Perfect Dark Gaia

"When the beast is complete, its dark arms shall encompass the planet, ushering in the end of times. The world, in death, will fall into a deep sleep in waiting for the time of rebirth to come"

- Gaia Manuscripts, 4:28

Perfect Dark Gaia (パーフェクトダークガイア) is the final boss of Sonic Unleashed. This is the true form of Dark Gaia, having regained all its power which it had lost due to Dr. Eggman's premature awakening of it. Since Dark Gaia had not reach its perfect form when Dr. Eggman awoke it, it and its power broke apart and had to be reassembled. When Dark Gaia reabsorbs the final fragment of its power from Sonic the Hedgehog's Werehog form, it becomes complete, but it is not until after the initial battle with Sonic and the Gaia Colossus (Chip's transformation) that it fully matures and becomes Perfect Dark Gaia.

In the final battle, Sonic engages Perfect Dark Gaia alongside the Gaia Colossus, after transforming into Super Sonic using the Chaos Emeralds coming out of the Gaia Colossus, and together they defeat it. The music for this stage is the orchestrated version of Endless Possibility.

Appearance
Basically, Perfect Dark Gaia is identical to its immature Dark Gaia form, except that it now has gained extra features. Once matured, it grows four extra, identical arms, giving it a total of six arms. Its large mouth, which makes up most of its head, opens and reveals seven green eyes; three smaller eyes in each side and one large, central eye where its (former) visual mouth once was. He also gains two more tongues, which hangs out from each side of its central eye.

The ends of its seven tentacles also gains more shape, resembling more that of a serpent head, each with one green eye in its mouth.

Powers and Abilities
Perfect Dark Gaia possesses the same powers as its first form, such as firing energy beams, being able to pick up molten magma and control dark energies. However, due to having reach full maturity, it is now able to use its powers in a more refined and focused way: It can now manipulate its energies to form a hyper-energy shield around itself with its snake-like tentacles, that not even Super Sonic can break through, and the only way to bring the shield down it is to destroy the tentacles. It can also launch purple orbs at the size of Sonic in certain formations, pick up and throw large blocks of magma by levitation, rather than using its hands, and can launch its energy beams at a much faster rate, and it does not lose focus on charging its beams when it is attacked, unlike its earlier form.

As Perfect Dark Gaia, its weak points remains its various green eyes, which is the primary target of Super Sonic during his battle with it.

Battle
There are two different versions of defeating Dark Gaia. The Wii/PS2 version and the 360/PS3 version

Wii/PS2
thumb|right|300px|Perfect Dark Gaia Wii/PS2The battle is pretty much like battling Alf-Layla-wa-Layla when Perfect Dark Gaia attacks, using the claws and energy blasts. As usual, Super Sonic needs to gather rings or he dies. The object of the game is to gather rings and use them to perform the Super Sonic Boost and damage Perfect Dark Gaia's eyes one by one (however, each eye is defended by a number of floating rocks. When 3 eyes have been defeated, some rocks start moving in straight lines.). The energy blasts can be deflected by pressing the x button at the right time. Doing so will stun Perfect Dark Gaia, allowing you to collect more rings. The middle eye is the last one to destroy but it is always closed. It only opens if all six other eyes are damaged. After defeating the middle eye (with exclusively moving rocks defending it) the level ends and the final cutscenes/credits play (if you are beating him for the first time.) Otherwise, after the ranking screen, you are instantly whisked back to the level screen.

The time needed to S-Rank Dark Gaia/Perfect Dark Gaia is 7:30, total. Anything less gives a C-rank.

360/PS3
thumb|right|300px|Perfect Dark Gaia 360/PS3 This battle is much more complex than the other version. This version doesn't really tell you much of the rules. Unlike other final boss battles in the Sonic series, Super Sonic is given a life gauge instead of a ring counter, which is increased when gathering ring and depletes when Super Sonic is hit by floating rocks or Perfect Dark Gaia's attacks. If Super Sonic's life gauge is emptied, the player will lose a life. In this fight, the player primarily controls Super Sonic, while playing as the Gaia Colossus during one quick-time event.

In the beginning of the fight, Perfect Dark Gaia sets up an enormous shield that Super Sonic can't go through. Super Sonic and Chip (in his Gaia Colossus form) begins by advancing toward Perfect Dark Gaia, dodging the rocks and energy orbs. It is also important to gather up as many rings as possible with the Super Sonic Boost to boost Sonic's life gauge as there will be no other rings available after reaching Perfect Dark Gaia. After dodging the rocks, Super Sonic and the Gaia Colossus will reach the boarders of the shield, where Chip goes through the shield and grabs Perfect Dark Gaia's attention while Super Sonic goes and destroys the source of the power for the shield, which appear in the form of serpent heads that which extend outside the force field. These serpent heads can be destroyed by making Super Sonic boost into them repeatedly, but watch out for nearby rocks which must be avoided or you will take damage. Chip has a life gauge too, so you must destroy the shield before Chip's life gauge is gone or you lose a life. Sometimes, Chip goes down and Perfect Dark Gaia starts to attack Super Sonic through the force field while the player tries to destroy the shield. It mainly attacks by shooting a large laser or calling several large rocks from the magma and throwing them at Super Sonic. Chip will eventually rise at some point and will try to grab Perfect Dark Gaia's attention again, allowing the player to focus on destroying the shield again..

Once the shield is down, Perfect Dark Gaia then grabs Chip with its six arms and starts to launch its laser to destroy Chip. Super Sonic then goes out to save Chip by boosting into all six arms, which is done in gameplay by completing a quick-time event, where Super Sonic has to land one hit on each of Dark Gaia's arms when it grabs Chip. After that, Chip is freed and leaves Perfect Dark Gaia in agony, but it still had enough energy and shoots its laser at Chip. Chip takes immediate impact from the laser but withstands and manages to negate it (by pressing 60 buttons in 10 seconds on the controller). Once Chip negates it, he takes a punch and directly hits Perfect Dark Gaia. Super Sonic then comes and finishes off Perfect Dark Gaia by flying through it's middle eye. The level immediately ends after that.

After the Battle
Once after you're ranked, it shows Perfect Dark Gaia being immediately slashed through by Super Sonic by the middle eye and returning into the Earth. Super Sonic is then returned back to normal and falls from exhaustion. Gaia Colossus catches Sonic before falling into the magma. Earth is then dissipated of Dark Gaia's energy.

Links

 * The battle against Perfect Gaia(Wii/PS2 version)
 * The battle against Perfect Gaia(PS3/360 version)

Trivia

 * Perfect Dark Gaia is one of the two characters with the "perfect" prefix in their names. The other is Perfect Chaos (both being final bosses).
 * In Sonic Colors, at the beginning of Act 6 of Asteroid Coaster, it looks like the roller coaster is coming out of a rock or planet that is shaped like Perfect Dark Gaia's head.
 * At the beginning of the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 version, it's similar to Sonic and Knuckles' Doomsday Zone(Avoiding asteroids and collecting rings).