Best Heat / Lava stages

[Coptur]

Many games seem to be designed where there's a water level, an ice level and a fire level. It just got me thinking, I could probably name 50 water and ice stages that immediately come to mind. But I could actually only think of a few heat themed stages. Maybe I'm just having a brain fart. The one's I thought of are

Fire Man - Mega Man 1
Heat Man - Mega Man 2
Fire Temple - Zelda Ocarina of Time

Keeping to retro games only, what are some or the best (or worst) fire stages you can recall. What was cool about them?

[FoxNtd]

Sonic & Knuckles - Lava Reef Zone

No explanation needed...

[o.pwuaioc]

There's Lethal Lava Land in Super Mario 64, and Super Mario World's Vanilla Dome World has lava. Square likes them too, with the underground with lava in Final Fantasy IV, a fire temple in Secret of Mana, Lava Dome in Mystic Quest, and of course Mount Gulg. Soul Blazer also had a fire temple. Samus Aran needed a special suit for Norfair in Metroid/Super Metroid.

After typing that out, I remembered that Google exists, and found this: http://www.giantbomb.com/lava/93-220/

Apparently that's all lava and not just lava stages, because they included Turtle Rock in LttP, even though it's not a lava stage properly.

I like the concept of lava as opposed to ice levels, and I'm thankful that movement isn't impeded like slipping on ice!

[joshnickerson]

I kinda liked the Solar stage in Star Fox 64, where you had to keep a high altitude throughout the stage to prevent your shields from being damaged by the heat.

[o.pwuaioc]

Derp, how can I forget the Gradius series, too? Gradius III's Fire Stage is one of the coolest looking stages of any 16-bit hori shmup.

[InsaneDavid]

Second stage of Galaxy Force II, hands down.

[RCM]

I kinda liked the Solar stage in Star Fox 64, where you had to keep a high altitude throughout the stage to prevent your shields from being damaged by the heat.

I second this.