Best of Sonic Level Design?

[DimensionWarped]

Quartz Quadrant isn't linear. It has a good amount of branching. What it doesn't have is... well, anything aside from that. Every path is basically run along conveyor belts until you reach the end of the stage. And because of that, I really thought that stage was pretty lacking.

[Spike]

Quartz Quadrant isn't linear. It has a good amount of branching. What it doesn't have is... well, anything aside from that. Every path is basically run along conveyor belts until you reach the end of the stage. And because of that, I really thought that stage was pretty lacking.

Yeah, basically. I couldn't really describe it. It has multiple paths, but that all feel pretty much the same anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

[Asuma]

Death Egg Act 2 was a pretty good stage, but it was fucking long.

I liked the wind tunnel in Act 1 thought.

[sonicyoda]

Sonic CD just does it for me. Stardust Speedway gets my vote. I know a lot of people probably hate it because it favours speed too much but give it another go; it's really well made. Massive as well.

Chemical Plant from Sonic 2 also gets a vote for similar reasons. However, that stupid, underwater, moving blocks section near the end of the second act still winds me up. I can get up it easy now but I hate it for all the shit it put me through as a kid back in '92.

[Scarletdark]

Most awesome....

...flying battery was quite incredible. It had crazy level design and quite a few different paths (if my memory serves me right) that were anything but linear.

Most Difficult.

Two Words, Metropolis Zone. This zone was incredibly difficult when I was growing up and even know (after playing sonic 2 inside out) gives me trouble. This zone always felt like the developers of the game were telling me: "You dare to try and beat our game, well then welcome to hell." Although some difficulty was cheap (freakin praying mantis botnik) I always thought the zone screamed bad ass.

[Serephim]

lava reef 1 & 2. Sonic and Knuckles had the best level design to me because the game just had a very good flow to it. That, and it just completely caught me off guard, and was pretty fun to play through.

notable mention from me would be Mushroom Hill and Hydrocity.

[OverbounD]

Lava Reef was one of the few levels in S&K3 that didn't have loops if I recall. The design is interesting but it seemed kind of liner to me even if the level was rather long.

[Serephim]

Sonic and Knuckles had that really good "adventure" feeling to it. Lava Reef for me is where it really really kicked off.

Lava Reef was awesome because it felt like you were in an unstable, dangerous cavern with rocks crumbling below you, steam/drill based enemies, and, of course, the lavafalls coming through the ceiling. After the boss, the lava cools and gives way to a COMPLETELY different and very unique environment, which happens to lead you into the Hidden Palace and the showdown with knuckles. And then you end up chasing the Death Egg before it goes into orbit at Sky Sanctuary while battling Mecha Sonic, and blah blah blah you've played the game before. It was just really really well done.

Im likely alone on this...but i never really cared for Sonic CD. It always felt like the game should have just had a past, present, and future mode to it. I hated Time Travel because everytime i finished a stage, it felt like i missed half of it by not going into the past/future/whatever. That, and the American soundtrack sucked monkey balls. It wasn't until last year i even looked into the game to find out they changed it from the japanese version, which made the playthrough FAR more fun.

to this day, i cant get halfway through Sonic CD without getting bored. The game felt truely inferior to Sonic 3/Sonic and Knuckles.

Edit: And it JUST hit me, a few seconds ago, that i never stopped to think about what time period Sonic CD was created in. I have no clue why i believed it came after Sonic 3 / Sonic and Knuckles.

When i got Sonic 3 for my birthday years and years ago, i never even knew about Sonic CD. The time i first played it years later, i always wondered why it felt so inferior, like i was playing Sonic 1.5 or something with the cheezy ass spindash animation and useless peelout maneuver.

[Aaron C-T]

I'm gonna be the guy that "goes there" and pick Sky Deck, because it was a 3D level with ladders, monkey bars, anti-grav, the swinging crane gimmick, falling floors and general awesomeness. It's the most fun I've ever had in a 3D Sonic game, about the same as when I first played Sonic 3. The entire game, really, was a memorable experience that I can still have fun with today.

But oh yea. I went there.

[OverbounD]

Everyone always says that Sonic CD is the fan favorite, but I have never found it to have a big following. I'm a huge Sonic CD fan (come on Time Twisted Duh!) but it seems like like there are a lot more haters than likers of Sonic CD. At the very least the time travel doesn't seem to be very popular.

[tentril]

I didn't enjoy Sonic CD very much, but something about it makes me feel like I didn't try hard enough at it or something. I mean, it had some fun stuff, but the way they implemented time travel, I would always just be running around and bump into a pole, then blammo I'm in the past. I also, really didn't get the time travel thing. Sometimes, all I would see different is the sun is setting now or something. I also got stuck in an almost endless loop trying to get through that level Ila talked about.

tl;dr I didn't like Sonic CD really, but I feel like I was expecting something else and thinking about it the wrong way.

[Spike]

Everyone always says that Sonic CD is the fan favorite, but I have never found it to have a big following. I'm a huge Sonic CD fan (come on Time Twisted Duh!) but it seems like like there are a lot more haters than likers of Sonic CD. At the very least the time travel doesn't seem to be very popular.

I'll admit, I didn't really like Time Travel. Well, it wasn't that I didn't like it, but that it just felt like it served no purpose. If you didn't want to destroy time machines, it didn't really do anything. I did like the game itself, though. Not as much as Sonic 2 or 3, but more than Sonic 1.

[Scarletdark]

I actually didnt mind the time travel because (at least for me) it added tons of replay value to the game. Also, sonic cd is freakin amazing. Metal sonic has always been my second favorite character (besides sonic himself). As far as level design, if my memory serves me right, sonic cd has a great level design including crazy corkscrews (sonic 1 style) and the whole future past thing also made the game level paths new[ish] everytime you changed time zones which was cool.

Ps. Sonic cd = the most epic race evar

[DimensionWarped]

Personally I thought it was the lamest boss fight in that game, narrowly beating out that 1-hit bumper bot.

[FanGameRevolver]

Sonic cd bosses didn't feel like sonic bosses. They were far too gimmicky for my tastes.

[Scarletdark]

Everyone has they're certain tastes (screw you guys I like the metal sonic race! lol) which is cool. But as far a level design goes, you guys must admit sonic cd did have a nice variety.

[DimensionWarped]

A nice variety of what is the question.

[OverbounD]

Since the title of the thread is Level design I'm going to guess levels or level design.

I guess the reason I like Sonic CD so much is it breaks a lot of rules for a Sonic game. This is true about its level design as well as many aspects of the game. When I first played it (being as it was the last of classics I played) I thought it very weird but I grew to love it due to its interesting level design and graphics god I love the graphics.