61 Frames Per Second : the ten greatest fire levels in gaming history

The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History, Part 3

Peter Smith — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:32:00 GMT

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker — Dragon Roost Cavern

Generally speaking, I have as much disdain for the 3D Zelda games as I have love for their 2D predecessors. With some exceptions, they're tedious slogs of fetch questing, hand holding, and unskippable, unbearably patronizing prattle. ("You got a key! You can use it to open a door!") This subject tends to be a bone of contention between me and my esteemed colleague here at 61FPS, but one thing I have to concede to him is that the dungeon design in these games is usually pretty swell. For all of Wind Waker's faults, it has the virtue of being visually gorgeous, which is why its fire dungeon, Dragon Roost Cavern, beats out the dreary Fire Temple from Ocarina of Time. (Don't even get me started on Twilight Princess.) The dungeon's architecture and mood are admirably cohesive, too — you can almost feel the breezy air outside the volcano give way to a brutal dry heat within. And the boss is — no argument here — spectacular. You win this round, 3D Zelda. . . grumble, grumble. . . — PS

Silent Hill 2 — The Lakeview Hotel

Note: Spoilers. Not kidding.

The fire that destroys James and Mary Sunderland's "special place", the Lakeview Hotel, in Silent Hill 2 is seen for only the brief minutes in this clip. But that fire, burning between journeys through the hotel, pristine but abandoned, and later, charred and desiccated, is the conceptual core of Silent Hill 2's psychological quest for reconciliation. The game's world is not so much a tangible place but a physical manifestation of James Sunderland's trauma and guilt over euthanizing his cancer-stricken wife. This fire level, as it were, provides not only the compelling dual-environment the series is known for, but a startling visual metaphor to simultaneously represent the protagonist's inability to forgive himself and a purifying destruction on his road to peace. "It's hot," says James to Angela — who is, possibly, another facet of James' psyche — on the staircase. Her haunting reply: "You see it too. For me, it's always like this." James Sunderland burns, and you, his guide, burn with him in the Lakeview Hotel. — JC

Final Fantasy VI — The Burning House

Fire is omnipresent in role-playing games. Maybe it's the fantasist's fetish for elemental powers, but you can't spit without hitting something that casts fire spells, wields a flaming sword, is a fire demon, or by way of some curse or malady, happens to be on fire. For years, RPG fire environments tended towards volcanoes, towns burnt to the ground by angry villains, or caves of salamanders. Final Fantasy VI was one of the first RPGs to feature more expansive, scripted narrative scenarios — one of which used fire to create drama and urgency. In the middle of the night, your characters are woken to save a young girl from a burning house. The fire itself is alive, eating the house and taking the form of maniacally grinning jack-o-lantern bombs. The spectacle doesn't look like much fifteen years after it was made; the fire creatures are little more than orange blobs, the house is plain, and the flames licking the sides of the wall don't seem particularly threatening. But the scene itself subverts expectation and demands strategic gameplay. It's a perfect storm of aesthetics and mechanics, story and setting. — JC

Thunderforce III — Gorgon

For a shmup fire level, we could've gone with the opening area of Gradius II, or the impressive Stage 5 of Axelay. But true diehards know there's only one contender: the explosive Gorgon stage of cult Genesis shooter Thunderforce III. With an energizing soundtrack of catchy J-rock, and a dazzling wall of animated flame in the background, Gorgon throws the works at you as soon as you come in the door. Meteors, fireballs and plumes of lava — the stage is a pyrotechnic extravaganza and a showoffy highlight of this unsung classic. If you really want to admire Thunderforce III's design, revel in Gorgon's over-the-top spectacle, then proceed to the water stage, Seiren, and note how, without stepping down the difficulty, it suggests a vast, oceanic calm. But that's a subject for another list. — PS

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The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History, Part 2

Peter Smith — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:31:00 GMT

Resident Evil 2 — Raccoon City Streets

Hideki Kamiya followed the logical zombie progression after Shinji Mikami's original Resident Evil, going from the '50s schlock of a haunted mansion/mad-scientist's lab combo and straight onto the '60s of Romero-urban-zombie-apocalypse. Kamiya's sequel also had a novel twist on the dual protagonists of the first by making two slightly different quests for the heroes Claire and Leon. You know how zombie apocalypses work, right? When survivors need to stick together to survive, you separate them immediately. Resident Evil 2 opens with a tanker truck of gasoline exploding in downtown Raccoon City, with Claire and Leon stuck on either side of the ensuing blaze. When you finally start guiding your poorly equipped, clean-cut cop or street-smart biker chick through the undead, you do it in flames. And, yes. The zombies are totally on fire too. — JC

Metroid Series — Norfair

As far as distinctive game worlds go, Metroid's is hard to beat. Brinstar, Norfair and Tourian are unforgettably tangible, subterranean realms as hostile as they are sprawling. Amazing how much atmosphere the designers squeezed into eight bits, aided by Hip Tanaka's hypnotic soundtrack and the almost fluorescent black of the NES palette. As the game's resident heat zone, Norfair is an odd one — a disorienting, uneasy melange of lava, rock, metal and a weird bubbly substance that continues to freak me out. In its Super Metroid incarnation, Norfair is more cohesive and arguably more of a true "fire level," but for my money, it loses some of the truly alien quality of its NES counterpart. — PS

Mega Man 2 — Heat Man

The early Mega Man titles' greatest strength was not their lightning-fast take on Mario-style platforming or the novelty of acquiring physical abilities from antagonists. It was their ability to create spaces that were at once fantastical as well as functional. These arenas weren't built to superficially house a challenge; they were made to do things in the world of 200X. Even more so than Mega Man's Fire Man stage, Heat Man's stage is a furnace, a kiln of umber brick and steel silver floors that conveys a literal sense of oppressive heat. Even the stage's disappearing platforms of orange brick glow and look hot to touch. The music and challenge of playing the actual stage only emphasize its physicality. — JC

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The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History, Part 1

Peter Smith — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:30:00 GMT

Videogame designers have found a great deal of inspiration in elemental dichotomies. Wood versus stone, wind versus lightning, ice versus fire — these natural conflicts are excellent bases for compelling environments and rich atmospheres. What better than tangible extremes like hot and cold to convey a sense of place to a player? To celebrate the imminent arrival of summer, 61 Frames Per Second is going hot with our first top-ten list, looking at the greatest fire levels in gaming history. If you're sweating, don't worry — we'll get to ice soon enough. — John Constantine

Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts — Crucible of Flame

Nobody would subject themselves to the brutally difficult Ghosts 'n Goblins series if the games didn't feature Capcom's usual immaculate production values. Dying a hundred times in Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts' third stage, the Crucible of Flame (and you will) is made marginally more bearable by the brooding music (forever seared in my brain after a misspent youth) and the characteristically idiosyncratic twist on the usual "fire level" theme: instead of a generic inferno, the Crucible of Flame finds you in some kind of metallurgical hell. The stage has a lot of character; as fire levels go, it's more of an oozing, molten nightmare than a pyrotechnic fun fair. (In fact, some would say there's nothing fun about it.) A word of warning: it only gets worse from here. — Peter Smith

Dracula X: Rondo of Blood — Dinner of Flames

The games in the original Castlevania trilogy all open with scenes of civilization. In the original, Simon Belmont approaches Dracula's titular castle via a gate on a road. The second finds Simon in the town of Jova, and Simon's ancestor Trevor passes through Wallachia Town and a cathedral at the opening of the third. All of these places feel oppressed by evil but, even when full of monsters, they've got a lurking malevolence. They're not overtly violent. The opening stage of Dracula X: Rondo of Blood, Dinner of Flames, is a different story entirely. Veros — a town neighboring Jova in Castlevania 2, for a nice garnish of continuity — is literally burning to the ground around Richter Belmont while the metal chords of "Divine Bloodlines" play in the background. The flames don't directly affect your passage here. They do, however, make the stage completely fucking sweet. — JC

F- Zero — Fire Field

When F-Zero first came out, its sense of speed was awesome, and nowhere more than in its ultimate track, Fire Field. If you made it through the fourteen previous tracks, you might — just might — have the skill to make it through this godless collection of hairpin turns, speed traps and exploding mines. The soundtrack matched the intensity of the track layout, with one of the game's most memorable hard-rock grooves. Some would argue that the "fieryness" of Fire Field is purely incidental, with no direct relevance to gameplay. But as a thought experiment, imagine Fire Field as a frozen wonderland, or a barren ocean. Not quite the same. No, there's a distinctly combustive quality to this level, as any King League veteran would be quick to tell you. — PS

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