With all this discussion about the zaniness of Sonic locations, which are some of your favorite ones in terms of representing just how cool Sonic's world is?
I have to say I am particularly partial to the Casino based levels. Every single time, every single game, that's usually my absolute favorite. While growing up, my family vacationed to Las Vegas all the time so I have a nostalgic connection to that sin city aesthetic. Dice and slot machines and playing cards in a city that never sleeps and lights up the world like a fireworks show of neon signage every night, that all just feels like childhood to me.
So with that in mind going all the way back to Sonic 2 as my first Sonic game, Casino Nights Zone was always my favorite. And usually that type of level still ends up being my favorite in any given Sonic game. I think the only one I'm not partial too is Sonic's Casinopolis in Sonic Adventure because I kind the pinball physics to be too wonky and that makes grinding the rings feel like a bit of a chore. But by that same token, Knuckles's version of that level is probably my favorite level in the entire game lol.
And speaking of Casinopolis, I think these levels also do the best job of demonstrating the surreal absurdist whimsy of the Sonic world. I mean think about Casinopolis, it's right there in the middle of Station Square a human populated city and one of the town NPCs is some mother who has a gambling addiction lol. And you go into that level and it has GIANT TELEPORTERS that transmit Sonic into two giant pinball tables that use his entire body as a ball to bounce around and flip cards or yank a slot machine to earn rings. And if you bust out of the pinball table with less than 100 rings IT DUMPS HIM INTO THE SEWER FOR BEING TOO POOR and he has to climb his way back out into the showers.
THAT speaks so much to the zanyness of the Sonic world right there. Do you think we're meant to have a separation between the gameplay of Sonic being tossed into a pinball machine and the in universe "canon" of what actually happens to normal humans going into the casino? Hell no, I say. What reason do we have to assume that that neglectful mother gambling addict isn't throwing her own human body into that NiGHTS pinball table to try and get three of a kind card matches, losing all her childs life savings and being dropped into the sewer to drag herself out? There's no reason to think that the experience Sonic has in his gameplay is any different from what the NPCs in universe also experience when they spend a night in Casinopolis. Let alone when you consider other locations like Casino Park in Sonic Heroes where the ENTIRE DAMN CITY is just one giant roulette board!
The casino levels more than any other demonstrate that you cannot fit the world of Sonic down into something mundane and relatable to our realistic real world frame of reference without losing something. I don't think there's any coincidence that the IDW comics haven't dared to touch the concept of a Casino location with a twenty foot pole so far. You KNOW they would be INCAPABLE of portraying such a location authentically to how they are in the video games. Imagine them trying to draw background NPCs jumping their entire bodies into a ringbrace to trigger a slot machine that injects them with rings if they hit a jackpot. The writers of this comic are physically incapable of even conceiving of such a page of sequential art.
They're my favorite type of Sonic level, and they are the MOST Sonic levels, in my personal opinion. You can explain everything about what the world of Sonic is like just by showing these levels and letting them speak for themselves.
