Zone Ideas for Episode 2!

[Hyper-Shan]

From that previous detailed post of Drakness City Zone, I feel like making more Zones now - Though maybe not as detailed (I'll do them whenever) this how I would go after E.G.G. Station Zone:

Angel's Fall Zone:

Act 1 - Hero's Fall, Rival's Rise = After destroying the E.G.G. Stations Zone, Super Sonic descends into the atmosphere of Earth whilst dodging meteorites & falling debris parts of the E.G.G. Station. After entering the atmosphere, Super Sonic reverts back to his normal self & continues to fall, yet this time dodging small lazer beams firing upwards - Metal Sonic shows up, revealing that he was attacking Sonic. Metal quickly escapes by ascending upwards.

(Trope: I dunno, Sky I suppose)

Dessert Dazzle Zone:

Act 1 - The Forgotten Red Dunes = Sonic crashes through the roof of a crock pillar revealing the hollow insides of the canyons covered in sands, unstable boulders & tumbleweed. Scorpion & Tarantula badniks will arise from sand pits & wall cracks.

Act 2 - Sun Bleached Canyons = Sonic is out of the hollow caverns & into the vast open canyons, resembling the Western Deserts. This place has sand that can burn Sonic's/Tails's feet if staying still for too long - keep on moving!

Act 3 - Mirages of Death = The sun is blisteringly hot. There are a few pits & areas that contain water & surprises (such as items, power-ups, & ultimately hidden passageways & routes), but some of them are pits of spikes, Robotnik monitors, & other death-traps disguised as mirages - the only way to tell if they are real or not is to see if they flicker/fade. If anything flickers or fades slightly, than it is a mirage. Make sure you find water before you loose a life from the engaging heat!

Boss Act - The Poisonous Spear = Eggman returns as the "Egg Scorpion", burrowing underground & launching attacks through the sand & turning the ground into quick sand below Sonic's/Tails's feet.

(Trope: Western Dessert / Cave)

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I'll think of more later!

[Barry the Nomad]

I think it would be especially cool if the game kicked off in Splash Hill, but within seconds the stage becomes mechanized, taken over by Metal Sonic.

Tropes that I don't think suit a Sonic game are ones where it's just normal objects made big. Like "everything is a big instrument land" and "everything is made of giant food land". Those are better suited for Mario and Rayman. Sweet Mountain is perhaps an exception, because its existence had a reason: it was a theme park world. But stuff like Music Plant, while fun and gimmicky, doesn't feel like a Sonic stage to me.

I think dusk and nighttime twists on standard tropes go a long way.

Holiday Kingdom- Ice/Christmas level

I like that idea, but you know what name would make the Sonic fans go NUTS? Christmas Island Zone

Edited January 3, 2012 by Barry the Nomad

[Marcello]

Why can't Music Plant and Toy Kingdom be Music/Toy-themed theme parks? I don't see what's so odd about them.

[Barry the Nomad]

Why can't Music Plant and Toy Kingdom be Music/Toy-themed theme parks? I don't see what's so odd about them.

It might just be me. I just remember every platformer in the 90's using the giant food/candy/instrument trope. Tempo, Mario, Rayman and Bubsy all went for these tropes. Once Sonic did it, it seemed like "been there done that". Doesn't mean I dislike Sweet Mountain or Music Plant, they just felt unoriginal. I think Sonic stages are at their best when combining natural settings with ruins and mechanical bits.

[TheDanimator]

I personlly love the idea of the death eggs fall being mentioned in ep.2

like you either see it crashed in the background of a level or literally go through its ruins.

[Chili Dawg]

I'd love to see some sort of tundra or coniferous forest zone. When we see Sonic in a forest, it's usually a tropical jungle (such as Tropical Jungle), and when we see him in a snowy area it's usually an ice cap (such as Ice Cap). I'd like to see a snowy woodland area.

[xXJebTheHedgefoxXx]

I would like to see most of the Sonic 2 Beta zones make a new HD return, preferably Wood Zone and Dust Hill Zone... just polish their look and give them new gimmicks! Wood Zone could have apples falling on your head, vines, ziplines, and log tubes. Dust Hill would obviously have quicksand... but maybe I would add some dark caves that light up when you pour sand into a bucket, maybe add some flame gimmicks here and there... yeah... maybe the unused Winter Zone could work too... it is quite a unique snow entry and it looks like it could use some cool gimmicks... I might want to see large winds that try to blow you off the mountain (but you are protected with a wind shield), a snowboarding level for act 3, and when you step on ice on the mountain top Sonic should slip around unless he has an ice shield... Once again, they all need an HD look and I'm sure many want to see new elemental shields and better replay value.

[LoseR]

Emerald Acres- Neighborhood/Green level

[Dreamcast]

Robotnik Sewer Zone

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A wet and wild ride, Eggman makes Badniks out of 1's and 2's!

[Sonic the Hedgehog in 3D]

Robotnik Sewer Zone

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A wet and wild ride, Eggman makes Badniks out of 1's and 2's!

Edited January 4, 2012 by Rawrdom

[Dreamcast]

Serious post: I wouldn't mind a skyscraper stage where you make your way up Chaotix style.

JOKE POST:

[Shade Vortex]

I'll just post a copypasta Sonic game concept I came up with, including zone/boss concepts I've come up with. This one's long and pretty specific, but the zone ideas themselves would be cool to see.

Space>Battleship>Sky>Lava/Underground>Sand>Ice/Base>Pinball/Ruins>Tropical/Water>Underworld/Heaven

The space stage you start in is called Gravity Galaxy Zone. The gravity changes and shifts at specific parts of the stage, at different intervals (it does warn you when it will happen)- it's not something you control, so you have to be careful of spikes and enemies, and if you're on the lowest route, even bottomless pits. Essentially the idea for the game is like Unleashed: It starts out as if it's at the end of a previous adventure that hasn't happened (except in this case it'd be after S4E1).

This entire stage takes place on a solar system as your path. So you could say you'd be running on Sonic Team's interpretation of the Sonic world's version of the Milky Way.

Then Metal Behemoth Zone, the flying battleship which has had its self-destuct sequence activated. It starts blowing up, and Metal Sonic challenges you to a race. You're given ten (as a reference to how you die for a time over in the classic games) minutes to get out, and the stage actually falls apart and as it does, more bottomless pits will form, and different paths will form as well. This stage can be a real pain. The emergency defense systems are still active, so you'll have to worry about lasers, and badniks still, all the while racing Metal Sonic.

The race is impossible to win, however, so all you must do is keep up!

Aerial Ride Zone, a zone taking place in a surreal, Sonic-esque airport. The stage gimmick is riding on airplanes by grabbing onto the tailfin, and each plane has a different course and riding them leads to alternate paths. The lowest path is of course the most dangerous.

The lava/underground stage is called Mining Core Zone and takes place inside the core of the planet. The stage is full of mining tools and badniks, provving that Eggman had been mining to the core of the earth for some reason, most likely to harness the energy, since it's a very powerful source of heat (which is a type of energy, of course!). The lava rises in certain parts and parts of this stage crumble or change, and there are also minecarts.

You don't ride THESE minecarts though. You push them so they they run into other things. They tend to have bombs in them and blow open paths you can take.

Mining Core Zone Boss: The Egg Driller, a drilling maching piloted by Eggman. It can dig into the ground and cause parts of the ceiling or floor to collapse, so Sonic has to be careful! Defeat this boss by finding and taking advantage of its weak spot!

The sand area, known as Sand Palace Zone is rather unique in that it's not fully a desert, but rather it's an indian palace that's filling with sand as you play the stage. This stage's layout changes based on how long you take to beat it, as well. If you take too long, you end up missing a lot of stuff, and end up in the actual desert area, which is expectedly barren compared to the normal areas. There are hourglasses that if you spindash (or boost as modern sonic, if it were a generations stage) into them, they reverse the flow of sand so that it lowers in the area you're in, incase the only way to proceed has been blocked off, or if you're about to be pushed into the ceiling and killed by being crushed between the ceiling and the sand.

Sand Palace Zone Boss: Egg Timer, a giant mech that uses an hourglass to slow down or speed up time. Sonic has to be careful to beat this boss! The sped up portions of the boss are probably the hardest to dodge, so Sonic might have met his match! Take advantage of the slowed down portions, because they make him easier to hit!

Arctic Empire Zone. A frozen base, hidden in the snowy mountains. The only way to get in is to snowboard. Badniks here are snowmen and other ice-based creatures, so beware. Icicles will also fall from the ceiling, and you have a shorter time to survive underwater to boot, since it's freezing cold!

Artic Empire Zone Boss: Egg Freezer, a freezing machine that can freeze Sonic. Be careful not to get frozen, because if you do, Eggman will use his machine to smash you, and so you'd lose all your rings- or die, if you don't have any!

Tribal Trampoline Zone. Tribal ruins with springy trampolines which are placed so you bounce between ones on the floor and ceiling, like a pinball. Some of them are placed sideways, to bounce you to different paths, and even into other trampolines. It could get crazy!

Tribal Trampoline Boss: Egg Bouncer, a big machine that has a springy surface, where Sonic bounces off him if you try to attack. Sonic must use the springy nature of this boss and the arena to his advantage, if he wants to win!

Flooding Forest Zone. A stage which takes place in a ruined forest that is suffering from a flood, causing trees to fall, rocks to tumble, and the stage changes. Water currents are strong and can lead you to alternate paths, or even hazards and obstacles, or even bottomless pits. Be careful when you're underwater, the vines that grow underwater are alive, and they'll grab onto you and constrict you until you die!

Flooding Forest Zone Boss: Egg Flooder floods the boss arena to fight him underwater. He also tends to drain the water so that he can use a high-pressure water pump to shoot Sonic with a water cannon, which also refills the arena with water. The stage does air bubbles underwater, so that you don't drown. Sonic must try to figure out how to defeat the boss!

Apocalyptic Paradise Zone. This stage is a mix of a "Heavenly" area and a "Hellish" area, so you'll encounter many different kinds of hazards, from bottomless pits, lava, spikes, demonic badniks, angelic badniks, and environmental hazards that change depending on which segment of the level you're in. This stage is definitely one of the hardest, if not the hardest.

Apocalyptic Paradise Zone Boss:

Finally, Sonic catches up to Metal Sonic after having gone through all the other stages and having to fight Eggman's other creations, and this race might be the ultimate rematch, where Sonic has to win to regain his title as the fastest thing around!

And yes, for anyone who actually read this, this game concept starts in a space/gravity stage to mix things up. The trope order is also reversed until Flooding Forest.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Shade Vortex

[Hyper-Shan]

^ Sega, Hire this dude! =D

Edited January 4, 2012 by Nobody
quote trimmed

[Marcello]

This goes straight after Henious Anus Zone.

Except let's call it Robuttnik Zone.

[Chibinuva]

First off, there definitely needs to be something like Desert Dazzle or whatever the desert zones from CD/2 were called. (I'd especially love it if they either made the snow thing into a separate zone, or incorporated it into one of the acts of said desert zone.)

Secondly, I'd love some sort of Ice Zone, as Ice Cap Zone was one of my favorites. (though again, incorporating it as part of the desert works too.)

Not sure about what else, but I'd love it if they brought back the Chaotix Special Stages, since they were kinda like the ones from Sonic 2, minus being so damn difficult, and with a slight twist, just like how Episode 1 had the Sonic 1 Special Stages with the change that you rotate the maze, instead of moving Sonic left and right while it rotated automatically.

[Salamander]

Take two regular tropes.

Combine them.

See if the result is interesting.

That's how I'd go about it. A lot of tropes have been completely exhausted, but combined forms, less so. I really like the ideas from earlier in the thread for a dilapidated Eggman fortress (Dead Egg) and a snowy forest; they're ideas I've thought should be attempted, too, and I think they come with a lot of immediately accessible gimmicks.

[Johnny Boy]

Cinema Studio

Copy and pasted from a thread I made a couple of months ago.

Act 1: Act 1 starts off with sonic running through the opening gates of a movie studio. He then starts running along a street with stars on it that have the names of certain celebrities such as Ryan Drummond, Jaleel White, or Jason Griffith. Sonic then jumps off a ramp and lands in a city that is the set of the movie E-Morphers. This part of the level parodies movies like fast and the furious, Transformers, and various other Micheal Bay films. As soon as sonic starts running through the city, you'll hear a director scream "ACTION!". Then sonic takes off through the highways of the city and soon stunt cars race by his side with police motobugs that have machine guns on their shells not to far behind. After you escape the moto bugs, sonic will then run across the rooftops of buildings while avoiding jets and helicopters that shoot missiles at you. Sonic will then jump off the buildings and run through a highway, but soon a giant army vehicle will chase after him and it turns into a giant 30 ft tall robot! Sonic now has to outrun the robot and make it to the goal ring.

Act 2 is a mystical forest area that parodies Lord of the Rings (pun very much intended) with a camera man in the back of a truck following and filming you in the background.

The boss is the egg sith. A giant black robot with laser swords that resemble light sabers from Star Wars.

Edited January 5, 2012 by Dark Energon Johnny

[Tyranno128]

I always wished they had a Dinosaur/Prehistory type of zone which I know they did something similar with Sonic and The Secret Rings but im talking 2D style. Other than that im hoping they do something cool with checkered designs like a rainbow checkered zone or something trippy and psychedelic.

[Marcello]

This would take some minor retcons to completely work, but here's one from me, I came up with it last night:

Giant Crater Zone:

Act 1 - Into the Depths: It starts on flat ground, but quickly heads down inside of the crater. There are giant rocks that would act as platforms etc. There would be mine carts and stuff. The Act ends with Sonic reaching a hole.

Act 2 - The Long-Forgotten Mines: Sonic enters some ancient mines full of jewels. There's a mix of old technology and some modern Eggman technology. There are many jewels that shortly boost Sonic's powers, such as giving Sonic a short burst in speed (Like Speed Boosters), fling him across the room (Like springs), gravity changing jewels, and teleporters (Similar to Sky Sanctuary's in function) and more. There'd also be non jewels that Sonic can break through with nothing happening. There's be some underwater sections.

Act 3 - The Crumbling Caverns: Early on Sonic reaches a boarded up wall that he can easily break through. There's an animal capsule there. When Sonic hits the button, however it causes a huge explosion, causing the mines to collapse. The mines are now filled with smoke from the destruction, making it slightly harder to see (But not like LL's darkness, just fogging it up). There'd be sections Sonic has to get out of quickly due to that area collapsing. The level ends with Sonic being flung out of the mines by an emerald and reaching the outside of the crater again.

OK, now to the retcon.You may have already guessed it, but the crater is supposed to be where Angel Island once was; The mines from where the Chaos Emeralds stem, hence the other jewels with slight powers. The other jewels wouldn't have nearly as much power as the Chaos Emeralds, though. Those are special. Eggman would be trying to get these jewels to use as a power source, until Sonic destroys it with a faulty bomb. The problem is that Angel Island is part of the land in Adventure, so the place where Sonic is adventuring would have to be that or Adventure's story would have to be changed a bit.

Edit: Some Badniks I forgot to mention: And kangaroo with a pick axe and hardhat, to mine the crystals, a dog which'S function is to sniff out crystals are two a I came up with. There'd be some fish I guess, too. The Kangaroo would attack you with the pick-axe and the dog would jump you.

Edited January 16, 2012 by MarcelloF

[Hyper-Shan]

I was just watching "Destroyed In Seconds" right now, & I got the idea of a zone from that:

Bonfire Chaos Zone:

A zone that takes place both inside & outside of a Fireworks Factory!

[Shade Vortex]

Time to talk about another level idea I've had. This time, it's not copy-pasted from an irrelevant fangame idea I had!

Aurora Sky Zone:

A stage taking place in the Northern skies. Waves of colors all around, and lights from the city in the background as well. Eggman has built a flying, industrialized city in the sky, where it's snowing due to the cold. It's Sonic's job to put a stop to Eggman's plans to dominate the world and create Eggmanland.

I just think it'd be cool to have a Sonic stage that implements the northern lights.

Edited January 22, 2012 by Shade Vortex

[buba]

Time to talk about another level idea I've had. This time, it's not copy-pasted from an irrelevant fangame idea I had!

Aurora Sky Zone:

A stage taking place in the Northern skies. Waves of colors all around, and lights from the city in the background as well. Eggman has built a flying, industrialized city in the sky, where it's snowing due to the cold. It's Sonic's job to put a stop to Eggman's plans to dominate the world and create Eggmanland.

I just think it'd be cool to have a Sonic stage that implements the northern lights.

Kinda like Twinkle Snow from Advance 3?

Edited January 22, 2012 by Tmsp

[Shade Vortex]

Kinda like Twinkle Snow from Advance 3?

Oh wow. I haven't even played Advanced 3 so that's an absolute coincident. But I guess you could say it'd be like a combination of Twinkle Snow and Starlight Zone. But it is pretty much like that, except it's a city in the sky with a city in the background.

[ソウル]

Look at the top of the page it looks like the ruins from Aquatic Ruin Zone.

[Spooky Mulder]

I see the resemblance to the Aquatic Ruin pillars, but there's nothing especially unique about the pillars from Aquatic Ruin or the ones on that banner. I can't tell if they're supposed to be the same pillars or if its just a coincidence.

I'm leaning toward coincidence, since the coloring of the ruins and their background are kind of cold. It doesn't look like AR. I'm kind of leaning towards a dusk ruins level...possibly in the winter.

Edited January 23, 2012 by Spooky Mulder