Even to this day, the Death Egg Robot remains one of the hardest bosses in Sonic history. That’s because it’s complete nonsense. Sonic is all about that one last ring. No matter what the game throws at you, that one ring you’re holding means you’re still in with a chance. And then when you do get hit, everything instantly is dropped to reclaim it.
Death Egg Zone, though, thinks it’s a solid plan to remove the player’s rings entirely. There are zero rings to collect, and you’ve got to defeat Mecha Sonic before you can even tackle the final boss. As I say, nonsense.
If you’re looking to find out how to beat Death Egg Robot in Sonic 2 while playing Sonic Origins, here are all the tips and tricks to make this a little less stressful.
How to Beat Death Egg Robot in Sonic 2
This whole fight is about trial and error. You won’t beat it on your first attempt and that’s totally fine. Each loss is a learning experience.
During your initial runs, focus on learning the Death Egg Robot’s attack patterns. Learn the arc of the arm spikes, memorize where the back mines land and how they’re fired out, and master spindashing away from the crash-landing stomp attack. Don’t worry about winning, treat this as reconnaissance.
When you are comfortable with the attacks, move on to doing the damage. The Death Egg Robot, like all bosses, takes eight hits to drop. Depending on how confident you are, this can be a super-fast battle or a war of attrition, with the attrition option being the easiest option of the two.
The Belly Bounce (Hard)
The two best ways to attack the Death Egg Robot are when it lands and fires its arm spikes, and while it’s walking.
First up, attacking the robot while it’s walking is the most dangerous tactic out there. Seriously, don’t do this unless you’ve got some serious grit. It’s stupidly hard to get right, but it’s very possible. The trick here is to jump and attack the robot’s chest when both arms are by its side.
If the left arm is slightly forward, Sonic dies. Conversely, if the right arm is slightly forward, Sonic also dies. In short, arms equal instadeath. There is a split-second where Sonic can attack and it’s worth trying to visualise it before you attempt anything.
Imagine a straight line going down the front to the robot’s big ol’ belly. If the spikes from the arm pass onto or over that line, death. But if the spikes are parallel with one another, and not touching the virtual line, that’s when you can attack.
It is also possible to jump over the spikes even when the arms are out and hit the belly, but that’s even harder, so it’s difficult to recommend that tactic unless you’re really, really good at Sonic 2.
The Duck and Weave (Easier)
Option two is the safest option, but requires attention to what’s happening.
When the Death Egg Robot lands, it always crouches down. This brings the robot a lot closer to the ground, meaning jumping up and over the spikes is much, much easier to perform.
Of course, this means it’s going to launch its arm spikes attack, so when you bounce off from getting the hit, you need to be aware you’re going to almost always need to jump back up to avoid the new attack.
The duck-and-weave tactic sounds a lot scarier than it is. It does take a few attempts to get down, but once you’ve got the height and recoil sorted, it becomes second nature.
If you’re not comfortable with the belly bounce attack tactic, you can win this fight purely by only attacking when the Death Egg robot lands and crouches. It will take a lot longer, but the advantage here is you only need to land one hit at a time and can spend the rest of the time focusing on attack avoidance.
Sure, it’s longer, but if this fight is giving you trouble, longer and safer isn’t a bad plan at all.
Death Egg Robot Attacks
Arm Spikes
The Death Egg Robot fires its arms horizontally toward the player. Oh, and the arms have spikes on the end. Because this fight isn’t hard enough, apparently. If the spikes hit the player, the player dies. It’s about as much fun as it sounds.
Crash-landing
After the Death Egg Robot launches into the air, a reticule appears on the player. When said reticule flashes, the robot comes crashing back down onto the marked spot. If the player is still there, they die. Sonic the Flathog.
Mines
When the player is behind the Death Egg Robot, the robot can’t fire its arm spikes. To compensate, the Egg Robot launches mines backward, which explode after a short while. Although the mines are technically easier to avoid than the arm spikes, the player can get trapped behind the Death Egg Robot and the side of the screen with no way to avoid the mines. So, you know, be careful, yeah?
How to Dodge Death Egg Robot Attacks
Arm Spikes
The arm spikes are without question the hardest of the Death Egg Robot’s attacks to dodge. There is some good news, though. When the robot is going to launch the attack, it crouches down.
Once it’s crouched down you’ve got two options. The first is to get a sneaky hit in. To do this you’ll need to get enough speed to jump over the arc of the arm spikes then bop the robot on its belly and bounce back to safety.
This is tricky and does take a few attempts to get right. The key is holding down the jump button just before you hit the head. You see, holding down the jump button when hitting an enemy gives Sonic a boost of momentum. Normally this is used to keep the pace or reach a higher area, but with the Death Egg Robot, it’s being used as a means to ricochet off to a safe distance. Handy, right?
However, you shouldn’t go into this fight with this as your only tactic. You need to memorise the arm spikes’ arm pattern before attempting anything dangerous. Once you’ve got that memorised, then you can start being a little more brash.
The reason being, when you bounce off the head, the arm spikes will still be out, so by memorising the arc, you know where the arms will be as you’re spinning to safety and can avoid them on the fly.
The other option here if you’re focusing on avoidance is to jump straight up. No, really. The arm spikes are a lightning-fast attack. While this makes it harder to dodge, it also means a single jump is long enough for them to fly under the player and return back to the robot.
If you’re at the furthest corner of the screen, smacking jump just before they’re about to hit you really is enough to dodge them.
Crash-landing
This attack is by far the easiest attack to avoid. Great news or what?
When the Death Egg Robot flies up, the next attack is always going to be the crash-landing, and we can use that to our advantage.
Simply spindash (hold down on the controller, press jump a few times, then release) to the furthest left or right side of the screen. You’ll have a targeting reticule on you but it’s fine, don’t panic. Now crouch and start revving another spindash in the opposite direction (if you’re on the right side of the screen, aim this spindash to the left).
When the targeting reticule starts flashing, that means the Death Egg Robot is going to stomp down on that spot and that spot only. To avoid becoming roadkill, just release the spindash and Sonic will dart to the opposite side of the screen, leaving the reticule behind and the robot at a safe distance.
Mines
The Death Egg Robot’s mines attacks are easy to dodge but they do come with a warning.
Once you’ve played this boss fight a few times you’ll be able to roughly predict where the mines will land. They also don’t move fast enough that you can’t judge their trajectory during the fight. So avoiding them really is as simple as moving to the left or right to move Sonic under them to a safe spot, or jumping over them. I did say they were easy to dodge.
However, you can get forced into getting hit by them if you’re not careful. Ideally, you want to keep the Death Egg Robot around seven Sonics from the side of the screen. This gives Sonic just enough space so when the mines are dropped, you can maneuver under them. If you don’t have that space because the robot has you pinned in a corner, there’s every chance you’ll get hit by them due to the lack of space to move.
If you can always stay front-on with the robot, yes, the fight is more dangerous, but as hitting the robot from the rear is much more difficult than the front, there are few reasons to stay behind it. If you need a breather, by all means stay behind it. Otherwise just take the fight to it from the front.
Still Giving You Trouble? Try Cheating
We’ve got a guide breaking down how to enable cheats in Sonic Origins or unlock Mirror Mode, so if you want to enable level select to get some practice in, turn on debug mode, or become Super Sonic without completing any special stage, do check that out.
If you want to make this fight fair, use debug mode to give yourself three rings. No more, no less. Three is the amount you normally find before a boss fight anyway, so this idea is in keeping with the game’s rules.
Alternatively, if you really want to cheat, give yourself a Super Sonic box and laugh all the way through the fight. So long as you’ve got plenty of rings so you don’t turn back into regular boring Sonic, this fight will be a breeze.
