First off, I'm sure you've notice a major difference between the boss fights in this game, compared to those in other Sonic 2D platformers.(as well as any 2D platformer) That difference is, you are chasing your enemy the whole time, which can make it a bit more difficult to aim your hits properly. Also, in this game, the boss fight is totally seperate from the last act of the stage. This is really a good thing, because you are most likely going to get hit, and you wouldn't want to lose 100 or more rings just because of the boss. Instead, you collect your rings as the fight goes on. Before I go into detailed strategy for individual bosses, let me first give you some general tips that will work on most any boss: 1. You are running after Eggman, so watch your jumps. You can easily jump too short or too long. You have to time and aim a lot more carefully than when standing still. 2. Whenever you connect with a hit, fall back, unless you know you can make another hit immediately after. This means, you connect, then hold back to stop your character for a second, then continue running. The reason to do this is because on most fights, something will be aimed at you as soon as you get near enough to the boss to make a hit. By stopping, you can avoid it many times. 3. If you are using Cream, just use the B button Cheese attack. Don't worry about hitting the normal way, just focus on collecting rings and avoiding hits you'll get a nice score for holding on to a lot of rings, and landing a quick kill. 4. If you are using Sonic, and jump slightly short, quickly tap A again to activate the Flash Shield. This should extend just enough to hit. 5. Try to avoid Burst Mode at all times. It can propel you into the boss, and easily make your jumps too long. 6. Rings are infinite! Collect more when ever you run out. They'll never stop coming, and have a easily predictable pattern. After a while, you may only see one at a time instead of 3, but they'll never completely run out. Now, for the individual strategies: Leaf Forest- Egg Hammertank II Well, many of you probably fought this type of boss before. But as previously mentioned, you are chasing it now, which makes things slightly harder. If you mess up on timing, you can jump right into the hammer. With the right timing, however, this boss is a piece of cake.(as first level bosses should be) Try to get into a good flow. Run so that you reach the tank right after the hammer lifts, jump in and hit it, then fall back right before the hammer when it lands again. Then you can run in and repeat. Alternatively, you can run right in front of the hammer as it's about to hit ground, jump it, and jump again for the hit. Hot Crater- Egg Bomber Tank This one is only slightly harder than the first. It's cannon moves up and down, randomly firing off egg bombs, which just seem to land right where you are. Just try your best to dodge the bombs as you make your way towards the cannon. Hit the cannon first, but be careful not to hit it was it's about to shoot, or you'll end up getting hit instead. Once you've destroyed the cannon, you'll still need to hit the tank a few more times. The tank always fires bombs on the ground, so they are extremely easy to dodge. Music Plant- Egg Totem Ok, this one is fairly simple. It's your basic 'jump on something, then jump off that to hit Eggman' type of boss. The only difference from most is, that in this, the something you have to jump on has spikes on the side, and is attacking you. Never jump directly to the top plate. You'll hit the spikes. Either jump from middle to Eggman,(if close enough) second, to top, to Eggman, or bottom, to top to Eggman. With enough hits, those things shooting at you can be destroyed if they bother you enough. Just jump on the platform if they are on the top, or jump underneith if they are at the bottom. If you can, try to land back on the top plate after hitting Eggman, and quickly jump back in for another hit. Ice Paradise- Aero Egg This is another pretty easy one, and another one where you jump on something else first. They key here is to get a good jump on the platform attatched at the back, and hold right to fly into Eggman. Watch out for the bombs he drops. I found you take no damage in the center of the blasts. So if you can get out of the way, try jumping over the bomb, and if you are dead center, you'll be safe. Sky Canyon- Egg Saucer Ok, this one can be really annoying. First off, I recommend destroying the laser. It's the hardest to deal with. Once you do that, you can go after Knuckles/Eggman. With practice, dodging the hand isn't really that hard. Fall back after each hit, and you should do fine. Just remember that you can only land a hit on the very top of the capsule, not the side. Also, watch out for jumping too high, and running into the spikes on the bottom of the capsule above. Techno Base- Egg-Go-Round Yet another platform jumper. This one more difficult than the others. There's two different kinda of platforms, and two of each. The platforms have two different states. There's a trap state(red light) and a safe state(blue light). First, we have the white platforms, that just spin so you can't jump on them when they are in trap state. Then, we have the yellow ones that emit spikes on the trap state. To make matters worse, a series of three projectiles is aimed at you ever once in a while. Attacking should be obvious; jump on a platform while on safe state, and jump to hit Eggman on the top of the Egg-Go-Round. So let me discuss dodging. If you are on the ground, and right in front of the first projectile in the series, you can do a mid-ranged jump, taking you over the first two projects, and landing right before the first. It might take some practice to get the jump right. If you are using Tails or Cream, you can fly over the projectiles, or throw them off by flying, then landing, so they are shot over your head. Egg Utopia- Egg Frog This is another of the harder ones. It uses gravity switching to its advantage. However, you can too. By pressing up(on floor) or down(on celing) you can switch where you are. It's pretty hard to hit this boss regularly. He extends his legs wide enough, that it's hard to jump over. The best time to hit is when he pulls them in, but he's about to gravity switch when he does so. Also, if you keep running, waiting for this to happen, you can go into Burst Mode, and shoot right past him. The best thing to do is get on the opposite side of him. Once you do so, get over him, and hit down. You'll roll into a ball. If you were on the floor, quickly hit up to hit him. If you did it right, you should connect with the middle, and not the legs. Then hit down again, and repeat. If you were on the celing, holding down will automatically drop you, and you can go back up and repeat. Just make sure to wait until you roll to change sides. If you don't, you'll crash into him unprotected. If he's going to drop a bomb on the side you are, immediately switch gravity to avoid it, and once the blast is clear, you can change back if needed. Final Zone: XX- 1-7 repeats They are just the same as before, but with less hits to kill. If you don't know how to beat them by now, just refer back to earlier in the guide. Final Zone XX- real boss(not sure of name) This is the first battle in the game where you are actually standing still. Take advantage of it! Ok, here's the deal: He shoots out his hands(which are killable) and shoots a giant beam from his eyes. You have to hit the head to kill him. Three platforms will take turns rising. Use those to get high enough. (Though I doubt you'll be needing the back one that much...) There will be steam let out to warn you when a platform will rise. If you are on that platform, you will fall back, but lose no rings. Be careful when on the plaforms, as the go all the way up to a spiked wall. If you want to play it safe, wait until the platform begins to lower. Then you can jump on it when it's about half way down, and reach the head without the danger of spikes. If the hands bother you, you can get a couple of quick hits on the first one before anything really starts. After that, you'd have to wait until it launches, jump over it, and come down hitting the back part. Sometimes, you can hit the head, fall and end up hitting an arm on the way down.