Metal Madness


 * This is about the second-to-last boss in Sonic Heroes. For the seventh level in Sonic CD, see Metallic Madness

is the transformed version of Neo Metal Sonic and the penultimate boss of Sonic Heroes. By combining the collective data from Team Sonic, Team Rose, Team Dark, Team Chaotix and the ancient creature Chaos, Neo Metal Sonic can rebuild himself into the much stronger Metal Madness with debris from the Final Fortress.

Metal Madness actually serves as the early state of Metal Overlord, which Neo Metal Sonic is trying to reach, which means that Metal Madness is still in the progress of the transformation, during the battle with him. He is briefly confronted by Team Rose, Team Dark and Team Chaotix before he proceeds to transform into Metal Overlord.

Appearance
In this form, Neo Metal Sonic's appearance is that of a large, blue, heavily-armed mechanical dragon, with two eyes lined up vertically on his head. He has several long spikes on his upper body and many smaller ones running down his back and his long, curved tail. He has a flamethrower as his right hand, and his left hand has four fingers with claws that can be launched. He has no legs in this form. Instead his lower body is attached to the Final Fortress with several thick cables.

History
In order to beat his arch-rival Sonic the Hedgehog and eventually claim world domination himself, Metal Sonic sought to become strong enough to achieve his ambitions. To this end, he staged Team Sonic's, and later Team Rose's, Team Dark's and Team Chaotix's adventures in Sonic Heroes so he could collect both theirs and Chaos' data in order to become Metal Overlord, his most powerful form to date. In order to reach this form, Metal Madness proved to be a necessary step during this transformation.

At the beginning of the Sonic Heroes' Last Story storyline, Neo Metal Sonic reveals himself to Team Sonic, Team Rose, Team Dark and later Team Chaotix, and announces himself as their new ruler, before shooting a lightning bolt into the sky. The lightning bolt soon comes back down and blows up the command tower upon which Neo Metal Sonic stands on. By then manipulating the debris from the tower, Neo Metal Sonic constructs Metal Overlord's main body and then merges himself with it, becoming Metal Madness and roars in triumph.

As strong as Metal Madness proved himself to be however, his transformation into Metal Overlord was still not complete, and he needed time to finish his transformation. In the process however, he found himself attacked by Team Rose, Team Chaotix and Team Dark, who were trying to buy Team Sonic enough time to perform a Super Transformation with the seven Chaos Emeralds. Though the teams managed to put up a good fight, Metal Madness remained unconcerned, and dismissed their attempts to stop him as useless.

In the end, Metal Madness proved himself too tough for the three teams to defeat, and he managed to complete his transformation, thus becoming Metal Overlord. He then took off from the Final Fortress, but was shortly after pursued by Team Super Sonic and was defeated.

Powers and Abilities
Despite being an incomplete transformation and having his movements hindered due to being attached to Dr. Eggman's fleet, Metal Madness has proven himself to be a very powerful figure in the Sonic series. During his brief time, he was shown being more than powerful enough to take on Team Rose, Team Chaotix and Team Dark at the same time, and while all the teams worked together, they could only slow him down. Dr. Eggman even stated at this point that even with the power of the seven Chaos Emeralds they only had a slim chance of victory.

In battle, Metal Madness is able to launch the spines on his back as missiles that can track the opponent, and when they hit the ground, they will sprout into a sharp spike formation that cannot be destroyed by normal means, but will shatter automatically after some time. He can use his right hand to produce a powerful and large column of fire, and his left hand can shoot his claws as missiles which can trap his enemies in crystal cages (His claws will automatically regenerate). Finally, he can perform a powerful sweep with his tail which can knock his enemies off their platform. While he has also proven himself to be nearly invulnerable to harm, his weak spots in this form are the glowing markers on the left, right and front side of his lower body, which is only vulnerable to the right formation type.

Battle
The boss battle with Metal Madness is fought in three stages. One for Team Rose, one for Team Chaotix and one for Team Dark. The battle will take place on a platform for each team with a little distance to Metal Madness. During the battle, Metal Madness can only be damaged with the right formation type indicated by the color of the marker on Metal Madness, which changes after a couple of hits (When blue, Speed formations won’t work, when red, Power formations won’t work and when yellow, Flight attacks won’t work). On each side, Metal Madness has 100 HP, which must reduced to zero in order to proceed.

Team Rose
The first team up is Team Rose, to the right side of Metal Madness. Their platform has two craters, each with a Item box, containing a Team Blast Ring and has 16 rings spread around. In this round, Metal Madness can attack in three ways; He will use his flamethrower across the platform, which can be jumped over. The second one is a wide sweep with his tail which can also be jumped over. The final attack is where he launches his spines towards the team, wherever it might be. If they hit the ground they’ll sprout into spike formations which causes damage upon contact. Here, the player must get as far away from Metal Madness as possible and let the spikes sprout where they cannot get in the way, while avoiding them. During their battle, Metal Madness’ marker will remain blue, so it is best to attack him with Big for maximum damage. One of the first things to do is to pick up one of the two Team Blast Rings, which gives an instant Team Blast, and use it as close to Metal Madness as possible and then either take the second one and repeat the process, or save it for the next team. After this, keep attacking him with Big and the round with Team Rose will be complete.

Team Chaotix
The next team is Team Chaotix, to the left side of Metal Madness. Their platform contains some rings, two empty craters, balloons where each contains a Power Core, and a cannon. Here, Metal Madness will repeat his spine attack and tail sweep which can be countered in the same way as before. His third attack is where he launches his finger missiles which can trap team members in crystal cages, but they can be broken if attacked repeatedly. If all team members are caught, the player will lose a life. The best way to counter it is either to switch to Flight formation and remain airborne, or hide inside the cannon, until he is done. The first priority for the player should be picking up the Power Cores in the balloons so there can be dealt acceptable damage. In this round, Metal Madness’ marker will change between red and yellow, so, under these conditions, it would be best to attack with a combination of Speed and Power formations; use Speed formation when Power can’t be used until Metal Madness makes a move and when possible, use Power formation to deal massive damage. Repeat this and the round with Team Chaotix will be complete.

Team Dark
The final team up is Team Dark, in the front of Metal Madness. Their platform has Power Cores in the craters to the left and the right side of the platform and in the balloons above them. In this round, Metal Madness will attack with his flamethrower, finger missiles and spine attack, which still can be countered in the same manner as before. First priority for the player is to pick up the Power Cores for maximum damage. Then proceed with a combination of Power and Flight formation attacks in order to deal maximum damage in short time. If this pattern is kept, Team Dark’s round with Metal Madness will be over quickly.

Quotes

 * "I'll tear you to pieces!" - Metal Madness during his battle with Team Rose.
 * "Burn to death!" - Metal Madness when attacking Team Rose or Team Dark with his flamethrower
 * "It's too late..." - Metal Madness after his battle with Team Rose.
 * "You're all useless now that I've copied all your data!" - Metal Madness in the Team Chaotix fight.
 * "Get away!" - Metal Madness when preparing to use crystal cage spines.
 * "This victory shall soon turn into despair!" - Metal Madness after his battle with Team Chaotix.
 * "Even the Ultimate Life Form can't stop me!" - Metal Madness in the Team Dark fight when unleashing a powerful flame-based attack.
 * "How appropriate to have a robot overlord rule a robot kingdom!" - Metal Madness after his battle with Team Dark.

Trivia

 * Metal Madness' name could have been based off of Metallic Madness, which is the final level of Metal Sonic's first appearance, Sonic CD.
 * This is the only boss in the Dreamcast era (Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, and Sonic Heroes) that is a robot, as Perfect Chaos and The FinalHazard are organic.
 * However, FinalHazard is Biolizard and The ARK combined, so FinalHazard is actually organic and robotic.