While the quality and stature of a game series is defined by the quality of the games that that comprise it, its individual levels or often just one level from one game that embody its ideals and goals. One would think that a level’s impact wouldn’t extend outside its own game, but not necessarily. Consider, games in a consistent series can vary greatly in terms of characters, stories, and settings, but what ties them all together is their gameplay; gameplay that is more than just partly defined by consistent level design. Therefore, we can have levels that act as paradigms of a series, stages that capture the essence of a series so well that they can become synonymous with the series as a whole. There are many levels that have been elevated to this status over the years, but today we’ll focus on “City Escape” from Sonic Adventure 2, which best characterizes what Sonic the Hedgehog was supposed to be after its transition into 3D.
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