Game Level: Difference between revisions

Travel between levels may be unidirectional, or the player may be able to revisit past levels. Usually, the player can move to any level he has already visited without having to replay any other levels along the way. Upon revisiting a "cleared" area, he will find it reset to the exact state it was in when he first entered it.

 

* ''[[Gorf]]'' is an early example of a game that presented genuinely different levels to the player, rather than simply repeating the same level over and over with increasing difficulty. Other early examples include ''[[Galaga]]'', ''[[Scramble (Video Game)|Scramble]]'', ''[[Pole Position (Video Game)|Pole Position]]'', ''Astro Blaster'', and ''[[Pacman|Ms. Pac-Man]]''.

* ''[[Super Mario Bros]]'' introduced the organizational unit of the "world". ''Super Mario Bros 3'' was the first of the franchise to introduce a [[World Map]], where the player went between levels to traverse the network of levels. Levels often reflect different styles of play: some levels auto-scroll, some are underwater, others underground.

* The original [[Ape Escape (Video Game)|Ape Escape]] was ''both'' linear and somewhat freeform. You unlocked levels linearly, but after unlocking all of them, you had to capture all the monkeys you missed the first time around before fighting the final boss. In this second playthrough, you can visit the levels in any order.

* The original [[Kingdom Hearts]] uses the node system with the Gummi Ship stages in between worlds. The worlds were the nodes and could be explored freely, while the Gummi Ship stages were divided into linear levels that could be accessed depending on the world where you begin the level. It is averted later (but still near the beginning) in the game when you obtain the warp Gummi that allows you bypass Gummi Ship stages as long as you have been to the destination world before.

** The sequel ''Bug Too!'' had levels that consisted of different scenes that had to be completed before fighting the level boss, but you could choose the order of scenes to play although you could not backtrack an entire level once it was complete.