Few rivalries match the fame of Sonic the Hedgehog and Dr. Eggman. From the Sega Genesis to their debut on the silver screen, their conflict has stood the test of time as one of gaming’s greatest feuds.
Throughout their time as nemeses, they’ve had several dramatic clashes, but also a fair amount of disappointing confrontations as well. Five stand out as some of the greatest battles with the infamous egghead, and another five are some of the least impressive.
10 Bad: Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Doctor Robotnik’s Energy Ship
There are few disappointingly slow Eggman fights in classic Sonic games, and this flying saucer is one of them. This machine has only two attacks: drop a green ball that hardly bounces or moves, and shoot lightning directly downwards. Afterward, it slowly lowers down so you can get a quick hit in.
For an incredibly easy boss, this takes an obscene amount of time to defeat. It’s made more difficult thanks to a moving floor, but for the most part, this is a weird stall in an otherwise exciting platformer.
9 Good: Sonic Mania, Death Egg
The Death Egg is a common name for many of Eggman’s robots, but Sonic Mania's version is one of the most fun things to fight throughout Sonic’s history. To kill it you simply have to hit its head, but how you do that is completely up to you as it chases you along Green Hill Zone. You can hide behind it and tank some damage, wait for higher ledges to jump off, or try climbing on its arms.
Few video game bosses have this much flexibility, let alone Sonic series bosses. 2D Sonic games don’t typically have overly complicated boss fights, this stands out as one of the freest and fun ways to start a new adventure with Sonic.
8 Bad: Sonic Mania, Egg Pistons mk. II
Unfortunately, not all of Dr. Eggman’s machines and plots are as fun and interesting as his signature Death Egg robot. One of Sonic Mania’s many Eggman fights happens in a futuristic factory, where he replaces his robots for a series of crushing pillars that he hops between.
This fight is extremely slow and bizarrely luck-based. You just have to hope that Dr. Eggman comes up on one of the pillars that you’re standing near as you dodge slow attacks, and in a game as consistently fast as Sonic Mania, it slows the pace down to a sudden halt.
7 Good: Sonic Adventure, Egg Hornet
Another early boss fight, the Egg Hornet is the first Dr. Eggman boss in the Sonic Adventure series and a strong start. It’s far from complicated, firing missiles that you have to dodge and diving into the ground at you before you hit Eggman back.
It's incredibly gratifying to kick Dr. Eggman while he’s down, especially right at the start of the game. It comes across as Eggman’s ego and anger is causing him to miss rather than incompetence, as his ship jiggles in the ground before you run up to hit it. Eggman might be an evil scientist but that doesn’t mean he's a perfect fighter, and it’s nice to see a boss fight illustrate that.
6 Bad: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, Eggman Mech
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric is a mess in several regards due to its huge number of famous bugs and glitches, and while the boringly named Eggman Mech is functional it still is extremely boring to fight. It’s a stiff, poorly detailed robot that fires missiles, but otherwise gets knocked down easily.
It's definitely entertaining to watch Sonic and his friends more literally beat up Dr. Eggman, but otherwise this fight is dull and has an unsettling amount of terrible jokes filling the background noise. More than that, you spend more time fighting minions than you do him, and it just makes for a boring waste of time.
5 Good: Sonic Heroes, Egg Hawk
Sonic Heroes might center more on its teammate mechanics, but an early fight with his Egg Hawk is worth a mention as one of the more satisfying fights. In it, you run down a long marble bridge while dodging the intimidating Hawk’s guns, using your homing attack to keep up with it until it lands on a small island to spin and fire more.
This is one of the easiest and fastest fights with Dr. Eggman, but the freedom to just mash the homing attack aggressively to empty several health bars at once is tons of fun to do. Many 3D Sonic games have slow three-hit bosses, but this boss lets you attack at the same speed as you would a classic Green Hill Zone boss. For that, it reigns as one of the better ones.
4 Bad: Sonic Adventure 2, Egg Walker
Sonic Adventure 2 has a lot of shortcomings, but its boss fights are absolutely the worst of them. Since Eggman is a playable character and not the primary villain, his fights are limited to a simple one-on-one shootout with Tails in tiny weaponized walkers, once at Metal Harbor and once on the Space Colony Ark.
Even ignoring how Eggman is Sonic’s nemesis and not Tails’s, this fight is ridiculously easy and astonishingly fast. Just firing your gun rapidly will stun him so much that he barely fires off a shot, and you can beat him almost identically both of the times you face him. Even this early in the Sonic series, this is a huge step down from what the egg-shaped tyrant should be capable of.
3 Good: Sonic Adventure, Egg Viper
While Sonic Adventure has a great early encounter, the final encounter in Sonic’s story is a wonderful experience, but for separate reasons. This fight is far more complicated, with multiple stages and different obstacles that you bounce off to use a homing attack on Eggman’s face. In the end, he does what few bosses bother with and attempts to crash his defeated mech directly into you.
Simplicity can be wonderful too, but this type of complexity makes for a satisfying conclusion. The Egg Viper is huge and has so many moves that it’s memorable and difficult for the right reasons, and you get to use your speed to dodge him throughout the whole battle.
2 Bad: Sonic Unleashed, Egg Dragoon
There’s little pleasure to be had playing as the werehog in Sonic Unleashed. He’s slow, his stretchy arms make no sense, and the beat-em-up gameplay feels completely unrelated to Sonic. Fighting Eggman in this way is extremely bizarre, and is a total opposite to the Sonic experience.
The unfortunate thing is that this boss is theoretically really cool, with lots of moves and a unique drake-like design. If it weren’t for the small environment and constant quick time events, it might make for a really fun boss.
1 Good: Sonic Generations, Egg Dragoon
Thankfully, Sonic Generations provides a return of the Egg Dragoon and provides a battle that this exciting robot demands. Rather than fighting it from a platform, you chase after this monster as it flies backward through a long tunnel over a volcano, and even skydive down a hole. You get to keep up your speed as you grind rails and jump over pits, all leading up to you hitting Eggman as hard as you can.
This is the kind of boss fight that Sonic thrives in. You get to have all the speed of the platforming levels, but with an enemy to take down rather than an exit to reach. This mid-game fight is easily one of the most exciting and defining battles between Sonic and Dr. Eggman.