Are ice levels always the worst?

[Blue Buddha]

I had a lengthy post written out extoling the virtues of ice levels written out but I accidentally clicked off the page and now it's gone.

I'll just say that I find that snow/ice locales are often some of the most visually lavish of any game that includes them, and that I absolutely love it when games take advantage of the unique traits of ice stages to construct gameplay challenges around them (this applies both to obvious examples like slippy ice floors in mid-lategame platformer levels and to less obligatory stuff like deep snowfields as an impediment to player movement/a way to hide enemies, or the cold climate being naturally hazardous to the player in some way, like in a Monster Hunter game where being in a cold room saps the player's stamina). It's also pretty easy to mix Snow/Ice with other standard level themes and get fantastic results out of it. The final world of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is proof positive of this.

Off the top of my head, the only ice themed level I particularly recall disliking is Ratchet & Clank 2's Tundor Wastes, and even then, the reason that level is bad is because it's a repetitive copy of a level from earlier in the game with a very annoying enemy type thrown into the mix. Nothing about it is particularly characteristic of Snow/Ice levels, I feel. That game even has a much better snow level earlier in its run as a point of contrast.

 

[dropsmegamega]

I like then a lot actually, winter aesthetics, vast snow fields, possibly melancholic music, evil slippery ground... it's the water levels that I can't stand.