A wonderfully bright and happy tropical paradise stage not at all unlike Green Hill Zone. Tonnes of springs will throw you around all over the place and you can spin through crazy winding tunnels or find secret passages in internal rock sections. The Past is a prehistoric jungle while the Good Future has water flowing freely, but the Bad Future is a polluted metal hell. A very short, simple stage that you can whip through with few problems.
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To the untrained eye, the present version of Palmtree Panic is basically Green Hill Zone. The expert Sonic player however, will be able to spot numerous differences, but nevertheless, there's no denying that many of Sonic CD's levels closely resemble those of Sonic 1. The common tropical paradise is back in full form, complete with orange patterned ground and colourful plants below a blue, cloud-filled sky, although this level is a little more exotic than Green Hill, and graphics are more detailed. Tall, straight rocky orange mountains soar upward across the background with waterfalls cascading down them, and rows of thick greenery and a bit of water, perhaps a small lake, separate the background from the foreground. Hillsides inherit the bright orange colours, but the patterns are based on triangles rather than squares, and a variety of interesting shapes are made in the extrusions and intrusions in the rock. Quite often tall bumps similar to the mountains in the background, and internal areas consist of a darker patterned background. Decoration across the grassy paths rely on two pieces of plant-life; large spiky green leaves of palmtrees on top of a thick brown patterned trunk, and green star plants positioned at crooked angles. The trunks of the palmtrees come in a variety of styles, and groups of the stars may congregate in the air at certain places along the top of the stage.
In the Past, Sonic returns to the time of the dinosaurs, and the world is quite a different, pre-historic place. The dark blue sky has turned to a dull green and the tall orange mountains are much smaller, stubbier purple ones. In front, the landscape more resembles Green Hill, with a larger lake, and palmtree-covered rocks dropping waterfalls into it. The whole lake appears to drop down into a wide waterfall along the bottom. The foreground is generally a duller version of the Present, and the orange hillsides are much lighter, with turquoise waterfalls in the foreground. Duller palmtree leaves sit atop different patterned trunks, some with a kind of light blue bulb on top, and where there will be star plants in the Present, there are spiky vines growing out of the grass, curled up at the ends.
Allow a Good Future to blossom and you'll notice a similar appearance to the Present, except that all the water is much more controlled now, running along in efficient pipes and tubes all over the stage. It all looks very bright and happy, with clouds drifting by quickly across a slightly lighter blue sky, and stubby, rocky brown misty mountains in the distance. The larger lake drops waterfalls down into a lower portion, surrounded by rocks and light green forestry. The foreground hillsides are much the same as in the Present, although a little less vibrant orange, and as I already mentioned, there are tonnes of gold pipes carrying lovely fresh water everywhere. You can see it running horizontally in some half open pipes just below some grassy surfaces, and dropping between vertical tubes. The palmtrees are given a nice futuristic makeover with leaves made up of green coils and arrows, and a glowing pink star in the middle of each, plus more pipes surrounding them. The star plants are now shining away in blue and green, and of course there are the necessary frolicking animals and seeds sprouting purple flowers aplenty.
The Bad Future is a massive departure from the happy, bright style of the other time zones. It's metal, it's gloomy and it's not the kind of place you want to spend your holidays. That's right, Eggman has seized control and the once beautiful, pure water now flows in a grey and dirty river across the background. The sky is a very dull, dreary purple colour, and the mountains dark, and overrun by mechanical pipes and silos. The hillsides now appear to be made of metal with a rusty orange coating where grass used to be, on top. The water pipes, as seen in the Good Future, now carry nasty, polluted pink water, and the metallic palmtrees and star plants are similar to those seen in the Good Future, but are decayed, cracked and withered. An ominous light glows red across them, amongst the orange leaves and metal trunks.
Structurally, this level is also very similar to Green Hill Zone, more-so than any other levels of this type since, really. The level leads in a straightforward, left-to-right direction, flowing very freely and quickly, and takes place on platforms of various sizes. Like in Green Hill, few paths are simply suspended up in the air, and are instead supported by the orange checkered ground, and the ground that provides a foundation for the higher platforms makes for a backdrop to the lower routes. Zone 2 tends to employ thinner, bridge-like structures, with many interesting curves and arches. It's a pretty speedy place, with standard Sonic loop-de-loops requiring some decent acceleration beforehand to get through, and twisting, winding internal tunnels that Sonic will spin through and fly out the other side. The pathways are predominantly straight, but can feature numerous slopes and hilly bumps, or separated into short platforms and steps, and while most of the level is out in the open, small, enclosed internal rooms and passages often have hidden surprises behind breakable walls, ceilings and floors. Narrow vertical spaces are common down here, trademarked in Zone 1 by a recurring formation of three pieces of tall, thin ground arranged in a row, often with springs or turntables on top and at the bottom of the gaps below.
The pathways are positioned at various vertical points, often forcing you to leap between them, and they can form multiple routes this way, arranged in linear patterns that are stacked on top of each other as they all head right. There can be two or three brief paths on the go at once, but because the level is so open, you can easily chop and change between the vertical options by using springs and moving platforms, etc. You can usually backtrack across most of the level if you need to, although entrance-only winding tunnels may make that a bit difficult in certain places, for some time zones. One of the most interesting structural features of Palmtree Panic is found on two occasions in the Present, where the game momentarily forgets its a perfectly flat 2D side-scrolling adventure, and has Sonic running through a huge pseudo 3D loop, as he faces away from us while he runs (see Point #1). This physically huge feature makes the layout for the Present a little bit different to the other time zones, and it even starts off at a completely different, lower place than the others can even reach. When you travel through time and wind up in a place that was once full of playable ground and objects, but is now solid rock, you'll notice that little thin grassy cuttings in the ground (which you can only stand on when this happens to you) will allow you to hop your way back up to the surface across them, so you shouldn't fall to your death. Hopefully.
Like any first level, Sonic CD's offering has the usual tricks, such as relatively wide moving or falling platforms, spikes, ledges and thin pathways that collapse when you stand on them, swinging pendulum platforms on chains, and Green Hill's small unmovable boulders, standing in your way at random places (now grey, not pink-ish). Also, lots and lots of springs in all varieties, including ones that cart back and forth on a little wheel. When you spring or spin up through tunnels, a small white hatch on the ground above will open to let you through and then close to deny you access back down there, and when you're walking around down in those internal rooms, some flimsy, fake walls can be knocked down by jumping at them, opening up a secret passage.
Commonly found atop a series of tall, thin rocks that you can fall between in the lower regions of Zone 1, small spinning grey turntables will send Sonic round and round, but you can usually step off or jump with force. They are useful for time travelling though, because if you can hit them with enough speed, you should be able to maintain your time travelling stars whilst spinning round, although you can't always rely on being able to stay on them for long enough. If you fall between the gaps of these tall internal rocks, you'll find a horizontal passage below with a spring to take you back up.
One object that changes depending on the time zone are little tiny, 6-sided, almost emerald-like platforms that appear up in the air and between pathways, and coloured according to the foreground of the time zone. In the Present, they are only visible when you step on them, making a series of them very difficult to use to get anywhere without falling a dozen times first. In the Past, they are always visible and reliable to stand on without them moving, but in the future (both good and bad), though they may be visible, they also begin to slowly fall as soon as you step on them, but like most things, will return once you leave the area and come back. Regardless of the usually minor structural changes, these small platforms, like rings, appear to remain in the same places across all time zones. In Zone 2, in all time zones but the Present, there are one or two little bendy poles on ledges and walls, an object that would normally be more at home in a Sonic Advance game. The higher distance you fall onto it from, the higher you'll bounce back up.
There are five enemies to contend with across Palmtree Panic. First up is a needle nosed mosquito robot that tends to hang out in groups, flying back and forth in straight lines just above the paths. When Sonic passes underneath, they turn and drop down to the ground, needle first, and older ones, found only in the Present or Bad Future, move slower and have a damaged needle. They can be killed in the air or when left helpless, sticking out of the ground. Pink butterflies with yellow wings also offer an aerial assault, fluttering up and down quite a way as they slowly float left to right. Broken ones have holes in their wings, and a tough time keeping up with their newer siblings. Cool looking blue and red beetles not dissimilar to Moto Bugs roll back and forth along the ground, and stop occasionally to produce a couple of circular projectiles from rear-mounted pipes, which come flying out either side a fair distance. Older models don't show their age, but they trundle around slower and although they also stop every now and then, they've run out of projectiles to throw. Unicycling blue ants (that's right) simply jitter back and forth along a path, and the damaged version is predictably slower and, unpredictably, looks rather tearful. Finally, big blue crab-like bots that can only be found in the Bad Future and Present, and have only one form, leap in and out of the streams and waterfalls as you pass by above. These enemies produce pink flowers, with blue stems and black stigma.
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View general notes for Palmtree Panic (4)