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Rise to the Challenge: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}{{Needs Image}}
A video game level where you have to keep ascending to avoid a hazard that rises from below the screen.
The hazard may be water (due to [[Super Drowning Skills]]), a rising [[Lava Pit]] (with [[Convection Shmonvection]], naturally), [[Grimy Water|toxic waste]], or anything else that will [[Collision Damage|injure]] or [[One-Hit Kill|kill]] you if you fall in.
May overlap with [[Auto
Compare [[Down the Drain]] and [[Outrun the Fireball]]. The reverse is [[Descending Ceiling]]. Sideways you get an [[Indy Escape]] or [[Advancing Wall of Doom]]. See also [[Lift of Doom]] where the rising threat is solid rather than fluid. A form of [[Escape Sequence]].
{{examples}}
* ''[[
** "The Meat Circus", which features the rising water level, is frustrating. This is mainly due to the game engine's inability to deal with the precision platforming being demanded.
* ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'' had levels flooding with toxic [[Grimy Water|Dark Eco]].
* "Slime Climb" in ''[[Donkey Kong Country]] 2'' is like this, except that since the DKC series doesn't feature [[Super Drowning Skills]], the actual reason the player has to avoid the water is the [[Invincible Minor Minion]] piranha lurking in it.
** In the same game, "Toxic Tower," which does indeed involve rising toxic waste.
** In [[Donkey Kong Country]] 3, there's ... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUBtQ3L3ujE#t=23m36s Ripsaw Rage], which has [[Exactly What It Says
** The latter half of the very last level of [[Donkey Kong Country Returns]] before the final boss {{spoiler|(excluding the hidden temple levels)}} has Donkey Kong race up a series of platforms to avoid a rising floor of [[Lethal Lava Land|molten lava.]] {{spoiler|[[It Got Worse|And one of the hidden temple levels]] [[Nintendo Hard|exploits this mechanism as well.]]}}
* ''[[Rayman 2:
** ''Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc'' did this with lava.
** The original ''[[Rayman]]'' had a jungle level and a mountain level with plain old regular water that was rising, but there was also a mountain level where the hero was trapped between slowly ''descending'' water and a quicker [[Descending Ceiling]]. The idea was to use Rayman's hair-helicopter to cut through ropes tied to this ceiling so the weights attached to the ceiling would drop into the water, and the ceiling would stop descending before it pressed Rayman into the water and drowned him.
* ''[[
** ''[[
** Hill Top Zone, in addition to [[Lift of Doom|rising floors]], also had rising lava.
** The infamous Labyrinth Zone "boss" for the original ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (
*** This "fight" was revisited in ''[[
** Near the end of Knuckles' version of Launch Base Zone, from ''[[Sonic 3 and Knuckles
** ''[[Sonic 3 and Knuckles
** ''[[Sonic Advance Trilogy
* ''[[Mega Man X]]'' often does this with magma.
** A segment of Flame Stag's stage in ''X2'' immediately comes to mind.
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** Blaze Heatnix's area in ''X6'' combines this with yet another battle against a hovering donut-shaped miniboss, which you end up having to fight about four or five times throughout the entire stage.
** ''X8'' did this both ways ([[Innocent Innuendo|I mean up and down!]]) with fire.
** Predates the X series, and inverted all the way back in ''[[Mega Man (
* ''[[Comix Zone]]'' inverted this. The [[Big Bad]] set the comic book page on fire, and you had to race downward.
* The Brinstar (acid) and Norfair (lava) stages in the ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' games. Norfair also includes [[Indy Escape|giant waves of lava from the sides and background]]. It's ironic because Brinstar in the ''[[Metroid]]'' games is of course an [[Underground Level]] that doesn't involve this at all, though Norfair does have lava.
** In the original ''[[Metroid]]'', Brinstar did have acid lakes. ''[[Super Metroid]]'', on the other hand, did not have them.
* In ''[[Marathon
* In most ''[[
* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
* On the NES, ''[[Ninja Gaiden]] 3''. Oh god, ''[[Ninja Gaiden]] 3''.
* ''[[
** Notably, this is [[Fake Difficulty|one of the most difficult levels]] in the entire game, because there is a wire right behind the first [[Context Sensitive Button]] which many players have difficulty to spot in the first playthrough, so they may think they're safe with cutting down the wires ahead of them, but as they try to get across to the next platform... the water zaps them to death. All because of that tricky wire right behind you.
** Also, later in the game, you have to outrun toxic waste while hurdling small pools of the same substance.
* A few levels in ''[[New Super Mario Bros
** There's a code that enables "Challenge Mode". When used on side-scrolling stages, it disables scrolling left, making the experience more like the first ''[[Super Mario Bros. (
* ''[[Super Meat Boy]]'': Levels: 7-13 and 7-13X (Rising liquid), 7-6X (Walls disappear) and 7-20X (Ceiling of sawblades)
* There is a lava one in ''[[
** There is another that is somewhere between this and [[Descending Ceiling]]. Mario is upside down to the player so it is hard to say whether the sand is the floor or the ceiling.
* The entire gameplay gimmick of ''[[The Killing Game Show]]'', otherwise known as ''Fatal Rewind''.
* The early ''[[Castlevania]]'' games loved this trope:
** In ''[[Castlevania:
** Stage 2-2 of ''[[
* ''[[Kid Icarus]]'' has all of the climbing levels (2/3 of the game) do this --- falling off the bottom of the screen causes your death. Even if there would be a platform an inch below the screen.
* ''[[Ice Climber]]'' on the NES did this rather lamely: the screen scrolled up as you climbed, and no matter what might have been below that floor before, if you fall off the screen you die.
** The same goes for the Ice Climber themed stage in ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]. Melee''. In this case it's more like the other ones because it's auto-scrolling rather than only scrolling up as you climb (though climbing makes it go faster), but the frame of reference still determines where you die. Sometimes, just to confuse the player, the scrolling ''reverses'', and you have to ''descend'' for your life. [[Scrappy Level|Not many people like to play on these levels]].
** Brawl replaced it with a merely rising Rumble Falls. But since it only goes up it has not received the hatred Icicle Mountain did.
* One of the bosses in the ''[[Metal Slug]]'' series obliged you to dodge its various shots, outclimb it, ''and'' shoot it until it dies.
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** The first ''Prince and the Pauper'' stage also has rising fire in what may well be the most rapidly-rising non-cutscene instance of ths trope.
* In another [[Mickey Mouse]] game, ''[[Disney Epic Mickey]]'', one of the later stages has Mickey in a scene from ''[[Fantasia]]'' trying to outpace a rising flood of [[It Makes Sense in Context|paint thinner]].
* A level in ''[[Kirby]] [[Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards
** A rising sea of lava also appears near the end of Lava Landing, in ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[Star Trek]]: [[Deep Space Nine]]'' on the Sega Genesis had a level where destroying a computer caused the level to fill with a flaming liquid.
* The 16-bit Disney game ''[[Maui Mallard]]'' had a few of these, notably trying to [[Do Not Touch the Funnel Cloud|out-swim a vortex in a shipwreck]] and climbing away from a cloud of death in Hell.
* The first ''[[The Smurfs]]'' game for the SNES had a volcano level with rising lava (Act 12).
* ''[[
* '''[[Splosion Man]]'' does this periodically, with the [[Justified Trope|justification]] that since you're a creature made of fire, water isn't so healthy for you.
* Two instances in ''[[Ratchet
** In Blackwater City in [[Ratchet
** The last of the Qwark vid-comics in ''[[Ratchet and Clank Up Your Arsenal|Up your Arsenal]]'' justifies this as you're outrunning rising acid.
* ''[[Super Metroid]]'''s version of Norfair has several rooms where lava rises as soon as you enter. (Or in one case, as soon as you grab an upgrade at the far end.) There's also rising lava in part of the final [[Escape Sequence]], but it's kind of redundant since you're already running to escape an exploding planet, and because it's at the end of the game, your suit's been upgraded enough that the lava doesn't restrict your movement, and you have so many spare energy tanks that the damage inflicted by the lava is negligible, so it's really only there to make you panic.
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** ''Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure'' is similar, except instead of water, the floor is replaced with a [[Mad Scientist]]'s killing machine, which changes weapons as you race up the tower.
* The recent freeware [[Platform Hell]] game ''Flood The Chamber'' consists of a large room that is slowly being filled with water. Touching the water results in an instant KO, forcing you to restart
* Several levels in ''[[
* As with ''Ice Climber'' and ''Kid Icarus'', in most vertical stages in the ''[[Contra]]'' series, you die if you touch the bottom of the screen. Same with most any [[Ratchet Scrolling]] vertical level.
* In ''[[Indiana Jones
* ''[[Half
* ''[[Legacy of Kain|Legacy of Kain: Defiance]]'' has the early moment in Raziel's viewpoint, as he [[Escape Sequence|escapes]] from the Spirit Realm. The [[God of Evil|Elder God]] cynically asks, "[[I Shall Taunt You|Where are you going, little soul?]]", after which [[Fog of Doom|deadly mist]] rises up and the player is forced to outclimb it.
* The gameplay of ''[[Catherine]]'' is split between Vincent hanging out at the bar and his nightmares, which takes the form of him climbing a tower of blocks in order to outrun whatever monstrosity he's dreaming of.
* During the ''Firewalker'' mission in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', Shepard and his/her squad escape from a research station nested inside a volcano as lava rises. Thankfully, they're in a vehicle built to handle brutal environments.
* ''[[Jackie
* The [[Wall Jump]]-unlocking area in ''[[Fancy Pants Adventures]]'' has ink spilling from a pipe while you try and use your new-found wall-jumping ability to avoid it.
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