Monster Lairs

[Dagger Dias]

Monsters are always lurking around in games waiting on unexpecting adventurers to try to kill. There are a variety of places they tend to live in, with some being more common than others. Few video games are complete without monster lairs.

CAVES
The most common monster lair. If you walk into a cave then odds are pretty good that something is going to attack you for invading its home. Caves sometimes have dangerous terrain inside them like poison or lava that you lose health by walking on. Then there are frozen caves. These monster lairs may be the most common but no two caves are the same and in the words of Setzer from Final Fantasy 6, there could be ANYTHING down there.

TOWERS
The second most common monster lair. While not as frequently seen in games as caves, tower levels in games always fascinate me. Monsters that can fly will often make towers their home. Towers sometimes include more complicated puzzles and several floors. Some even come in ses of two where you go up one to the top floor, cross a skyway to the second and climb down to its lowest floor to face a boss. Dragon Quest has an interesting trap in many of its towers.... You can walk off ledges and end up back on the world map.

TEMPLES
Temples are often left behind by ancient cultures from before many of the game's characters were born. Some are still intact while others are ruins of a temple that got partially or completely destroyed. Spirits and Ghosts are common residents in these types of levels and they often have the most difficult puzzles.


So what I would like to know is this.... What is your favorite type of monster lair and why? Is it caves, towers, temples, or perhaps something else? Also feel free to cite specifc examples from video games that have this type of monster lair.

Mine is towers because they usually have an epic feel to them. The hero (or heroes) working their way up to the top to either save a damsel or procure an important item, with a boss fight at the top floor, it never gets old to me. Great places for storyline spoilers too. The Tower of Salvation from Tales of Symphonia and the Tower of Zot from Final Fantasy 4 both really stand out for me and for the same reasons. A long difficult climb to the top, storyline spoilers you never see coming and big boss fights along the way, leaving you with memories of a fun event in a great game.

So? Your turn. Discuss!

 

[Harthan]

Dude, you just reminded me of the Tower of Salvation from Tales. Goddamn that was a great level and a great game.

Anyway, I prefer exploring and fighting in developed environments, i.e., towers, ruined temples, old castles, that sort of thing. They feel more impressive, compared to a cave or a forest lair or what have you. There's an implicit history, and generally some impressive scenery. Caves and the like are often kind of dull, though mines can be very interesting (there was a great mine level in Tales of Symphonia though its name escapes me). Environments that just don't have any development, just pure caves and that, I think they're a bit dull. Add some human (or inhuman, I suppose) design to a level and it gets much more interesting.

 

[LSN80]

Temples and Towers are difficult for me to truly prefer one over the other. Much of this is due to my experience with the Resident Evil and Fable series, which is still one of my favorite video game series of all time. Much of the major level bosses are fought within either temples and towers, along with the more important levels of Ocarina of Time, which is still the greatest Zelda game of all time, in my opinion. The temples and towers just made for a darker, more authentic feel, as if you knew something big was about to go down. The battles that took place were always epic, and I was never good enough to beat them on the first, second, third, or 15th try, so when I did finally win said battle, it was a great sense of accomplishment. That made both more memorable, as I still remember some of the more epic battles to the day. The scenery to the day is far more impressive along the way with these, so I appreciate not just the gameplay itself, but the exploration of the world's within as well.

 

[Notorious718]

Ah yes, the Tower of Salvation from Tales of Synphonia had such an epic feel to it with the long climb up and the great music in the background. It felt like the culmination of everything you had done in the game.

I also like castles. If you've played Amnesia: The Dark Descent, you'd have an idea of how scary encountering monsters in a dark castle with nothing but a lantern to help you get around. Add to the fact that you had no weapons in that game and had to use the castle's environment (such as a random closet to hide in) in order to escape the zombie that was hunting you, and you had a very expansive monster lair to play around in. If you haven't played Amnesia, go for it. Turn up the volume and play in the dead of night.