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Metropolis, also known as the Metropolis Zone, is the central stronghold of Dr. Robotnik (also known as Dr. Eggman). This gargantuan machine-city is a polluted nightmare of steel and concrete, replete with robot sentries, Orwellian tele-screens, and free-flowing rivers of radioactive slurry.
For sixteen years (1992-2008), Metropolis occupied a sort of conceptual limbo in the game continuity. Although (as mentioned above) Megao/Metro/Robo/Mobotropolis functioned as Eggman's base of operations in most other Sonic media, within the games there was only the Metropolis Zone of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which scarcely looked like a city, let alone the capital of the Eggman Empire. For over a decade, and throughout the main series and spin-off games, Robotnik was shown operating out of mobile command centers or hidden research labs—with little to indicate that the Doctor still had a central stronghold. But a definitive answer finally came within Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, which revived the fortress-city as his base of operations.
History
In Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic and Tails make their way through a bustling industrial plant. Meter-wide screws and bolts tower up into the caves of turquoise steel, crushers eternally press into the ground in triumph, mid-air floating conveyor belts and vast mesh-work dynamos thrash out hundreds of revolutions a minute. Along the walls, steam-pipes coil like brassy pythons and giant cogs slowly grind out immense manufacturing processes above lakes of molten metal.
But perhaps the most dangerous aspect of Metropolis Zone comes in the form of the Badniks, for the doctor's city sports probably the most brutal robots of the entire game. Viridian mantis-bots hurl their razor-sharp scythe arms with a boomeranging action, an attack which proves surprisingly difficult for Sonic to dodge and self-destructing starfish drones that are placed with infuriating precision, such that they invariably manage to knock the hedgehog off the giant screw-lifts used to move up the level. There are also crab-like robots that can stop Sonic in his track by punching him with their giant claw at a fast rate.
In Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, destruction of Eggman's Metropolis have begun GUN attacks the city in full military force, while Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy battle the Doctor on board his latest Egg Carrier (which bears closest resemblance to the flagship, Final Fortress from the end of Sonic Heroes). Tails succeeds in sabotaging the Carrier, such that the airship disintegrates and crashes into Metropolis, devastating the city in a massive explosion as the GUN forces and the heroes escape from the scenery.
Following this defeat, and with Dr. Eggman missing and presumed dead, the ruins of Metropolis were left to rust. The only visitors were those human scavengers brave or foolhardy enough to raid the ghost city for salvageable metals and technology, until more guests began to arrive.
In Chapter 5, Eggman provisioned Sonic with the necessary information to infiltrate the Metropolis Underground and stop the Marauders. The hedgehog arrived seconds too late, though; after expropriating the Master Emerald from its plinth, the Marauders abandoned the stronghold and returned to the Twilight Cage—leaving Knuckles' floating continent to crash square into the city.
In the end sequence of The Dark Brotherhood, the team return from the Twilight Cage to find Metropolis entirely rebuilt - and bristling with weaponry. Eggman promptly shoots the Cyclone out of the sky in something of a cliffhanger ending.
Gallery
Trivia
- In Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, the map of Metropolis has a Sega Genesis, the Eggrobo from Sonic & Knuckles, the Drill Mobile from Marble Garden Zone of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and the Capsule from the games from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 to Sonic & Knuckles.
- The music for Metropolis in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is a remix of Panic Puppet Zone Act 1's music from the Sega Saturn soundtrack of Sonic 3D Blast.
- In Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the Metropolis was clearly located on West Side Island; in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, it appears to be part of the same landmass as other locations in Sonic's world, implying that this version of the city is somewhere on South Island.