The road surface is made of similar, thinner strips of bolted down material. There are also large sections of bronze meshing, pipes and tanks, and where they appear along the side walls of your route, you can sometimes find a hidden entrance into them and find power-ups along an invisible surface within. There are also several little multi-coloured details around too, like valves and meters, etc. Like most factory levels of this nature, Metropolis has no foreground decoration along the paths, but this area of appearance doesn't seem too conspicuous in its absence. This level isn't exactly based on cutting-edge technology, and instead, there's a very clockwork theme about it, particularly in the appearance of the objects.

One interesting thing about Metropolis Zone is that it's one of those levels that loops from top to bottom. It's only really noticeable in one point at the end of Act 1 (see below), but in certain places, if you take a route that reaches the top of the map, that route may seamlessly reappear at the bottom, and carry on from there, creating an infinite loop. The multiple routes make use of these with, for example, one route heading upwards, only to mysteriously meet up with a lower one at the bottom of the stage. Very similar to Scrap Brain Zone Act 2 in that way, which many would cite as an inspiration for several aspects of this level. Speaking of multiple routes, Metropolis has a range of them, but only in chunks. There are never two or more completely separate paths through a whole act, or any particularly secret shortcuts to speak of, but some places offer two different ways to go, usually a normal route, and another found by dropping down into an open space. All routes often meet up again not far afterwards, so it's usually fairly hard to determine which one has an advantage over the other. However it's also common for them to split again into sub-routes before rejoining, offering a variety of ways to proceed.

All three badniks that call Metropolis home are among the most annoying you'll ever face. There's Shellcracker, a red crab enemy that shuffles along the ground, with a large protruding claw that it fires out either left or right, when you're standing directly in front of it. Not only is this annoyingly difficult to avoid, he's also hard to kill if you're going for an assault from above, as you have to hit him in an exact spot on his head, else you'll be the one taking the hit. Safest course of action is to perform a spin dash from behind, if you can manage to jump over him successfully, because he's either found in a narrow corridor, or on the edge of a ledge that you're trying to get up to, ready to throw that claw at you as soon as you step onboard. Use good judgement about how far you should jump to avoid him in this case, or try and wait until he's shuffled back a little way first. Upon destruction, his claw and long arm may fly off, possibly causing more problems. Asterons are exploding star badniks that cannot actually be harmed or even touched by you, because they hang out in the foreground walls. When you come too close, they'll move a little bit and start flashing for a moment, before self-destructing, sending the spikes on each of their five points flying out in straight lines. You're sometimes able to run right past them but they're very dangerous in slow-moving sections such as the giant screws, and especially when in groups, as they usually are. When they start flashing, try and get into a position where the spikes will be likely to miss you, when fired out. Finally, Slicer are praying mantis badniks that hang out on floors and ceilings. They'll throw their twin blades as soon as you come rolling along, which will fly up and circle around them, creating a difficult attack to avoid. They have nothing else after that though and can then be easily bopped, at which time the airborne slicers will fall away. You'll almost definitely lose a lot of rings from all three of these guys during your course through the level.