Casino Night Zone

Casino Night Zone is the fourth zone of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Sega Mega Drive, coming after Aquatic Ruin and before Hill Top Zone. As with most other stages in this game, Casino Night Zone consists of two standard Acts with a boss fight at the end of Act 2.

The Zone also features as a racetrack in Sonic Drift 2 for the Game Gear, as well as returning in Sonic Generations (see here) as a pinball minigame DLC on the console versions and representing Sonic 2 as a stage on the 3DS version.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-bit)
Casino Night is, predictably, a sprawling casino set at night. Jaunty electric colors and pinball flippers abound, as well as slot machines where Sonic can rack up hundreds of rings if you're lucky enough to get the right combinations. This area has one of the fans' favorite gimmicks&mdash;gambling. Bounce-able tiles flash green, yellow, then red as you hit them, enabling Sonic to rack up points. The level also features steely blue elevators, which convey Sonic upwards or downwards depending on the specific lift.

Geographically, the Zone is located somewhere on Westside Island. Why Robotnik would make a casino on an island whose inhabitants he is in the process of roboticizing into soul-less (and money-less) badniks is a mystery for the ages. However, there is the possibility that the casino was built by somebody other than Robotnik.

This Zone contains only one kind of badnik, the Crawl, called "Guardon" (ガードン) in the Japanese manual. It has a bumper included, so if you try to perform a Spin Dash from the front it'll bump you away. To destroy it, you have to jump and quickly attack from the back, or you can do a spin dash from the back.

Slot Machines
The results from various combinations on the slot machines are: Even when Sonic is in his Super State, getting 3xEggman will still cause you to lose your Rings. Watch out, the player will lose both the Rings and Sonic's Super State.
 * 3xTails = 25 rings
 * 3xEggman/Jackpot+2xEggman/2xJackpot+Eggman = Lose 100 rings
 * 3xSonic = 30 rings
 * 3xJackpot = 150 rings
 * 3xBar = 20 rings
 * 3xRing = 10 rings
 * Jackpot+2 of the same except Eggman = twice the original amount
 * 2xJackpot+everything except Eggman = 4 times the original amount

Badniks

 * Crawl- This is the only badnik found in this level and is equipped with a large pincher and shield, Crawl can be tricky to defeat. The player must find a way around him then spin dash him from the rear to defeat him.

Boss


In this Zone's boss fight, Dr. Eggman attacks with a claw-wielding machine and drops red bombs from a hatch on the underside. An electric field means this boss shouldn't be attacked from below; do not be tempted to use the flippers just because they're there. The trick for this boss is to turbo-dash your way up the walls of the pinball arena, and hit Robotnik by jumping off the walls on your way up. It's tricky, but this method is still less dangerous than attempting a flipper-based attack.

Sonic Drift 2
Previous track — Purple Grand Prix 4th track — Next track Sonic and friends re-enter the "pinball paradise" during the 2nd Chaos Grand Prix in Sonic Drift 2. Casino Night is the fourth track of the Purple Grand Prix (Purple being the easiest of the three available tournaments), coming after Dark Valley 1 and before Desert Road 1. As with most other races in the 2nd Chaos Grand Prix, you have to complete three laps of the track to finish, and the fastest racer gets a Chaos Emerald.

Casino Night's track is littered with oddities; mini ramps that throw you up in the air, springs that aren't really springs (they're actually bumpers), and the strange reverse-spheres (later seen in Iron Ruin) that invert your controls. Most of the time, there is at least land on either side of the track, although there is one section where this is replaced by empty space - so you don't want to fall off.

Sonic the Fighters
Casino Night appears in the arcade game, Sonic the Fighters. It's the arena where the player faces Fang the Sniper. If the player is playing as Fang, Dr. Eggman will swoop in and make a clone of him. After they defeat him, the player gains a magenta Chaos Emerald. The arena features many neon lights including one that resembles an emerald in the middle. The bars on the arena are neon versions of playing cards. The background features a roulette wheel and a slot machine that never seems to stop.

Sonic Generations
In celebration of Sonic's 20th Anniversary, Casino Night reappears in Sonic Generations. It is a full level on the 3DS version, but it is a downloadable pinball mini-game in the 360, PS3 & PC versions. It is only one of two levels (Green Hill Zone being the other) to appear in both the console and handheld versions of the game. Classic's Act is the exact same as Act 1 of the original, except that the Speed Shoes in this level are replaced by Ring Monitors.

Sonic the Comic
The Casino Night Zone appeared in the UK publication Sonic the Comic. It was a giant casino, built by Doctor Ivo Robotnik while he was dictator of Mobius for the purpose of stealing money from his citizens. It was initially run by the Marxio Brothers on Robotnik's behalf. A giant statue of Robotnik in the middle of the park housed a supercomputer that rigged all of the games and beamed out hypnotizing beams from its eyes, forcing all the visitors to continue gambling until they had lost all of their money. Eventually the operation was stopped by Sonic the Hedgehog and Porker Lewis, who infiltrated the Zone and blew up the statue's head.

The Marxio Brothers later went on to run Robotnik's new money-making Zone, the Carnival Night Zone on the Floating Island, and the casino was taken over by Max Gamble. Although Max Gamble was not working for Robotnik, he cared more for his own profits than his customers. Gamble later operated a roller-coaster in the Casino Night Zone that delivered citizens to a badnik facility underground, where the citizens were turned into badniks. This plot was foiled by Shortfuse the Cybernik, who destroyed Gamble's roller-coaster.

The Zone was attacked by Commander Brutus' Troopers as part of Brutus' revolution against Robotnik. They were defeated by Tails (with some help from Fleabyte the bounty hunter), and Tails then agreed to protect the Casino Night Zone for the duration of the revolution.

Shortly after Robotnik was overthrown, Tails visited the Casino Night Zone for some rest and relaxation, only to find that Max Gamble was still in charge and was using a Mob to extort protection money from the locals. Even worse, Gamble was then sending this money to Robotnik, so that the doctor could finance a new army of Troopers and reconquer the planet. When Tails exposed the relationship to the Mob, they turned against Gamble, as they didn't want Robotnik back in power. Gamble was forced to return all of the stolen money.

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
A new Casino Night Zone appears in the episodes "High Stakes Sonic" and "The Mobius 5000". In "High Stakes Sonic" it appears to look like an oversized casino, and is hooked up to a CPU designed to force every machine in the house to lose no matter what. When Sonic reprograms the unit, this causes the mobians inside to win real money (due to Grounder not wanting to welch on a bet) and bankrupts the casino. There also appears to be a nursery where Tails gets caught, and a large athletic arena where Sonic races Grounder.

Trivia

 * This is one of the many Casino Stages in Sonic games, where the setting was been reused in a few following games. The various levels based off of Casino Night are others are Casinopolis (Sonic Adventure), Casino Park/BINGO Highway (Sonic Heroes), Casino Paradise Zone (Sonic Advance), Casino Street Zone (Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I), Night Carnival (Sonic Rush) and Cosmic Casino (Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure).
 * The two-player music was originally going to be used for Genocide City Zone, a scrapped zone.