The Black Dragon^{[note 1]} is a character that appears in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. It is a giant ancient dragon that was unleashed during the Northstar Islands incident. It was sealed away thanks to Super Sonic, with Trip. Dr. Eggman also sought to unleash the Black Dragon as part of his plans for world domination,^[1] although he ultimately never got a chance to do so before Sonic and his friends stopped him, with it escaping by itself.

Appearance[]

The Black Dragon is a giant, indigo dragon with indigo wings, light purple membranes and black horns. It has red eyes, black claws and a long-scaled tail. For attire, it wears gray spikey bracelets and belt, and gray shoes.

History[]

Past[]

Not much is known about the Black Dragon. According to the mural located in Northstar Islands, it is presumed that long ago, a group of armored sungazer lizards were united and tasked to seal away the beast in the Black Onyx.

Trio of Trouble[]

Dr. Eggman later stumbled upon the mural at Northstar Islands alongside Fang and Trip, and proceeded to closely analyze it and then draw a crude copy of the Black Dragon in his notebook that bore a closer resemblance to a cow with wings, intending to have the dragon factor into his current world domination plan.

Sonic Superstars[]

In present day, Eggman tasks Fang and Trip with finding the Black Dragon after successfully collecting giant animals, although Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy's arrival prevented them from doing so. Later, the Black Dragon reawakened to cause havoc again. Sonic transformed into his Super State and faced off against it. It was eventually beaten by him and was sealed away in the Black Onyx once more by Trip.

Powers and abilities[]

Powered by a mysterious dark power, the Black Dragon's power was of interest for Dr. Eggman for world domination. Once the Dragon is unleashed into the world, the climate of the Northstar Islands changes: storms surround the islands, multiple whirlwinds threaten the seas.

The Black Dragon can fly with its large wings, and is capable of shooting fiery boulders out of its mouth. Additionally, it can blast powerful laser beams. The dragon's true power however is to manipulate space and gravity, as its mere presence caused climate anomalies to surround the islands, and it can attack with black holes so powerful that not even Super Sonic could escape without the use of the Super Sonic Boost.

The Dragon appears to hold a source of power in its chest of a red color that increases its power and surrounds its body with red marks. However, if it were to be destroyed as it happened with the battle with Super Sonic, the Dragon would be weakened enough for it to be trapped inside the Black Onyx once more.

Relationships[]

Enemies[]

• Sonic the Hedgehog
• Trip the Sungazer

Battle[]

The Black Dragon is the true final boss of Sonic Superstars, being fought with Super Sonic in the Last Story, which can only be accessed after the player had completed the Story Mode, Trip's story, and had collected all seven of the Chaos Emeralds.

Boss guide[]

Fought in the skies above Bridge Island Zone, the Black Dragon is a lengthy and challenging three-phased boss fight that will require players to carefully manage their Rings to maintain Super Sonic's transformation. Since the boss is in the background for the majority of the fight, players will also need to take advantage of their brief openings to damage the boss.

During the first phase, the Black Dragon will attack with one of four moves:

• From the background, the Black Dragon will fire a series of red and blue rocks, which will rain down the arena in sequential order. The raining rocks are telegraphed by their respective vertical columns of light appearing in the foreground indicating where the rocks will fall along. While red rocks are "harmful" to Super Sonic by knocking him back on-contact, blue rocks can be hit by Super Sonic to knock them back into the Black Dragon. This attack will prematurely end if Super Sonic successfully reflects a blue rock back into the boss.
• From the background, the Black Dragon will summon pillars of blue crystals across the screen. While the crystal are blue, Super Sonic will destroy them on contact. However, once the crystals turn red, both them and the projectiles they launch will "harm" Super Sonic by knocking him back.
• The Black Dragon will roll into a ball, and then leave the background to attack Super Sonic with a large rolling attack. The Black Dragon will repeat this maneuver by alternating between the background and foreground, with its movements in the background telegraphing its foreground trajectory. Contact with the Black Dragon during this attack will "harm" Super Sonic by knocking him back.
• The Black Dragon will charge directly towards Super Sonic, shifting the perspective of the fight. After the shift, the Black Dragon will attack by launching black holes in random positions. The black holes will track Super Sonic if he gets too close and, on contact, "harm" him by trapping him. The player can escape by dashing, but staying trapped for too long will result in instant death. Players must carefully, but quickly navigate around the black holes to damage the Black Dragon by charging into its chest (attacking other locations on the Black Dragon will knock the player back instead).

As the Black Dragon takes damage, the aggressiveness of its attacks will increase. After taking six hits, the Black Dragon will transition into its second phase, and will begin to utilize the following moves:

• From the background, the Black Dragon will attack Super Sonic with projections of its claws. Although the claws will "hurt" and knock back Super Sonic while in motion, Super Sonic can attack the claws after their swipes to damage the Black Dragon. This attack will prematurely end if Super Sonic attacks a claw.
• The Black Dragon will fire large, disc-shaped walls of energy from the background. The walls of energy will "harm" and knock back Super Sonic unless he avoids them by going through the hole in their center.
• Similarly to the first phase's black hole attack, the Black Dragon will charge towards Super Sonic, shifting the perspective of the fight. After the shift, the Black Dragon will attack by launching fireballs on the same vertical plane as Super Sonic. Once again, players must carefully navigate the projectiles to attack the Black Dragon's chest. Although the fireballs cannot kill Super Sonic, they will still "hurt" him and knock him back significantly, likely denying the player an opportunity to attack the boss.

As with the first phase, the aggressiveness of the Black Dragon's attacks will increase at it takes damage. After five more hits, the Black Dragon will transition into its final phase (indicated by the background darkening, and Super Sonic turning to face the boss). The Black Dragon will launch a series of rocks directly at Super Sonic, which can only be avoided by using the dash attack as the two target reticles begin to overlap. After this, the Black Dragon will fire a continuous energy beam for several seconds, which Super Sonic must avoid. While getting hit at any point during the third phase will restart it from the beginning, successfully avoiding the Black Dragon's onslaught opens it up to the final hit.

Throughout the battle, the player will need to focus on collecting Rings during the fight, as the Ring count is constantly depleting to keep Sonic in his super transformation. The player will automatically fail the fight if their Ring count reaches zero, restarting the boss battle from the beginning. While individual Rings can be scavenged from the air, Sonic's friends will be the primary source of Rings throughout the fight. Every 30 seconds, either Tails in the Tornado or a gliding Knuckles can spawn on the edge of the screen to provide support by dropping Rings in their path, as well as awarding additional Rings to Super Sonic if he makes contact with them directly. Additionally, if Super Sonic manages to avoid all of the Black Dragon's "harmful" attacks for roughly a minute, Amy and Trip will appear on a giant flying Flicky to drop Ring Monitors for Super Sonic.

Due to the positions where Sonic's friends can spawn, they can easily be missed if the player is in motion when they appear. Therefore, it is recommended for the player to remain stationary if they anticipate the appearance of Sonic's friends.

Gallery[]

Concept artwork[]

Models[]

Screenshots[]

Music[]

Name	Artist(s)	Length	Music track
"True Final Boss Battle"	Yuzuru Jinma	3:31

Trivia[]

• A similar concept was planned for the final boss in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, which was hinted at in the Japanese manual where Knuckles alluded to a prophecy where an egg would cause a dragon to be unleashed and bring about disaster. However, it was cut in favor of fighting Eggman as the final boss.
• Black Dragon is one of final bosses in the Sonic series that are not Dr. Eggman, the others are Metal Sonic Kai in Knuckles' Chaotix, Witchcart in Tails' Skypatrol, Great Battle Kukku in Tails Adventure, Perfect Chaos in Sonic Adventure, The Finalhazard in Sonic Adventure 2, Emerl in Sonic Battle, Metal Overlord in Sonic Heroes, Ultimate Gemerl in Sonic Advance 3, Devil Doom in Shadow the Hedgehog, Babylon Guardian in Sonic Riders, Solaris in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Alf Layla wa-Layla in Sonic and the Secret Rings, Ifrit in Sonic Rivals 2, Master Core: ABIS in Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, Pir'Oth Ix's Super State in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, Perfect Dark Gaia in Sonic Unleashed, Dark Queen in Sonic and the Black Knight, Nega-Mother Wisp in Nintendo DS version of Sonic Colors, Lyric the Last Ancient in Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric and Shattered Crystal, Double Trouble in Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice, and The End in Sonic Frontiers.
  • Black Dragon is also one of ten bosses in the Sonic series where Super Sonic fights the final boss that are not Dr. Eggman, the others being Perfect Chaos, The Finalhazard, Metal Overlord, Ultimate Gemerl, Solaris, Pir'Oth Ix's Super State, Perfect Dark Gaia, Nega-Mother Wisp, and The End.

Notes[]

References[]