During the seventh generation of games consoles (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii), there was a resurgence in the amount of platformers (particularly 2D platformers) being made. This probably started at around the time Braid and Bionic Commando: Rearmed came out on the Xbox Live Arcade, and were actually quite big hits. Nowadays, we can get a platformer from Steam, Xbox Live or the PlayStation Store easily because there are quite a lot to choose from, but back then it was slightly different.
Because of this resurgence, the seventh gen actually had quite a lot of very good platformers, and this list compiles my favourite ten. There are probably some platformers I
haven't played, but I've played most of the popular ones and quite a
few lesser known ones too. But obviously the ones I haven't played
(or haven't played a lot of) won't be on this list.
Also, my definition of a seventh generation game, as opposed to an eighth generation game,
is that any game coming out before 2014 that isn't exclusive to an eighth gen console is a seventh gen game. Also, any game released on
both a seventh and eighth generation console is a seventh gen game.
With that out of the way, here's the
list!
10
Rayman Origins
Rayman is a series that means quite a
lot to me. Not only was the original Rayman the first game I ever
played, but it's also my favourite game of all
time. While Rayman Origins isn't anywhere near as good as the
original Rayman, it's a very good platformer in it's own right.
It's a 2D platformer which features a
hand drawn cartoony art style, the characters all look quite goofy
and interesting and the level backgrounds are often amazing.
Although from a gameplay point of view
this game doesn't really do very much new, it's still fun. You
basically go through the levels trying to reach the end goal.
Scattered through the levels are various collectibles such as
Electoons and Lums. The Electoons are the main collectible, used to
open later levels, and Lums are used for bonus Electoons at the end
of each level. There's also a timed mode which has you speedrun
sections of each level for yet more bonus Electoons. There are also
levels which force you to keep running and complete the level without
stopping and without taking any hits, these levels are particularly
fun to play and actually end up getting quite intense.
The fun-factor is probably helped by
the fact that it has a multiplayer co-op mode so you can play it with
friends. But even single player it's still fun.
It's fairly easy, and it's actually a
little bit too long in my opinion (it does get slightly repetitive
towards the end), and I hate how many mosquito levels there are. But
aside from a few flaws, it's a fun game that keeps things simple.
It's also one of the only two games on the list that's published by a AAA game studio.
The reason Rayman Legends isn't here,
is because I haven't played a lot of it. But from what I have played, it
does appear to be a superior sequel to Rayman Origins.
9
Shovel Knight
A lot of people would probably rank
this a lot higher, but personally, although I do like it, I don't
think it's as good as any of the games higher on the list. That isn't
to say it isn't really good though because it is. It's very good.
Shovel Knight is a retro inspired 2D
platformer. It features a pixelly art style and an NES era inspired
soundtrack. The whole game is NES inspired, taking elements from Mega
Man, Duck Tales and many others but also adding it's own unique
flavours into the mix.
Being inspired so heavily from NES era
platformers, this game is hard. Not the most brutal game on this list
by any means, but it is hard. Having said that, it's also very fun.
You attack enemies primarily by using your shovel. You can
do a standard attack, hitting whatever is in front of you, but the
main attack is a shovel jump, which you can use to bounce across
enemies and navigate your way through the tougher
platforming sections.
You also upgrade your shovel and armor,
learn new magic spells, gain new items and generally get better at
playing the game, which all gives you a nice sense of progression.
It's even got a physical version on Wii
U, 3DS and PS4. In fact, it even has it's own Amiibo figure for use
on the Nintendo consoles, which goes to show how highly regarded
this game is. As far as I'm aware, no other third party characters
have an Amiibo, and for a indie game character to be the first to get
one is a testament to this games popularity. And it's popular for
good reason.
8
LittleBigPlanet
The second of the two games on this
list that were published by a AAA studio. Released in a year filled with
gritty games like Call of Duty: World at War, Fallout 3, Dead Space
and Grand Theft Auto IV, along came LittleBigPlanet and it was
refreshing. It wasn't often you saw a AAA publisher bring out a
platformer (besides Nintendo obviously), and a very good platformer
at that.
LittleBigPlanet featured
photorealistic graphics with an arts and crafts feel to it. All the levels felt hand made in a way that's difficult to describe without playing it for yourself, and this is a theme that was obviously chosen on purpose and makes sense with the unique aspect of the game, but more on that later.
You play
as a boy made of wool called Sack Boy and you
navigate your way around levels with a very minimalistic control
scheme, using the control stick to move and two buttons to jump and grab, and that's it. This makes the game accessible to anyone of any age.
The story was kept to a minimum, but it was basically about trying to stop the bad guy (The
Collector) from keeping the worlds creations to himself.
The story and the art style sets up the main unique point
of the game. You can build and share your own levels via the
internet, to anyone in the world. The building mechanics were simple
to learn the basics of, making them accessible, but upon mastering
it, it could be used to make insanely complex levels. You can also
play anyone's levels, meaning that the game is pretty much never
ending and won't run out of content.
You can also customise the way Sack Boy
looks, giving him a different material, different shirt, shoes, hats,
eyes, etc. This, and the fact you can control the Sack Boy's
expressions and move his arms, which allows him to articulate himself, adds so, so much charm to a game that would have been already
overflowing with charm.
The base
game, even without all of the user created content, is still really
fun and completing it 100% can actually be quite challenging. It's
also multiplayer, both locally and online, making it a blast to play
with friends too.
I personally feel that the later games
in the series became a little bit too complicated, adding too much and making it slightly less pure than the first game.
With the third game in the main series especially, the
formula started to get a little bit old and samey. But that
doesn't stop the first game from being on the list.
7
Super Meat Boy
Okay, so the odds are you've heard of
this one. Not only is it a very successful Xbox Live Arcade game, but
it's also now out on PC and PS4 (it even has a physical version on
PC). Not only that but there's also a documentary (a very good
documentary) called Indie Game: The Movie which largely focuses on the creation of it.
Super Meat Boy is a hardcore platformer
which is about Meat Boy, trying to rescue his girlfriend, Bandage
Girl, from the evil Dr. Fetus. As with a lot of games on this list,
it doesn't have much of a story, but that's okay. It's all about the
gameplay.
Speaking of which, the gameplay is truly amazing. This is mostly down to the level designs and the controls being so responsive and minimal. You can
run, wall jump and... Well, that's about it. Sounds simple enough,
but where the games difficulty lies is in its level designs. You're
going to die a hell of a lot. But when you get through that level
you've been stuck on for hours, there's no better feeling.
I've actually done a review on the PS4
version of Super Meat Boy, so if you're interested, you can take a
look at that here:
6
140
This is one I don't see mentioned very
often, but it's one I feel deserves more attention because it's
really good. It's a 2D minimalist platformer where you control a
square who has to navigate it's way around obstacles which move to
the beat of the background music. As you progress through the level
the beat intensifies and the level obstacles
change to match this. Each level's colour scheme also changes at every checkpoint, meaning that even though the game is minimalistic, it never looks boring.
Where the game really shines is
in it's boss battles. There are three stages and at the end of each
is a completely unique boss battle, often with a different control
scheme and style to the main game. All the boss battles utilise the background
music in some form, one uses it to indicate when you fire a laser,
one indicates when the boss moves and the final one uses it to twist
you and then fire a laser (which may seem similar to the first boss
from my description, but trust me, it's very different). I really
can't overstate how good the bosses are in this game, the second and
third inparticular are extremely fun and challenging and the music
gets you really pumped up.
It's a very short game. But it's also
very cheap and very very good. If your a fan of platformers
(especially challenging ones) and haven't heard of it, you'll love
it.
5
Rogue Legacy
Being a rouge-like (a game in
which you crawl through dungeons, in which the layout changes after
each death and often features 'perma-death' which means when your
character dies, it's back to the start of the game), this game is
quite difficult. The bosses and later areas in-particular are very
hard and take quite a few deaths to learn the enemy attack patterns and about the different traps in each area, and
even when you know what to do, actually doing it is often difficult.
After each death you
have the ability to level a certain skill up, which makes your
character better at a certain thing (like having more health, doing
more damage with magic, etc), meaning you can somewhat customise your
character to your play style. This also means that if you're finding
a particular section or boss hard, you can level up by finding gold
and defeating enemies, and come back later.
Through exploring, you can also find
new weapons, armor and abilities which are all pretty much essential
for getting through the game in one piece.
This is a challenging game, but it's
also very fun with some very tough platforming involved. There's a
good sense of progression and achievement when you begin breezing
through the earlier sections of the game after struggling at the
start of your playthrough. Although it's hard, it never gets too difficult, it's challenging but not frustrating.
It's also a very charming game. Each
character (every time you die, you are technically playing as a new
character, although they share the same base stats), has a couple of
unique attributes. Sometimes these are important gameplay mechanics,
like what the character's class is. But sometimes it's something like baldness, which doesn't affect the gameplay at all, it
just changes the one loading screen in the game into a 'balding' screen. There are many more of these attributes in the game too. It's a nice
little extra that gives the game a lot of charm.
4
Spelunky
Spelunky is an amazing 2D platformer.
This is yet another rouge-like game and as such, it's quite difficult.
Whereas Rouge Legacy lets you carry across items and experience from
previous attempts, Spelunky is more harsh but also more of a pure
platformer. There are no level ups and no items you keep after a
death. The only way you're going to beat this game is by getting
better at it. But it's also very accessible and fun. The visual
style is cartoony and child-like, but with a hint of adult visuals
thrown in too (like blood pouring out of you when you when you die), but it never becomes so gruesome that a young person couldn't play.
Where this game shines is in
it's multiplayer. You and up to 3 other friends can try and get
through the treacherous caves together in a co-op mode, or play the
competitive mode if you're that way inclined. It isn't online multiplayer, but to be honest, I like playing multiplayer games in the same room as people anyway. Still it is slightly disappointing that an online feature is absent. The competitive mode is
fun, but the co-op is where the meat of the game is. Having said that, the game is still extremely fun on single player too.
It doesn't have much of a story, but
the visuals, multi-player, level of fun, challenge and music (my
god, the music is amazing) will keep you coming back for more.
Also it's chock-full of secrets to keep
you playing even after completion of the main game.
3
Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty!
This is the only game on the list where
it's really debatable as to whether it's a seventh or eighth
generation game, but it's on last gen consoles as well as current
gen, which makes the line a bit blurry. For the sake of this list,
let's call it seventh gen.
This is a complete remake (not a
remaster, but a complete, from the ground up remake) of one of my
favourite games of all time; Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. So of course, the remake is going to be high up on my list.
New 'n' Tasty is a 2.5D cinematic
platformer featuring a blue humanoid character (a Mudokon) called
Abe. He learns that Rupture Farms, the factory he works for, (well,
he's really a slave) is planning to kill him and all other Mudokons
for their new food product. So we follow his quest to escape from
Rupture Farms and rescue his friends.
Where this game shines is in it's
personality, level design, universe and story. The puzzles are fantastic and often involve you figuring out how to rescue your friends without killing them or yourself in the process. It's also filled with secrets that add a lot of replayability. The way the characters look and the way they all have
their own unique traits that affect the gameplay is amazing and keeps
things very varied and forces you to think about how certain creatures behave in order to solve the
more difficult puzzles.
The game isn't the best looking on this list by any means, but it looks good, and is also very varied visually, it goes from an industrial theme, to a forest, to a desert and more. The music is also very good with quite a lot of it being ambient, making the parts with more obvious music, all the more effective.
One thing I would recommend though, is changing the control settings in the options menu to more closely resemble the original game's controls. I didn't like how the analogue stick was moved slightly to make Abe walk and moved all the way to make him run. Having a run button is so much better.
2
Journey
It's debatable as to whether or not
Journey is a platformer. It's probably considered more of an action/adventure game, but I don't really like that genre, it's too vague. Regardless of what your opinion is, it certainly has platforming elements, and a
lot of the time it has a large emphasis on these elements too. It's by no means a 100% pure platformer, but because of that large emphasis on platforming, it's on this list (also, without Journey, the list would have no 3D platformers at all).
Journey follows the story of a unnamed
red cloaked humanoid being, as it travels across harsh terrain in
order to get to the top of a mountain. You'll go through deserts,
underground ruins, the snowy mountain tops and more. Visually this
game is incredible, the way the sand glistens and moves as you step
on it, the way the character pushes itself through the bright white
snow leaving a trail behind, it really is a treat.
The award winning
music is also incredible and helps every single part of the game feel
different, you'll go from being confident, scared, desperate and
hopeful because of the way the game combines music and visuals into one experience.
Journey is also
very fun and varied, featuring fast paced segments, stealth sections
and traditional platforming areas, you'll want to keep playing
this until the end for sure. I recommend this game very very highly.
It's short, but there's no section of the game that's boring. It's amazing from start to finish and is an absolute must play. It's probably better to just play it rather than read too much about it, so I'll stop talking about it now!
1
LIMBO
LIMBO is a black and white 2D cinematic
platformer created by a small indie team called PlayDead. They are
currently making a game called Inside which looks to be similar in
tone to LIMBO (Inside was also at the top of my list of most
anticipated upcoming platformers).
The story of LIMBO is very minimal
and even the description for the game is vague, it simply states;
“Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters LIMBO” and that
line is as much story as you are going to get handed out to you.
But the story being minimal and vague
is by no means a bad thing, it keeps the player paying attention to
small details and coming up with their own theories as to what's
happening, which I really appreciate.
The game itself is also
minimal, both visually and from a gameplay point of view. The only
controls are to move, jump and grab, (similar to LittleBigPlanet) but mastering all three of those
aspects are required to solve some of the later platforming segments
and physics based puzzles.
Where some of the platformers on this list focus too much on puzzles or too much on platforming, LIMBO gets the balance perfect. It has some really memorable platforming sequences that have you on the edge of your seat, but it also has some head scratching puzzles too (but the puzzles aren't too hard to complete either, most of the time the answer is right in front of you, but may not be obvious straight away).
Even though the game is black and white, it still manages to be visually varied. This is because of the different areas you go to and also just how detailed the areas you visit are, it never makes you lose interest.
The character designs are creepy and disturbing, while also sometimes being strangely cute. The soundtrack will keep you on edge throughout, the quiet ambient sections are very atmospheric and give a sense of impending doom, while the louder sections keep you in suspense and aren't jarring in comparison to the quieter sections. Because of the atmosphere created in this game, it's on the verge of being a horror game in my opinion.
LIMBO is creepy, atmospheric, fun,
rewarding and I would recommend it to anyone who hasn't played it
already.
It also has a physical version on PC that comes with some retro 3D glasses to play the game in 3D. Gimmicky, but cool!
Before I end
the article I would like to give a special mention to a few games that didn't quite make the list. Firstly, Sonic
Generations, which is a really fun throwback to the older Sonic games and features levels from the old games remade in the 3D style from Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colours. Secondly, Braid, which features some very good puzzles that will get you really
thinking, and unlike most games on the list, actually has a really
good story, with a plot twist that actually left me quite shocked. Then finally, Super Mario Galaxy, which to be honest, I do think is
slightly over-hyped (I've not played Galaxy 2 though), but it's still
a really good 3D platformer. It just doesn't do very much that hasn't been done before and the controls can be slightly awkward.
That wraps up my Top 10 Best Platformers of the 7th Generation list! I would like to know some of your favourites! If you have any to recommend that aren't on the list I would be grateful and I'll probably check them out, but either way, I hope you've enjoyed reading my list! Let me know if you agree or disagree with my choices or if you have suggestions in the comments section below!
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