Zones we hate

[Failinhearts]

You know what I hate? Radical Highway on the 3DS version of Sonic Generations.

When I played it, it got tiresome, tedious and slow. BOTH acts. I noticed that I was travelling down a straight path with nothing standing in my way for a very long time. Especially in Act 1. Since Classic Sonic isn't as fast as Modern Sonic when simply running, you just sit there uninterested as you hold right. The music in Act 2 was horrible to boot.

I'm very "eh" on Generations 3DS as a whole, but never ask me to play Radical Highway on that game.

[JetTheHawk]

Sonic Rush's Altitude Limit. Was very frustating due to it's apalling level design and bottomless pits.

[caseykz]

44 minutes ago, JetTheHawk said:

Sonic Rush's Altitude Limit. Was very frustating due to it's apalling level design and bottomless pits.

I found it fine. Challenging to complete. A lot of platforming. Almost endless boosting on rails. I forgot how to defeat the boss though. Kept getting hit by bullets and missing the vulnerability window. 

Night carnival act 2 was impossible due to that one spring lack of tutorials. I used cheats to move on. 

That still does not compare to bomber barbara on hard. I enjoyed easy mode but hard mode was a nightmare. Yes i liked the purple lightning trap. 

[Mecha X]

Mad Space!

[Enesephus]

I'm one of those people that actually enjoyed the Werehog stages in Sonic Unleashed (well, in the PS3 version, the PS2 ones were boring as sin), but I really don't like Empire City Night, for one very specific reason: too many frickin' balance beam segments. I already don't care for those in the game's other stages, as they are just so slow and feel so out of place in a Sonic game, but Empire City Night makes them even worse. On top of there being several of them (and they're somewhat lengthy, to boot), there are spikes on the sides to make sure you can't grab the sides if you fall. To make matters even worse, the beams start falling apart as you walk on them later in the stage, so you can't go at a slower speed if that makes you feel safer. These wretched balance beam segments aren't even that hard, but they are just so frustrating, and make me dread having to play this stage when replaying the game.

[Nepenthe]

1 hour ago, Mecha X said:

Mad Space!

You're required to elaborate on your opinions when contributing to threads like this. Otherwise, it's spam which is against the rules.

[pocket]

I would actually consider Sonic 2 ( Master System ) an okay game if it weren't for Scrambled Egg Zone. As if those tube mazes weren't terrible on their own, there's so many that just dump you into spikes or require some tricky timing to land on a moving platform you cant even see.

[Myst]

Splash Hill, Seaside Hill, Windy Hill, and all other piss-poor Green Hill knockoffs.

[Semi-colon e]

Angel Island in Advance 1. It's not horrible, but I don't like it because I feel like it's one of the most bland levels in any 2D Sonic game. Even worse, it comes after the gorgeous Ice Mountain, and the rest of the game just becomes tedious and full of cheap hits. Not really a fan of Egg Rocket or Cosmic Angel either. Especially Egg Rocket, as that level goes on forever, and for some reason it's always bugged me that it goes "Egg Rocket Act 1" then "Cosmic Angel Act 2". Why not just "Egg Rocket", then "Cosmic Angel?" Nitpicking but still.

 

Sunset Hill in Advance 3 is pretty lame as well. I think I just hate the scratchy music and Act 3's horrible "fall down here and you have to redo the whole level or die as that's actually quicker" design. Some segments of Advance 3 overall are pretty cheap with enemy placement too. The level design is mostly fine, but obstacle placement is obnoxious. It rarely hinders one level more than the rest, but it's the chief complaint. Except, oddly, for Chaos Angel. I think Chaos Angel is somewhat less bad for it, and it's one of many reasons I think Chaos Angel is the best level in the game (or even all the Advance games).

 

 

[TCB]

Not much of a fan of 3&K Death Egg Zone. Yeah I know it sees you traverse the space station itself with two full fledged acts, but I dunno I'm not too keen on the level design tying with the he anti gravity bits. 

[Vicki476]

Sonic CD is one of my favourite games ever, but I really wish I could skip Wacky Workbench every time I play that game. It kills your speed, and when you try and be cocky and use speed, you go flying to the top of the level every time. Ugh! 

[Hyp3hat]

Definitely Planet Wisp in Generations. Recently played through Gens on the PC and those two levels are so much worse than I remember. Any stage that asks Modern Sonic to do any sort of precision platforming in that game is asking for it.

All of CD's level design is anathema to me, I can't finish it. I think after getting blindsided by a cube of level design that looked exactly like the background (due to the fact that the level artists were obviously tripping balls and every zone is a sensory nightmare) which stopped my attempt to time travel for the millionth time I just gave up.

Aquatic Base is probably the worst Sonic level ever, though. Eye-gougingly frustrating and bland is a really impressive feat, Sonic Team, and I really love that one room with the moving platforms where the assets for them are straight up broken. 

[Semi-colon e]

I wouldn't say outright hate, but Sandopolis is imo by far the worst level in 3&K. Almost all the other levels have a great mix of speed and platforming, but this is just clunky. It's not only clunky, but it's repetitive to look at, it's very linear once you get into Act 2, both acts go on for too long, Knuckles has that obnoxious puzzle near the end, and I just think it really drags the pace of the game down to a halt. Everything in this level takes a long time, and it suffers for it. There are other fairly slow levels such as Carnival Night or Lava Reef, but the difference there is that there's a lot more going on in these stages, both visually and in terms of level gimmicks and structure. Sandopolis feels like filler before the final climactic 1/4 of the game (well, 1/6 as Knuckles).

[Mors]

Here we go.

Marble Zone: You have to be slow, and you sometimes you have to wait. Unacceptable. Well, at least the music is good, and it looks okay.

Labyrinth Zone: No.

Metropolis Zone: I don't hate the first 2 acts of this zone that much. But oh man Act 3, it's just... ugh. The enemy placement is horrible, especially with starfish. I always, always get hit and die at the end of that level, just because of these fucking starfish.

Wacky Workbench: 2bouncy4me. But seriously, I actually don't hate this zone that much, but it's still pretty annoying. The worst thing about this zone is going to the past and finding the generator thing. It's hard to do, annoying and kinda boring.

Big the Cat's Story: :V

Death Chamber: I spent 30 minutes on this stage. Why? Because the radar was bleeping on somewhere it wasn't supposed to be, and I thought I entered the every single room, even though I didn't. And the radar wasn't bleeping in front of the room I didn't enter, so I had no idea. But I wish that was the only problem of this stage. I have how most of the rooms look same. Yeah they have different colors, but I didn't memorize the colors when I first played the level.

Meteor Herd: It's just waay too big.

Mad Space: ...

Cannon's Core: When I played Aquatic Mine, I didn't notice the Air Necklace, so I didn't get it. And it turns out this stage is extremely hard and annoying without that. Nice. Thanks.

Rail Canyon / Bullet Station: I kinda like these zones, but the rails are really fucking glitchy, and this ruins these zones for me. 

ALMOST EVERY FUCKING LEVEL FROM SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG

Yellow spring stages from Sonic Colors: It's just a bad gimmick, at least that's what I think. I dunno, I think it would be more bearable if it allowed us to use air dash.

Rooftop Run Act 1 (Generations): I don't know why but I hate this level. It's just really unenjoyable and annoying for me.

Casino Street Zone Act 3 (The one with cannons.): I have no idea why, but I had some trouble when I first played this level. I guess I need to replay this level to learn if this level is as bad as I thought.

Desert Ruins Zone 4: Autoscrolling doesn't fit Sonic very well, and there are bunch of cheap deaths.

Silent Forest The One With Spotlight: You probably know why.

Lava Mountain Act 2: This is literally the most annoying stage in any video game.

[TheBlueRenegade]

I guess I'll list my least favourite zone/act from each of the main series Sonic games.

Sonic 1: Labyrinth Zone Act 3/Scrap Brain Act 3 - this one's a tie cause they're both underwater trash lmao

Sonic 2: Metropolis Act 3 - the fact that it exists when zones before Metropolis only had 2 acts. Also the first two acts were tedious to begin with.

Sonic CD: Wacky Workbench both zones - that one gimmick that covers the entire fricking zone

Sonic 3: Carnival Night Act 2 - the barrel is easy as shit but one of the only acts I can legit get a time over on

Sonic & Knuckles: Sandopolis Act 2 - Music is kickass but that's all it has going for it

Sonic Adventure: Any level in Big's Story - why fishing in my sonic

Sonic Adventure 2: Meteor Herd - I was legit stuck on this stage on the gamecube version for months lol

Sonic Heroes: Rail Canyon/Bullet Station - let's have rail-heavy levels with awkward as hell rail controls great idea

Sonic 2006: Too many to count also I gave up halfway through Shadow's story XP

Sonic Unleashed: Most of the night levels - Too long, tedious and bullshit

Sonic Colours: Planet Wisp - I love all the zones in Colours but I found Planet Wisp kinda meh. It's not bad at all but meh compared to the others.

Sonic Generations: Planet Wisp - they made it worse thanks sonic team

Sonic Lost World: Lava Mountain Zone 2 - just no.

[Kaotic Kanine]

I think I'll chip in with my own list! Of the Sonic games I have played (and remember), the levels I hate most are...

Carnival Night Zone (Act 2)- Pretty much for the same reason as everyone else: pointlessly long (enough to cause people to run out of time), easy to get lost in, that fucking boss, and that fucking barrel/cylinder.

Flying Battery Zone- As a child, this level was nigh-unbeatable. I don't think me and my sister ever made it to the sub-boss of this level because we would always lose all our lives in that stupid section of the level where you're basically underneath the blimp and have to carefully platform across a huge bottomless pit! But even as an adult, this level is just frustrating. Those Blaster Badniks can go to hell and all the other obstacles are annoying. Really, I just don't like this level. (The bosses were awesome though)

Sky Canyon- This level is essentially one giant bottomless pit. That may not seem much as this game is already plagued with numerous bottomless pits, but this level is particularly infamous because it's so easy to fall to your death due to it's almost puzzle-like design! Combine that with the boss of this level (one of the most single most frustrating bosses in Sonic history and makes me love Cream even more than I already do because of how she and Cheese destroy that thing with no effort) and you have a very unnecessarily frustrating level that caused many game overs.

Mystic Mansion (Sonic/Dark/Chaotix)- For Team Sonic and Team Dark, it is a very long level with annoying enemies and obstacles that can easily kill you in the cheapest of ways. Even the end of this level for both Teams is needlessly difficult due to the chamber of ghosts, the Homing Attack section with said ghosts (who can easily disappear before you hit them, causing you to fall to your death), and having to fight the Egg Hammers (those huge, hammer wielding Egg Pawns) on a very tiny platform (pray that you had a Team Blast ready for that, which isn't likely if you had died to aforementioned Homing Attack section). For Team Chaotix, however, the level is even worse because your goal to finish the level is to blow out ALL the Red Torches!... You have to use Espio's Tornado move and blow out every single red torch one-by-one... Oh, and if that's not bad enough, Team Chaotix's version of Mystic Mansion has the "Spider Web Room", where you have to grind on a huge spider web to reach certain platforms carrying red torches and a switch to open the door out of the room. Due to how the "web rails" work, the only remotely possible way to complete this level is to stay in Fly Formation and carefully navigate the spider web to each platform, which makes this already long and tedious level even more so... Honestly, I want to meet the person who designed Team Chaotix's Mystic Mansion and personally yell in his/her face "WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING!? HOW ON ANY PLANET IS THIS A GOOD IDEA!?"

Skyscraper Scamper (Night)- I've said it once and I'll say it many times more: I love the Werehog. I think it was a very interesting concept with great potential that sadly wasn't fully utilized in the one game it was allowed to appear in. But the gameplay, while not as bad as many make it out to be, wasn't really a good idea and this level makes all the annoying things about the Werehog's gameplay more apparent. Firstly, this level is filled with all sorts of puzzles that need to be solved in order to advance. Like, technically the level isn't that big/long but it feels like that because you have to make a lot of pointless detours to unlock the doors blocking your way to the end. Secondly, this level is plagued with balancing beams that must be crossed. In particular, there is this one section that is nothing but those balancing beams and a huge ass bottomless pit. But what makes it even worse is that these balancing beams have spikes on the edges, so you won't automatically grab the beam if you lose your balance; you will fall to your death. So, I hope you're very good at making precise jumps because the only other option to crossing that balancing beam section is to carefully and slowly tread across. Just to add insult to injury, this level has a particular instance where you have to fight a Dark Titan on a relatively tiny platform. With no guard rails. And this Titan seems to love doing that "shockwave" attack that knocks you back and stuns you. Yeah, hope your timing is good because you're essentially dead if that attack hits you and either knocks you into the bottomless pit or stun-locks you into oblivion.

Planet Wisp (Classic)- I'm not going to even bother explaining why this level is such a huge pile of horse shit. Mikeyong has pretty much outlined exactly why in her post and they pretty much mirror my thoughts already. Though I will add that another reason why I hate this level so much is that I have a bile hatred for Sonic Colors. Seriously, I'd rather play the above mentioned hated levels 20 times over than I would ever want to play Sonic Colors again. So, of course, I wasn't going to like the level that originates from that game; the problems with the Classic version of the level only made my dislike even worse.

Edited February 21, 2016 by Kaotic Kanine
I typed "grind", NOT "ground" you stupid computer

[E-122-Psi]

On 9 February 2016 at 5:09 PM, Hyp3hat said:

All of CD's level design is anathema to me, I can't finish it. I think after getting blindsided by a cube of level design that looked exactly like the background (due to the fact that the level artists were obviously tripping balls and every zone is a sensory nightmare) which stopped my attempt to time travel for the millionth time I just gave up.

While I don't dislike CD outright, I do find something of a contention with how the levels are structured, especially with the time travel gimmick, to quote from Sonic Retro:

"Where Sonic 2 rewards skill with speed, and punishes failure with slow, Sonic CD punishes speed with walls and interruptions, and rewards going slow by letting you progress at all."

[Phos]

On 1/19/2016 at 4:34 PM, Mikgenes said:

 

Planet Wisp (classic)

Looks like a beautiful and peaceful world right? It is, when you are not playing it.

I mostly remember the modern one for being the level you want it to be for about four seconds and then you get to climb a slightly different tower using a different boring wisp power.  

Man there's a lot I don't really like in generations, such as sticking the Marble Garden Zone spinning top things into Sky Sanctuary Zone, only making them worse by adding a time limit for no reason... which reminds me:

I'm pretty sure Iizuka was responsible for Marble Garden Zone (a zone not even danny baranousky can get me to like) based on that gimmick randomly returning in the wrong level, and along the same lines, I think he put the barrels in carnival night zone, based on those of all things coming back in ShtH.  

Oh yeah, Marble Garden Zone.  Like a lot of the levels on the Sonic 3 cartridge, it's way too long and it doesn't really have much to show for it.  It makes some sense, though, considering that it's sort of a successor to Marble Zone, which was fine apart from barely being able to tell the difference between its 3 (!) acts.  

[Pauly-kun]

Labyrinth Zone, Shadow's Final Haunt, Carnival Night Zone (And is not for the Barrel thing.), Angel Island from Advance (Many pitfalls unless you play as Tails...).

[Error.Retry45]

If sonic mania is considered, I hate flying battery. i mean only one part of it. the music is good and game is better. either i suck or others have the same opinion.

Chem plant: i enjoyed this zone in sonic 2. your points are valid, that part sucked,  ended up falling into the water and having to go through that again.

Marble zone: 2 words: Fuck it

sandopolis: never played it

metropolis: cheesy enemy placement indeed.

[BadBehavior]

Forces Green Hill. Not cos it's a bad stage, but rather on the principle of Green Hill being shoved into everything. I mean theres "Iconic" and then theres "literally everywhere"