The Casino Night Zone, also known as Casino Night, is a thrillingly magical modern city-like gambling casino Zone and one of the well-known locations and levels in the Sonic the Hedgehog universe. This glittering, gambling theme park-like town that never sleeps, is geographically located elsewhere on West Side Island, where the awesome Blue Speedster Sonic met and became friends with his aspiring young sidekick Miles "Tails" Prowler during his adventures while the evil mad scientist Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik and his Badnik forces are out there in the city causing trouble. This city's jackpot machineries and other consonantal items within it caters to that very amazing isle with tourism money.
This ever-visited locale is always shown set during night time with carefree and electrifying colors, making it a delightful view to behold. Casino Night Zone displays a pinball-based level design with many known gimmicks such as spring catapults, bumpers, pinball flippers and slot machines (complete with the spinning pictures. It is flooded with endless amount of Rings/Power Rings (especially within the slot machines that will grant the players to have a few or many if they win with the right combinations).
This awesome place itself has made the Casino-themed Zone trope unforgettably paradigmatic within the Sonic the Hedgehog videogame franchise and it has made multiple appearances throughout the games, while many later games have various Zones based of it. The Casino Night Zone is also featured as a racetrack in Sonic Drift 2, as well as a rebound stage in Sonic Generations as well as a pinball minigame DLC on the said game's console versions, and representing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as a stage on its Nintendo 3DS version.
The Casino Night Zone consists of two standard Acts with a boss fight at the end of Act 2 as shown in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (with the seemingly stylish Cather Eggman version of the evil Doctor Eggman's Egg Mobile at the boss fight).
The Casino Night Zone was mostly known to hardily contain any enemies, yet it has a single bumper enemy per Act.
In Other Media
In the cartoon TV show Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, the Casino Night Zone was an oversized casino owned by Dr. Robotnik, which was hooked up to a CPU designed to force every machine in the house to lose no matter what, and turn every citizen of Mobius that entered that gambling plaza into the doctor's personal slaves. However, when Sonic reprogrammed the unit, this caused the Mobians inside to win real money (due to Grounder not wanting to welch on a bet) and this bankrupted the casino itself. Later in the series, Casino Night Zone serves as one of the locations used in the "Mobius 5000" race, but also one clogged with traffic jams, which in turn led Sonic, Tails and their scientist friend Professor Caninestein used a Star Post to take a shortcut through the Special Zone itself.
In the Sonic the Hedgehog comic series and its spin-offs published by Archie Comics, the Casino Night Zone was originally a casino locale constructed by Dr. Robotnik on Mobius during his dictatorial reign of terror over the planet while the casino area itself is being initially administered by the the obnoxious electrician trio called the Marxio Brothers and Doctor Robotnik had a giant statue of himself erected in that very Zone, containing a supercomputer that would hypnotize its patrons with Hypnosis Beams to force them to gamble until they had lost all their possessions, until the evil technological statue was sabotaged by Sonic with the help of the Freedom Fighters' technical expert Porker Lewis, thereby putting the tyrannized casino area out of business. The Casino Night Zone is once where what was located is a casino establishment dubbed "Renobotnik Robo-Casino" that was used as a testing ground for Dr. Robotnik's new Orbinaut Badnik against Sonic, only for the famous hedgehog hero to escape. 2 years later, the sorcerer Mammoth Mogul took over management of the Casino Night Zone in the middle of Mobian Badlands where both the Renobotnik casino and the now run-down Bottom of the Barrel Bar 'n' Grill used to be, and he even so far rename it the "Casino Night Club" after he broke out of New Mobotropolis prison, giving the mad Dr. Robotnik's old Badniks from the derelict Robo Hobo Jungle jobs in serving the customers' needs.
In the Sonic the Comic series published by Fleetway Editions, the Casino Night Zone is one of the many Zones on Mobius and it is found on the Floating ISland. It is a large, urban region, devoted entirely to the leisure industry (especially casinos). At first, the Zone was ruled by the evil Dr. Robotnik until the Marxio Brothers was overmatched and Robotnik himself out out of power, but the money-grubbing gangster Max Gamble eventually became its de-factor administrator with his own intentions of pure profit, engaging in various conflicts with Tails even during the unrelenting Commander Brutus' Tropper Badnik revolution and after Doctor Robotnik was out of power. Since its introduction, it has held a huge incitement of illegal activities.
When the Super Genesis Wave rewrote history, the Casino Night Zone itself emerged as a permanent Zone located on Westside Island. It is now a property of Breezie the Hedgehog and her entertainment company Breeze Media.
Trivia
- It is never stated if Doctor Eggman was the architect behind the creation of the Casino Night Zone, and it is possible that the place was constructed by somebody other than him.
- Mammoth Mogul's Casino Night Club seems to be based on the place called Casinopolis (which also appears in the comics) which was an action stage from Sonic Adventure.
- The Casino Night Zone would serve as an inspiration for many other casino-themed levels throughout the series, such as the Cosmic Casino Zone in Sonic Pocket Adventure, the Casino Park in Sonic Heroes, and the Mystic Jungle in Sonic Forces. The Casino Street Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I happens to share such traits with this famous Zone (including the Crawl Badnik), but was not inspired by the Casino Night Zone itself, as stated by former SEGA former digital brand manager Ken Balough. The Zone itself would make additional appearances as a race track in Sonic Drift 2 and an arena in Sonic the Fighters. The stage would much later mark its return as a bonus DLC pinball mini-game stage for those who pre-ordered Sonic Generations for Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 or downloaded the game for Steam, and as a full complete stage in the Nintendo 3DS version.