Marble Zone

Hi again, I missed posting this yesterday due to a severe case of world cup fever. Not a great sign of things to come I know.

So Marble Zone is our second stop and heres what we are greeted with.

Theming

Describing this zone is proving tough for me, as it seems to be 2 distinct ideas fused into a single zone. You have the above ground sections, which look vaguely Greek in origin, with the marble pillars etc. You have the underground sections which appear to take place in an abandoned underground palace and then for some reason there is lava. Its the lava that confuses me, I'm not sure why it exists besides to add difficulty to the zone. I like the core concept of the underground palace, but the random lava ruins it for me.

Difficulty

This zone represents a marked change from Green Hill. Where GH was primarily about speed and showcasing the technology, this zone is more focused on precision platforming and it can get pretty nasty at times. As usual, there is a difficulty curve within the zone, with Act 1 being the simplest and Act 2 making things tougher by introducing some nasty instant-death areas. Act 3 tests your patience to the limit with a precision jumping section right before the end boss which will set you back a couple of minutes if you miss a platform. 

Some very mild puzzles are introduced in the form of pushing blocks around and there are a lot of secret areas to discover within the zone. However, the single greatest annoyance in this zone are the caterpillar enemies which will be discussed further in the next section. As a result of all of this, I could never regularly beat this zone in my youth and had to resort to the level select if I wanted to see past this zone.

These days it's still tough, but manageable.

Music

For me, the music in this zone is what elevates it from bad to above average. I love the multiple layers within the music. To me, its every bit as memorable and iconic as the Green Hill music.

Enemies Introduced

The Buzz Bombers from Green Hill return in Marble in the above ground sections, but pose less of a threat here, largely due to the the presence of the caterpillar enemies. These guys are a serious pain, if you don't hit them directly on the head then they explode into spiked balls which damage Sonic.

Caterkiller (caterpillar) - Crawl side to side, need to hit them on the head to destroy.

Batbrain (bat) - Hangs on the ceiling until you get close, then flutters about.

 Zone Boss
The end of zone boss is a letdown in terms of difficulty. I think the level designers wanted to balance the difficulty in Act 3 and this is how they did it.

All Robotnik does here is drops a fireball to set the two platforms on fire, one at a time. You can hit him twice before he drops his fireball, so it takes almost no time at all to send him packing to Spring Yard Zone.

Final Rating
Not the best effort here, the music is great and there are plenty of secret areas to hold interest but the lava doesn't make much sense to me and the boss is disappointing. I feel they could have toughened up the boss and made this zone appear later on in the game and it would improve its feel. As it is, I have to award it a 4/10.