Topic: Favorite Level/Area Types In Games?

[ShinAkumaXX]

Hey just curious what sort of stages people like in games? Most my friends are casual gamers, and I wonder if this sort of thing even crosses their minds or if they even car. But I happen to have some favorites. I am a big fan of snow stages, and winter like areas. As well as cave stages with lots of stalactites. If it's a combo of the two, like an ice cave, totally sweet! So luckily Castlevania and Metroid games seem to provide these types of levels. What do you guys like? Jungles? Lava/Volcanic? Sci-Fi High Tech type places? Maybe for it to look like a normal modern city? Perhaps you like a desert? I really like the cave on Castlevania IV, stage 3. And Phendrana drifts was nice in Metroid Prime. I just got to the snowy area in Metroid Other M, and it made me think about this. Course there's tons of other Places like this on games I love. Gradius Gaiden comes to mind, I don't know if I've seen a snow stage in any other shooter like that. I'd make a poll but I'm sure I'd leave out some types and I really don't know how to make a poll. If there's any thing particular don't be afraid to go into detail.

[shelverton.]

Well, for starters, I love castles! The architecture... the many floors... the hidden passageways... the dungeons.. the towers. I like my castles to be big, old and full of secrets.  
Like the Hyrule Castle in A Link to the Past (not especially big, but I have fond memories of it from my childhood. And there were sealed doors that you couldn't open until much later which felt mysterious and cool). Or ICO in its entirety (such a classy game). Or the later stages of the Ghouls'n'Ghosts series (these are straightforward, but you're still in a castle. And I like that.).

(Oh, and there's this other series called Castlevania, you may have heard of it  .

I think my love for video game castles began with Castlevania, but the old NES action RPG Willow deserves an honourable mention too. The level design was rather poor and repetitive and the game surely could've used a map system. But the first time I walked up to the Nockmaar castle and saw the MASSIVE front of that thing (which couldn't even fit on one screen, I think it takes up five screens but I'm not sure. ) I knew epic and evil things lived in it. Couldn't wait to get in!

Another honourable mention is Landstalker for the Sega Genesis which had a fantastic castle in the city of Mercator. It had lots of nicely decorated hallways, bedrooms, kitchen, and a HUGE and tricky dungeon, plus an imprisoned girl in one of the towers if memory serves me correctly.


Now - slightly off topic - one type of level I DON'T care for at all are levels with auto-scrolling, or stages were you're being chased by something that will instantly kill you if you don't hurry up. It really stresses the living crap out of me. The Gambit stages in Spiderman & the X-men for SNES were awful in this regard (Come to think of it, that entire game was awful). Oh and don't get me started on the NES Battletoads. Two of my favourite games ever have stages like this (Super Castlevania 4 and Klonoa 2) but I can live with that cause they're both rad.

I also dislike underwater levels, especially the kinds where you run out of air. Sonic the hedgehog, while not particularly hard, has a bit of this. TMNT for NES do not, but there's a timer so it's basically the same thing. Not to mention the level is hard enough to navigate as it is. And once again, Spiderman & the X-men takes the cake. Poor Storm, your levels really suck.

Sorry about all this text. I may need to edit it, lol.

[JR]

I'm with shelverton on castles. You can't go wrong with a great one, especially if they have some of the more haunting areas (places previously mentioned, and crypts and other things).

I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of sci-fi games by nature, but I like futuristic areas, like tight corridors all decked out in bright lights (though I can't think of any examples at the moment).

Some more specific examples of levels:

Bioshock. I never thought I would like the whole 1940s (or 30s?) style the game had, but I ended up LOVING it. Especially some of the areas of Fort Frolic (I think), where there were a few bars located. It just looked so cool...everything so dimly lit with neon everywhere. Being in a remote location underwater made it even cooler.

Then there was the department store level in the first Condemned game. Another one of my favorite levels ever, it was extremely run down (as with every other level in the game), and it had Christmas decorations all over. Another cool thing were the Santa display mannequins. When you saw these, you just KNEW some of them would be enemies waiting to ambush you, in a cheap scare, come-too-close kind of way. Instead, the first one just walks off of a display platform a distance in front of you, and kind of walks off into the background. I thought that was far, far creepier. Loved this level.

[X]

I've always had a favoret level in CV and that's the clock tower. I don't know why but it been that way since I was a kid.

-X

[Gaawa-chan]

Hmm... it really depends upon the individual level or the style.

Aside from the obvious "Zomg castle because castles are so fucking awesome" answer...

Also, I like well-done foresty/swampy/jungly areas.
Places with a lot of moving things in the background, like Metropolis zone-like areas in the Sonic games or the clock towers in Castlevania, are cool, but they usually have incredibly annoying enemies.

I usually don't like ice areas; I think that I developed a dislike for them while playing A Link to the Past.
Areas that take place in the sky are usually pretty cool.


But I think my favorite aside from castles would be desert areas.