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The despicable Dr. Robotnik scrambles frantically to blast off. He is desperate, and will even try to fight Sonic with slashing mechanical claws. Timing is everything!


— Description, Sonic Spinball (16-bit)[1]

Robotnik's Ship, also known as Robotnik's cockpit,[1] is an object that appears in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. It is a small rocket ship Dr. Robotnik used to control his escape ship during the Veg-O-Fortress incident.

Description[]

Appearance[]

Robotnik's Ship is a large, orange-colored rocket ship with teal accents. It is rectangular in shape and possesses a wing on each side. It also has active rocket exhausts on its rear.

The ship contains a pinball table inside itself. The center of the ship also features a cockpit with a glass dome around it from where Dr. Robotnik controls the ship.

Features and abilities[]

Being a rocket ship, Robotnik's Ship is capable of flight. The cockpit for the ship itself is as well armed with two mechanical arms with claws and rubber windsocks.

History[]

Sonic Spinball[]

In the 16-bit version of Sonic Spinball, Dr. Robotnik used his ship in order to escape from his crumbling Veg-O-Fortress. However, Sonic the Hedgehog managed to sneak into his rocket ship, and fought and destroyed Robotnik's Ship, with the doctor falling into the collapsing Veg-O-Fortress afterwards.

Battle[]

Robotnik's Ship is the boss of Showdown in the 16-bit version of Sonic Spinball and the fourth and last boss of the game overall. It is battled with Sonic the Hedgehog.

Boss guide[]

To damage Robotnik's Ship, the player has to launch Sonic above Robotnik's cockpit in the center of the boss room and have him hit the cockpit's glass dome. To do this, the player has to shoot Sonic through the spaces on both sides of Robotnik's cockpit that leads to the cockpit's glass dome. To defeat Robotnik's Ship, the player has to hit the glass dome a total of ten times.

During the battle, Robotnik will activate two types of attachments on each side of his cockpit to throw Sonic out of the rocket ship where the boss room is located. The first of these attachments are mechanical claws, which will snaffle Sonic up in their claws and then drop him off in one of the two side-hatch tunnels in the lower corners of the pinball table that leads outside the rocket ship. The second of these attachments are windsocks (which function similarly in Showdown), which will fling Sonic into one of the round widows on the side of the room whenever the player attempts to reach the glass dome on the cockpit. These round windows will break after being hit three times, which will cause Sonic to be thrown out the rocket ship the next time he is thrown away by the same windsock, meaning that the player has to reach the rocket ship anew if that happens When the battle begins, Robotnik also uses both attachments as well.

To make the attachments disappear, the player has to hit the switch that is located on the bottom of Robotnik's cockpit, between the rocket engines, three times (though the Status Strip will not say if the attachments are removed or not). The attachments will return again after a short amount of time.[2] However, if the player also presses the switch again during this time, the attachments will appear again as well. The player then has to press the switch another five times to make them disappear.

After hitting the cockpit's glass the required amount of times, Robotnik's Ship will explode, and Sonic and Robotnik will fall from the sky. Tails, however, shows up in his plane to save Sonic while Robotnik falls into his sinking Veg-O-Fortress.

Trivia[]

  • It should be noted that following in the direction of the windsock's path toward the round window(s) will actually cause that same window to break faster. This is likely contributed to Sonic's increased speed while being flung.
  • One of the early promotional screenshots in magazines shows the cockpit of Robotnik's ship without Robotnik himself.[3]
  • In this boss fight, Dr. Robotnik is oddly scaled up to a size much larger than Sonic himself. However, when he is falling with Sonic after being defeated, he is accurately proportioned and sized in comparison to Sonic.
  • Robotnik wears a different bodysuit in both the boss fight and ending cutscene, though in the former, his shirt has a white stripe on it that is absent in the ending cutscene.
  • In the beta version of the game, hints were given as to when the attachments would disappear/reappear and when Robotnik was vulnerable.

Music[]

Name Artist(s) Length Music track
Boss Howard Drossin, Brian Coburn, Barry Blum 3:47

Trivia[]

  • In the Japanese guide book for Sonic Mega Collection, Sonic Mega Collection Saikyou Kourya Guide, Robotnik's Ship does not have a name, and the battle is named Defeat the defense system (防衛システムち央破する[4] Bōei shisutemu chi Hisashi yabu suru?).

Gallery[]

Screenshots[]

Gallery

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Sonic Spinball (Sega Genesis) United States instruction booklet, pg. 18.
  2. Sega Technical Institute (10 December 1993). Sonic Spinball. Sega. Level: Showdown. "Status Strip: Not much time!!"
  3. [1]
  4. (in Japanese) ソニックメガコレクション最強攻略ガイド. Shogakukan. 1 March 2003. p. 229. ISBN 978-4091060907.
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