Casino Night Zone
From Sonic Retro
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Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-bit) |
| Levels |
| Casino Night Zone |
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| Casino Night Zone |
|---|
| Fourth Zone, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-bit) |
| Number of Acts: 2 |
| Location: West Side Island |
| Level theme: carnival/casino |
| Boss: Catcher Eggman |
| Maximum rings, Act 1: 232 + 70 |
| Maximum rings, Act 2: 234 + 90 |
| Non-English names: |
| ← Aquatic Ruin Zone | Hill Top Zone → |
- For other similarly named levels, see Casino Night.
Casino Night Zone is the fourth Zone of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which fills the Casino theme requirement for the second Sonic game. It is a huge city at night on West Side Island.
Contents
Overview
Inspired by the many casinos of the Las Vegas Strip, Casino Night Zone is a city that never sleeps. As the player can see in the background, the skyline and many of the Zone's buildings are gleaming with colourful neon lights and words spelling "Sonic" "Casino" and "Sega". The foreground consists of many golden walls with colourful lights and spinning panels bearing Sonic and Tails' faces that turn over to reveal a star and a moon respectively. The paths themselves are adorned with all sorts of neon decoration, including flowers, palm trees, and the words "SONIC" and "MILES".
Being a casino, the Zone is filled with giant pinball tables with many different objects to interact with. Spring Catapults launch the player into the pinball tables, with the amount of force varying depending on how long the player holds down 
, 
or 
. Green pinball flippers will launch the player upwards when the jump buttons are pressed on them, while orange flippers are found in half-pipes and will automatically launch the player when walked into. The tables themselves are filled with Bumpers, both small and large, as well as Drop Targets that award 10 points each time they're hit and disappear after three hits, and of course, slot machines. Sets of horizontal bars are also placed on the tables, awarding a series of 100-point bonuses (for a total of 800 points) if the player shoots into one of them.
Other gimmicks can be found outside of the pinball tables, including elevators that take the player up to higher routes, conveyor belts, moving blue blocks that often block narrow corridors and can potentially crush the player, and floating platforms composed of neon green lights that appear over large gaps between terrain. The boss of this Zone is Catcher Eggman, located within his own pinball table.
Casino Night Zone had one of the most drastic art changes between the Simon Wai and alpha prototypes and the final, changing from a pink card-suit-based scheme to a golden area.
Slot machines
Perhaps the most defining feature of Casino Night Zone is the numerous slot machines found throughout the Zone. When the player lands inside a slot machine, the reels will start spinning and stop on their own one-by-one, paying out different amounts of Rings depending on the matching symbols. If the player is lucky enough, they can get up to 999 Rings, the maximum possible number of Rings that can be carried at any time (as shown on the right). The payouts are as follows:
| Formation | Payout | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| No Jackpots | 1 Jackpot | 2 Jackpots | |
| Win 2 Rings | N/A | N/A | |
| Win 4 Rings | N/A | N/A | |
| Win 20 Rings | Win 40 Rings | Win 80 Rings | |
| Win 10 Rings | Win 20 Rings | Win 40 Rings | |
| Win 25 Rings | Win 50 Rings | Win 100 Rings | |
| |
Win 30 Rings | Win 60 Rings | Win 120 Rings |
| Win 150 Rings | N/A | N/A | |
| Lose 100 Rings | Lose 100 Rings | Lose 100 Rings | |
Getting a Jackpot symbol along with other matching symbols will apply a multiplier to the amount of Rings won. For instance, matching a Jackpot symbol and two other symbols identical to each other will pay out double what would be given if three of those other symbols were lined up (e.g. Sonic + Sonic + Jackpot awards 60 Rings), and matching two Jackpot symbols and another symbol will pay out quadruple what would be given for three of the others (e.g. Sonic + Jackpot + Jackpot awards 120 Rings). These multipliers do not apply to Eggman symbols; the player will still only lose 100 Rings.
In Knuckles in Sonic 2, the Sonic symbols on the reels are replaced with Knuckles symbols; however, this is a cosmetic change, as these symbols will pay out the same number of Rings as Sonic.
Quotes
| “ | The city of neon and pinball. Bet your luck on slot machines and earn rings by hitting the jackpot. Use the flippers well! |
„ |
| — Sonic the Hedgehog 2 JP manual[1] (translation by Vertekins)[6] | ||
| “ | Sparkling neon lights and glittering gold fill the Casino with razzmatazz! Play the machines with Button , or . Flip the levers and push down the springs to send Sonic reeling like a bouncing blue pinball!
|
„ |
| — Sonic the Hedgehog 2 US manual[7] | ||
| “ | The slot machines are based on our experience going to casinos while working in America. Riding in a car, it would take about four hours to get to Las Vegas. We would call those trips Entertainment Research (laughs). But the game does contain a lot of references to the things we experienced in America. | „ |
Enemies
| Crawl — Crab Badnik. Protects itself with a bumper, so it can only be destroyed from behind. |
Technical information
| Offset | Description |
|---|---|
| $2DA2 | CNZ Palette |
| $D06C | CNZ layer deformation info |
| $D194 | CNZ two-player splitscreen |
| $3FF08 | Dynamic pattern reloading for CNZ |
| $3FF10 | Dynamic pattern reloading for CNZ (not linked in offset index, but loads CNZ stuff) |
| $4010E | CNZ animate pattern load cue (1) |
| $4061A | CNZ misc. sprite mappings |
| $422B4 | CNZ object debug list |
| $452A0 | CNZ primary 16x16 collision index |
| $45330 | CNZ secondary 16x16 collision index |
| $47FF4 | CNZ Act 1 level layout |
| $483C4 | CNZ Act 2 level layout |
| $AFFC4 | CNZ 16x16 block mappings |
| $B0894 | CNZ main level patterns |
| $B2CF4 | CNZ 128x128 block mappings |
| $E5944 | CNZ Act 1 ring locations |
| $E5B7E | CNZ Act 2 ring locations |
Other game appearances
Casino Night would serve as an inspiration for many other casino-themed levels throughout the series, such as Cosmic Casino Zone in Sonic Pocket Adventure, Casino Park in Sonic Heroes, and Casino Forest in Sonic Forces. Casino Street Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I shares traits with this Zone (including the Crawl Badnik), but was not inspired by Casino Night Zone, as stated by Ken Balough.[9]
The Zone itself would make additional appearances as a race track in Sonic Drift 2 and an arena in Sonic the Fighters. The stage would much later mark its return as a bonus DLC pinball mini-game stage for those who preordered Sonic Generations for Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 or downloaded the game for Steam, and as a full complete stage in the Nintendo 3DS version.
In other media
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
The Casino Night Zone makes appearances in two episodes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. The first epsiode to feature it is "High Stakes Sonic", where it is opened by Dr. Robotnik and operated by Scratch, Grounder and Smiley the Shark with intentions of robbing a flock of sheep of their money and wool, and forcing them into working off their debt by building a monument. Sonic would intervene by reprogramming the rigged machines in the sheep's favour, but when Tails is kidnapped at the casino's nursery, he is left with a choice between winning and losing a race with Grounder.
The second episode is "Mobius 5000", where it is one of the locations used in the "Mobius 5000" race. As the Zone was clogged with traffic jams, Sonic, Tails and Professor Caninestein used a Star Post to take a shortcut through the Special Zone.
Sonic the Comic
In the Sonic the Comic series, Casino Night Zone was established by Dr. Robotnik during his dictatorship of Mobius and initially administered by the Marxio Brothers. Robotnik had a giant statue of himself erected in the Zone, containing a supercomputer that would hypnotise its patrons with Hypnosis Beams to force them to gamble until they had lost all their possessions, until the statue was sabotaged by Sonic and Porker Lewis.
After the Marxio Brothers were restationed to run the Carnival Night Zone on the Floating Island, Max Gamble would take over the casino with his own intentions of pure profit, engaging in various conflicts with Tails even during Commander Brutus' revolution and after Robotnik was overthrown.
Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie comics)
In Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog comic series, Casino Night initially made an appearance in issue #1, where it was located in an area dubbed "Renobotnik" and used as a testing ground for Dr. Robotnik's new Orbinaut Badnik against Sonic, only for the hedgehog to escape. Two years later, Mammoth Mogul would take over the Zone and rename it the Casino Night Club after breaking out of New Mobotropolis prison, giving Robotnik's old Badniks from the Robo Hobo Jungle jobs in serving the customers' needs.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 File:Sonic2 MD JP manual.pdf, page 33
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 File:Sonic2 MD EU manual.pdf, page 36
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 File:Sonic2 MD EU manual.pdf, page 37
- ↑ File:SonicClassics MD KR manual.pdf, page 27
- ↑ File:Sonic2 MD PT manual.pdf, page 18
- ↑ File:Sonic2 MD US manual.pdf, page 15
- ↑ File:SonicJamOfficialGuide Book JP.pdf, page 43
- ↑ http://www.joystiq.com/2010/09/23/sonic-the-hedgehog-4-episode-1-preview/ (Wayback Machine: 2010-09-25 07:36)
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