The Lost World of the Echinda

[Wraith]

When a game's narrative is firing on all cylinders it's art and mechanics are working in unison to craft a story through space. Top notch level design can be perfectly serviceable as a test of the player's skills but the aesthetics, music, and even mechanics can be used to completely immerse the player. I'd argue that there are a few Sonic games that absolutely nail this. 

 

Lost World is the penultimate level in Sonic Adventure's main campaign. It doesn't hold a lot of significance for the battle between Sonic and Eggman and even in the wider narrative that it's more relevant to not a lot of attention is drawn to it. As far as atmosphere and tone though I considered it one of the game's strongest sequences on my last replay. Almost every setpiece and mechanic uses the theme well, with tricks and traps throwing back to action serials and puzzles implying that there's an ancient secret to be found. 

I like to time my entrance to the pool segment with the music: It's a much more laid back segment of level that fits the somber piano really well. It's a puzzle that I've warmed to on repeat playthroughs when I realized the Snake's placement doesn't determine the pacing of the segment at all once you know how to move Sonic around. This level has a couple more moments like that that I'll point out.

Once you go deeper though you realize this level isn't just stopping at the temple. Sonic sprints past a cliffside before falling deeper into a ravine, a segment dedicated solely to the levels scale. I wish there was more of this type of scenery since it really sells us on the scale of the Echidna world and what they managed to achieve before it fell to ruin. I'm sure there would have been more without hardware limitations and time constraints to consider. 

Mirrors are significant to the Mayan culture but I couldn't really find much of a historical link between that and the Mirror Puzzle. That's not really surprising since I doubt this game would get a ton of points for historical accuracy overall. I still think the segment is fun and the dark lighting should have been used more. It's a really effective mood setter that makes the atmosphere feel a little more oppressive. Some people think the puzzle is clunky but I know this segment of the level so well that I don't need the lights anymore. Even if you don't like it it's cool that you can skip it with skill.

The sliding panel puzzle doesn't have much to it but I like how you can use Sonic's momentum to jump all around the room to skip parts of it and grab bonuses. These wider segments where the goal is to move upward end up having a lot of decisions for you to make compared to how straightforward every other segment of a Sonic level can be. 

Anyway, The entire time you're trying to make it here: the source of this lost world's hollowed halls and ruined architecture: A great calamity. As much as the level seemed desperate to hide it from you, it's no secret. It's very same one foreshadowed in the game's opening. Sonic Adventure sells Chaos's capacity and destructive tragedy just as he is on the brink of doing it all again. The quiet tension  and the way it builds to this reveal in Lost World is a very big understated of that whole arc, but an important one.

It's also just a fun level, so that helps.

 

[The Deleter]

It's technically the continuation of the kind of storytelling the classics tried to have as window dressing with their ruins/labyrinths and later hidden palace with Sonic 3, and definitely the culmination of environmental storytelling in the series. I wish that the series tried to make more use out of this style of a level, but at the same time it also takes significantly more effort to craft something that actually progresses like this than the general themes the series usually relies on. I also find as time goes on, I'm finding myself more and more appreciative of the general craziness of Sonic's world itself rather than looking for a world taken out of Metroid Prime, just for the sake of tickling my sense of adventure via grounded settings. If a game could find a good middle ground between both of these styles of levels and a sweet spot for aesthetic that's flexible enough for both, they'd strike gold tbh.

 

I will say though, the goal of the level is kind of weak on repeat playthroughs. It's a dead-end destination based level, but at the end, all there is is a mural that either isn't that important to Sonic's story itself, or information about the story that we already know. It works in the sense of a first playthrough, but I feel like it would have been stronger if, say, it was a location Sonic had to pass through in order to chase after Eggman to his jungle base, and the mural was lined along a final shrine rather than at the end of a basement.

[Soniman]

Please never stop doing this.

Anyway I love when Sonic levels are contextualized in grand ways like this which was a unique strength of the Adventure Era. 

[Multikaris]

Desert Ruins, on the other hand? What did it even tell us about the Zeti? 

[Iko]

I could open a thread called "When the Sonic Mania went too far", and put a big picture of Sonicman from Sonic 06 in the first post, along with writing about how sometimes being obsessed with something can be a bad thing, citing some example of behaviors that if overdone, can be counterproductive or even dangerous/damaging to the Sonic community/fanbase as a whole (without mentioning the game Sonic Mania once).

No, I won't do that, it was just an example.

Last time it was about why Sonic Colors sucks, and the thread was about the palette swaps in Smash; next time what, "Sonic Forces you to do something" and a thread about automation in Sonic games?

I'm not a fan of these clickbait/troll titles, they are misleading and used to trashtalk about some Sonic games in a passive way; while I don't even care that much, it still annoys me.

You can do wathever you want, though I just wanted to point this out.

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This said, I made a post about Lost World and Hidden Palace in the headcanon thread already. The biggest question is, is that mural a prophecy or did some survivors build it after the disaster? Because the murale in Hidden Palace is without any doubt a prophecy, but the picture in that case is a lot less detailed; here Chaos is represented with high accuracy, so it makes me think that the murale was done by people who have seen the actual monster.

Also Lost World is a very glitchy level, especially the snakes room, those snake platforms lead me to a cheap death due to physics glithces more than any other Sonic game I have ever played; the fact that occasionally they go underwater doesn't help at all. Sonic Adventure's Sonic levels in general get way more praise than they deserve IMO.

Edited February 29, 2020 by Iko
repeated typo

[Wraith]

15 minutes ago, Iko said:

I could open a thread called "When the Sonic Mania went too far", and put a big picture of Sonicman from Sonic 06 in the first post, along with writing about how sometimes being obsessed with something can be a bad thing, citing some example of behaviors that if overdone, can be counterproductive or even dangerous/damaging to the Sonic community/fanbase as a whole (without mentioning the game Sonic Mania once).

No, I won't do that, it was just an example.

Last time it was about why Sonic Colors sucks, and the thread was about the palette swaps in Smash; next time what, "Sonic Forces you to do something" and a thread about automation in Sonic games?

I'm not a fan of these clickbait/troll titles, they are misleading and used to trashtalk about some Sonic games in a passive way; while I don't even care that much, it still annoys me.

You can do wathever you want, though I just wanted to point this out.

-----------------------

I just liked the idea of hooking people in with topics discussed endlessly thar bored me specifically to have a conversation about a topic that actually interested me. I intentionally left no comment on the title subject's quality in the OPs for a reason:I don't actually care to discuss those games. I just wanted to poke fun at topics I find repetitive. 

So, yeah. It's a joke, but I understand that jokes get old. I had plans to mix it up as I went along but I also planned to put a stop on the whole thing if people started to find it obnoxious or one of the oranges yelled at me or something.

 

That Sonic Mania one is good and I wish I thought of it.

[Tracker_TD]

13 minutes ago, Iko said:

along with writing about how sometimes being obsessed with something can be a bad thing, citing some example of behaviors that if overdone, can be counterproductive or even dangerous/damaging to the Sonic community/fanbase as a whole (without mentioning the game Sonic Mania once).

You could do that, it's just that it wouldn't make any sense. The only 'dunk' on Lost World here is that this thread isn't about Lost World, as opposed to what really kind of sounds like a thinly veiled hissy fit about Mania being well-received constantly. Or maybe I'm just being harsh. 

Anyway, the main thing I agree with in the OP is my perception on the level itself changing over the years. The snakes are shit, because of how utterly wacky their collision is, but I do go back to Lost World quite a lot now because of the crazy ways you can manipulate Sonic around the level design; the end puzzle room is just fun to mess with (even though I still always spindash into the spike droppers like an idiot, every single time). I do wish the light dash section in the mirror area didn't change the camera though - makes spindash jumping impossible (though as I type this it's just come to me that Free Camera could fix this).

[Wraith]

13 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

You could do that, it's just that it wouldn't make any sense. The only 'dunk' on Lost World here is that this thread isn't about Lost World, as opposed to what really kind of sounds like a thinly veiled hissy fit about Mania being well-received constantly. Or maybe I'm just being harsh. 

 

Sonic Mania isn't brought up in his proposal either. Its a fairly general point about obsession or repetitive behavior. 

 

Any we'll just nip this in the bud since we can't handle it. The joke is fun but not meant to be the main point. 

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, Miragnarok said:

Desert Ruins, on the other hand? What did it even tell us about the Zeti? 

Not gonna lie, I was thinking of the Deadly Six with dreadlocks when I saw this.

 

I honestly don't remember the wall markings on the pyramids, so I'd have to get back to you either way.

[Iko]

@Wraith Thank you for changing the thread's name

[DabigRG]

1 minute ago, Iko said:

@Wraith Thank you for changing the thread's name

What was the original name?

[KHCast]

I’m trying to remember if Unleashed ever did a level like this, cause the atmosphere in world building in all other regards was usually pretty spot on. It certainly did great at the scope part, that’s for sure. 

[DabigRG]

11 minutes ago, KHCast said:

I’m trying to remember if Unleashed ever did a level like this, cause the atmosphere in world building in all other regards was usually pretty spot on. It certainly did great at the scope part, that’s for sure. 

Not really? Most of the levels were normal locales, Eggmanland was nuts, and the Gaia Gate(s) was PS2/Wii exclusive.

[Wraith]

8 hours ago, KHCast said:

I’m trying to remember if Unleashed ever did a level like this, cause the atmosphere in world building in all other regards was usually pretty spot on. It certainly did great at the scope part, that’s for sure. 

Every single Sonic Unleashed level is an exploration of the town it takes place in and the surrounding areas. The levels took so long to make because they all depict Sonic moving out of the town and toward his objective, usually out in the wilds. The intensity is ramped up 

This is the most clear with Jungle Joyride, which is constantly changing scenery from the quiet fishing village, to the jungle and out of the jungle to the temple. It's easy to just focus on what's in front of Sonic with how limiting Sonic Unleashed's gameplay can but, but once you realize how much terrain Sonic is covering in one go it becomes an incredibly intense power fantasy. You're a goddamn super hero, and nothing can stop you from crossing miles and miles of terrain in minutes. 

In a lot of ways it's what Sonic Adventure was trying to do with it's levels but just expanded with the power better hardware provides. 

[KHCast]

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

Every single Sonic Unleashed level is an exploration of the town it takes place in and the surrounding areas. The levels took so long to make because they all depict Sonic moving out of the town and toward his objective, usually out in the wilds. The intensity is ramped up 

This is the most clear with Jungle Joyride, which is constantly changing scenery from the quiet fishing village, to the jungle and out of the jungle to the temple. It's easy to just focus on what's in front of Sonic with how limiting Sonic Unleashed's gameplay can but, but once you realize how much terrain Sonic is covering in one go it becomes an incredibly intense power fantasy. You're a goddamn super hero, and nothing can stop you from crossing miles and miles of terrain in minutes. 

In a lot of ways it's what Sonic Adventure was trying to do with it's levels but just expanded with the power better hardware provides. 

I’d also say Savannah Citadel is also a stage that takes advantage of this well, where it starts you off at a village, and you go into a safari,  then the citadel, to a jungle, then a giant tree. I only wish animals played a more defining role in this stage to give it a bit more life. Kinda like Cool Edge did with the whale. Like, idk how viable it would have been, but seeing a cheetah running alongside Sonic before going off somewhere else, or using some birds in the tree as platforms, or using a giraffe to get to a higher point are things that really would have really made me love that stage even more 

That’s one thing I’ll knock unleashed a bit on as a whole really, is that their stages often feel a bit empty kinda hurting that world building. Like yeah if you stop in the stages like Rooftop Run and Apotos, you’ll see some humans towards the beginning, but idk, I look at stages like Skyscraper Scamper and I’m asking myself where all the hustle and bustle is. Speed highway in Generations had cars, so I definitely think they could have managed that. And Eggmanland, as grand as it feels I would have loved to see them make more use of the carnival aspect, and maybe we can hear people screaming when passing certain rides. That way it doesn’t just feel like Sonic interacting with this place, and it really establishes Eggmans finally done what he set out to do.

[DabigRG]

3 hours ago, KHCast said:

. Like yeah if you stop in the stages like Rooftop Run and Apotos, you’ll see some humans towards the beginning, but idk, I look at stages like Skyscraper Scamper and I’m asking myself where all the hustle and bustle is.

Isn't it atop Skyscrapers though?

3 hours ago, KHCast said:

And Eggmanland, as grand as it feels I would have loved to see them make more use of the carnival aspect, and maybe we can hear people screaming when passing certain rides. That way it doesn’t just feel like Sonic interacting with this place, and it really establishes Eggmans finally done what he set out to do.

Where was Eggmanland located, actually? I was under the impression it was in that desert area he had the Gaia Monsters gather at.

[KHCast]

6 hours ago, DabigRG said:

Isn't it atop Skyscrapers though?

You’re running on empty roads a lot of times and a large bridge and there’s like...no life. Hell, many buildings especially in New York, aren’t just generic building tops. There are gardens, pools, restaurants, etc on top of these things all brimming with life. The NPC’s of Empire City make it a thing to talk about how huge the city is and how busy and lively and diverse it is, but they don’t really translate that well into the actual stage. I’d personally have focused on more than just the buildings tbh. New York is known for more than that. What about  a Time Square like area? Or a Central Park proxy?Some Statue of Liberty esque thing? The actual streets on the ground, subways, the fucking cars and traffic lol...that sense of world building is just not there in that stage...you start on a road above the city, and on top of buildings, and a bridge...and then back to random floating stuff above the city, and more buildings. Idk, I feel they could have done a LOT more with this concept.