- For the unreleased final round, see Final Fever (R9).
The Metallic Madness boss is the seventh and final boss encountered in Sonic the Hedgehog CD, in Metallic Madness.
Battle
Once Sonic the Hedgehog enters the final arena, Dr. Robotnik will appear in his final machine, a mechanism which contains four, rotating multipurpose blades. It will hover above the ground, spinning the blades at a quick rate, and will eventually drop down trying to crush Sonic by rotating his craft to use the blades as "feet". Eventually, he will detach the blades and use them as weapons, but this is the first advantage to defeating the boss. Once the scientist is hit, a blade falls off, but the other blades will spin quicker than the previous time.
Like the previous phase, Dr. Robotnik will attempt to crush Sonic using the blades, and will hover back in the air to try and use them as projectiles. Another hit and the second blade is down. Upon the third phase, the doctor will try to shoot the blades from above the screen in a diagonal fashion. One more hit and it leaves the fourth blade, which spins at a super-quick speed. In a desperate, final attempt, Dr. Robotnik will use the blade as a spring to stomp on Sonic. Hitting it the last time causes the machine to explode; Dr. Robotnik turns to flee while Sonic sees Amy running towards him.
Ending
With that, the whole area of Metallic Madness begins to detonate, and Amy Rose appears on the scene. Sonic escapes along with Amy outside of Robotnik's exploding fortress, and this triggers the rest of the ending.
Depending on whether or not all seven of the Time Stones are collected, the ending varies. In the bad ending, Little Planet isn't completely freed, and Robotnik will escape with a seventh Time Stone. However, Sonic will hurl a rock towards Robotnik escaping in the air, causing his Egg Mobile to explode, and the whereabouts of the remaining Time Stones are unknown. After the credits, time will reset and Little Planet will remain chained to the mountain. In the good ending, Little Planet is freed from Dr. Robotnik's control, and it will sow its seeds on Sonic's world.
Unused extra boss
An earlier form of the final boss
On 16 May 2012, Christian Whitehead revealed concept art of an additional boss round called Final Fever exclusively for his remastered version of Sonic CD. It was intended either when the player was about to unlock the good ending or had all the Time Stones. Whitehead had this to say about it:
"[....] it’s colourful since it was intended to be an all Time Stones boss (good future only). Time flows freely, and Eggman’s machine is essentially invincible. The idea being Sonic can reach warp speed at any opportunity (instead of getting the warp posts) and must do so to “wind back the clock” to damage the boss. Some parts are running, some areas the screen is locked. I was slightly worried the idea of running to warp might not be self evident (no warp screen, the level and boss would change in real time with some neato effects)."
For unknown reasons, the idea was scrapped.
Trivia
Concept artwork for the R8 Boss.
- A piece of concept artwork for the final boss revealed that machine was going to be more of a robotic exo-suit at one point. The boss in the final game merges the design of that version and another design of the R8 Boss.
- The design would eventually be repurposed for the Phantom Egg boss fight in Sonic Mania.
- Another piece of concept art with a design closer to the final labelled it "R8 Boss Psyco-Egg". It is likely that the boss was intended to be named the Psycho-Egg, but no name was ever released besides this early, unfinalized design sheet.
- The music track is named Final Fever, and each soundtrack has a very different variation. The JP soundtrack uses a completely different theme exclusive for this boss that was later remixed in Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams... for Sega Saturn. The US version uses a slightly remixed, extended version of the regular boss theme instead.
- The opera singing from the JP version of Final Fever is sampled as part of Metal Sonic's boss theme in Sonic Mania.
- In the original game, the spinning blades used a rather choppy animation, which was smoothed out in the 2011 remastered version in a similar fashion to the Special Stages. Also in the 2011 version, laser pillars (which do not harm the player) were added to the edges of the arena due to the 2011 version having a 16:9 aspect ratio instead of the original 6:9 ratio.
- The achievement gained for defeating the Metallic Madness boss in the 2011 remastered version refers to it as Dr. Eggman's final machine.
- The shape of the cockpit Eggman resides in during the fight resembles the letters CD, a clear reference to the game’s name.
Music
| Name | Artist(s) | Length | Music Track |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robotnik | Sterling w/Armando Peraza, Bobby Vega | 1:25 | |
| Final Fever | Naofumi Hataya | 3:07 |