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Fun Club What’s the better opening level: 1-1 or Green Hill Zone?

1-1 or Green Hill Zone?

  • 1-1

    Votes: 95 70.4%

  • Green Hill Zone

    Votes: 40 29.6%
  • Total voters
    135
Red Monster

Red Monster

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I saw this on Reddit and thought it was an interesting question. And I’m not sure what my answer would be!

Which is the better opening level: 1-1 from Super Mario Bros. or Green Hill Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog?

Which level does a better job of introducing the game’s mechanics? Which one has the better music? Which one is more fun?

Normally I’d put just about anything from SMB over Sonic 1, but this is different. What say you, fami?
 
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1-1 probably. I'm biased, and never a true Sonic Fan, but as a tutorial of a very rare (at the time) side scrolling (not flip screen) platformer, it was perfect.
I can't really say the same about Green Hills.

It's iconic for sure, and has all the basic parts of a good Sonic platformer, but i'm not sure how it can top the 1-1 from SMB.
 
I can probably draw 1-1 reasonably accurately without a reference if needed. It’s still the ur example of “teach you how to play the game with just level design”, and the ground theme may be the most iconic song composed in the last half century.

Green Hill Zone is good, don’t get me wrong. Heck, it’s pretty easily the best zone in Sonic 1. But really only its music and aesthetic feel iconic rather than the level itself. Emerald Hill in Sonic 2 feels better to actually play to me.
 
1-1 is a master class of introduction that should be studied in game design classes

Green Hill Zone is honestly a pretty terrible first stage in the context of Sonic 1 because it teaches you to have very different expectations for the rest of the game. This is more a slight on the rest of Sonic 1 cause GHZ is a ton of fun to play.
 
Green hill zone is better. 1-1 is an impressive proof of concept, but Mario wasn't Mario really until maybe Super Mario World?

Whereas sonic nailed the vibe and feel out of the gate.
 
VegiHam said:
Green hill zone is better. 1-1 is an impressive proof of concept, but Mario wasn't Mario really until maybe Super Mario World?

Whereas sonic nailed the vibe and feel out of the gate.
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This is Super Mario Bros. 3 erasure.
 
It's obviously Green Hill Zone, anyone who says otherwise is a nerd who is too busy watching Game Maker's Toolkit or some shit
 
VegiHam said:
Green hill zone is better. 1-1 is an impressive proof of concept, but Mario wasn't Mario really until maybe Super Mario World?

Whereas sonic nailed the vibe and feel out of the gate.
Click to expand...
huh. interesting. I kinda disagree here, Mario felt like Mario pretty promptly.

I hate Green Hill Zone because everything I tried to do in it made me feel like I was doing it wrong. I guess it never clicked, I still feel that way in Sonic games.

the scope is impressive, for sure, but 1-1 feels like a better introduction to something and comes naturally — more naturally than even SM3 and World did to me
 
Green hill, easy. Perfectly showcases the strengths of the momentum based gameplay not really seen until Sonic 1
 
1-1 is a great introductory level that teaches you how to play SMB and sets the stage for the rest of the game. It might not be especially remarkable but the design of that stage and placement of every obstacle is incredibly iconic and easy to remember.

GHZ is probably higher just on the pure fun factor, but it essentially is the part where Sonic 1 peaks for many people. It writes cheques the rest of the game can't cash especially when later zones really aren't similar at all in how they're designed. (Sonic 1's zones are a lot slower paced on average than later classic era games)
 
It really just depends on what you’re judging “best first level” as. 1-1 is iconic for a reason, but Green Hill Zone is a lot more intricate and interesting.
 
Thunder84 said:
It really just depends on what you’re judging “best first level” as. 1-1 is iconic for a reason, but Green Hill Zone is a lot more intricate and interesting.
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This is where I'm at. I think I have to give it to 1-1 for being a nigh perfect introduction to Mario's mechanics. Green Hill Zone is fun, but it takes some getting used to, which I would argue isn't great for a first level.
 
I think the two are actually illustrative of where the respective series rest on the "technician vs performer" spectrum

On a technical level, 1-1 is the better-made level. Everything about it feels thought-out and foundational and it does a great job of teaching basic video game fundamentals to even a functionally video game-illiterate audience. It's a masterpiece of level design, and it makes it seem almost effortless how much it gets right and how well it communicates the rules that would dictate the rest of the game and really the series going forward

Green Hill Zone is the more fun level. It's bombastic, it's cool, and it leaves a strong impression. It's not as perfectly polished as 1-1, but it oozes personality and does a great job of setting the tone they were going for with Sonic where you feel almost out of control but also feel really cool while doing it. Arguably it does too good of a job, because the rest of the game (and kinda the rest of the series) is largely been about chasing that rush of playing Green Hill Zone for the first time and often times that means falling back on literally just redoing Green Hill Zone again ...and again ... and again

Personally, I'd give it to 1-1. Green Hill Zone is a very good rollercoaster, but 1-1 is a masterfully made blueprint
 
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This is a very multilayer question. Green Hill Act 1 would definitely be better overall, especially for exploration, expression, music, and giving a much bigger playground, however, if we're talking about a level that allows a player (first time, young kid, etc.) to introduce mechanics and understand them fundamentally and safely? Absolutely 1-1.
 
You're asking this on a Nintendo forum.

I think you know the answer you're going to get here, and it's not the one starring the Hedgehog. 😉

Both levels are pretty iconic, but World 1-1 is taking the cake. It's a tutorial to an entire genre of game and it succeeds in just one level. It has it all - safe introduction to enemies and hazards, all of the game's main power ups, the optional bonus room, all of the core elements that make up the game are here. Again, all in just one level! Sonic's does a great job of teaching the momentum mechanics and the high/middle/low path design, mind you. Is it a strength or a weakness that we have to use the whole zone to compare to just one of Mario's levels? Because if we really want to cover all of World 1, we have a whole slew of iconic levels there too.
 
I'm not a Sonic fan, but Green Hill Zone is a masterpiece. I'm not sure if it's better but anyone trashing Green Hill Zone is trashing Sonic, not whether or not that first level works.

The very first thing you see in the level is 3 rings. If you jump at the rings, and you over shoot, you land on the TV set, immediately collecting more rings and showing how sonic jumps on those items to collect them. If you miss, you land on the baddie on the the lower level, doing the same thing. This will introduce you to Sonic's floating rebound and momentum mechanics immediately.

If you bounce on the baddie on the lower level, it bounces you up to the upper level anyway, where you are presented with another baddie. Hit or miss that baddie, you will hit the hidden spring in the tree, slamming you up to collect more coins.

This is conceptually similar to the opening of 1-1, and the rest of the level proceeds to lay out all the core mechanics of the game. Almost forcing you to get hit and see how rings protect you. Placing rounded corners right after straightaways without enemies, so you naturally run and understand how Sonic rolls. The first branching path in the game comes after a jump onto a ledge that crumbles beneath you, almost forcing players to discover that the fall actually opens up a second path, quickly showing players how these levels are solvable in multiple ways.

At the end of Green Hill you know whether or not you're gonna like 2D Sonic, That doesn't mean that you do like 2D Sonic, but you can't argue that the game puts it's best foot forward, with great visual design, popping colors, and a great tune, all things the series is known for.

I played both games not long after they came out in the states, and I found 1-1 brutally hard (I was 5). I completed Green Hill zone without a game over. Yet at the end of 1-1, I had seen all 1-1 had to offer. At the end of Green Hill, there was plenty to discover in that level (a fundamental pillar of Sonic, in fact). 2D Sonic has never left that first level behind, but plenty of 2D Mario has left 1-1 behind. I can't tell you how frustrating it was to barely get past a Goomba, heart racing, only to realize I couldn't go back and find out what was in the ? blocks.

Green HIll looks and sounds better, but that's a consequence of being on later hardware, after the 2D platformer had really crystallized around Mario. 1-1 is a little more primitive, but the gameplay is certainly more broadly popular than Sonic's. Both levels are some of the best at introducing players to the game they're about to play, teaching them through gameplay, and telling players straight up what experience they are in for.

Naoto Ohshima and Takashi Tezuka both don't get enough credit.
 
BassForever said:
1-1 is a master class of introduction that should be studied in game design classes

Green Hill Zone is honestly a pretty terrible first stage in the context of Sonic 1 because it teaches you to have very different expectations for the rest of the game. This is more a slight on the rest of Sonic 1 cause GHZ is a ton of fun to play.
Click to expand...
This game is so fun and fast I can’t wait for the rest of it to be slow paced as I wait for blocks to move
 
I think something people are forgetting is that Mario had to introduce a whole genre.

Sonic didn’t, it could piggyback off Mario, you already seen what a side scroller is like, it just has to teach you the sonic parts of it.

1-1 teaches you that you can jump in a platformer.

Sonics mechanics were at a surface level much more complex.

I don’t think they’re really comparable, something like the first level in Mario 3 makes a better comparison

( kaido proves that marios was but it’s something Nintendo never really dabbled with)
 
For me, it's 1-1 though I'm admittedly a bigger fan of Mario than Sonic. And because of that I both like the music more and think the 1-1 is more fun.

Trying to assess this objectively, 1-1 does a better job of introducing the game’s mechanics. It still may be the best and most efficient introductory level in any video game in this regard. 1-1 teaches you so much before the first green pipe.
  1. The first ? Block gives you a coin, rewarding you immediately. Good job!
  2. The first thing that moves other than Mario has furrowed eyebrows, probably an enemy.
  3. You either jump on the Goomba to defeat it, or it defeats you and you try again. Now you know how you have to defeat most enemies in the game.
  4. A Super Mushroom pops out of the very next ? Block. Could be an enemy. Whether you run into it or try to jump on it to defeat it, you get your first power-up.
  5. You may even learn that Super Mario can break Brick Block though that depends on where you got the Super Mushroom.
The first level of a game is one of, if not, the hardest one to design because of what you have to teach the player. The list above was very intentional and happens in like the first 10 seconds of the game.
 
I have to give it to 1-1. I think Green Hill Zone is a more fun level due to its scope, flexibility, and Sonic's moveset. It does a good job of teaching the player (as oldpuck pointed out). But...

Green Hill Zone writes checks that the rest of the game doesn't cash. Green Hill shows how the game and its momentum-driven gameplay could be, but the rest of the game is slower platforming instead. Due to that, you could argue that Green Hill Zone as a tutorial is... meh? You learn how to best control Sonic in an open space that the game never really cuts you loose in again. 1-1 in contrast lays the building blocks for the rest of the game. The way 1-1 is designed is consistent with the rest of the game. For that, when we're talking about them as first levels instead of just a level, I gotta give it to 1-1.
 
Almost anyone can pretty much play out 1-1 in their head when trying to remember it

Green hillzone I mean I dont know man if I had to draw that shit the literally second after you move past the robot piranha water fall my head goes blank
 
As a massive Sonic fan, especially 2D Sonic

It's 1-1.

GHZ is iconic and gorgeous but the fact that 1-1 was designed specifically to teach you the game without a traditional tutorial is fantastic. Very simple, very well thought out, and very effective. Aesthetically and in terms of fun I'd have no problem saying GHZ but what 1-1 is designed to do and how it executes every step on a technical level is incredible.

Plus if you know the history of how Sonic came about and was designed, GHZ almost expects that you already know how to play a Mario game in order for you to play it comfortably. Without 1-1 there is no GHZ.
 
gee, i dunno, which is more fun, the straight line with an optional detour if you decide to press the down button completely unprompted (why is being able to map it in your head immediately being brought up as a good thing for level design??? you can do that because you already played it) or the multi-tiered beginner-friendly physics playground that emboldens the player with perhaps the most forgiving health system in any game ever that allows you to make mistakes again and again if you have any trouble

when i replay smb, i don't think about 1-1. it doesn't matter. it's a speedbump in the way of the rest of the game.

ghz is, itself, a fun and well designed level that i don't go through the same way every time
 
BlackthornOrion said:
Arguably it does too good of a job, because the rest of the game (and kinda the rest of the series) is largely been about chasing that rush of playing Green Hill Zone for the first time and often times that means falling back on literally just redoing Green Hill Zone again ...and again ... and again
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Back in the day when you’d start your game from the beginning every time when you ran out of lives/continues, this was also what happened quite literally to every player. Every Sonic player played GHZ way more than the others (and the same for every level 1 on every game until save files on platformers were an industry-wide thing) so it cements in that ‘this is what Sonic is’ even when the rest of the game is slower and you’re pushing blocks underwater in Marble Zone immediately after. GHZ is what I wanted the entirety of Sonic to be, as a kid sometimes I’d play that then turn it off afterwards.

Whereas Mario was always Mario, ever increasing in complexity. Although it’s World 7 Maze castle I remember being shitty trial and error until you memorised the route. I think I always used the warp to skip to world 8 just to avoid it…
 
1-1 is the greatest opening level in history and after it the game keeps getting better.
Green Hill is memorable because the rest of the game keeps getting worse.
 
Honestly, i don't think they're comparable.

From a concept standpoint, both are the same, both are designed to teach the basic gameplay to the player, the main issue here is that there's a whole generation between both, and lots of gameplay concepts that didn't exist when 1-1 was designed.

So, for today standards, 1-1 is way too simple, but it's so good that has been overused to death, both straightforward and with several twists. I think Wonder is the first 2D Mario to explicitly avoid repeating 1-1

As for Green Hill Zone, it puts before you a sprawling, multilayered level with several possible interconnected paths, breakable walls, hidden items... It takes 1-1 to heart WAY TOO MUCH, to the point of feeling almost overdesigned. It teaches you all basic mechanics and concepts of the game, yeah, but it's so exhaustive and bombastic that makes a good portion of the subsequent levels feel underwhelming, because each level focuses on one or two gimmicks instead of giving you the whole thing.

Both levels are great at what they're designed to do, the issue is how that carries to the rest of the game, imo.
 
Tricky. 1-1 wins from a level design concept as an introduction to the game, and the actual layout is way more memorable (probably through simplicity, I can remember features of GHZ but not the layout).

But in setting tone and aesthetics it's GHZ. And just to make this a somewhat more fair comparison, I'd argue that Master System/Game Gear GHZ also does this better than 1-1.
 
WestEgg said:
This is Super Mario Bros. 3 erasure.
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That's true actually. Mario did feel like Mario in 3.
Suswave said:
huh. interesting. I kinda disagree here, Mario felt like Mario pretty promptly.
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I guess this depends in what sense are we saying 'felt'. Since your post is about the gameplay of the two levels, do you mean like, how he feels to control? Cus I meant it in terms of look sound and atmosphere.

My experience of both of these first levels was playing them as retro games way after they were new, so that's how I'm evaluating them. While I can respect 1-1 teaching you how to play the game, I learned all that from SML2 and NSMB DS, so my experience of the game was more like "wow this pixel man in his blocky world sort of gives the impression of a Mario game", whereas playing Sonic 1 it was the fully formed Sonic I knew already right there. Mario didn't really take proper aesthetic shape until his sequels.
 
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batfax said:
why is being able to map it in your head immediately being brought up as a good thing for level design??? you can do that because you already played it
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Or because it was, you know, memorable...
 
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i didn't say it wasn't memorable

being able to memorize a simple layout via repetition doesn't automatically make it a good level though

it still is good, mind you, but it's not because "i can remember the layout"
 
batfax said:
i didn't say it wasn't memorable

being able to memorize a simple layout via repetition doesn't automatically make it a good level though

it still is good, mind you, but it's not because "i can remember the layout"
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I can't tell if you're being disingenuous or are just missing the point. 1-1 is masterfully designed to teach the player how to platform as Mario, which is why it has become memorable. Calling it "a straight line with 1 optional shortcut if you hit down" is missing the plot so badly I can't believe you're being serious.
 
I mean, kinda. Okay, let me type it out normally and directly.

I was flummoxed by a few mentions of the idea that a level that many people here have probably replayed hundreds of times and has no extreme complexity was easy to remember is a strong aspect of its design. The initial post, presented in all lowercase in a hurried and non-serious manner, called attention to this, including with a humorous use of multiple question marks to indicate that momentary bewilderment.

My opinion is that it's not important to "good" or "fun" level design that you can remember it easily. I can draw a map of Metal Slug's "Mission 1," Pioneer 2, Balmora, and tons of other video game locations from spending so many hours in them. That's not what makes those virtual locations special. 1-1 is still a marvel of design because of other reasons, like teaching you the basics one step at a time and even having a secret that it doesn't outright teach you is an interesting wrinkle. However, the experience of what it does the first time you play it is far more of a notable feature than the fact I could draw a map of the level from memory.

This is not an attack. This is not a serious, inflammatory statement. It's a momentary, fleeting notion on a video game message board about something a few people said I thought stood out to me.
 
In a vacuum, GHZ is superior imo due to its better aesthetics, higher complexity, and replay-ability.

In the context of their games though, 1-1 is a well-made tutorial for new players that SMB continuously builds off of while Sonic 1’s pivot from GHZ to Marble Zone and the later levels is abrupt, leaving GHZ as the peak of the game imo.

So I guess it depends how you look at it.
 
You can talk as much as want about how 1-1 is the apex of level design that also serves as a brilliant tutorial and needs to be taught in schools and hung in a museum and I wouldn't disagree. But if you asked me which level I'd rather play, the answer is Green Hill Zone. It's more interesting, more replayable, and more fun, with better graphics and better music. Yes, this is the (Green) hill I choose to die on.
 
I give the edge to GHZ largely because it teaches a LOT and even gives the opportunity for more lessons along the way.

A few that stick out that can be applied across the entire Sonic 16-bit foursome...

a) The high road is more desirable, and offers more treats if you can get up there. That said it's hard to get up there, and can be even harder to stay up there. Conversely, low route can be sometimes the easier route, but you can miss out on more rings/power-ups/1ups/etc.

b) Speed is a reward for learning about how Sonic handles momentum. He's a little blue pinball with legs. Having a hard time getting up that incline? Taking advantage of that timely horizontal spring can be key. Or just building up speed from that other incline you just passed by moments ago!

c) That said, Sonic's world is a dangerous one. Trouble lurks around every bend, and foolishly speeding around will often just send him smack into the waiting clutches of some badniks. So, if you want to keep your speed and, even more importantly, your rings? Your best bet is to tuck Sonic into a ball, his most safe state, and roll with it. This is probably the most crucial lesson that people miss, and easily contributes to the whole "I get punished for going fast" thing that some speak about.

For an opener that aims to teach you so much in the 5 minutes or less you ideally spend with it, it's so mechanically rich, and it does it fairly organically, too.
 
1-1 teaches not only how to play a Mario game, but how to play platformers and even scrolling games as a whole. When Mario released it wasn't even a common objective to just "go to the right to beat the level", among a lot of other stuff that we now take for granted. There are a lot of things that 1-1 does in just the first screen that are the ABC of side-scrollers even today, and not just platformers. Stuff like having the character start on the left side of the screen to use the negative space to entice them to go right, have the sprite of the chraracter face right, not allowing the screen to scroll to the left...If OoT is often considered as the template of 3D action adventure games, Mario is so for 2D side-scrollers.
 
edamame said:
You can talk as much as want about how 1-1 is the apex of level design that also serves as a brilliant tutorial and needs to be taught in schools and hung in a museum and I wouldn't disagree. But if you asked me which level I'd rather play, the answer is Green Hill Zone. It's more interesting, more replayable, and more fun, with better graphics and better music. Yes, this is the (Green) hill I choose to die on.
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Yeah but then you’d be playing Sonic 1.

Sonic 2 is one of my favorite platformers, but Sonic 1, even the good levels, just aren’t that fun to me.
 
WestEgg said:
Yeah but then you’d be playing Sonic 1.

Sonic 2 is one of my favorite platformers, but Sonic 1, even the good levels, just aren’t that fun to me.
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Green Hill has a fantastic vibe with the visual design and music, and if you were a kid back when it was new it was nuts to see a loop-de-loop in a game so that was definitely very cool, but besides the aesthetics I'd say Emerald Hill has it beat every other way. Sonic 2 was like they took the two good Zones in 1 (GHZ and Star Light ❤️) and decided to make an entire game that was only those types of zones, a d make it twice as long.

But comparing Sonic 1 and 2 is sorta like comparing Mario 1 and 3. It's almost unfair. 😅
 
batfax said:
gee, i dunno, which is more fun, the straight line with an optional detour if you decide to press the down button completely unprompted (why is being able to map it in your head immediately being brought up as a good thing for level design??? you can do that because you already played it) or the multi-tiered beginner-friendly physics playground that emboldens the player with perhaps the most forgiving health system in any game ever that allows you to make mistakes again and again if you have any trouble

when i replay smb, i don't think about 1-1. it doesn't matter. it's a speedbump in the way of the rest of the game.

ghz is, itself, a fun and well designed level that i don't go through the same way every time
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I don't know if I'd word it like this, but I do kinda find the fact that people are basically equating this to just "Mario created level design so it is better" pretty boring to be honest. I'm a big fan of thinking about game design, and I definitely think SMB1 is a game where realizing how good the game design is affects my enjoyment in a positive way, but there's a level of talking about game design where people basically just start talking in the same way people do about "objectivity". Like there's a point where making some very generic point about how Mario teaches you platforming so it is better is actually making discussion less detailed and interesting, rather than more insightful and thoughtful like discussing game design normally would.

Not saying 1-1 is a bad choice though. It's a fantastic level. It's just kinda like if someone asked what the best fighting game of all time is and someone responded DID YOUUUUUU KNOWWWWWWWWW THAT STREET FIGHTER II INVENTED THE COMBO SYSTEM? Not saying this is an invalid reason, then again this kinda gets into a problem with how I think people talk about iteration in general
 
WestEgg said:
Yeah but then you’d be playing Sonic 1.

Sonic 2 is one of my favorite platformers, but Sonic 1, even the good levels, just aren’t that fun to me.
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Yes I would be playing Sonic 1, and enjoying it. Of course 2, 3&K are better but I still like the first game.
 
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