The Ball Shooter (ボールシューター, Ball Shooter^?) is a boss from Sonic the Hedgehog 3, as well as its locked-on form, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles. It is the first of three bosses fought in the second act of Launch Base Zone, before the Death Egg re-launches.

Attack PatternEdit

The wall that the Eggmobile sits on houses a cannon that fires large black balls. At regular intervals the cover of it raises up and the Ball Shooter fires one of these balls either from above or underneath the cover, which acts as a platform whilst horizontal. This platform will help the player reach Dr. Robotnik to attack him. However, if the player has a Lightning Shield equipped during the battle, then they can easily get to the Eggmobile by double-jumping and continuously attack. While the launches of the ball follow a regular above-underneath-above-underneath pattern, what happens to the balls does not. Sometimes they will be fired fast enough to shatter when they hit the ramp on the left, but at other times they will remain intact and roll back down again, meaning the player has to avoid them twice. The player should be careful not to lose his or her Rings, as there are potentially two more to fight and there are no more Rings in the zone.

Eight hits are required to defeat this boss, after which the character will find an unused Eggmobile to progress to the next boss.

There is a glitch where Tails gets stuck under Ball Shooter if using Sonic + Tails characters, and make for an easy win as he jumps repeatedly trying to get out, but ends up damaging Ball Shooter.