History Awesome / VideoGameLevelsGToM

*** "The Paleto Score": When the gang needs to knock over a small-town bank, the bank gets surrounded by the CorruptHick [[CorruptCop Cops]]. Seeing it's too late for flight, the gang decides to fight: [[spoiler: by walking out of the bank wearing Bomb Suits. Michael and your gunman come out sporting [[MoreDakka Heavy Machine Guns]], and Trevor comes out hefting [[GatlingGood a freaking Minigun]]! So they tear up the police men... and the police cars... and the police choppers... and then Army Fort Zancudo sends soldiers, Barracks hummers, and Rhino tanks. [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome The gang kills all of them, too.]]]]

* ''Dream Drop Distance'' has Symphony of Sorcery. This world replaces Sora and Riku's battle noises with musical sounds, fitting since it's a ''Disney/{{Fantasia}}'' world. The world includes several sequences from the film, all with their original music. Also, ''Disney/{{Fantasia}}'' means SceneryPorn (in a cutscene, even Young Xehanort has to say what a beautiful world it is) and SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic come as standard. Still not convinced? Riku gets to fight [[BreakoutVillain Chernabog.]]

** For those who didn't find it a drag due to being a retelling of [[Disney/{{Tangled}} the movie]], the Kingdom of Corona due to its SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome.

* The western chapter starring The Sundown Kid is another cool one. Set within the confinements of a small town, the twist in this chapter is its strict time limit. The goal is to loot the town collecting various items and setting up various traps for the Wild Bunch before their arrival. After the bell has tolled eight times in total, it's time for the boss battle. Depending on how elaborately you have set the traps, you can face only the boss and no one else. But if you're confident, you have the choice to set no traps whatsoever and face the ''entire'' Wild Bunch at once!

* Pantagruel in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel Cold Steel II]]'' is considered by fans to be one of the best levels of the game despite it being nothing more than mostly a cutscene based level with only a small hallway to get to the boss fight. Mainly it's because [[TheHero Rean]] ends up [[BadGuyBar getting captured by the enemies]] and ends up talking with the bosses from the previous game and this one, his [[GreatEscape attempted breaking out]] of the ship with [[EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses Alfin]] [[GuestStarPartyMember who is playable for a short time]], and Rean finally mastering his SuperMode with players [[AwesomeButTemporary playing around with it]] for the first time and capping it off with his duel with Crow.

* ''VideoGame/{{Gauntlet}} Dark Legacy'' has some great levels, notably all of the levels from the Dream World, thanks to its creative level design, unique scenery (particularly the Maze of Illusion and Your Worst Nightmare) and epic and haunting music. There's also the Desecrated Temple, where you have to fight hord of monsters in a chapel to defeat Skorn.

* The first ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts'' features Hollow Bastion, which is a huge epic castle with great world music and plot-important, dramatic boss fights. Also, it lets you go from packing a near-worthless toy sword made of driftwood all the way up to the awesomely badass-looking Oblivion, the second-strongest Keyblade in the game.

* "All Your Bricks Are Belong To Us" has the trio venture through the worlds of ''VideoGame/{{Defender}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Gauntlet}}'', ''[[VideoGame/{{Sprint2}} Super Sprint]]'', and ''VideoGame/{{Robotron2048}}''. The final portion deserves special mention: a MultiMookMelee featuring not only the standard ''Robotron'' mooks, but damn near every other standard mook you've fought up to this point, all accompanied by an [[https://youtu.be/PxhLx7P7ECg ominous techno remix]] of Robotron's "high score" jingle.

* Ravenholm in ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' gives you ''throwing buzzsaw blades'' to hurl at zombies, effectively cutting them in half. Throwing buzzsaw blades. The only way it could top that would be by giving you a gun that shoots [[ThisIsADrill drills]] [[IncendiaryExponent on fire]]. [[BavarianFireDrill From Bavaria]].

* Surface Tension in ''VideoGame/HalfLife1''; while there are plenty of other great chapters, Surface Tension seems to be where everything comes together perfectly and creates a non-stop ride of awesome.
** This is around the time Gordon Freeman TookALevelInBadass. His feats have been impressive up until this point, evading and destroying United States Marines, all manner of alien horrors, and maneuvering through more traps and puzzles than you can shake a stick at, but here, he goes head to head with the Marines' best-taking on multiple attack helicopters, armored personnel carriers, and ''main battle tanks''. In particular, getting the rocket launcher and ''finally'' taking down the Apache that's been attacking you throughout the level might count as a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome. Assuming you didn't just blow it out of the sky the first time you saw it with that gauss cannon you picked up in the last chapter...
*** However, those who didn't actually find the gauss cannon (and it's easy for beginners to miss) had a... [[ThatOneLevel different experience with Surface Tension.]]
*** Unfortunately, ''Half-Life: Source'' waters down this encounter by allowing you to take down the 'copter with just one rocket. As Our Mutual Friend would say, "rather an anti-climax after what you've just survived". Still, at least there's the peace and quiet afterward.
*** Most people up until that point had heard the Valve theme fairly often (every time they started up the game) but as you emerge from the pipe into the canyon and it expands into a full theme as you fight all kinds of marines and finally the helicopter...sheer perfection.

*** Especially since you dont know what you are going to steal. [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome Imagine running down that long stairwell and then staring at that thing floating in midair in front of you, grabbing it, then realizing]] [[spoiler:[[{{HSQ}} it's a JETPACK!]]]]

** Hands down, "End of the Line" is the most satisfying ending mission to any ''GTA'' game before or since. You smash into a barricaded crack compound using a SWAT riot tank, running down about a dozen enemy gang members in the process, then storm your way through four floors packed to the brim with assault rifle-toting Mooks, culminating in the long-awaited showdown between CJ and [[spoiler:[[FaceHeelTurn Big Smoke]]]]. Once you've taken care of him, [[spoiler:[[BigBad Tenpenny]]]] sets the place ablaze, forcing you to make your way back ''out'' of the compound, putting out fires while contending with ''even more'' mooks until you escape JustInTime as the compound gets [[StuffBlowingUp blown to Kingdom Come]]. Then you chase [[spoiler:Tenpenny's]] getaway fire truck going full tilt throughout most of Los Santos while Sweet clings onto it for dear life and rioters firebomb your car from all directions. Once you've finally got Sweet safe in your car, he takes over the driving while you fend off just about every faction in the city chasing you down. It all concludes when the fire truck drives ''off a bridge'' onto [[WhereItAllBegan Grove Street]], where [[spoiler:Tenpenny]] is left to die from his injuries (or, more likely, to be torn apart by the rioters who want him dead). And remember, this all takes place in ''one mission''. Needless to say, the {{HSQ}} is high on this one.

*** In that level, when the Combine demolish a giant chimney to block your path. The [[HolyShitQuotient HSQ]] jumped right there.

** The final level, which has Marcus and Dom blasting their way through an entire Locust army ''on top of a freaking [[{{HSQ}} BRUMAK.]]'' There's even a part where you fight a friggin' ''Corpser'' in hand-to-hand combat with the Brumak! And it is ''every bit'' as awesome as you'd expect it to be.

** For those who didn't find it a drag due to being a retelling of [[Disney/{{Tangled}} the movie]], the Kingdom of Corona due to its VisualEffectsOfAwesome.

* ''Gauntlet Dark Legacy'' has some great levels, notably all of the levels from the Dream World, thanks to its creative level design, unique scenery (particularly the Maze of Illusion and Your Worst Nightmare) and epic and haunting music. There's also the Desecrated Temple, where you have to fight hord of monsters in a chapel to defeat Skorn.

[[folder:Golden Eye]]

** And the beginning of ''The Lost Age'', in which the player gets to beat the crap out of adult men with a 17-year-old girl accompanied by the best battle music ever.

** ''Dark Dawn'' has its share of awesome levels as well, namely the Belinsk Ruins and Apollo Sanctum. Going into the Belinsk Ruins, you know that there's an ancient machine down in there that's bad news, the key to activate it is in the hands of someone who may or may not be reliable, and the baddies definitely will be going there. In fact, when winding your way to the heart of the dungeon, you see the baddies in front of you - in fact, they're apparently powerful enough to brute-force their way through puzzles, even chucking statues at the wall so hard they actually get embedded in it. Finally near the end, after many excellent puzzles, you get the implication that this ancient machine has something to do with an eclipse. Then, upon reaching the core of the ruins, the resident Manipulative Bastard makes you fight Those Two Bad Guys, and activates the machine while you're occupied, before the villains flee as a tower rises from the lake, trembling and shaking ominously... and nothing happens. You go the castle, rescue the people that you came to rescue... and then dawn breaks. Surprise surprise, there's a total solar eclipse. That doesn't go away. And evil shadow monsters spawn out of nowhere, everywhere, in a massive patch of darkness covering half the world. You wind up fleeing the town in a ship, while your two new party members swear revenge on the baddies that just killed their brother/father, respectively.

* ''VideoGame/{{Klonoa}}: Door to Phantomile'' has the Wind Ruins (World 4). It's really the first level in the game where the difficulty gets kicked up to interesting, has great background music, and the best boss in the game.

* Mts. of Mira-Mira in ''VideoGame/{{Klonoa}} 2: Lunatea's Veil.'' An extremely fun boarding level with some awesome background music in the form of Stepping Wind (Wahoo Stomp in translated versions).

[[folder:The Matrix Path Of Neo]]
* The DreamSequence first level, where you have almost all of your abilities. You go up from the security {{Mooks}} to the police and up, all the way to a Agent, a Vampire and, of course, [[spoiler:Agent Smith.]]

** Let us not forget the final level of ''The Lost Age'', Mars Lighthouse. Epic music plays in the background as you wander through the ice-filled structure and go head to head with some difficult--but not too difficult--and well conceived puzzles; after fighting the [[BigBadDuumvirate main villains]] ''[[InstantAwesomeJustAddDragons who have been transformed into dragons]]'', the lighthouse rejuvenates and, at the peak, amidst a blizzard, you have an ''epic'' confrontation in one of the few examples of a GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere [[TropesAreNotBad that actually works!]] In addition, we've also got Crossbone Isle, the BonusLevel from the first game. It has a very spooky atmosphere, not helped by the fact that there are no random encounters, though you do find a (usually challenging) miniboss guarding the door to each level. It also features the hardest puzzles in the game, many of which are throwbacks to puzzles you solved previously in the main story, [[UpToEleven except this time the kid gloves are off.]] As you reach the bottom of the cavern, you find a scary abandoned ship, where you go head to head with [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Deadbeard]], one of the most awesome and challenging [[BonusBoss Bonus Bosses]] ever.

* ''Twilight Princess''' Temple of Time. Cool puzzles, cool music, Darknut. GIANT SPIDERS.
** And to top it all off, just when you think you've beaten the biggest of those spiders, it gets back up. Epic rematch? Well, no, but would you settle for a SugarWiki/{{Funny Moment|s}} instead?
** Entering the temple for the first time and hearing a choir-sung version of the Song of Time is a memorable moment.

* In the past three ''Mario Kart'' games, retro tracks have more or less been direct ports of the courses from their games, aside from some updated visuals and an addition of a new gimmick. The retro tracks in MK8, however, have been recreated from the ground up, now looking absolutely gorgeous and more alive than they were before, with some of pretty much unrecognizable. Special mention goes to N64 Toad's Turnpike, N64 Yoshi Valley, GBA Cheese Land, GBA Ribbon Road, GCN Yoshi Circuit, DS Wario Stadium, DS Tick Tock Clock, Wii Moo Moo Meadows.

** While most fans don't share this view, there are some those who loved Agon Wastes and Torvus Bog (and Echoes' quality in relation to Prime), finding such locales as the Pirate base of the former and the lower section of the latter to be some of the best parts of the game, though not as good as Sanctuary Fortress as a whole, although that's not to say that the other parts of those areas didn't hold up. The lore really helps in making the atmosphere and level design in the game's areas even more enjoyable. Oh, and while neither of Agon Waste's themes are very good, both of Torvus Bog's and Sanctuary Fortress' themes are very nice, with one of the former's being a remix of Super's Red Brinstar theme.

* [[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog "Sonic Dimensions"]] is a giant love letter to the classic ''Sonic'' games ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and]] ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure''). From the gorgeous recreations of ''Sonic 1'' levels to the duel with Sonic's [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2 old]] [[VideoGame/SonicAndKnuckles metal]] [[VideoGame/SonicCD counterparts]] to the final battle with Chaos (accompanied by an instrumental version of "[[AwesomeMusic/SonicTheHedgehog Open Your Heart]]", natch), it's clear that quite a bit of love went into making it.

* ''VideoGame/{{Klonoa}}: Door to Phantomile'' has the Wind Ruins. It's really the first level in the game where the difficulty gets kicked up to interesting, has great background music, and the best boss in the game.
** Mts. of Mira-Mira in ''VideoGame/{{Klonoa}} 2: Lunatea's Veil.'' An extremely fun boarding level with some awesome background music in the form of Stepping Wind (Wahoo Stomp in translated versions).
*** Right after that is the Moonlight Museum level, where you traverse a fantastically beautiful Escherian labyrinth, where up and down become extremely relative concepts. The whimsical, lighthearted music makes the whole level have a very dream-like quality to it, [[NightmareFuel which just makes the ending of the level all the more wrenching.]]

** The first DLC pack brings Dragon Driftway, the most aptly-named track in the series. The course is almost entirely antigravity, snaking around itself [[CaptainObvious like a dragon]], and it's full of sudden, smooth turns that put your drifting skills to the test. The oriental theme, with its gorgeous scenery and [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic head-bangin' soundtrack]] really seal the deal.

* Pantagruel in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel Cold Steel II]]'' is considered by fans to be one of the best levels of the game despite it being nothing more than mostly a cutscene based level with only a small hallway to get to the boss fight. Mainly it's because [[TheHero Rean]] ends up [[BadGuyBar getting captured by the enemies]] and ends up talking with the bosses from the previous game and this one, his [[TheGreatEscape attempted breaking out]] of the ship with [[EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses Alfin]] [[GuestStarPartyMember who is playable for a short time]], and Rean finally mastering his SuperMode with players [[AwesomeButTemporary playing around with it]] for the first time and capping it off with his duel with Crow.

* From the ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames'', ''Seasons'' has Tarm Ruins'' (lots of fun playing with the seasons), while ''Ages'' has the Skull Dungeon. Worth investing in both games purely to experience both of those levels.