Security Hall actually shares some themes with Iron Gate and Prison Lane. It's not as noticeable because of the numerous safes and being a Treasure Hunting stage vs. a Mech stage, but they all still share the Prison Island interior aesthetic.
That's actually a good point. It feels different enough that it doesn't outright feel like a copy, but still makes sense within the context of the game.
For me, from least favorite to most I'd say Route 280 Death Chamber Egg Quarters Dry Lagoon Wild Canyon Pumpkin Hill Mad Space Aquatic Mine Security Hall Meteor Herd
Here’s my list from worst to best and why: 10. Route 280 (2/10) - Every stage on this list was hard to choose, except last place. Need I explain? Lame concept, poor design philosophy, and its dreadful to go through everytime I play the Dark story from SA2. 9. Egg Quarters (4/10) - The theme here is really cool but frankly the whole SA2 OST is amazing to no end. I’m just not a fan of how easy it is to run into enemies and hazards in such claustrophobic environments. Also the gimmicks this level has don’t set itself apart enough for me. 8. Meteor Herd (5/10) - I know a lot of viewers are wondering how I haven’t put Mad Space yet but please hear me out. If I was writing this after my first time with the game, Mad Space most likely would’ve been stuck at #9, but I find Meteor Herd’s aesthetics less interesting over time. Admittedly, this whole stage is a giant circular field with some mechanical structures around, a giant space tower in the middle underneath a fleet of square platforms, with some storage units floating about. The meteors striking down can get a bit annoying when trying to punch the boulders at the doors and boxes on the surface, which by the way in case you missed them, the bolder only comes back when you nearly exit the location. It’s for sure functional and safe, but Mad Space beats it out for me when it comes to the sheer ambition of the developers. 7. Mad Space (5.5/10) - In contrast to most players, I find myself wanting to go back to this more than Meteor Herd for the more challenging level design and ambitious effort from Sonic Team. I actually think it’s awesome the bottom where you start is sparse and the further up you go the more intriguing the stage gets. Taking heat the hint system that nobody likes I get is an unnecessary inclusion but I consider that part of this levels unique sarcastic charm. 6. Death Chamber (6.5/10) - I prefer the gimmick of this stage over Egg Quarters and I’m giving this some points for the fact that it gets followed up in the story with a boss battle against King Boom Boo. But the stage itself is fun enough to go through once you learn its hourglass gimmick. Provides a step up in difficulty being one of the later stages in Knuckles catalog. I don’t like how claustrophobic the level can be at times either, but it’s one of those levels I sometimes keep learning something new about every time I play. 5. Aquatic Mine (7/10) - If there’s one thing that brings the stage down, it’s getting the Air Necklace. They should’ve given you a path that goes directly back to the main area. It’s cool to ponder about the plot going on and Knuckles’ motivation for searching for the emeralds to the point where he won’t let anything get in his way. It’s also worth mentioning it’s the only stage that is aesthetically an in-depth water stage, that happens to be inside of an old mine. 4. Dry Lagoon (7.5/10) - These top 4 were really complicated to rank for me. I view both this and Wild Canyon as too much alike so therefore they lose some points. Dry Lagoon is good for just doing what it knows how to do and nothing more. It’s emerald spots are quite easy to get the hang of and it’s cool how you need to destroy the 2 robots to set the turtle you need to access the rest of the level. Sure, it becomes more boring over time but it wasn’t trying to be super extraordinary in the first place either. 3. Wild Canyon (7.75/10) - Most of what I said with Dry Lagoon applies here too but I think this stage is slightly more evenly paced as you don’t need to constantly head back to the middle part to switch areas like with the turtle. What a great way to begin the campaign of Knuckles too by the way. 2. Security Hall (8/10) - A bat infiltrating a top secret military facility on a remote island all for 3 chaos emeralds? Talk about surreal! This stage isn’t large, and there’s still a lot of cool stuff to discover when going through it. They didn’t need to put all of this in, but I’m grateful they did. Perhaps it would’ve been better if they didn’t put the switch passed those lasers above the fans, but that’s frankly a minor thing that adds challenge being the 3rd out of 5 Rouge levels. 1. Pumpkin Hill (9/10) - Ultimately, this stage wins due to the high attention to detail, while still having a easy to learn but tricky to master skill ceiling. It’s open level design caters to players of both rookie and professional SA2 players. The song that goes with level, the aesthetic, and Knuckles’ mentality are so perfectly tuned in with one another that always makes for a fun time.
I can get enjoyment out of all of these stages even if I have problems with some of them. I prefer the hunting stages in this game over the emerald hunting of SA1. This game has a lot more variety. You're not always just flying around big open playgrounds like in SA1. While Pumpkin Hill and Meteor Herd act as these SA1-esque playground stages, there are stages where you're running through corridors, swimming, hitting switches, opening safes, digging through walls to get to other places, using stealth etc. And the extra missions contribute to this variety too. You're not always just looking for 3 emeralds/keys. I don't really get the problem about Meteor Herd being "too big" when there are rockets you can take to get from the bottom to the top very quickly and you can drill dive from the top to the bottom very quickly too. Stages like Death Chamber and Aquatic Mine are much harder to get around while being smaller in area. While Meteor Herd is big vertically, Death Chamber is big horizontally and has those hour glasses you need to activate to move forward. Meteor Herd gives you all the freedom in the world to explore and doesn't lock areas behind switches or doors. Honestly I find Mad Space to be overhated too. While it's definitely extremely flawed, the hate it gets is overblown to me. The gravity mechanics suck but are only on 2 small planets and can mostly be avoided by taking the rocket to the planet with no gravity. While it is very big and is hindered by the radar, it's the final treasure hunting stage you're going to play (unless you finish Dark story first but nobody does) so I don't really have a big issue with its difficulty. I like having big open worlds to explore with Knuckles & Rouge. That's part of what makes the exploration side of these stages so fun. I'm not saying Mad Space is even close to the best this gameplay has to offer but I would give it at least like a 6/10. It's not "one of the worst stages in the franchise" like a lot of people would say. Wild Canyon at no. 1 surprises me tbh. I like the stage but it's way too easy for me to put it near the top. Here's how I would rank the stages 1. Security Hall 9/10 2. Meteor Herd 9/10 3. Pumpkin Hill 8.5/10 4. Dry Lagoon 8/10 5. Wild Canyon 7.5/10 6. Egg Chamber 7/10 7. Death Chamber 7/10 8. Mad Space 6/10 9. Aquatic Mine 5/10 10. Route 280 3/10 I love the treasure hunting stages. To some, this may be a hot take but the mech stages is the real lowpoint of the game for me (aside from the 2 racing stages) because the mechs control badly, the shooting gameplay lacks any depth and is repetitive, the sound design of the mechs is bad and the shooting just doesn't work sometimes.
From Best to Worst I have 1 Pumpkin Hill, 2 Meteor Herd, 3 Security Hall, 4 Wild Canyon, 5 Dry Lagoon, 6 Egg Quarters, 7 Death Chamber, 8 Aquatic Mine, 9 Mad Space, 10 Route 280. While Aquatic Mine has cool stuff only on Switch 1 (Lost Chao & Bottomless Shaft), Switch 2 is useless as Switch 3 is better with Air Necklace Passage being cool & the aesthetic isn't that interesting. You severely underestimate the rockets & drill dive for getting around Meteor Herd & Space Trip Steps is 1 of the best songs in the game. Wild Canyon only beats Dry Lagoon because of the Lost Chao, otherwise they are equals, 1 could just as easily enter Dry Lagoon before Wild Canyon.
Rouge could have had a proper fourth stage while still progressing the story. Her job was to locate Tails since he was gifted a choas emerald. Rather than chase them down like in Route 280, she employs stealth and learns of their plan to stop Eggman. The stage itself could easily be a detour to gather master emerald shards. Leaning into her Catwoman similarities, the setting would be a nighttime city. The stage itself could be an exaggerated reality of skyscrapers and building construction.
I don't know if this will be likely but after the mech level ranking, you should do a general ranking of where you put specific levels where. I know City Escape is an excellent level
I love Wild Canyon and Dry Lagoon (i will include the other missiond in here as well) I havent actually beaten the Hard Mode of Mad Space and Meteor Herd, but i did do that for every other hunting stage (excluding the car level) About the car level, I only beaten the 2nd and 3rd missions.
Security Hall actually shares some themes with Iron Gate and Prison Lane. It's not as noticeable because of the numerous safes and being a Treasure Hunting stage vs. a Mech stage, but they all still share the Prison Island interior aesthetic.
Not to mention, in Iron Gate, the Lost Chao room looks like a gutted out version of the upper room in Security Hall.
That's actually a good point. It feels different enough that it doesn't outright feel like a copy, but still makes sense within the context of the game.
@@AsteriskGamer
That's the exact room I was thinking of.
For me, from least favorite to most I'd say
Route 280
Death Chamber
Egg Quarters
Dry Lagoon
Wild Canyon
Pumpkin Hill
Mad Space
Aquatic Mine
Security Hall
Meteor Herd
That was pretty cool. Wild canyon is one of my favorites too!
I can respect Wild Canyon above Pumpkin Hill, even if I don't agree.
But Security Hall? That's gotta be the real hot take of the video.
After this, you should do a comprehensive treasure hunting ranking list that incorporates the levels from Adventure 1 and probably Sonic 06
It’s crazy cus I’m taking aquatic mine over most besides rouges army base and pumpkin hill , aquatic mine has some of the best music also
Cool. Though Wild Canyon is my third place, just beneath Pumpkin Hill in second and Security Hall in first.
Here’s my list from worst to best and why:
10. Route 280 (2/10) - Every stage on this list was hard to choose, except last place. Need I explain? Lame concept, poor design philosophy, and its dreadful to go through everytime I play the Dark story from SA2.
9. Egg Quarters (4/10) - The theme here is really cool but frankly the whole SA2 OST is amazing to no end. I’m just not a fan of how easy it is to run into enemies and hazards in such claustrophobic environments. Also the gimmicks this level has don’t set itself apart enough for me.
8. Meteor Herd (5/10) - I know a lot of viewers are wondering how I haven’t put Mad Space yet but please hear me out. If I was writing this after my first time with the game, Mad Space most likely would’ve been stuck at #9, but I find Meteor Herd’s aesthetics less interesting over time. Admittedly, this whole stage is a giant circular field with some mechanical structures around, a giant space tower in the middle underneath a fleet of square platforms, with some storage units floating about. The meteors striking down can get a bit annoying when trying to punch the boulders at the doors and boxes on the surface, which by the way in case you missed them, the bolder only comes back when you nearly exit the location. It’s for sure functional and safe, but Mad Space beats it out for me when it comes to the sheer ambition of the developers.
7. Mad Space (5.5/10) - In contrast to most players, I find myself wanting to go back to this more than Meteor Herd for the more challenging level design and ambitious effort from Sonic Team. I actually think it’s awesome the bottom where you start is sparse and the further up you go the more intriguing the stage gets. Taking heat the hint system that nobody likes I get is an unnecessary inclusion but I consider that part of this levels unique sarcastic charm.
6. Death Chamber (6.5/10) - I prefer the gimmick of this stage over Egg Quarters and I’m giving this some points for the fact that it gets followed up in the story with a boss battle against King Boom Boo. But the stage itself is fun enough to go through once you learn its hourglass gimmick. Provides a step up in difficulty being one of the later stages in Knuckles catalog. I don’t like how claustrophobic the level can be at times either, but it’s one of those levels I sometimes keep learning something new about every time I play.
5. Aquatic Mine (7/10) - If there’s one thing that brings the stage down, it’s getting the Air Necklace. They should’ve given you a path that goes directly back to the main area. It’s cool to ponder about the plot going on and Knuckles’ motivation for searching for the emeralds to the point where he won’t let anything get in his way. It’s also worth mentioning it’s the only stage that is aesthetically an in-depth water stage, that happens to be inside of an old mine.
4. Dry Lagoon (7.5/10) - These top 4 were really complicated to rank for me. I view both this and Wild Canyon as too much alike so therefore they lose some points. Dry Lagoon is good for just doing what it knows how to do and nothing more. It’s emerald spots are quite easy to get the hang of and it’s cool how you need to destroy the 2 robots to set the turtle you need to access the rest of the level. Sure, it becomes more boring over time but it wasn’t trying to be super extraordinary in the first place either.
3. Wild Canyon (7.75/10) - Most of what I said with Dry Lagoon applies here too but I think this stage is slightly more evenly paced as you don’t need to constantly head back to the middle part to switch areas like with the turtle. What a great way to begin the campaign of Knuckles too by the way.
2. Security Hall (8/10) - A bat infiltrating a top secret military facility on a remote island all for 3 chaos emeralds? Talk about surreal! This stage isn’t large, and there’s still a lot of cool stuff to discover when going through it. They didn’t need to put all of this in, but I’m grateful they did. Perhaps it would’ve been better if they didn’t put the switch passed those lasers above the fans, but that’s frankly a minor thing that adds challenge being the 3rd out of 5 Rouge levels.
1. Pumpkin Hill (9/10) - Ultimately, this stage wins due to the high attention to detail, while still having a easy to learn but tricky to master skill ceiling. It’s open level design caters to players of both rookie and professional SA2 players. The song that goes with level, the aesthetic, and Knuckles’ mentality are so perfectly tuned in with one another that always makes for a fun time.
I can get enjoyment out of all of these stages even if I have problems with some of them. I prefer the hunting stages in this game over the emerald hunting of SA1. This game has a lot more variety. You're not always just flying around big open playgrounds like in SA1. While Pumpkin Hill and Meteor Herd act as these SA1-esque playground stages, there are stages where you're running through corridors, swimming, hitting switches, opening safes, digging through walls to get to other places, using stealth etc. And the extra missions contribute to this variety too. You're not always just looking for 3 emeralds/keys.
I don't really get the problem about Meteor Herd being "too big" when there are rockets you can take to get from the bottom to the top very quickly and you can drill dive from the top to the bottom very quickly too. Stages like Death Chamber and Aquatic Mine are much harder to get around while being smaller in area. While Meteor Herd is big vertically, Death Chamber is big horizontally and has those hour glasses you need to activate to move forward. Meteor Herd gives you all the freedom in the world to explore and doesn't lock areas behind switches or doors.
Honestly I find Mad Space to be overhated too. While it's definitely extremely flawed, the hate it gets is overblown to me. The gravity mechanics suck but are only on 2 small planets and can mostly be avoided by taking the rocket to the planet with no gravity. While it is very big and is hindered by the radar, it's the final treasure hunting stage you're going to play (unless you finish Dark story first but nobody does) so I don't really have a big issue with its difficulty. I like having big open worlds to explore with Knuckles & Rouge. That's part of what makes the exploration side of these stages so fun. I'm not saying Mad Space is even close to the best this gameplay has to offer but I would give it at least like a 6/10. It's not "one of the worst stages in the franchise" like a lot of people would say.
Wild Canyon at no. 1 surprises me tbh. I like the stage but it's way too easy for me to put it near the top.
Here's how I would rank the stages
1. Security Hall 9/10
2. Meteor Herd 9/10
3. Pumpkin Hill 8.5/10
4. Dry Lagoon 8/10
5. Wild Canyon 7.5/10
6. Egg Chamber 7/10
7. Death Chamber 7/10
8. Mad Space 6/10
9. Aquatic Mine 5/10
10. Route 280 3/10
I love the treasure hunting stages. To some, this may be a hot take but the mech stages is the real lowpoint of the game for me (aside from the 2 racing stages) because the mechs control badly, the shooting gameplay lacks any depth and is repetitive, the sound design of the mechs is bad and the shooting just doesn't work sometimes.
From Best to Worst I have 1 Pumpkin Hill, 2 Meteor Herd, 3 Security Hall, 4 Wild Canyon, 5 Dry Lagoon, 6 Egg Quarters, 7 Death Chamber, 8 Aquatic Mine, 9 Mad Space, 10 Route 280. While Aquatic Mine has cool stuff only on Switch 1 (Lost Chao & Bottomless Shaft), Switch 2 is useless as Switch 3 is better with Air Necklace Passage being cool & the aesthetic isn't that interesting. You severely underestimate the rockets & drill dive for getting around Meteor Herd & Space Trip Steps is 1 of the best songs in the game. Wild Canyon only beats Dry Lagoon because of the Lost Chao, otherwise they are equals, 1 could just as easily enter Dry Lagoon before Wild Canyon.
Rouge could have had a proper fourth stage while still progressing the story. Her job was to locate Tails since he was gifted a choas emerald. Rather than chase them down like in Route 280, she employs stealth and learns of their plan to stop Eggman.
The stage itself could easily be a detour to gather master emerald shards. Leaning into her Catwoman similarities, the setting would be a nighttime city. The stage itself could be an exaggerated reality of skyscrapers and building construction.
This is a wonderful idea! A stage like this could have been one of her best by far!
I don't know if this will be likely but after the mech level ranking, you should do a general ranking of where you put specific levels where. I know City Escape is an excellent level
I'm too lazy to make the obvious joke where I roast Mad Space by typing things in the same way the hint system works. It's a bad level.
Headphone warning 16:19
I love Wild Canyon and Dry Lagoon (i will include the other missiond in here as well)
I havent actually beaten the Hard Mode of Mad Space and Meteor Herd, but i did do that for every other hunting stage (excluding the car level)
About the car level, I only beaten the 2nd and 3rd missions.