I always like Guiles stage too.

Soft Museum - NiGHTS Into Dreams

Big Penguin Race - Mario 64

Chemical Plant Zone - Sonic 2

The End in MGS 3 can't get mentioned enough. And that's in a game that has amazing boss fights from start to finish.

The last level of Viewtiful Joe in the space station is one of my favourite finals. Loved the action, the challenges, the music, Captain Blue fight was amazing and overall a great note to end the game on.

@Cosmic which one is that?

Painted World, Icecap Zone, Assault on the Control Room, the lift in Streets of Rage, the beach in Streets of Rage 2, Guile's theme, Snakeman's theme (I think), Celeste's theme, overworld map theme from Lost Odyssey.

If someone else could embed videos for all of the above that would be classy, thx. x

cosmicjellybean wrote:

SOTC, Colossus 13. I had that save seperate on my ps2 and my ps3, just to ride into and play that battle.

This too. My favourite one, and so amazing. The approach to the final colossus was great. The bit on the bridge, it gets dark (iirc), and the music. Great stuff. 

@Tiger, I think by "tracks" the OP meant race tracks, as in levels, not music tracks, but yeah - you mentioned some great ones. I could go on and on about great music tracks, but One Winged Angel and Main Theme from FFVII are up there with the best. Journey has an amazing soundtrack. 

The BESTEST though is SotC attract mode (idle at title screen) music.

optimark_prime wrote:

Chemical Plant Zone - Sonic 2

The first two games contain a lot of memorable levels. I think it's the music that does it more than anything else. The fact that those games were also notable (in their time, at least) for not following the Fire/Water/Ice level pattern was also a huge part of it.

The Starlight Zone and Scrap Yard Zone on the first game are my blatant picks.
Though the Chemical Plant Zone and Oil Ocean zone from the second game were also very strong.

davyK wrote:

I've heard that SOTC has some techie issues on PS2 - I take it the PS3 remakes have no such issues?

I haven't finished the PS3 remake, but I played through the original on PS2 twice back in the day and there were no issues whatsoever.

Tempy wrote:

Flying snake I think?

Exactly. Just found out it's name is Phalanx (like that horrible blob in demon's souls)

ah right, thanks. I can never get it right on the iPad, always have to switch to the lappy.

dynamiteReady wrote:

optimark_prime wrote:

Chemical Plant Zone - Sonic 2

The first two games contain a lot of memorable levels. I think it's the music that does it more than anything else. The fact that those games were also notable (in their time, at least) for not following the Fire/Water/Ice level pattern was also a huge part of it.

The Starlight Zone and Scrap Yard Zone on the first game are my blatant picks.
Though the Chemical Plant Zone and Oil Ocean zone from the second game were also very strong.

Absolutely, there are some fantastic levels/music in the Mega Drive games.

The reason I loved Chemical Plant so much was because, at times Sonic was running so quickly, the camera couldn't keep up.

Was about to post about Demon's actually. In particular The Nexus.

A world hub doesn't have to do much beyond teleporting you to other areas. The Nexus does this job and also acts subtly as the biggest lore repository in the game. The haunting piano notes later replaced with organ music as you kill more Archdemons and the lack of natural light lend it a proper melancholy, purgatorial atmosphere that's oppressive enough to hit home how nearly doomed and fated Boletaria is.

The NPCs are all unique and usually have new things to say after each area is cleared. And not useless jibber jabber but words that flesh out the game and give just enough backstory to keep the mystery going. The nameless blue phantom who gets so gradually defeated in spirit as you progress that he eventually fades away to his primal soul was a right sad affair.

So The Nexus is probably my favourite world hub. Not the biggest of accolades but there it is.

But if I detailed every section of it that I liked, which is what I had done first, then it would have been ok right? Shame I had to delete those 50,000 words.

Tempy wrote:

@Dyna: Who knows, I guess in the end Mario had better core gameplay, but Sonic 2 had TEH GRAFX and THE ch00nz.

Seriously, I don't think there is a bad peice of music between Sonic 2 - Sonic 3, every theme is brilliant and the levels were all beautiful, they all stick in my head so much more than any Mario game.

Maybe you are over egging that a bit?

I can see how a kid could be wowed by Sonic - I was in my early-to-mid 20s in the early 90s and never saw what the fuss was about.

The first zone was different from the rest of the genre but even there I found the touted speed sections to be usually uncontrollable without trial and error or just automated on-rails showpieces that got old fast - and I really found the games a bit of a bore. As for those tedious bounce around trial and error levels - the least said the better. I actually enjoyed Marble Zone the most but then that was a Mario rip off in the main.

I have come to appreciate them more as years have gone by funnily enough - but the linearity of them and the simplistic nature of most of the levels means I find even the first SMB1 game pretty much a match for them in the gameplay stakes.

I also find it ironic that Sonic was touted for its speed when in PAL land it was a 50Hz unoptimised sluggish mess while the Mario games actually had some optimisation applied to them - hey-ho.

The airship levels in SMB3 are probably a highlight for me but there are so many gems in SMW that its hard pick any others - always liked the boo-infested Haunted House levels.