Best ever Levels

From Sonic to Mario to Final Fantasy to Soul Calibur and everything else, talk about videogames here

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Elmo
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Best ever Levels

Post by Elmo »

what are your top all time faveourite five video game levels and why?

This is my list as it stands;

1. SonicCD - 'stardustspeedway', the best music of the game in four different settings depending on the situation alongside the enforced flowing speed of the level just sums up the way the whole series should feel.

2. Thief - 'Cradle', so scary it covers pretty much any type of horror ever done and invents a few more. you wonder through the level constantly immersed in that wonderful "GET ME OUT OF HERE!" feeling. It's set in one of those old victorian style asylums long burned down, i can't go further into the beautiful exposition it for fear of the spoiler monster eating my soul.

3. UnrealTournament - "Facing worlds", spawn camping insanity. :)

4. Max payne - The drug trip level, deserves true credit for introducing a level just to show the fall into despair of the main character and then reintroducing the same level in a drug overdose AND not seeming stupid.

5. Street Fighter II special champion edition - "Guille Stage", a fighter Jet and two breakable crates, simple but fun. :)
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Jeni Nielsen
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Post by Jeni Nielsen »

Casino level- Sonic 2
I like it because it's so much fun. You get to be a pinball (I guess that's where Sonic Spinball came from) and play slots. Also the music is great.

Airman- Megaman 3 (or 2 or something)
Again great music. Also really fun to play. I always hated when the platforms fell out from under you. Also the big giant faces with horns always scared me. (I played this game when I was pretty little)

I'm not sure if you can call it a level, but I really liked the colossus that's guarding the flames in Shadow of the Colossus.
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MiNaeClem
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Post by MiNaeClem »

Beyond Good and Evil: The scene you escape from the Alpha Forces commander in the city. It seemed very hard yet easy, and liked the combination of music with slow-motion. It was short but fun to play and watch.

Freelancer: Ending Scene. It was huge, hard and had massive combat. Yet it took you into it's atmosphere and made you feel you were there.

Fallout 2: The Encounter that takes you back in time to Vault 13. There you touch a computer and you break the waterchip! Still Fallout series have many great other scenes to talk about.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Let's not spoil. The ones who played will understand me. In the first game there's a scene where you learn "the" thing. The climax scene.

I'm sure there are more to add but can't remember right now. ^^
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Spica
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Post by Spica »

In no particular order.

Halo: The Silent Cartographer
My favorite part of Halo was fighting Hunters (the big guys with the shields and cannons). I loved getting up in their face, dodging behind them as they tried to melee you, and then one shot kill them in the back with a pistol. The reason I like the level "The Silent Cartographer" is because it has lots of Hunters and lots of pistol ammo.

Knights of the Old Republic: Koriban
I loved Koriban for two reasons. The first is that there are plenty of opportunities to gain light or darkside points and the second is that there are lots of old Sith tombs to raid/defile. I also liked the Starforge planet from this game.

Knights of the Old Republic II: Nar Shaada
Once again I like this planet becuase of the plentiful light and darkside points. My favorite part is when you encounter a couple of thugs mugging a refugee near the giant shaft. If you have the force domination power and a high persuade skill (which I always did), you can force persuade the thugs to give you all their money and then jump down the shaft, which leaves you free to mug the refugee yourself (this of course gives you lots of darkside points, but it is much more entertaining then the lightside option). Also Nar Shaada is the planet where you get the skimpy dancer outfit for either yourself (if you are female) or for the Handmaiden (if you are male). I liked this game in general because it was very charater driven.

Torment: The Clerk's Ward
Torment is a Dungeons & Dragons computer game that takes place in the Planescape campaign setting. I like this game for many of the same reasons that I like the Knights of the Old Republic games. It is very character driven and your actions determine your alignmentis determined by your actions. Also unlike most games, Torment is more about talking than fighting (so having a smart character pays off). The reason I like the Clerks ward is because it is rife with the non-combat based quests that make the game the masterpiece that it is. I especially liked the art gallery and the curiosity shop just because they are intersting places.

I'm also a big fan of Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, but couldn't really say what part I liked best (especially since I had both expansion packs). By the time I finally stoped playing that game I had almost all of the artifacts found in Yagrin Bargums book of artifacts (I couldn't get some of the others because they involved either being a vampier or joining factions that my character was poorly suited for), my character was over level seventy, I had killed four gods (Vivec, Almalexia, Dagoth Ur, and the god of the hunt from Bloodmoon), and had wasted hundreds (maybe even a thousand) of hours of my life.
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
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Spica
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Post by Spica »

MiNaeClem wrote:Fallout 2: The Encounter that takes you back in time to Vault 13. There you touch a computer and you break the waterchip! Still Fallout series have many great other scenes to talk about.
I also liked Fallout 2. I don't remember ever going back in time and breaking the Vault 13 water chip though. I did, however, stumble across the cafe of broked dreams, where you meet characters from fallout one, as well as characters that didn't make it into the game. My favorite part of Fallout 2 was New Reno, for no particular reason other than it was fun.
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
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Bringin It Down
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Post by Bringin It Down »

Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind - I am a huge fan of this game. I spent more time doing side quests, exploring and getting unique/good items than doing the main quest. But definitely the Tribunal Quest where you find out about the betrayal of Almalexia (I actually forgot her name) and the Bloodmoon quests were the most amazing of all. The whole werewolf aspect was great, whether you wanted to keep it and terrorize the land or whether you wanted to get rid of it and save the tribe. I thought it was all really great.

Gundam Wing for the Sega Dreamcast - Everything about this game was amazing. The playability, the replayability, the story, the action, the graphics. I really did like this game a lot.

Halo: Assault on the Control Room - This level was the most fun due to the changing scenery and the last battle at the end where you had to fight all those guys, the tanks, everything, then climb up the side of the control room, and then open the door and face all those enemies. Truly a rush.
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bobert2999
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Post by bobert2999 »

anything in morrowind, sadly i havent played enough to be to high a level. i think ive only held a character until lvl 30, and killed dagoth ur at 17 or 18. my only weapon ever has always been a dadric dai katana.

halo 2, first lvl
this is because its that lvl that first captured me to the incredibleness of halo 2. i was waiting for it for months and that lvl was the payoff.

halo, assualt on the control room
i like this lvl because it takes a while to beet it, theres pretty much two different inviroments, and if your quick enough and do things right its the first lvl to get the banchie. when i play this lvl im more contemplating stuff then playing...
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alphonse
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Post by alphonse »

1. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
The chapter on the train (Can't remember the chapter number). I like Agatha Christie's Murder on Orient Express. Solving mystery on a train trip reminds me of the novel.

2. Paper Mario: The thousand Year Door
The chapter when the pirate ships stranded in empty island. Voyage into the sea, looking for treasures, though a bit predictable it is still very fun and interesting.

3. Metroid Prime
Phendrana's Drift. The icy region with very artistic temple and the hidden lab with many space pirates. These makes the area one of the best in metroid history.

4. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
The well. The puzzle, the storyline, and the beautiful art in this area really makes this game unforgateble.
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sonic
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Post by sonic »

Wow, I wish I'd thought of making a topic like this! Thanks for making it!
I also can't believe I didn't get around to adding my faves yet...

Anyway I think it's really hard for me to only pick a few, but here's what I could think of:

Sonic levels! There are so many good ones! I think we all love Sonic levels because of their visual appeal, great catchy music, the rush you get from speeding around them; the general "cool" of it all! Plus, they always have exploration value too; I love the way the level design was where you could choose how you wanted to take the zone (do you want to go up? Do you want to run along the bottom? Perhaps you want to go along there and then jump down and go back to see what you missed?). The additional characters and their unique skills (such as flying and climbing) really added an extra dimension to the levels as well.

Well, I know that the pinball element-heavy levels such as the Casino Night Zone are many people's favourite (including Jeni's), but my favourite levels are probably the Chemical Plant Zone from Sonic 2 and the Starlight Zone from the first Sonic the Hedgehog game. Chemical Plant for the terribly cool music (this and the Mystic Cave Zone music in this game are probably my fave Sonic zone themes), dazzling speed effects (loads of loops and ramps, plus the very-impressive-at-the-time zoom tubes), scary mega-mack (that's the toxic purple goo) almost-drowning moments, and just the very cool look of the zone. Starlight Zone because it always felt like pure magic to me as a child- a construction site high above the city on a star-lit night; Sonic running by as the little red bomb thingys that you can't kill as they explode almost peacefully to the calm music... I really liked the introduction of the fans and the see-saw spring elements too.

Streets of Rage: I like the feel of all the levels (and the music again!) in this old classic on the Megadrive (somehow Final Fight never captured/just wasn't going for that same sense of neon, urban city-cool), but I think my favourite was Round 3 (the beach), just for it's look (rain effects, crashing waves etc.) and the fact that suddenly the normal enemies were getting palette swaps and becoming stronger, which caught me off-guard at first. Or maybe it was Round 7 (the elevator/lift on the side of the building), for the sheer amount of fun you could have chucking thugs over the side, or leaping of the railings for a super flying kick that got a whole gang of them at once. Not to mention that it was amusing to call the police car in, the higher you got, so that you could watch the camera pan all the way to the ground again. Or Round 4 (the bridge), because you could chuck badguys down the missing segments or lure them into slide kicking you and then nudging them off the edge. Round 8 was good too- I loved the "fight every boss again" challenge, with the heroes inching closer to the final fight with Mr. X. as the Sun slowly begins to rise outside. Oh... basically, I love this game :)

Revenge of Shinobi: Another great 16-bit one by Sega! Ahhh- all the levels are good. They are really atmospheric, and the music for them is once again is perfect! My fave level is China Town, a simple level with not much going on but my favourite anyway, because playing Joe Musashi as he fights the kung fu gangs across the shop fronts and the rooftops of China Town at night made me feel so cool as a child, and the music (again with the music!) made me feel like I was on some grand and noble, self-realising, transcendent quest for justice and all that's good in the world, for putting wrongs right and protecting the innocent. In an 80's sort of way, at least. I just felt like I was with Joe on that long but dertermined journey. Hah, I was a pretty weird child, wasn't I, being that immersed in the games I played? I also like the highway level a lot (complete with speeding cars and lethal ninjas-disguised-as-nuns), and I LOVE the weird bio-skeleton-dinosaur tyranosaurus boss of the factory level.

Donkey Kong Country: Another one with too many to choose from. The first minecart one was very exciting and hard to master at first. I really loved all of the undersea ones (they just had the atmosphere, a nice range of interesting challenges; everything), and I loved the factory ones for the same reasons. Oh, and the jungle! Those levels were beautiful (especially the sunsets over the treetops) and great fun at that- I loved the one where you gwet to run across the treetops on the steel keg and then ride Expresso the Ostrich ("Orangutan Gang" I think). The two individual levels that stick in my head are "Blackout Basement" and the travelling platform one (I think it was "Platform Perils") where your fuel is constantly running out... These two were REALLY difficult and therefore incredibly rewarding to beat, so I remember them really well.
Street Fighter II special champion edition - "Guille Stage", a fighter Jet and two breakable crates, simple but fun.
Ahhh, I never can decide what fighting game stage I like best! I used to like Orchid's rooftop in Killer Instinct... In Street Fighter, there are loads I like 'cause they're really almost too iconic- Ken's docks, Blanka's Brazillian village, Ryu's pretty snow-covered SFA2 stage, Gen's electrically moody SFA2 Hong Kong back alley, DeeJay's cool Jamaican sunset beach rave; and yes, definately Guile's classic Airforce base. But I'm going to say Cammy's original stage, for it's utterly gorgeous (northern lights and all!) but ridiculously unreal depiction of England. And the music of course!

I have one more (like anybody is still paying attention :mrgreen:)...

Ridge Racer Type 4: This racing game was AMAZING! All of the tracks were fantastic, all of the sounds were fantasic, Reiko was fantasic; everything! I love Ridge City!!! Namco weren't just selling a racing game, they were selling a lifestyle. "Here he comes again, running like the open wind!" (Okay, so at first I was a little bit put out that as the player -the nameless Ridge Racer- they were kind of saying that you were supposed to be a guy, but I really didn't mind too much. Being the Ridge Racer was cool! The bit that occassionally annoys me most is where the announcer says "can he take the lead?" as you're trying to overtake pole position... I'm always like "shut up with the "he" thing- this is Sylphi Ridge Racer!"). To me R4 was like the perfect urban cool for the modern era; stylish, jazzy... from the breathtaking "fresh feel" of the blue-grey city skyline to the simple CD player in Reiko's clean-look bedroom, this is where I wanted to live! This is what I wanted to be! Eh, where was I? Oh right, favourite level! Well, my favourite levels (or racing tracks, I mean) are Brightest Night and Phantomile. Brightest Night, because it's a cool night time city track and we all tend to love those the best in these games... I think the layout is good (perfectly placed somewhere between being an average to longer length course), and it's cute that it backs onto the Namco WonderEgg area. Plus there are a lot of elements I like, such as the turn on the cobbled road into the small village of shops area, going through the tunnel and coming out the other side (really fast!) off into that huge leap down the hill, the nice smooth drift turn that I do really well at the bottom... :D I like the Phantomile even though it is a really short and simple course for the nice increase in speed you build in a perfect race through it, for the awkward tiny nudges of the stick you have to make when going through the tunnel, for the "Hey- there's Reiko!" Exclamation you make when seeing that the girl who's raising the checkered flag is Reiko for the first time because this is the start of the final Grand Prix, but most of all for that hair-raising, I'm-going-to-crash-straight-into-the-wall turn that you'll have to make well for three laps that looks and feels SO GOOD when you are driving drift with a cockpit (1st person) view of the racing action! Wow, best turn in a racing game ever! I also think the raw machine-oil racing music theme that the computer tends to select for this one is really well-suited. :)

Uh... Looking back, I guess anybody would notice that I really choose my favourite levels for the atmosphere more than anything else... Gameplay is really important, and all of these games have some of the best gameplay ever anyway. The thing is, I already expect great gameplay from my games, so for a level to really draw me in and to become a part of me and my life, if it has perfect atmosphere on top of this great gameplay that's something I'll never forget. I guess that's when the games give me more than great entertainment; when they become an indeliable experience that affects me profoundly, makes me feel something that's hard to explain but that I definately love. A great level is when art, style, design, heart, mood, action, whatever all come together with gameplay to make something really special, a moment, a feeling and a world that exists outside of this one but that you can feel very real in... and maybe take it with you in yours.

(And a good level is an excuse for me to keep writing and writing about something, which everyone knows I don't need a good excuse to do :) )
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marto_motoko
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Post by marto_motoko »

Hmm...not exactly sure, so I hope I don't get killed for listing more than five. :)

Castlevania Lament of Innocence: House of Sacred Remains

Castlevania Lament of Innocence: Dark Palace of Waterfalls

Castlevania Lament of Innocence: Ghostly Theatre

Castlevania Lament of Innocence: Garden Forgotten by Time

Castlevania Curse of Darkness: Aiolon Ruins

Final Fantasy X: Zanarkand Stage

Tekken 4: Hon-Maru

Tekken Tag Tournament: Every stage in it

Pokemon Snap: Rainbow Cloud ( I adored the mew stage!)

Again, sorry for rambling on and on, but these are the ones that honestly jump right to mind when I think about favourite stages.
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sonic
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Post by sonic »

So I'm guessing you like Castlevania: Lament of Innocence? :wink:

I like Zanarkand too.

Uh... Listing more than 5? It was meant to only be your top 5? Oops, I missed that when in the topic when I posted... Sorry! :oops:
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Bringin It Down
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Post by Bringin It Down »

So I just got done beating Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Gamecube again, and I have to say Ganons Tower and the Spirit Temple are super fun to play. Every single part of that game rules though.

Also, I just picked up Morrowind for Computer (my Xbox version fizzled, after beating all the main and random quests and owning every unique weapon, item, ring, piece of clothing and armor piece :evil: :evil: :evil: ) and I love this as well. The first time you get free time to start exploring dungeons on your own is great.
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douyang
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Re: Best ever Levels

Post by douyang »

Elmo wrote:what are your top all time faveourite five video game levels and why?


4. Max payne - The drug trip level, deserves true credit for introducing a level just to show the fall into despair of the main character and then reintroducing the same level in a drug overdose AND not seeming stupid.
I completely hated that level both times I had to play it. They should have stuck with letting me shoot people, which is the whole point of a game like Max Payne... there's nothing about his character that couldn't be adequately explained with comic strips or cutscenes, and the character and storyline just serve as a justification for all the violence anyway.
Beyond Good and Evil: The scene you escape from the Alpha Forces commander in the city. It seemed very hard yet easy, and liked the combination of music with slow-motion. It was short but fun to play and watch.
I loved that one too. I had to reset the console and do it all over again when I finished. An awesome rush it gives you.
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simon's ghost
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Post by simon's ghost »

I think I always prefered the beginning of games more than anything else. When the mood is set right, nothing beats a great intro. I also like the fact that you often start out with very little to work with in a helter skelter knid of way.

Zelda: A Link to the Past started in a rainy night with a great deal of mystery and drama.

Final Fantasy VII anyone? Midgar was the most immersive environment at the time and every npc said something that further helped to set the opressed abd depressed mood of the city.
Oh well.
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Jeni Nielsen
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Post by Jeni Nielsen »

simon's ghost wrote: Final Fantasy VII anyone? Midgar was the most immersive environment at the time and every npc said something that further helped to set the opressed abd depressed mood of the city.
That opening is classic. Didn't they redo it with PS3 graphics?
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