Top 10 Video Game Forest and Jungle Levels

Even when there were only 151 Pokémon, it was still an intimidating number to deal with, and this forest eased us into the world of the game perfectly. The first area where you encounter other trainers, mostly bug catchers who can’t seem to grasp the idea that caterpillars aren’t ideal creatures for battle. Thus we could hone our battling skills long before we became Pokémon masters. If you play your cards right, you might even be lucky enough to get your hands on the series mascot, Pikachu.

One of the best licensed games of all time also carries one of the big locations from its source material. It’s set in Cuba, and is filled with lush plantlife and lots of guards. Unfortunately, Natalya who’s now armed can go a bit too Rambo at times and come under heavy fire from turrets. To make matters worse, you also have to deal with Xenia who comes into battle dual wielding a Grenade Launcher and high-powered assault rifle. We always associate this jungle with explosions.

Here’s an action-RPG that’s infamous for being amongst the hardest recent titles, and areas such as this one helped cement its reputation. Like most of the game, it’s dark and terrifying. Not only that, but this level has a lot of narrow passageways, making it hard to dodge enemies. You get a glimpse of the Moonlight Butterfly, only to find out later that he’s an intimating boss who you’ll have to fight in a brutal but rewarding battle.

The legendary RPG series garnered its reputation thanks in part to its ornate, enchanting environments, and this forest is no exception. When the party’s airship that crash lands in the forest and separates everyone, Zidane is left to wander through the dark and mysterious area to find everyone. Making matters worse, the forest is filled with dangerous plants due to the proliferation of the magic energy known as Mist. They don’t call it the Evil Forest for nothing you know.

The good news about this level is that it’s filled with mushrooms that’ll help you out. The bad news is that some of the mushrooms are actually enemies that can turn you into mushrooms, so be careful of those. Anyway, you’ll want all the help you can get, so of course your main goal here is to follow and recruit Geno, who you meet just as he’s taking on the living Bow and arrow known as Bowyer. He may sound silly, but it’s an extremely challenging boss to fight as he can disable buttons on your controller, what a jerk.

Jungle levels go with Donkey Kong hand in hand, and the country series makes you know that right from the start of the game. The Atmospheric music with congos that slowly build up, the reveal of Diddy Kong, the chance to take Rambi the rhino out for a spin, the level sets the mood for further levels to come very well. Plus as you reach the end of the stage, the seamless transition from day to night. It may not seem like a big deal today but in the 90’s that was huge.

While Far Cry 3 offered a beautiful and often mind bending tropical paradise to explore, fans of the original know that the foliage was at it’s thickest in the first game, literally. The 3rd level in the game, it was now that players really got to use the dense jungle setting as leafy cover to stealthily dispatched of the vicious mercenaries patrolling the island. Video games had been set in jungles before, but this was one of the first times where you felt like you were really there.

The “Forest Temple” feels more like an abandoned house than a forest, so chose Link’s home village along with the interior of his mentor The Great Deku Tree. The innocence of a magical somber forest populated with kids that never grow old clashed together with the dark cursed giant tree filled with monsters not only acts as a perfect opening, but is also a very strong foreshadowing of the game’s theme of innocence lost. It may be easy, but it’s a great opening to an amazing game.

Protagonist Nathan Drake and his mentor Sully travel through the Amazon in search of the fabled golden city, but instead they find a temple which houses clues that El Dorado is in fact a statue. If that weren’t enough excitement, they also find an abandoned U-boat in the middle of the jungle. All the while you’ve got to swing on vines across treacherous cliff faces, and to think this is only the start of the game.

Before we get to our number one, let’s take a look at some honorable mentions:


Jackson County
“The Last of Us” (2013)

Haven Forest
“Jak II” (2003)

Jungle
“X-Men Arcade” (1992)

Planet Florana
“Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal” (2004)

Welcome to the Jungle

“Crysis 3”

Taking the top spot, is the level that’s constantly changing, It’s the final world in the game before you take on Gruntilda, and it concludes your time there in memorable fashion. Most notably and the reason it takes #1, is that the level is broken up across the four seasons, and each season drastically changes up the landscape. And throughout what is supposed to be the span of a year, you raise an Eagle from infancy to adulthood, save a beaver from the chills of winter, and explore the constantly changing level as snow and leaves build up. Now that’s clever level design.

Do you agree with our list? Which video game forest or jungle did you want to explore further? For more scenic top 10s published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.