worlds that you #loved

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    from the crumbling expanse of arkham city to the legendary streets of los santos, the heavenly realm of paradiso to the unforgiving & darwinian gran pulse, there have been many, MANY games where the physical setting of the game's events stole the show

    what worlds/settings particularly stand out in your memory? why did they stick with you? would you change any aspects of them?
     
    Ooo so many memorable game settings, the first and obvious one (at least to me) is Rapture. From Bioshock 1, not the subsequent ones. That first bathosphere dive down, seeing the city beneath the ocean, was breathtaking.

    After that, maybeeee, Planet Skedar from Perfect Dark seemed very alien and jarring - did a good job at making you feel out of your setting even with limited N64 graphics.

    Hangar 18 from Twisted Metal 3, had so many damn cool secrets and easter eggs and hidden areas, it really felt like you never knew everything that was going on. And it was a flippin' driving combat game. That and London from Twisted Metal 3. That game had a lot of great levels.

    Also just curious, why is the thread "Worlds you #loved" rather than just "Worlds you loved"?
     
    Any setting from any Mario game has been stuck in my memory. From the colorful worlds and whimsical tunes, there is no way that I will never forget the settings of a Mario game.
     
    Aphrodite said:
    i enjoy the usage of #hashtags as #emphasis
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    Ahkay - I gotcha :3

    Urist McHemlock said:
    Any setting from any Mario game has been stuck in my memory. From the colorful worlds and whimsical tunes, there is no way that I will never forget the settings of a Mario game.
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    ^ This.

    The haunted woods setting from Paper Mario before you get to the lady Boo's mansion will forever be ingrained in my mind. From the trees with faces, to that random... er, what was it that indicated the right way to go... I know those woods were a maze, and it was something subtle on the trees that indicated the right path to take, but I forgot.
     
    Polar Spectrum said:
    Ahkay - I gotcha :3



    ^ This.

    The haunted woods setting from Paper Mario before you get to the lady Boo's mansion will forever be ingrained in my mind. From the trees with faces, to that random... er, what was it that indicated the right way to go... I know those woods were a maze, and it was something subtle on the trees that indicated the right path to take, but I forgot.
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    The best thing about a Mario game is that no matter what music you have in the background, the game play can easily accompany it, even music from Fist of the North Star works. That's right the music from MANLINESS INCARNATE works with a Mario game.
     
    Gaia is a big one for me. I'm a Final Fantasy nut so maybe I'm biased, but I still loved the place.

    The Pokemon world also comes to mind, though mainly because of Nostalgia.

    And generally all the locations in the Mario Worlds, but my reason for this is explained in the above posts.
     
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    Rapture was haunting and amazing, Columbia was alright but it wasn't as immersive as Rapture was.

    I am so in love with some of the villages from the Harvest Moon games, namely the villages from Save the Homeland, Friends of Mineral Town, and A Wonderful Life. They're so relaxing and beautiful just... ugh, if only I could actually live there. The villages from the newer games feel more bland to me, but that could be nostalgia talking.
     
    There's a lot to choose from, but by far the closest to my heart is Tamriel. Especially Black Marsh, because of the glorious argonian master race. A close runner up would be the Mojave Wasteland from Fallout New Vegas.
     
    Mochi said:
    Rapture was haunting and amazing, Columbia was alright but it wasn't as immersive as Rapture was.

    I am so in love with some of the villages from the Harvest Moon games, namely the villages from Save the Homeland, Friends of Mineral Town, and A Wonderful Life. They're so relaxing and beautiful just... ugh, if only I could actually live there. The villages from the newer games feel more bland to me, but that could be nostalgia talking.
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    Dude. Forget-Me-Not-Valley lives up to the name. It's somewhere I can't forget. I love that place. I liked all the people there even the little smelly guy, Murray. I got SO SAD when Nina died in the second year cause you kind of just realize, "Hey I haven't seen that cute old lady in a while" and THEN YOU FIND OUT and omg. :( Every time I start a new file, I make sure to give her a flower like...every time I see her while I still can. And then the BAR lol I was such a naive kid I thought blue punch was actually punch and not alcohol...silly me. But yeah, overall, it's just a relaxing place.
     
    Mochi said:
    Rapture was haunting and amazing, Columbia was alright but it wasn't as immersive as Rapture was.
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    This is true mostly for the fact that Rapture is the Main Character of Bioshock, whereas in Bioshock Infinite, the Main Character is Elizabeth. That said, I think that Columbia is a terrible place and that also makes it extremely hard to like. All the racism and stifling of creativity with propaganda just makes it a very hard place to enjoy. HOWEVER! The setting of the Multiverse which Bioshock Infinite and Bioshock exist in is extremely cool!
     
    Hyrule and Little Planet from Sonic CD. Hyrule is a truly awesome place that continually changes as time passes, with boundaries between the fields, the desert, and the forest continually changing. Little Planet is a bit more obscure, but it's a strange place where you can time travel if you go fast enough. It's a place where technology and nature are combined and either fuse perfectly if you fix the past, or destroy each other if you fail to fix things. In Act 3 of each zone you either get the good future if you went back in time in the previous acts or the bad future if you didn't, and the massive amount of detail in all 4 time zones is awesome. Gaia is up there too, as there's so many neat places and mysterious relics it reminds me of The Dark Crystal. It's not as detailed when it comes to world building but it's definitely its own setting, and not just some partially transformed Earth.
     
    Bionis easily tops the list for me: it's an impossibly huge apparently deceased titan. Playing Xenoblade and exploring Bionis, I knew how an insect might feel if it ever decided to explore a larger animal. Not only that, but some of the locations were stunning - Gaur Plains is one of my favourite generic field locations, and running around inside Bionis reminded me a bit of Jabu Jabu's Belly from OOT, only on a much larger and more neon-coloured scale. Swords are valleys, you need to pass through caves to reach different body parts, higher altitudes are colder, etc. As far as JRPG worlds go, it's one of the more memorable and unique ones I think.

    I'm also really fond of Ivalice; it's easily the most complex and richly detailed of the Final Fantasy worlds to date. All of my favourite FF games have been set there. It's not so much the locations - although some of those are quite memorable; Bhujerba for one - but the history and incredible amount of detail it has.

    I'm going to mention Gamindustri from the Hyperdimension Neptunia series as well, just because it's one massive parody of the industry in general. Each of the four lands has its own look and feel, and whilst it isn't very imaginative, there are all sorts of delightful little references hidden away to spot. People with very toad-like hats in Lowee. A guy called David hiding under a cardboard box. Keiji Inafune's disembodied head. I could go on.

    Basel from Resonance of Fate also gets a mention, for being a giant steampunk tower in the middle of a wasteland. I love how it gets more steampunk and grimy the further down you go. It's a fairly small world, but the atmosphere changes noticeably depending upon what level you're on.
     
    Kryat of Far Cry 4 is absolutely gorgeous. One of my favorite locales in gaming ever. Just screams beauty.

    Skyrim of the Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. I spent hours and hours just exploring the world and seeing the beauty of caves and landscapes. Now I want to get it for PC and mod the crap out of it.
     
    Another vote for Elder Scroll's Tamriel, not just for the architecture of Cyrodiil or Skyrim's scenery, but they really created a world, complete with its own in-depth history (like, centuries of it), religions and races that all have their own culture and beliefs. It is such a fascinating place to explore and learn about.

    In terms of physical beauty, Skyrim does make the list, but I also want to mention Spira of Final Fantasy X and The Last of Us' post-apocalyptic world. In both these games, the world has pretty much been trashed and destroyed, but they still managed to make them look so beautiful. I loved the 'reclaimed by nature' look in The Last of Us - it's seriously the best looking wasteland I've ever seen.

    And Spira, whether it's in ruins or showing the nightscape of the once heavily populated Zanarkand, always looks really pretty and magical.
     
    Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze and Rayman Origins. 2 2D platformers, who'd thought?

    My reasoning for DKCTF is because the world is so organic and lively. It's a game, but everything around it makes sense. You see enemies that have a REASON for their movement, little details in the background that you can miss so easily, platforms are connected to the environment and they have a reason to be there, unlike others where they're just floating. The art direction of the game is superb, and it makes up for the simple graphics. The game has NO reused asset, there's a real sense of progress because the background changes constantly. No other game I can think of has a world as organic as Tropical Freeze.
    [PokeCommunity.com] worlds that you #loved


    Rayman Origins is a moving painting. A beautiful cartoony world you won't find anywhere. Admittedly the 2D aesthetics contribute majorly to my attachment to its world, but hey, art style is a big factor when it comes to world building, no? I can't really say much about it. You just look at it.
    [PokeCommunity.com] worlds that you #loved
     
    Mochi said:
    Rapture was haunting and amazing, Columbia was alright but it wasn't as immersive as Rapture was.

    I am so in love with some of the villages from the Harvest Moon games, namely the villages from Save the Homeland, Friends of Mineral Town, and A Wonderful Life. They're so relaxing and beautiful just... ugh, if only I could actually live there. The villages from the newer games feel more bland to me, but that could be nostalgia talking.
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    I have to say ALL the Harvets Moon games. The only ones I never played are the one on the Playstation(s) because I never had one, and 2 other games (New beggining that I gonna have this week!!! I searched for this games for a full year, everytime I saw the game I never had the money and now that I have it I could not find the game anywhere!!) and The lost valley (It just doesn't look that good... I prefer to wait for Story of Seasons in February)

    So yes, every Harvest Moon games have a wonderful world. If I have to choose I would say A wonderful Life, Friend of Mineral Town or Animal Parade.


    I have to add Animal Crossing. This world... well there is some neighbourg I won't like to have haha.
     
    Aurbis, which is apparently the name of the Elder Scrolls universe (Tamriel is only a continent on Nirn, within the plane of Mundus). Little doubt since it didn't begin as a video game setting, it has been given a great depth of historical lore, which nicely gives precedent to current in-game events. I actually didn't find it terribly interesting until I learned a little about the cosmology of the universe. I couldn't explain it in my own words, but the information is on UESP and The Imperial Library. I wouldn't change it at all; I think a lot of what interests me about it is exceptionally original (I don't know if it actually is, though; I don't habitually consume fantasy media).
     
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