Levels Take Flight

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A video game area that takes place in a flying vehicle or animal of some sort in the air, much like Bubbly Clouds. Be careful not to fall off. May overlap with Gusty Glade.

Examples of Levels Take Flight include:
  • The Cloud Realm in ZanZarah is situated on giant platforms hovering a few kilometers over the north-eastern lands.
  • The final sector of Jumper takes place on a plane (if you can call it a plane at all) from which Ogmo must escape, as usual.
  • There are many examples in the Sonic the Hedgehog series.
    • The aptly named Sky Chase Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Despite the mellow groovy background music, and relaxed pace, it's harder than it looks.
    • Flying Battery Zone from Sonic & Knuckles features a few segments where the player must navigate the outside portions of Eggman's ship.
    • Sky Chase Zone (in a slightly modified form) also reappears in both Sonic Adventure and Sonic Pocket Adventure. The latter is closer to the original stage, but the former also allows Tails to actually fire upon incoming enemies with his Tornado.
    • Egg Fleet and Final Fortress from Sonic Heroes. The former involves the player hopping from airship to airship as they gradually tear through Eggman's aerial armada before landing on his flagship.
    • Air Fleet from Shadow the Hedgehog, where Shadow has the option to either cover the President's escape from the Black Arms (Hero), find the Chaos Emerald (Neutral), or assassinate the big man himself (Dark).
      • Most of the stage called The ARK and parts of Cryptic Castle can be spent with Shadow riding on a dragon-like creature. The ride is required in Cryptic Castle, but Shadow can change objectives on The ARK and hop off the creature, going through the stage normally.
    • Tails transports Sonic on his biplane once more in Sonic Unleashed for the two Tornado Defense stages.
    • Levitated Ruin in Sonic and The Secret Rings is set on a flock of rukhs. The stage gets its name because they carry the ruins of small cities on their backs.
    • Three stages in Sonic Colors' Wii version, one in Starlight Carnival, another in Aquarium Park, and the last in Asteroid Coaster, feature Sonic needing to keep up with some flying device with springs at its top, causing Sonic to constantly bounce. It flies slowly but steadily to the end of the stage.
    • Both Sonic Rush Series games have levels like this for their sixth stage: the first game's Altitude Limit, and the second game's Sky Babylon.
  • Bayonetta has the level in Ithavoll Group's huge cargo plane, with even a listing camera during the fight against Jeanne (on top of the flying plane!)
  • Mega Man 8 has Tengu Man's second stage and the third part of Wily's Castle, where you have to use the rush jet in those areas.
  • In the Mega Man X series, the stages for Storm Eagle (X), Storm Owl (X4), The Skiver/Spiral Pegacion (X5), and Wind Crowrang (X7) all involve (in some way) their personal armadas, with the actual battle against these Mavericks usually taking place on their personal aircraft/flagship.
  • At one of the turning points of Mega Man Zero 2 (right after the failed attack on Neo Arcadia and Elpizo's Face Heel Turn), Zero has to cross an entire air fleet of Neo Arcadian vessels in order to hijack and stop a missile launched at the Resistance Base.
  • Mile High Club, the Brutal Bonus Level from Modern Warfare.
  • The 4th level of the Modern Warfare 3 campaign is set on the Russian equivalent of Air Force One, with the player as part of the Russian Presidential security detail.
  • The Celestial Castle from Valkyrie Profile. It's not long, but includes a mandatory portion that consists of tiny platforms with nothing below them, and booby-trapped treasure chests that explode and can knock you off the edges. The game has a time limit, and every time you fall off you end up outside, and have to spend more time going in again.
  • Kirby: The Halberd, especially in the Revenge of Meta Knight game mode in Kirby Super Star.
  • Super Smash Bros.:
    • Melee has Poke Floats.
    • At one point in Super Smash Bros. Brawl's Subspace Emissary, you're working your way across the side of the Halberd to get to the deck of the flying ship. Also, you're dealing with a constant wind in your face, slowing you down.
      • Really, most of the stages are just floating somewhere, including the basic Battlefield, Final Destination, and even the Animal Crossing stage, Smashville.
  • All of the airship stages in Super Mario Bros 3 are presented as auto-scrolling, obstacle course, style levels above the clouds. Often times, players have to cross bottomless pits using bolt lifts, which require you to jump repeatedly to move them forward.
  • Super Mario 64 has Rainbow Ride, an assortment of odd floating structures way up high. Much of the level involves riding on the set paths of magic carpets, struggling not to fall from hitting the obstacles in the way.
  • Gelato Beach's "The Sandbird is Born" episode in Super Mario Sunshine, which has Mario riding the titular bird through a cloud filled course to collect red coins.
  • New Super Mario Bros. Wii has two examples: One in World 5 involves Mario navigating across a flock of large flying manta rays going in his direction, and one in World 7 has Mario crossing a swarm of flying beetles smaller than the rays (but still very large for bugs) going in the opposite direction from him.
  • There was a good portion of a level in Yoshi's Story that took place on a flying dragon.
  • The entire overworld for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is one of these.
  • The final level of Bulletstorm takes place on an evac dropship escaping Stygia.
  • SkyTown, Elysia from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Levels_Take_Flight?oldid=1504412"