant of Dark Gaia's minions (Little Rexes on the PS3/Xbox 360, and Red Rexes on the PS2/Wii) by spurting out six to eight of them from the mouth on their large stomachs. These mouths can also eat up any thrown objects, though the Big Mothers are still affected by the effects of the objects, such as the force created from explosives detonating inside their bodies.

Attack Patterns
When fighting the Big Mothers, they will try to create Little Rexes/Red Rexes. These enemies serve mainly the purpose of distracting the player and overwhelm him/her with numbers, though their weak statuses make them rather insignificant.

PS3/Xbox 360
In the PS3/Xbox360 version of Sonic Unleashed, the Big Mothers possess two means of attacking the player. If the player is hit by one of the Big Mothers' attacks, the player will be immobilized until it either wears off on its own, or the player completes the player interaction shown on the screen by rapidly pressing the jump button.

In battle, the Big Mothers attack the player by using their arms as clubs to hit the player close up, or from afar. They can also swing their arms around haphazardly in a circle while stretching them out to cover nearly the entire battlefield, allowing them to damage anything caught within their radius, be it the player or other enemies.

PS2/Wii
On the PS2/Wii version of Sonic Unleashed, the Big Mothers only means of attacking is by putting their fists together and smacking them into the ground to create a succession of large shockwaves, much like the Titans and the Dark Gaia Phoenix. However, these shockwaves can easily be anticipated and avoided.

Trivia

 * The Big Mother's large belly is a reference to pregnancy due to their ability to give birth to the Rex variant of Dark Gaia's minions.
 * On the PS3/Xbox 360 version of Sonic Unleashed, when the Big Mothers open their mouth, the player can throw an explosive crate into their mouth to deal heavy damage.
 * The Red Rexes created by the Big Mother in the PS2/Wii version of Sonic Unleashed always release orbs upon their defeat, but the Little Rexes created by the Big Mother in the PS3/Xbox360 version of Sonic Unleashed never release anything when defeated.