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Favorite and Least Favorite Level Tropes


FireBird75

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Sky Fortress Levels.

 

There have been a literal ton of these, Wing Fortress Zone, Sky Fortress Zone, Egg Fleet, and Sky Deck are just a few from the top of my head. What stands out to me in this level trope are the unique challenges you can face in these kinds of stages. More often then not, these are levels located in the latter half of the game, meaning that the developers usually throw you a curve-ball with the gimmicks. They will have you making precise jumps, squeezing through narrow gaps, timing your movements carefully and generally pushing the platforming envelope hard. It feels right. In a stage like this, you accept that every jump has to be prefect, because by the nature of the stage, its a long way down. But even with that bottomless pit excuse, for whatever reason, these stages more often then not are some of the most vertically stacked in the series. How many times have you missed a jump in Wing fortress, only to land 2 min's earlier in the stage? That's quality level design right there. On top of all that, they are some of the most interactive levels in the series. You can't go 2 seconds without hovering over a propeller or ducking a turbine. Its awesome.

 

It also doesn't hurt that these levels are gorgeous. They really push blue skies to the extreme, and there is even quite a bit of flexibility in that. Levitated Ruin features its own spin on the level trope with rustic automatons. Starlight carnival keeps things fresh by moving it into the final frontier of space. Sonic Team constantly shuffles the deck with this trope and its always refreshing.

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I liked how Final Fortress went for ominous grey clouds instead of the cheery blue sky used in Egg Fleet.

 

Grey thundery clouds are cool.

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Out of all the various, yet diverse levels that I've seen in Sonic games, my favorite is one that has been used only once as far as I am aware:

 

Food Level

 

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As far as I know, Sonic Colors is the only game to have this type of level, but it never ceases to amaze me. Cake, cookies, candy, donuts, cheeseburgers...I continue to be most impressed with Sweet Mountain, and how, well, delicious it looks. I thought this level in Sonic Colors was the most creative with loop de loops being made out of candy canes, for example. Everytime I play through this level I always see something new. I had no idea that a level design based on food would be so fun to both look at and play through!

 

I would be here all day if I was to mention every single type of level in Sonic games that I like. So I'll just mention a few more:

 

Ice/Snow Level

 

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I love levels that have a weather element to them, especially snow. The snow levels are absolutely amazing to look at with the wintery beauty. I've always found the snowboarding gimmicks to be fun too.

 

Casino/Carnival

 

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I like night levels as well, and Casino and Carnival levels look amazing, brightly lit amid the dark night sky with bold beautiful, bright colors. Aside from that barrel, these levels are fun to play, especially playing the slot machines trying to get the jackpot. 

 

I echo the thoughts of several members that mentioned that Desert levels being their least favorite. The quicksand among other things tend to be very annoying to play through and the levels just look so bland:

 

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Which is to be expected of course seeing that the setting is a desert. I personally don't see much appeal in Desert levels as nothing really stands out visually in them.  

 

Overall, (bar a few exceptions) the levels in Sonic games are visually amazing, full of color and intricate details, bursting with creativity which really makes the games admirable and a real delight to look at.

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My favourite tropes are ones that haven't actually been explored more than once or twice... laughably, they're from Sonic Advance 2 and Shadow the Hedgehog, so I can guess why they haven't explored them again in a hurry.

 

Music Plant

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I know the general level idea was basically ripped right out of Ristar, but I really feel like this is a trope that Sonic needs to visit again every now and then, sort of like how I feel towards Sweet Mountain (great idea, but can get a bit boring if done too often). Playing off of how Ristar's one had different music depending on your progress in the level, I really feel like Sonic's branching paths and the more playful elements from Music Plant could really lend to having varied music tracks.

 

Like, for example... maybe you jump on a bunch of keyboard notes, which then fall down below and destroy a giant drum, and the drums of the level music fade out unless you go back and do a switch puzzle or something to repair it... or you can head off another route and activate other instrument in it's place, while destroying others. Can even just be a direct route where none of that happens and you can just enjoy the level music while breezing through!

 

Digital Circuit

 

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I know Shadow's game is negatively received as a whole, but why was this idea seriously never been done before or after it? Sonic running around inside Eggman's computer networks and wrecking havoc while always being within Eggman's sights from the outside while he frantically does everything he can to either boot Sonic out of the system or just erase him on that field. Considering that it'd be Eggman's network, why not use it as a chance to have Sonic interact with random data files, such as Eggman's many Badniks from over the years? Could even have a 2D segment where a giant, literal sprite of Motobug frantically chases Sonic, if you wanted to really hit on the nostalgia side of things, seeing as it worked so well for the Motobugs in Starlight Carnival and Asteroid Coaster.

 

Cosmic Fall

 

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I know this counts as the space base/fortress trope, and that levels like Terminal Velocity Act 2 sort of play off this idea, but I think the idea of having Sonic traveling through one that's in the middle of collapsing would be a really great way to make the acts following after Sonic gets inside and proceeds to destroy everything much more interesting. Considering that Modern's gameplay even has a skydiving feature where you can move around more freely than Shadow ever could for his few free-falling sections, in addition to being able to speed up your descent and the gameplay generally being fast paced, this would make for a really dynamic level to interrogate the story and showing the results of what Sonic does.

 

There's also the fact that Cosmic Fall is -really- pretty whenever you get a chance to see the bottom of the ARK using the pulley, seeing the shower of parts of the ARK apart around you rather than just stray platforms and obstacles on the main parts. You have to wonder what it might have looked like from afar, or even on the surface of the planet...

 

 

... as for least favourite tropes, I've always solely hated the casino trope, especially levels with pinball. If you so much as touch any bumpers, Sonic just tends to fly around and become really annoying to control, and you can just be kept around in the same areas for ages if you offshoot where you're trying to get to by a little, getting flung back into the damned pinball table and other casino nonsense. I know Sonic's always kind of been about pinball physics, but making these sort of obstacles necessary to mess with (especially in the guilty parties like Casinopolis) just feels like it's shoving a load of really small and shallow minigames into Sonic's fast-paced gameplay. I'd rather just have it confined to being a bonus thing off-set from the main game, like Casino Night Pinball in Generations HD... or I could just boot up Windows Pinball and play proper pinball that doesn't have a tendency to suddenly control like crap just because that's not what the game was solely designed to handle.

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You know, it's really hard for me to pick and chose just which tropes are my favorites/least favorites. But, after much thought, I have come up with a couple small lists. Let's start with the favorites.

 

Favorite Tropes:

 

5: Spooky/Supernatural:

 

I find it very sad that this trope hasn't been used more often in games. Because quite frankly, I think it's pretty damn cool. There are so many things you could do with a haunted level. For instance, you could have a giant haunted house where you use floating furniture as platforms. I'd play a stage like that. It's simple, yes, but when you think about it, there's a lot of stuff that could be done with this trope. Why is it not in more games?

 

4: Jungle:

 

 I know, these are essentially green/island levels with a shitload more trees, but I've always found them very enjoyable to pl And they tend to be some of the most gorgeous levels in the series, a notable example being Jungle Joyride from Sonic Unleashed.

 

3: Flying Fortress

 

I'm going to echo the statements that other people made about these kinds of levels, because I pretty much agree with them. I always felt them to have some of the best designs in the games. There always tends to be a shitload of stuff going on in a lot of them. (Final Fortress from Heroes especially I find) and yet they aren't cluttered at all or anything like that. Yeah, they have a lot of bottomless pits, but that's to be expected from a level that's hovering miles above the ground. And they have such great atmosphere as well.

 

2: Industrial:

 

Looking back, I can't believe just how many stages in this trope that I like. Chemical Plant, Metropolis, Launch Base, Metal Harbor, Oil Ocean, Power Plant, Scrap Brain, Security Hall, Sweet Mountain (yes, this is part of the industrial trope according to Sonic Retro), all of these are fantastic stages. And most of them have Eggman's hand in the design. If you pay attention to the series, you know that anything Eggman has a hand in tends to be pretty crazy and deadly in design.

 

 

1: Urban:

 

Ah yes, I think I can safely consider this my favorite trope in the series. Yes, I know, this trope is over-used as hell in the games. But, at the same time, I find that urban levels to be the most fun kind. Obviously the trope wouldn't be on this list if I didn't. But I digress.

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  • 1 month later...

My favorites are Winter,

 

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I like the visuals, and the ice and snowboard gimmicks.

 

Tropical Island,

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It's just the visuals, really.

 

Carnival/Casino,

 

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They usually have really good music and bright lights so they're cool.

 

Urban,

 

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These levels are usually fast-paced, which I like.

 

I also (kinda) like the Ancient Ruins-trope

 

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My least favorite is probably Sand/Desert.

 

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Just not a fan of the sand-theme itself, and I'm not too fond of the gimmicks, either.

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