One of my favourite games of 2020, Fall Guys is continuing to entertain well into the new year. People on Twitter can call it a ‘dead game’ all they want, but I don’t think that could be further from the truth. The game is still being supported and seems like it will continue for at least another year with new levels to stumble around on.
We’re three seasons into Fall Guys’ lifespan so far, and there are a total of 37 different levels you could get in any given game. These levels are split into different categories depending on their gameplay style, and they’re mixed up enough that no two games feel the same. However, with that many levels, they can’t all be brilliant, and there are certainly some levels that I’m happier to see pop up than others, and I want to talk about some of those today.
9 – Knight Fever
In comparison to seasons 1 & 3, season 2 doesn’t seem to be all that grand in scope. There were only four new levels added in that season, and it seemed to go by in a flash, probably because a large part of the post-release dev time was focused on bug-fixes and patches than new stuff. The thing is, as much as there were only four new levels, they were four excellent levels, and three of them are going to feature on this list. The first of which is Knight Fever.
To me, race levels are their best, the more complex they are. The more straightforward race levels like Door Dash or Gate Crash are still fun, but I get the most fun out of the races with many different obstacles for me to navigate. Knight Fever ticks my boxes in that regard. Starting off with some very easy to avoid spinning axes, you move onto the pillars of rotating spikes, which can be navigated quite easily with skill, but still catches me off-guard every now and then. After sliding down a slime slope (avoiding more spinning axes that are so easy to dodge, I almost think they’re there just for aesthetics), you have to face the biggest challenge of the level, the swinging spikey logs (screw your meme names). How well you get through these mostly just depends on your timing, but you never feel entirely safe while running through that section. Finally, you have to not be an idiot to get over the drawbridge, and you’re home free.
While I would like a bit more variation in the obstacles, Knight Fever has a good sense of rising challenge as you progress. It’s not perfect, as we’ll see through the other race levels on this list, but it’s probably the best use of the medieval theme out of all the new levels. It’s a level that has just enough random elements that even once you’ve learnt it, you can never reliably get through it on autopilot.
8 – The Whirlygig
In truth, this level isn’t all that complex, but it is a lot of fun to watch beans getting pinged all over the place. There are some Fall Guys levels that forgo some skill requirements in favour of being way more fun, and this is definitely one of those, something I’m very grateful for.
In The Whirlygig, you start out by running across a field of spinning bars, with no risk of falling off of the level, which means that screwing up only leads to comically flinging yourself all over the place instead of failure. Then you have to navigate a couple of small jumps that everyone seems to bitch about, but I’ve never struggled with. The only time it’s a problem is if there’s a bunch of nervous people on it hogging the platform. You pass through the first big fan blade, which can be really punishing if you get caught in it, before running around…some walls and some fan blades that aren’t even pretending to be obstacles.
After passing through the second, fairly slow-moving fanblade, you’re into the final section of the level, where you have a choice. If you’re a gutless coward, you can take the side routes where you have to jump over hovering platforms, each with a spinning bar on them, which can throw you off if you time your jumps wrong. Or, you can try your luck at the massive, fast-spinning fan blade in the middle to cut out half of that section, which is the far more fun way to complete the level.
What I like so much about this level is that you’re level truly ‘out’ of it when you screw up. The final section is just tricky enough that it takes people a little while to complete it, giving anyone who messed up early on a decent chance to recover. On top of that, the choice of the two routes at the end means you get a good variety in what everyone’s doing. No-one’s trying to funnel through the same small section and getting in each other’s way, and it adds to the background chaos of the level.
The middle section is laughably easy, and the only real negative for the level, but the beginning and end are so much fun that I’m willing to overlook it.
7 – Fall Ball
Team games are a controversial subject in the Fall Guys fanbase. Some think they’re the best of what the game has to offer; others think they’re stupid, unfair and unfun. For me, it depends on which game it is, there are some of the team games which are just plainly unfun, mainly the ones where you have to push a ball, but as long as the main content of the game is enjoyable, I don’t mind the unfairness that can come with being placed into teams.
Case in point is Fall Ball. Sometimes, it feels extremely one-sided, and it’s disappointing when you’re put in a team that doesn’t seem to be very good at the game, but also, who cares? Jumping around headbutting a massive football and watching it bounce all over the place is a joyous feeling. It’s one of the gamemodes that I think is far better with more people, as the chaos is what makes it so fun. That’s why I also have a great love for the variants with obstacles included.
While there definitely is room to work as a team (and I’m sure you’d do far better if you did), no-one does, and everyone just does their own thing. Once again, it’s sacrificing skill for fun, and I think that’s great. You can never truly predict where the ball will go when you hit it, it bounces normally, but you’ve no idea who could get in the way, or maybe even jump at the same time as you and send it high up into the air. This is especially true on the rare occasion the game decides to drop you some of the oddly shaped balls or even a banana.
I think that Fall Ball is the best of what the team games have to offer, forcing a lot of chaotic interaction between the teams and lasting just the right amount of time, so you don’t get sick of it.
6 – Jump Showdown
What I love about most of the final rounds is how simple they are. Instead of making a bunch of crazy obstacles, they present you with a simple concept and leave your skill to determine who wins. I know I’ve said so far that I like it when they put fun over skill, but for the final round, it’s different. It’s to determine who’s the best, and that should definitely be a contest of skill.
That’s not to say there’s no fun to be had in this level, though, because jumping over the spinning bar while dodging the top spinning bar is loads of fun. It’s not the same kind of fun as the more chaotic levels though, this is a tense kind of fun. Your attention is being drawn by many things at once: where the top bar is, where the bottom bar is, which platforms are falling away, and where that arsehole who keeps trying to grab everybody is.
The section of the platforms falling away are great for two reasons. One is that it gives you an extra thing to think about as your dodging the bars, you don’t want to be standing on one when it falls, but you also don’t want to be stranded on one with no escape if it falls next. Two is that it limited your movement options and pushes people close together, making it more likely for mistakes to happen. When there’s a full circle, it’s easy to avoid hitting a point where both the top and bottom bar are coming at you together, but when you’ve only got one or two segments to work with, you’ve got to be a lot more careful and plan ahead for where you’re going to make your jump.
At the same time, it doesn’t overwhelm you with too much going on at once. As long as you’re careful, you can last quite a while and have some very intense battles with the few people remaining, especially as the speed of the bar increases seemingly exponentially.
5 – Hoopsie Legends
Am I just putting this one so high because I always do well at it? That may have something to do with it.
This is a great example of how much more fun a level can be when it’s a free-for-all instead of a team game. The original team hoop game is still fun, but it’s nowhere near as hectic or urgent as this one is. With a timer, until the round expires and teammates all over the place, it’s easy to see a ring a little further away and rely on someone else to get it, and I tend to find that just camping a small spot is the best way to go. However, those tactics get thrown out of the window when it’s a free-for-all.
When everyone’s in it for themselves, things become a lot more frantic, and every hoop suddenly becomes an opportunity you need to make a mad dash for. The requirement of just 6 hoops to qualify hits the perfect balance of being large enough so that you won’t be screwed over by bad luck but small enough that you can’t waste time. On top of that, the design of the level in the free-for-all version is far more exciting and creates a lot of awkward positions for hoops, meaning even if there are people much closer to a hoop than you, you can still beat them to it with better platforming.
It’s technically a more skill-based level than most others, but the free-for-all nature injects the needed chaos, as it will always be funny as three of you all jump for a hoop at once but end up bouncing off of each other.
4 – Wall Guys
Wall Guys is a level that takes the chaos of everyone trying to do the same thing at once from team games but tweaks it so that everyone is working for themselves, and that’s all you need to lead to madness.
This is the kind of level that clearly separates the risk-takers and the safe-players but gives them both a fairly equal opportunity to succeed while still allowing those who look to wreak havoc have their fun. The way you have to push blocks around to get over the walls creates this unique blend of co-operation along with a competition where everyone’s rushing to get to the end.
If you get ahead early on, then you’ll probably be alright to sort things out for yourself, but as soon as the bulk of the crowd reaches you, your situation becomes infinitely more complex. Never mind that everyone seems to have a different idea of where the perfect place for each block is or the people who are just there to screw you over; making the jumps with so many people around crashing into you can be enough of a challenge. I say that like it’s a negative, but I think it’s what makes this level so much fun.
Whether you want to run along the top and try to make the risky jumps or push the blocks around and risk-taking too long climbing up, Wall Guys can cater to just about everyone with some very simple design.
3 – Slime Climb
Slime Climb is more or less the archetype of what a good Fall Guys level should include, and it’s no wonder that it’s one of the most popular levels amongst the fanbase.
During the game’s marketing, Fall Guys saw a lot of comparison to old game shows like Takeshi’s Castle or Wipeout, and with good reason. The soft-play aesthetic, combined with big ridiculous obstacles designed to toss you about, is everything those shows were about and give many people lots of fond memories. Slime Climb is the level that best exemplifies those elements, putting through the wringer in terms of the variety of obstacles. In a way, it’s almost the best introduction level to the game (even if you never get it first) in that it has such an extensive variety of obstacles that it’ll prepare you for everything else the game will throw at you.
Rather than forcing you to interact with the other players, these levels tend to use them more as obstacles than anything else. Many of the obstacles would probably be much easier to clear if there weren’t 10 other people trying to do it at the same time, and that’s not even mentioning the arseholes who sit at choke-points to screw people over. Simultaneously, the level wouldn’t feel the same without those people; weirdly, they’ve become a feature of the level.
Slime Climb feels like the purest distillation of what Fall Guys is like as a game. It mixes the race & survival aspects to constantly keep the pressure on while running the gauntlet of obstacles. The more you play it, the better techniques and shortcuts you discover to create one of the most optimised levels in the game in the best way possible.
2 – Freezy Peak
I’m not entirely sure what it is about this one that makes me love it so much, but it’s easily the most finely crafted race-level the game has right now.
The basic concept is a lot more fun than a regular race level. I much prefer the idea of racing around to be king of the hill than stumbling along the straight horizontal line. The level starts off with slightly different obstacles depending on where you spawn, you’ll either have to navigate past some boxing glove pistons or some flippers before players get funnelled through conveyor belts moving the wrong way as snowballs are fired at them. You then fly up to the next platform using some fans but have to be careful where you land, as there are plenty of flippers ready to ruin your day if you land on them.
Then, after hovering your way over another couple of fans, the big climb begins. In the longest portion of the level, you can either go up the inside or outside lane, with the ability to switch at any time. The inside lane has those boxing glove pistons in front of some flippers ready to throw you off the side of the mountain, while the outside lane has giant snowballs rolls down it constantly. Get past that, and you have to climb a small peak of conveyor belts circling around before one massive fan launches you up to the icy road to the finish line.
It’s quite the gauntlet of obstacles, with many chances for failure, but that’s what I like about this level. On top of that, unlike Slime Climb, where falling means elimination, here you can keep respawning, which means you never feel like you’re truly out of the race. It makes brilliant use of almost all of the new obstacles added in season 3, in a level that is as challenging as it is varied.
1 – Hex-A-Gone
Appropriately finishing off with finale round, Hex-A-Gone is a pure and simple fun test of skill.
There’s really not much to explain with the topic, there are several layers of hexes; when you step on a hex, it disappears, if you fall to the bottom, you’re out, last bean standing wins. Much like Jump Showdown, it leans more to the skilful side of things – as finale rounds should – but doesn’t forget to include some fun along the way. Here, the fun comes from the other beans and how they’re constantly getting in your way. Your interactions with other people in this level are probably some of the funniest, as a collision can send you both tumbling a few floors, and there’s not really any way of screwing people over by grabbing them; at least no without the grabber being screwed over too.
What puts this level over the top for me is how tense it can get. You quickly learn you can use the hexes’ animation falling away to delay your move to the next hex, keeping you in the game while longer, and you have to start to think very carefully about where you’re going and how you’re getting there. The round will start off in chaos as a maximum of 20 people start obliterating the top layers, but once it pairs down to a few people, it’s so dense that it’s just as much fun to watch as it is to play.
When you’re in those last moments, where most of the layers have been torn apart, you’ve got so much to think about. Where you’re currently moving; where you’re going to go when the current section runs out of hexes; where you need to land on the layers below you to have the best chance of survival, and where your opponents are. Do you try to crowd out your opponents’ space in the hopes you’ll be able to knock them off? Or do you steer clear of them in the hopes they’ll make a mistake? These are all thoughts that go through your brain in no time at all as you run around this level, and it’s brilliant.
Not to mention, it’s arguably the level where you do the most falling, so I think it’s appropriate that its Fall Guys best level.
And there you have it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this post. Please, let me know what you think, either in the comments below or on Twitter @SStyleSmark. Finally, make sure to come back this time next week, where I’ll be covering WWE Fastlane!
The Strong Style Smark 