Top 50 Hub Worlds: What's all the Hubbub?

[Issun]

I want to play Psychonauts but then I remember everything I've heard about the Meat Circus and I get scurred.

 

[Kalista]

The Meat Circus is bad, but (a) several parts of it that seem miserable can be trivialized if you exercise some of your littlest-used powers; (b) it's an end-of-game level, there's lots of delightful play to enjoy before you ever see it.

 

[Adrenaline]

Even if the Meat Circus was the worst level of all time I would say you should play Psychonauts.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Hey everybody. I asked Baudshaw if he was able to continue and he said

Yeah, I'm certainly not excited to do this anymore. I think the worst part is that it feels like work to do. I'd like for the list to be put on hold indefinitely, but if anyone would like to continue it without me, I can send the spreadsheet and they can do so.

Hey, I understand. It can be a time consuming bit of business. So would anyone like to pick up the baton and finish the list? I'm willing to but note I also will be hosting a list AFTER this one so... that's a lot. Not that I can't do it but I would love it if anyone wanted to do it for me (I contributed but I feel like there are people more into games who can do a better job with the topic.)

 

[WildcatJF]

You know, I'm in a good place at the moment to attempt continuing this list...but you all know how I do, so it'll not be the FASTEST. But I'll certainly give the top 20 a strong effort!

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Sounds good to me @WildcatJF , send @Baudshaw a missive and he can send you the data!

 

[Issun]

A new challenger appears!

 

[Daikaiju]

I can sympathize. Just doing the wildly popular Dome Thunderdome ate up a lot of my energy.

 

[Issun]

Yeah, even the bare minimum on these things is hard work for 50 entries, and I've not known anyone who's run a list yet to just do the bare minimum.

 

[WildcatJF]

As a FYI, Lokii will be taking this on instead of me as he had expressed interest to Johnny off thread. Please join me in looking forward to it!

Also, big thanks to Baudshaw for getting the list this far!

 

[Lokii]

Heyo all, yes WC and I volunteered independently and he was gracious enough to let me take the helm. I promise not to steer us wrong—oh god! We've hit a reef! The ship's going down!!!

Nominated by: @Johnny Unusual (16), @RT-55J (5), @Lokii (18), @Beta Metroid (17)


Good thing this island was here or this Top Hubs list would be a top blubs list. Timber's Island of course is the island owned by Timber, Diddy Kong's best friend tiger pal apparently. It's protected by a mystical genie and coveted by a wizardly pig. Why, you might ask? Look are you going to ask silly questions all day or are you going to race some go-karts? Diddy Klong Racing took the kart racer formula established by Mario Kart 64 and the 3D exploration established by Mario 64 and jammed them together in a delightful PB&J sandwich of a title. Round and about Timber's Isle are raceways to discover and unlock, trials to undertake, doodads to hoover up. Applying the hub formula to this kind of game invests it with an adventuresome spirit that elevates it above the bland nonsense of its story. Plus its just a fun place to motor around on. Vroom vroom.

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Nominated by: @Torzelbaum (4), @Kirin (23), @JBear (19), @spines (8)

Tristram is the sad sack village at the heart of Diablo. A tumble-down, depressing shanty town of a hub, and yet it exudes a certain allure, a nostalgic quality that endows it with significance. As Baudshaw would say, my familiarity with this place is 0/10. I've never Diabed a 'Lo. So I reached out to @Bulgakov for the rundown. He writes:

"Tristram is the platonic ideal of the medieval town that's gone to shit because of A Problem. Yeah there's a history but let's be honest did you really need it or do you want to go click on skeletons and watch them die? Tristram had everything a good dungeon crawl needed and nothing more: An obviously dilapidated church that's the source of The Problem, a guy who buys and sells armor and will repair it all too instantaneously, a guy who sells potions, a lady who sells magic, an old guy with a lot of Lore, and a peg-legged kid that's supposed to illicit your sympathy but also be cheeky because why would a kid ever live in a place like this voluntarily? Hell why is anyone still there? Griswold must be making bank to justify just hanging out in this pathetic shadow of a place. Importantly, Tristram had a few random NPC fetch quests that were triggered based on the seed of the dungeon, which meant you occasionally had to search the places you don't normally go on your stops through the town. Just enough spice to keep you coming back.

Built in the heady days when a game didn't need all that stuff like mind-blowing cinematics and integrated environmental storytelling and characters who said more than one catchphrase, we all got used to ignoring huge lore dumps after Deckard Cain implored us to "Stay awhile and listen..." even though all we really wanted him to do was identify the loot so we could figure out if it had better stats than the loot we were using at the time. Despite frequently rushing through the town on a mission to get back to our body or empty ourselves of vendor trash, though, Tristam still became an emblem of what it was: a sanctuary from the constant left click of the mouse that defined the rest of the game.

Also there was a cow level, and it was glorious."

I can't speak to all of that, but I can state the real appeal of the place are the immaculate vibes cast by one "Tristam," which indeed is the video game music of all time.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Diddly Kong Racing is such a weird game. It reminds me of whenever they try to give Robin his own major villain and the only thinks that they come up with are a guy with an angry shirt.

I mean, the Donkey Kong Country Games even shoved Diddy out the door in game 3 (it's an odd franchise, casting-wise). Rare was a great game design company but everything about this game feels like it shouldn't work. Diddy's new cast is completely generic animal friends. It feels like the Mario Kart we have at home, except from WITHIN NINTENDO. And yet it was a surprisingly fun, playable game. Yeah, it helped that planes were also involved but I feel like Rare was still in the zone that even if the window dressing was less-than-inspired, the game play is strong and a racing game with an explorable world is a truly unique idea.

Also T.T. looks eerily like the coin this insane crypto proposal ad mixed with this TV from a Canadian PSA.

 

[RT-55J]

I'm confused. I thought Tristam was a party member in Final Fantasy USA: Mystic Quest Legend?? What gives???

Also, it sure feels weird for Timber's Island to be in some sort of vague peril, but for Timber himself to also race against Diddy Kong to prevent him from fixing the issue. Perhaps there's more wrong with this island than a simple pigzard who's a wiz...

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Also, it sure feels weird for Timber's Island to be in some sort of vague peril, but for Timber himself to also race against Diddy Kong to prevent him from fixing the issue.

Welcome to America Timber's Island

 

[Adrenaline]

The Tristram music does something to me

 

[Daikaiju]

I got the Twelve Stringed Guitar toy in WoW specifically because the Tristram music.

 

[Falselogic]

The theme for Tristram... Shivers down my spine to this day. Just an iconic piece. And the town itself is a good hub that changes as the hero descends below the church.

 

[Lokii]

Nominated by: @Issun (2), @JBear (13), @Aurelia (1), @Patrick (5), @Lokii (3)

A key feature of any worthwhile hub is ambiance and Majula is absolutely oozing with the stuff. Dark Souls II takes place in Drangleic, a place besotted with a plague of forgetting. Doomed to repeat the same cycle of rise of kingdom and fall of curse its become a palimpsest scrapped and rewritten so many times that only frayed and tattered paper remains. Majula embodies this quality with its somber, melancholy sense of something like nostalgia. Perhaps the site of a great migration, perhaps a simple fishing hamlet, perhaps the very keep on the boarderlands: it was a place of note, once, that much is clear. But now only its name remains; that and the long rays of the setting sun, the lapping of the waves, the ever present chimes.

And a talking cat.

~
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Nominated by: @Issun (19), @Falselogic (21), @Aurelia (5), @Patrick (6)

The Hunter's Dream might be the most impersonal hub in From's catalog. It leads nowhere and can't be access from any location (travel is relegated to menus). No NPCs come to populate it over time. It's inhabited only by mute messengers, a mysterious level-lady, an imbecilic old man; and lacks the quests and dialogs that fuel a From hub. Mostly it's a practical place: a safe haven to level up, equip some gems, and buy blood vial after bloody blood vial.

But then comes that marvelous moment when, down in a dusty and forgotten corner of Yharnam's depths, you come across its counterpart and something about the nature of dreams and hunters and dolls clicks into place. And the insight you gain might lead you on a path to Rom, and Micolach, and Mergo, and a new childhood, beyond.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I was adding these to the masterlist and I have a question... what's #20?

 

[Lokii]

Ah well you know with spreadsheets and so on it appears everything got shifted by one. 20 was Camp Whispering Rock. The actual #50 was the Normandy from Mass Effects.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

 

[Torzelbaum]

the town itself is a good hub that changes as the hero descends below the church.

This was part of why I added it to my list. I'm trying to remember if the 'shortcuts' to deeper in the dungeon appear in logical places in Tristram or not. It's been so very long since I've played Diablo that my only memory is that they existed.

 

[Aurelia]

Majula is such a cool hub world. Thank you for reminding me I submitted it as #1 lol

 

[Violentvixen]

The actual #50 was the Normandy from Mass Effects.

Aww I'm sad we missed that one. Great hub and one of my votes.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Aww I'm sad we missed that one. Great hub and one of my votes.

Same. It's been so long since I played it so the actual city hubworld didn't come to mind but I strongly remember the intimate crew interactions on the ship.

 

[Baudshaw]

Yeah, let's just say the first place somehow duplicated itself on the list

But thanks for sticking with me and continuing this list! Y'all are doing great so far

 

[JBear]

This is a fun pairing of hubs that I'm sure I'd enjoy a lot more if Bloodborne was ever released on a platform that people actually own. I'd sure like to play that game someday, Fromsoft!

Loki did a great job of articulating why Majula is so atmospherically compelling, but I also enjoy it more basically (because I'm basic) as a big fun sandbox full of weirdos. Like, I know that every Fromsoft hub is full of weirdos, but this one has a trio of boars that are so tiny and hard to hit that they eat noobs for breakfast, a weird giant hole in the ground that you can fall into and die (and maybe not???), a giant monument that counts global player deaths, and yes, a talking cat. It's just so distinctive that it really stands out in my memory, and I have the memory of a goldfish.

 

[Issun]

Majula is so atmospheric and I love that music.

 

[Lokii]

Nominated by: @Falselogic (9), @JBear (4), @Dr. Nerd (1)

Sigil, or "The City of a Grazillion Doors" as the locals call it, is a big ol' donut. It resides someplace and connects to everywhere else. It's the central hub of the metaphysical planes that make up Dungeon's and Dragon's strange cosmology and mostly exists as a campaign setting for all the truly weird and wild DND crap that doesn't gel so easily with your classic knight bard 'n elf escapades. It's a big old melting pot of strange classes, obscure cults, monster men and modrons; the kind of place where a handsome young frankenstein caveman can fall in love with a sexy tiefling or eternally burning corpse. Sigil makes up the first major section of Planescape's Torment where the nameless protagonist has the funny feeling he's seen all this before. Me too, because I've attempted the game half a dozen times yet never found my way out of this twisty torus.

~

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Nominated by: @Daikaiju (8), @Issun (12), @Dr. Nerd (15), @Beta Metroid (4)

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Rogueport, the seedy slum Princess Peach considered an appropriate place for a vacation and secret home to the fabulous Thousand-Year Door. Populated almost entirely with thieves and crooks its a far cry from your typical Mario setting. This gives the game something of its adventuresome or dare I say roguish quality. Aside from a dutiful jaunt through the traditional Petal Meadows, PM:TTTTD doesn't really trade in conventual area themes. Rogueport included. Not only a rough and ready pirate town, it also hides a whole secret labyrinth just below the surface composed out of the ruins of a legendary kingdom and inhabited with outsiders too fringe for even the alleyways above. It's a memorable place, and not just because its scummy streets are where Mario first meets his co-ed girlfriend. Talk about a meet-cute!

 

[Kirin]

Huh, I guess I'm pretty out of the D&D loop, because I'd never heard of Sigil, and instead had a vote down on my list for the entire Astral Plane, as I had vague memories of that being what you had to travel through to get to various Elsewheres back in the day. Calling an entire plane a hub*world* though is admittedly a bit of a stretch and it looks like this Sigil place fits the bill much better.