Compare and contrast the environment and levels in one game from the 80s, 90s, and 2004 onwards

Game from the 80s = Donkey Kong
Game from the 90s = Super Mario World
Game from 2004+  = Zelda Twilight Princess

Donkey Kong has 4 stages in the game each one gets increasingly more difficult as you progress, in a platformer game the need for difficulty increase was a key factor. The levels in Donkey Kong were not detailed, this made for linear gameplay compared to Zelda Twilight Princess where  the levels were open and you could explore enormous regions. The environment of Donkey Kong was primarily a construction site where DK would be sitting at the top throwing barrels down while mario tried to catch the princess, the main game had 4 stages each one would get smaller and more events would be happening in it. When the final stage was beaten the game would put you back at stage 1 but the game would be harder as the barrels would fall faster and platforms would be smaller.

In Super Mario World the environment was more detailed because the snes could support more memory and thus more graphics, each stage had a different background and some would be the same background but with the different colour style. The stages in Mario Land were linear but some stages had secret exits that could be found high in the sky or under water, it also introduced different worlds which you could visit ghost houses were seen as a midway point into the games world. compared to Donkey Kong and the older 80s games there were not many levels/stages in them, and they would loop back to the start when completed.

Zelda Twilight Princess released on the Nintendo Gamecube/Nintendo Wii was a massive zelda game that had mini quests and a lot of exploring. Because of the newer technologys in the 2006 era the games art style had a major overhaul compared to the earlier games, the levels had become more detailed and this made for more puzzles to be added within the dungeons and overworld. Twilight Princess also had alot of different environments from castles to underwater Labyrinths each one was done to make the theme and feel of the game. Each level in zelda or dungeon would get increasingly more difficult as the game progressed and involved the items that you had acquired in the previous dungeons.

All of the games that i have mentioned above share the same characteristic with there levels, it is that each one gets much more difficult to beat. As the producers got more technology they could create the levels with more depth and give the game more sparks to create complex levels that made the user think how to pass it. With DK there would be only one way to the finish level, but with SMW there was multiple ways to get into Bowsers castle and beat him, there was the extra stages of the star world which needed secret exits from the over world, but inside Bowsers castle there were 8 doors that you could choose to go in each one had there own way of beating it, then another 8 doors would appear and the same would happen again. In Twilight Princess there were mini games which could upgrade your existing items but each stage was hard. The mini quests were used to get more hearts and always required you to do moderatly hard tasks.

The environments in the games went from very basic plain colors to very detailed environments, you could actually tell whether you were venturing in a forest or exploring a cave system. Donkey Kong's environment was a construction site which could be told from the steel girders and the ladders leading up to the different heights. SMW improved on this by making different background which suited what level you were playing in, if you were running in a cave system the background would have a cave design the obstacles in the game were also more detailed, you could easily see if it was dangerous. In Twilight Princess environments had been heavily improved on, each area had been done into the finest detail, if you were in a cave system the lighting in the area would be dull and there would be rocks everywhere, if you were swimming underwater then seeweed/fish and other small aquatic creatures would be in the area, this gave the game a more lively aspect to it.