Game: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Sega Megadrive, 1992)
Stage Number: 3
Zone: 0 Stage Classification: TBC
Level Division: 2 Acts
Boss: End of Act 2
Playable Characters: Sonic & Tails, Sonic, Tails. (Knuckles is playable when connecting Sonic 2 to Sonic & Knuckles).
Difficulty Rating: 
Music: Same music for both acts. Light, and happy. Not unlike Emerald Hill in that sense, but with more of an aquatic and slightly ancient feel to it.
Typical Length:
Act 1: Around 1 minute (above water)
Act 2: 1-2 minutes (above water)
Available Items:
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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Act 1 |
176 |
3 |
7 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
Act 2 |
213 |
4 |
12 |
0 |
3 |
1 |
2 |
Top Tips:
- The key strategy is simply to try and stay above the water, which is harder to do in Act 2, thanks to the more open, loose structure employed by the routes at the top. If you do fall in, always head right, and grab every large air bubble you come across, because it's likely you may be down there for a while, especially if you fall in near the beginning of the act.
- The bubble clusters aren't particularly scarce, but they can be quite easy to miss sometimes, so be observant. If you get stuck on a certain bit down there, make sure you know where the nearby bubble cluster is, and return to it regularly while trying to get past the problem.
- Bushes, particularly around the water surface, can obstruct your view of what's going on, making them the perfect place for enemies to make sneak attacks before you even know they're there. Unless you're super careful, expect to lose rings quite often.
In this lake, you can see for miles across a great, light coloured forest, with some tall, rocky orange mountains in the distance, below an oddly dark blue, plain-looking sky. The backdrop for the underwater sections at the bottom of the level are simple green bushes with a few little red berries here and there.
Everywhere around this lake you'll find all sorts of old, crumbling ruins of a forgotten society. The ground Sonic and Tails stand on is an old, cracked brick pattern of big yellow, orange and grey stones, with grass on top. The stones get darker coloured as you move in front of them, supporting a path above the one you're on, and they appear more green and red when seen from underwater. Long stone pillars are in abundance, either holding up some ground above you, or just standing crumbled and broken, and wide waterfalls drop gently into the lake below. Big hollow tree trunks are used for bridges in some areas, which you can either pass through or over, and loads of bushes hang down from the very top of the level, or rest on the water. Rustling noises are created when you make contact with some, shaking down loose leaves too. You'll find that there's alot that often obstructs your view of the character, be it chunks of ground, bushes, logs, pillars and allsorts of things in this busy little forest. Usually having alot on-screen in any one place, this a bright, cheerful zone with lots to see.
When it comes down to it, this zone has two main areas; one is straightforward and lies above the water, and the other, far more difficult one runs parallel to it, completely submerged under the lake. Both routes head in a fairly basic rightward direction, and the water occupies the whole bottom half of both acts. If you fall in it, you'll end up somewhere in the parallel, underwater route below, where you'll be forced to resume the act from there, so the idea is to try and stay on the top route. In this way, it is possible to get through this water level without even touching H20. The top route is made up of multiple paths, sometimes two or even three at a time, above and around the surface of the lake. You can switch between these quite regularly, but the thing about them is that they tend to be very intertwined, sometimes going behind or through each other, or switching vertical positions, leading to a bit of a tangle at times. This makes for quite a cramped layout up there, in Act 1 at least, and the bushes along the top of the stage, plus the vertically-thin nature of the map make this part quite enclosed, and not particularly open. Act 2 on the other hand is a bit bigger, and there are more gaps in the path, meaning that you can fall into the water more easily. These upper paths are pretty bumpy, and filled with slopes, curves, hills and taller-than-normal loops, making it quite a speedy area, plus there's platforms to jump across. They're mostly based on fairly thick chunks of ground that sit on top of the lake, but they often become thinner as one path intertwines with another or travels along above it. This is quite a unique, interesting structure.
Meanwhile, the lower, submerged route is based much more on one, solid path across, and besides the occasional diagonal passage, cut into a large block of ground, it's actually more open down there, with long single rooms spanning across the act. The water makes your movement alot slower, and as with all water levels, Sonic and/or Tails need air to stay alive during the long periods of time which they'll be down there for. Your air runs out in 30 seconds, unless you can top it up by grabbing a large air bubble, which are produced by small bubble clusters sitting at various points on the ground. In the last 10 seconds before you run out of air, a countdown will start on the screen, accompanied by that scary music. If a countdown starts with no music accompanying it, that represents Tails' need for air if you're playing as Sonic & Tails, so don't worry about that. The paths in the underwater portion are a bit less bumpy, and obviously alot slower, and you normally have to hop between platforms or avoid obstacles to progress. Usually, you're not able to get yourself out of the water until the end of the act, where you have to hit the edge of a springboard to catapult yourself upward a fair distance. Be ready to grab every air bubble you see, in order to stand a good chance of getting through. You'll pretty much always be heading right, so you can't really get too lost, and there aren't many hidden areas or shortcuts around. Fortunately though, there are no death drops to worry about at the bottom of this lake.
Platforms to jump across come in a variety of flavours here. There are typical ones based on the stone ground design, which stay still or fall when you land on them, or move in the usual basic vertical or sideways motions. Grey pillars with flat tops and broken bottoms float on or in the water and will usually fall when you land on them, and sets of three thin brown platforms will rotate slowly around each other, attached by circular chains. You can also get singular ones that swing 180 on the chain like a pendulum, one of which actually gets thrown off its chain and onto the water surface. Both above and below the lake, some grey pillars on the ground rise up when you get close, and stand in your way. Jump up nice and high and land on the top, letting your lethal spinning body shatter the pillar into pieces. Because of his weaker jump, this may be more difficult if you're playing this level as Knuckles, in Sonic 2 + Sonic & Knuckles, so use another platform or take a run up at it. Located on other, scenery-only pillars, you'll spot an occasional arrow launcher, which are small grey blocks with Eggman's face on them. When you get close, the eyes will start flashing red, and when you actually step past it to the right, the side will open up and an arrow will fly out, hoping to catch you in the back. These can be found in one, two, or even four to a pillar, in later areas.
Thin stone ledges aren't very stable in some places, and will crumble under your weight, so if you need them to re-generate in order to get to the next platform, leave the area and come back. More dangerously, bottom ends of pillars that hang above a path may fall down when you get close. They're heavy, so if they happen to catch you as they fall, they'll either squish you into the ground, or, in a glitch, force you below the path, where you'll either fall off the screen or be lucky enough to get away with it and land on a lower section. There are alot of red Sonic 2 springboards around the level too. These aren't as powerful as regular springs, but can be used to fly across a large distance if you hit them with enough speed, from the left side. In order to get the best height off of them, for use at the end of the long underwater routes where you need to get back up to dry land, be sure to jump on them at the far tip of the board. While underwater, extra air comes in the form of small bubble clusters which, as always, pump out a large air bubble every once in a bit that can be sucked up by one of our heroes for an additional 30 seconds worth. You'll probably be needing a fair few of them.
Badniks here ensure a very regular loss of rings and patience. You've got Grounder; a digging badnik on treads that bursts out of discoloured walls in some chunks of stone ground behind you, when you get close. Like Burrowbot, its relative from the Labyrinth Zone, it then wanders around until you kill it, and can survive underwater aswell as above it. Some of them patrol certain areas anyway, without the need for a surprise attack through the wall. Whisps are bothersome flies that hang out in groups of two or three around the bushy areas along the surface of the lake, or the very top of the stage, and fly over to you when you enter the vicinity. Similarly, Chop-Chop are blue piranha bots that swim slowly in the water until they see you, at which point they dive in your direction, gnashing madly.
At about halfway through the underwater section of Act 1, you'll find this one-off little bit down at the bottom where these two tall platforms are moving up and down either side of a small log bridge. You don't have to mess around with this section at all, but there is an extra life hidden inside that log, if you're interested. Be careful not to get crushed by one of the platforms as you walk underneath it, and either spin dash or hit the down button while moving through the log to roll into the 1-up, then be just as careful on the way out.
At the end of the submerged route in Act 1, you have to jump over to this ledge with a fair bit of momentum, which will crumble when you land on it. If you miss and the ledge goes down too, you may find yourself a bit stuck. Use the spring on the left to speed your way up the curve on the right, but with the ledge gone, you won't be able to continue, so you need to make it regenerate. Head back left a little way, and then come back and it should reappear. There's a bubble cluster on the way there, and another one on the next ledge, when you get there. Carry on to the springboard at the end, and jump on the far right tip of it to spring your way up to the surface.
If you don't want to land in the lake, take the start of Act 2 nice and slow. There are two swinging pendulum platforms that you need to hop across carefully in order to stay on the safe, high up dry land. If you fall, you may land on a series of floating grey pillar platforms on the water below. Jump across them to the right to find another route above water, but do so quickly, before they begin to sink under your weight. Below that is the start of the submerged route, which becomes difficult to get out of once you're on it. One of the more hidden little tidbits is that the platform of the second swinging pendulum actually swings off of its chain when you're standing on it while it reaches its furthest extent to the right. The platform will fly off and onto the surface of the lake, on which it safely floats along, eventually delivering you to a tunnel that, while leading downwards, will actually take you to one of the high routes afterwards.
This is another one of those somewhat tricky underwater spots with a curve, near the end of Act 2, this time. If you fall down here, you have to spin dash up that curved wall on the right (or use the spring over on the far left of the area), but then carefully control your speed so that you land on, or at least touch the top of that pillar, using the right and left buttons to bring yourself to a halt. If you landed on it, hop up to the crumbling ledge on the right, above the curve to resume the level. If you didn't manage to stay on it, and it dropped down to the floor, it's still tall enough for you to leap onto from the ground, and then get up to the ledge from there. You have to make quite high jumps though, by holding the jump button for longer. If you need it, there's an air bubble cluster on the left, before the spring.
This powerful red spring towards the end of the highest route provides access to a small ledge over on its far right side containing 20 rings and a 1-up. Come at it from the left and then keep that right button held as you ascend through the bushes, but you won't make it to the ledge on that alone. You need to carefully reduce your momentum to land on top of a grey pillar first, then hop to the ledge on the right. If you miss, you'll more than likely fall on the right side of two other rising pillars on the ground below, which are positioned on a step that makes them too high up to break, i.e, you can't get back to the spring to try again.
Boss:
The boss of Aquatic Ruin is a good one. Stand in the middle of the arena, and two massive pillars, each adorned with four bird-head statues facing inwards, will slowly emerge from the ground, on either side. As they're rising, I'd suggest jumping on the top of the right-hand one, as it'll be too high to reach from the ground, afterwards. Dr. Robotnik will drop in from the top/middle with a massive mallet on the front of his machine. Jump and land a hit on him as soon as you see him, and then use him to bounce back to the top of the right-hand pillar. Repeat for as long as you can. Eggman's pattern will be as follows: He'll move back and forth across the top of the screen only and hit the tops of the pillars with his mallet when he reaches them. This will cause one randomly selected statue head on that pillar to spurt out an arrow, which lands in the mouth of the bird on the opposite side. When you're back on the ground, you can use these landed arrows as ledges to hop back up to the top of the pillar, or just hit Eggman from there. They'll fall out when you jump off them or when another arrow lands in their pillar. Land 8 hits, and just be careful not to let any moving arrows hit you, or to get knocked by the mallet. Bear in mind also that Knuckles' jump is too weak to get anywhere when an arrow is shot out from either the top or bottom statue head, when playing Sonic 2 + Sonic & Knuckles.
- In the incomplete beta version of Sonic 2 (a ROM available to download for emulators), the Aquatic Ruin Zone is the first level, and is actually called the "Neo Green Hill Zone". Much later on, this name was to be used for the first level in Sonic Advance, instead. In this version, badniks have yet to be placed, and pretty much the whole submerged bottom half is missing, meaning regular death drops near the water surface.
- Though his colour was changed from red to green, Aquatic Ruin's badnik Grounder earned himself a role in the first American Sonic cartoon show, "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" as a regular lackey to Dr. Robotnik.
Contents of this page were last updated on 30th August 2007.
