Stage (InstanceClass, 6)
From Compile Worlds
A stage, also known as a level, world, round, chapter or zone (thank you Fire Emblem series and Sonic the Hedgehog series for breaking the five-letter pattern), is a portion of a video game. Usually, one plays through each stage in order until the game is complete. Some games, however, let you play the stages in any order, and others still let you travel between and return to different stages at will, though in this case the common names are world, zone, area and sector.
Games by what they call their stages
One-way
- stage
- Touhou series
- Streets of Rage series
- The Adventures of Batman and Robin
- Twinkle Star Sprites
- Puyo Puyo series
- Sonic the Hedgehog series, as far as Special Stages and Bonus Stages are concerned
- level
- Usually used by simpler games like Pacman and Tetris and sometimes just refer to the current difficulty rather than a specific "portion" of the game. As such most RPGs now (mis?)use this word to refer to how strong each character is.
- world
- Mario series
- round
- Most fighting games, such as Street Fighter
- Sonic CD (which, just to be confusing, calls acts zones)
- chapter
- Fire Emblem series
- zone
- Sonic the Hedgehog series, except Sonic CD
- sector
- Iji. Another exception to the rule, as the term sector isn't usually used in a game where you can't go backwards.
Any order
- stage
- Mega Man series
This short list needs expanding.
Free exploration
- sector
- Metroid Fusion (and possibly the rest of the series, I'm not entirely sure)
- area
- .hack//G.U. (and possibly IMOQ too)
This short list needs expanding.
