"It's time you all learned that Heaven can be a Hell of a place!"
A level or dungeon where the characters get to slaughter their way through Heaven or a similarly holy place, and possibly culminating in punching out God or at least some bad angels. Most of the time, this is an optional or secret area (thus justifying the name), but there are many examples that are plot-relevant.
Not to be confused with Fluffy Cloud Heaven, which only sometimes overlaps with this (when combined with Level in the Clouds). If The Legions of Hell are running wild here, it's Hell Invades Heaven.
If you were looking for a figurative Bonus Level of Hell to describe ridiculously difficult extra levels, see Brutal Bonus Level.
Compare and contrast Planet Heck.
Examples
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Action Games
- Bomberman 64 had the secret final level called Rainbow Palace that fits the Fluffy Cloud Heaven motif, and had relaxing music that severely clashed with how unforgiving some of the puzzles were. Unlike most examples, the level is actually plot-relevant, as it is ruled by the True Final Boss and real Big Bad, Sirius.
- In Bayonetta, beating the 21 Alfheim challenges (which are located in heaven) rewards you with… a massive Alfheim challenge where you have to go through 50 waves of enemies, many of them really brutal, with a progressively increasing difficulty setting (from Normal at the beginning to Harder Than Hard at the end) and one Superboss. The soft and dreamy music that plays between the waves does little to reassure the player. And you can't use healing items. Good luck.
- Copy Kitty has the Hard Mode version of World 13 which was previously that of the hellish type. On Hard, it's filled with bright lights, cheerful music, fluffy clouds, and lots of greenery. Do not confuse this for the game going easy on you, enemies can tank a lot of damage before they go down, saving lots of weapon ammo is all but required to deal with the tons of targets onscreen, and the angelic Throne Gehligrukai are practically minibosses in their own right. To really hammer it home, there's a laundry list of challenges and conditions that must be completed before the game even lets you attempt it, not least of which is beating the Normal version of said world and its accompanying Superboss. This culminates in the Superboss Aekros, one of the most spectacular boss battles in the game.
Fighting Games
- SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos has Athena as a bonus boss (as well as Red Arremer as a counterpart). Take a wild guess at where the battle takes place.
Platform Games
- In Gimmick! (1992), the game normally concludes after level 6 with a bad ending, where protagonist Yumetarō fails to rescue his kidnapped owner. Collecting the bonus item hidden in each stage unlocks a secret final level, which takes place in a heavenly castle built upon a small Floating Continent. It's a very serene Breather Level, with peaceful music and cute enemies who don't attack you, as well as plenty of health pickups. This leads to the difficult True Final Boss and the game's good ending, where Yumetarō reunites with his owner and they escape together.
- In the arcade version of The NewZealand Story, when you lose your last life in the later stages of the game, Tiki will reappear in the stage Heaven. There are different layout Heavens based on when you died, but they're all rather difficult stages. If you make your way all to the right, you meet up with the Goddess and pass on to the afterlife in a sort of The Many Deaths of You fashion epilogue.
- "Tiki has met the Goddess and now went into a long sleep in the warm sunlight. But the Heavens had got an exit to the underworld."
- The Simpsons Game had the family traveling to Heaven to talk to God about why everyone and everything wants to destroy Springfield, beating up Shakespeare and Benjamin Franklin along the way. They then play a DDR-style game where you coordinate heavenly versions of baddies from previous levels to the beat of "Rock You Like A Hurricane". Also, God is a giant video game nerd who spends all his time playing the super-immersive Planet Earth videogame.
- The underrated CD-i title The Apprentice sort of plays it straight in the form of a dream taking place in Fluffy Cloud Heaven, which you get to play every time you clear a tower and defeat its respective boss. It's a time attack stage where you must race your way to the very top of heaven by jumping on springs, all the while collecting all the letters that spell "MAGIC" to receive a buttload of extra bonus points.
- Super Paper Mario manages to combine this with Planet Heck in Chapter 7. You start in the "Underwhere" (a very Greco-Roman Underworld) and climb up to the "Overthere" (a very Judeo-Christian Heaven) throughout the course of the chapter.
- In Donkey Kong Country Returns collecting all the medallion pieces, and then completing all world's secret temple levels unlocks the very definitely bonus temple on the world map. ... Which is Nintendo Hard with Checkpoint Starvation with brand new Unique Enemies which you won't find anywhere else in the game.
- In Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, there's Ultra Heaven, opened up by beating every world before itnote without using a single continue. Good luck with that.
- HarmoKnight has Sky Roost, unlocked by finishing the main game with all medals in tow. Naturally, all the levels within are brain-breakingly frustrating.
- Giana Sisters DS: Collecting all of the red gems within a world's levels unlocks a special bonus level that takes place in a fluffy cloudy heaven. There are usually a lot of gems to collect here, and as a result, lots of lives.
- Pearly Gates is the fourth world you explore in Hell Pie, populated by righteous souls, rather ugly angels and an ornery God.
Racing Games
- The final track in Jet Moto 2 sends its racers on a ride through Heaven and Hell.
MMORPG
- The heavenly plane in Nexus Clash is usually an Arcadia environment, but one version played it as straight as possible with a Fluffy Cloud Heaven land floating overhead. Naturally, given the nature of the setting, it was entirely possible to invade it.
Roguelike
- The Astral Plane in NetHack.
- The Cathedral in The Binding of Isaac, complete with Ominous Latin Chanting.
Role Playing Games
- There's an indie game series called Legion Saga, at the end of which the main villain turns out to be God himself, so the heroes and their army have to invade heaven.
- Persona 4 had one as a later level, based on Nanako's mindset. Although the level is required for the story, afterward in a second playthrough, the top floor (and you'll have to walk back up there normally) holds the resident Superboss on the last day: Margaret, assuming certain... conditions are met.
- The Game Boy Advance and PSP ports of Final Fantasy II let you take on heaven with the characters who had died in the main story after you beat the game. They end up meeting the Emperor, who explains that the guy who took over Hell is actually the evil half of his soul. Then it turns out that his "better half" is still evil, and you have to stop him from taking over Heaven as well.
- The PS2 game Champions of Norrath: Return to Arms has you hack your way through heaven and hell. Apparently, the difference between the two is largely cosmetic.
- In the first SaGa (RPG), Makai Toshi SaGa (or Final Fantasy Legend as it is known in the United States), your characters have to fight the Creator in his own heaven. The second game also has this to a lesser extent: Odin's world looks like the white puffy version of heaven before he forces you to kill him in it.
- Not a Bonus Dungeon, but in Tales of Symphonia you do end up getting taken to heaven. And you have to escape. And it's part of the game's Crowning Level of Awesome.
- Valkyrie Profile has the Seraphic Gate, a bonus dungeon you can complete only after going through Hard mode to find eight special items. The most powerful bosses await there, including Gabriel Celeste and Iseria Queen.
- Final Fantasy XII; Not a bonus level, and definitely a weird looking heaven, but the Great Crystal sort of qualifies, especially since it has a huge, next to impossible light based boss at the top. The boss is an angel too.
- Final Fantasy VIII: Not quite a bonus level either, but the Island Closest to Heaven. It doesn't actually seem to involve proximity to heaven, except by way of being crammed from shore to shore with the most dangerous monsters of the game.
- For most people (those without GFs and massive Junction bonuses), if they're standing on that island they probably will be seeing the afterlife very soon...
- There's also an island closest to hell. Exact same thing. There is a bonus to being here, though. All the best spells in the game (except Apocalypse) are here.
- Mega Man Battle Network 3: White and Blue has the Secret Area, an area where the ruler of the Undernet, Serenade, and their direct subordinates dwell. Unlike the Undernet, which is dark, decrepit, hellish, and crawling with powerful Random Encounters, the Secret Area is bright, pristine, heavenly, and crawling with even more powerful random encounters.
- Pokémon:
- Pokémon Snap: The Rainbow Cloud has you trying to get a picture of Mew. It is also a Fluffy Cloud Heaven.
- Pokémon Diamond and Pearl: The Hall of Origin is an event bonus area, home of Arceus. It was essentially Dummied Out in the originals because the item used to access it was never distributed, but this was rectified in the remakes, which give you access to it if you have an Old Save Bonus from Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
- Shin Megami Tensei II: Players who go for the Neutral or Chaos path will get to sneak into the new Garden of Eden in disguise, then slaughter their way through ranks of archangels and the spiritual manifestations of aspects of the most Holy One. At the end of the line, you fight The Lord Himself. Needless to say, it's a VERY tough fight. The scenery is devoid of fluffy clouds, though - most is sterile white walls, and the last area is a platform in a featureless void. Of course, since this is the heaven of a god who has pretty much gone insane and is no better than the devil himself by this point, and when the player confronts him, says that he will kill the player and torture him in hell forever, that may go a long ways in explain why everything seems so cold and empty...
- A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky: The Temple of the Elder Gods is a two-for-one deal. It's split into two sub-dungeons, one of which is a Bonus Level of Heaven and one of which is Planet Heck. God can also be fought as a Superboss after completing both.
- BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm: The Sky Abyss is a grand labyrinth of clouds ruled by the self-proclaimed "Last Angel of Virtua". It's unlocked in the post-game if certain conditions are met, and leads to the game's True Ending.
- Digimon W Orld Dawn Dusk have Highlight Heaven, a peaceful and orderly garden in the sky that is only unlocked by postgame missions and full of angelic and otherwise holy Digimon. The missions that take you there in Dawn include a Superboss fight against Goldramon to get Airdramon's data and a Recurring Boss fight against Ophanimon, Seraphimon, and Cherubimon. In Dusk, the corresponding boss fights are against Phoenixmon and Lilithmon, Daemon, and Cherubimon Vice.
- A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky: The Shrine of the Mother sub-dungeon of the Temple of the Elder Gods. God can also be fought as an Optional Boss in the main temple. However, in a subversion, you are not literally visiting Heaven, but rather a projection of it formed from the collective subconscious.
Sports Games
- Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 actually features a level called Skate Heaven, which is a gigantic level with only one real hazard, and even begins with a booming voice proclaiming "Skate on, my son."
Tabletop Games
- There's a fan-made Heaven sourcebook for the tabletop RPG KULT. Given that God is missing and His replacement is evil, this makes sense.
- In the Time of Judgment sourcebook for the Old World of Darkness that detailed the Apocalypse How of the End of the World as We Know It for each game line, none of the Demon: The Fallen endings specifically included the angels of heaven returning to Earth to redeem or destroy the demons, but it literally had bonus rules for making and running angels as allies or (more likely) antagonists for player characters if a Storyteller wished to do so.
- Depending on how the campaign goes (and whose side they're on), it is perfectly reasonable for high-Essence characters in Exalted to slaughter their way through Yu-Shan, culminating in an epic battle with the Unconquered Sun himself.
- For a certain definition of reasonable, anyway.
Turn Based Strategy
- Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. Makes sense, considering the main characters are mostly demons. Notably, it's not actually a bonus level, but rather the finale. Earth, on the other hand, does show up as a bonus level.
- Later revisited in Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice in Raspberyl mode.
- You can have a Bonus ending of heaven in Yggdra Union, as the whole killing God is implied when Yggdra kills Marietta.
