Platformers are maybe the most iconic video game genre, be it thanks to Mario, Sonic, and the countless 2D platformers over the years. If you ask someone that knows nothing about games to describe one, they'll probably give you a rough outline of a game where you "jump, collect stuff, and run around".
Because the genre is so ubiquitous, there has of course been plenty of developers that have tried their own spins on the formula. While there's fun to be had with precision platformers like Celeste, and metroidvanias are often vastly improved by some fun movement, we hold a special place in our heart for games that de-emphasise the running, and emphasise the gunning!
10 Conker's Bad Fur Day: Live And Reloaded
We're not going to lie and act like Conker's Bad Fur Day has aged as gracefully as other N64 games like Mario 64. The combat is stiff, and the writing is not nearly as funny as you remember it being, but there is something endearing about Conker. Maybe it was just nice to see Rare branch out into more adult humour.
While there are lots of parts of Fur Day that are hard to go back to, it is made plenty more palatable by the Xbox remaster getting the 4K treatment thanks to backwards compatibility. It might not be perfect, but this foul-mouthed fuzzball blazed the trail for 3D platformers that weren't just collectathons.
9 💝 Guacamelee 🐼
Combat platformers didn't just come about in the 3D era; they have been around for decades. Games like Rygar and Turrican took 2D platforming and demanded you take a more direct approach to beating enemies than jumping on their heads or running past them. For a long time, these sorts of games disappeared, as action platformers took to the third dimension.
However, Guacamelee came roaring onto the scene in 2013 to breathe new life into 2D action platforming. It's fast, fun, and full of vibrant colour and animation. Guacamelee is a brilliant celebration of both Mexican culture and luchador wrestling. Best of all it's a great feeling platformer where you can beat the crap of the baddies.
8 ꦡ Ty The Tasmanian Tiger ﷽
This Australian-developed (and set) PS2 and Xbox platformer doesn't get enough love. Despite being nowhere as big as the Crash or Sonic franchises it was arguably a better game than most of the games coming out in those series around the same time.
The game was pretty simple; you play as the titular Tasmanian Tiger making your way through different parts of the outback collecting collectables. However, the thing that set it apart was the fun and varied boomerangs Ty had at his disposal. Whether you were burning evil lizards to a crisp with bla🍌zerangs, freezing hogs with frostyrangs, or spamming infinite machine gun-esque multirangs, Ty is a game where fighting is just as much fun as exploring.
7 ActRaiser
ActRaiser is a strange game to go back to in the modern day. This 1990 platformer didn't just focus on linear levels where you fight your way through hordes of enemies, instead between levels you would take control of a surprisingly in-depth city builder as you built out your township.
Nowadays, games that mash up vastly different genres are common, but ActRaiser managed to successfully combine two styles of games that are so different long before it was common. The best part is that if you don't love the city building the New Game Plus allows you to ignore it all together with a fully powered-up hero.
6 Contra: Hard Corps ಞ
We can't talk about combat platformers without talking about one of the most important run-and-gun series of all time. Almost any of the classic Contra games from Konami could have gone on here, but if you are looking for a game that sums up the series' hard-as-nails gameplay Hard Corps is by far the hardest.
There are certainly better games to try out if you are just getting into the series, but Hard Corps feels like the pinnacle of Konami's work. The craftsmanship in the meticulously animated 📖sprites, the brutal balancing, and the sheer amoun𒀰t of chaos going on on-screen is something to behold, as you die, over, and over, and over.
5 ⭕ Ninja Gaiden
While modern 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ninja Gaiden firmly positions itself as a stylish action series, similar to Devil May Cry, the original games were much more straightforward affairs. That's not to say that they were any lesser, these were some of the first action-focused platformers, and they still hold up today.
Some might find their lack of mechanics off-putting, but there's a simplicity and an efficient economy to everything in the game. Thankfully, other developers seem to agree as we've seen a slew of modern 2D platformers inspired by the original series, like Cyber Shadow and The Messenger.
4 Darksiders ꦚ
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Darksiders is such a weird amalgamation of ideas when you look at it on paper. An end of the world s💙tory told from the point of view of the horsemen of the apocalypse, with the dungeon-based structure of a classic Zelda game, and gameplay that combines 3D platformer and action games like Bayoneꦕtta.
With all that going on, it really shouldn't work, but it somehow pulls it off. While the sequel leans much further into being a traditional linear action game and Darksiders 3 is basically a souls-like, it is the first game, centred around War, that is still the most beloved by fans. Thanks to how it deftly runs the gamut between several genres, including action platformer, to create something wholly unique.
3 Jak And Daxter: ⛦The Precursor Legacy
These next two could easily be switched and its really down to a matter of taste, but there was a time when Sony had not one but two incredible combat platformers exclusive to its consoles. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Jak And Daxter was one of the series, created by Naughty Dog off the heels of Crash Bandicoot, and sought to refine the studio's platforming skills while incorporating combat.
As the series went on and got edgier in later entries, it leaned away from the platforming and more into PG-rated GTA-style action, including large open worlds and vehicles. However, despite that, it's the first game that many find themselves going back to because of just how tight and fun it feels.
2 Ratchet 💝And Clank: Rift Apart
Despite how good the first three Jak and Daxter games were, Naughty Dog went in a different direction over the years, pursuing the Uncharted series until it led to The Last of Us. However, the other combat platformer that started on the PS2, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ratchet and Clank, continued to grow and e🐈volve as a series over🔯 the last 20 or so years.
This all culminated with the PS5 exclusive, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Rift Apart, which felt like Insomniac taking everything it had learned from years of developing these games, and pairing it which the tech expertise it had gained working on Marvel's Spider-Man. All of this came together to create a universe-hopping, mind-bending, run-and-gun action game, where it also feels really good to just run and jump across alien planets.
1 ꦉ ✅ Dead Cells
If we think about what makes combat platformers so fun is that they feel great as they focus on action between bursts of satisfying platforming. And if that is the criteria, it's hard to think of a game that feels better to play than 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dead Cells. Having spent years in early access, i𓆉t is now one of the best-supported indie games of the last decade with constant updates and DLCs going on six years after its release.
However, all that content is only there because sprinting, clambering, and slashing your way through endless towers of torment feels so fun. It's blisteringly fast, but also easy to be good at thanks to its forgiving platforming. And at the end of the day, what feels better than kicking down a door, throwing a freeze grenade at a monster, and slicing them to ribbons with a dual-sided great sword?