What's the best platformer of all time? And why?

Having a borad audience doesn't mean quality. If that was true New Moon would be up for an Acadamy Award.

Not saying Mario 1 wasn't a great game, I'd REALLY be an asshole if I did. But I do think that it is far too simple in design and not really the feat that Zelda was in it's leap over Adventure or epic in scope like Metriod was.

That was recitfied in the Lost levels/Japanese Mario 2 however.

 

You are right, allthough if best would be qualified by complexity/design then current gen games would win, old games would have no chance.
But if applied by point in time I guess Mario64 was revolutionairy, complex in control/design and had the numbers in fanbase.

Also im just ranting here don't take me too serious, but if New Moon really attracts so much audiance maybe it should be up for the acadamy awards. Twilight won all youth awards (mtv and such) while most movies that do get an academy award are usually for older sophisticated audiance that understand it's complexity and usually not liked by the youger audiance.
Don't get me wrong I'm not a fan, my girlfriend is and the AW for twilight was just a joke.

But games (especially Mario) are made for a younger audiance as Twilight is also, so is it about complexity/design that defines best here or about what attracts most gamers?: plain old fun? or a combination of both? otherwise we are rating this from a serious old man's eyes like the AW.

 

Everything you wrote is 100% true - Mario 1 (and 2 which is pretty much an expansion pack) stands alone. I still gave my vote to Mario 3 though because of the way it expanded on the formula and mechanics while staying true to the spirit of the original. For me, that's the game where all the modern elements of "The Archetypal Platformer" came together.

Maybe because we've all been playing it for a zillion years by now, and it's all second nature to us ;-)

 

You have a point I remember it was 2 years before I even passed 1-1

Now if we are talking about revolutionary games Mario 1 would get first place (or maybe not)

Modern games however just can't seem to get a good concept of level design Ninja Gaiden 2 was the last game I remember having good level design of modern era games.

Mario 1 is even less revolutionary when you realize that Excitebike actually predates it by a year and did a ton more for gaming (Saves/edit mode ect) than Mario 1 did.

Legend of Kage and Pac Land also predate Mario.

I know we don't play either on a regular Basis (we should however play more legend of Kage)

So inspite there are games that do more than Mario did that predate it why do we reguard it so highly?

I'll counter the Fairy tale demonstation with a life metaphor. We spend our lives looking for something traversing obsticles we get to that castle only to learn what we are looking for is "In another Castle" but if we keep going we my find what it is we are looking for.

You know if we're getting all philosophical and shit.

 

Port187, I'm 20, going on 21. While Mario Galaxy might not have been a revolution in platforming, I really do think it has been a pinnacle of the genre, especially when we just look at those done in 3D. The learning curve is great; I found it a lot less annoying than a lot of 3d platformer (throw the control at the wall sort of frustration, a la Mario Sunshine). I dont think a good game frustrates people. They are there to be enjoyed.

It is hard to choose just one platformer, really. I think Mario 64 is great, but it doesnt hold a special place in my heart. Why? I didn't grow up with Mario. I'm in England and I grew up with Sonic. It seems America has a huge love for Mario, among other characters and franchises such as Mega Man, Contra, Castlevania, to name a couple off the top of my head. The nES didnt really have such an effect here- I think Sega prevailed a lot in the 8-bit and 16-bit days.

To clarify my list of top platformers.. . Super Mario World, Super Mario World 2. Sonic 2, 3, Knuckles. Does Spyro 2 count? That fucking rocked hardcore. Wario Land 3. Mario Sunshine to a lesser degree. Mario Galaxy. I had fun with Mario 64 but it did annoy me. Thats not to say its not a classic- it is. Sonic Adventure 2. Banjo Kazooie, Conkers Bad Fur Day.. It is possible I have missed more than a few.

But yes. The ones that hold that special place in my heart are Sonic 3/Knuckles, and Mario Galaxy. Fond memories for games that were simply great fun for me.

 

I keep going back to Mountain King. Historians always look to Mario, Sonic, or Pac-Land when they talk about the origin of scrolling platform games, but they always miss Mountain King because of its brutal difficulty. Gather diamonds from the mine, follow the music to the mystic flame, walk through the magic door, steal the crown and get it to the summit before one of the baddies steals it from you.

I remember the game vividly as one of the first games that emphasized sound over graphics. The Atari 2600 already had a limited palette, so the whole game was essentially played in black and white. But it was brilliant the way the music was used to guide you to the MacGuffin thing that you had to collect, and then again in the last part of the game to raise the tension.

 

My favourites are:SMB1,SMB3,SMW,SM64,Kanjo-kazooie, Donkey kong 64

i didnt list Banjo-tooie because i didnt like that game as uch as the original B-K

 

I'd say:
[arcade] Donkey Kong: first platformer ever with moving platforms I think.
[arcade] Pac-Land: multi-speed running and backtracking the same level.
[famicom] Super Mario Bros. 3: because of great level design and power ups to introduce new character abilities.

I also have fond memories of Impossible Mission and Pitfall II on the C64. But they didn't age too well.

 

This kinda depends on the platform you're playing it on. Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario 64 are my favorite console games. But I also enjoyed Wario Land II on the Gameboy.

 

I'd second that :nod:

 

Platformers describe alot of my favorite games. Since no one has mentioned it yet, Ninja Gaiden was an awesome platformer. NG2 was really sweet as well. NG3 was alright. Either way it deserves some recognition for being an action platformer that actually bothered to put alot of effort into story telling.

But that's just one of many awesome platformers. Mega Man is an obvious big name in platforming.

 

Megaman 2 made me into a video game fan for life.

 

There are just waaaaaaaay too many great 2D platformers to be able to pick just one as the best: SMB3, SMW, Sonic 2, Mega Man 2, Super Metroid (if it counts)...

However, there haven't been that many great 3D platformers IMO. The genre got kinda ruined when it became 3D for many reasons (like the camera, which most companies apparently found too hard to do right). I don't know how I could pick anything other than Mario 64. The only game that comes even close to that level is Galaxy.

 

The platformer I've most enjoyed is Abe's Oddysee, thanks to its puzzles, length and design. The Donkey Kong Country saga and Sonic 2 are there on the top too.

 

Superfrog on the Amiga.

 

I find it odd how you place DK64 higher than BT. BT was an enormous game, like DK64, but actually had a lot of variety. I agree to it being different to BK, but that's fine, it was a worthy sequel unlike the recent offshoot Nuts n Bolts.

 

I never played it! Did you ever check out the other Team17 platformer?..

 

This. Mega Man 2 had beautiful sprites and levels, creative bosses, weapons that could actually be used BEFORE a boss battle (Metal Blades FTW!), and absolutely perfect controls makes this an easy choice for me.

I started collecting NES games to see if I could find obscure games, mostly platformers, that could compare to MM2. I found plenty of great games that I had missed (Power Blade, Panic Restaurant, Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu, etc.), but having finished my entire NTSC licensed set, I never did find anything better.

 

I would say Miner 2049r as that was the first non arcade conversion platformer available for home computers (apparenlty atari released donkey kong before big 5 released miner 2049r)

And it inspired a similarly famous platformer, manic miner/jet set willy (as Matthew smith who coded manic miner said that he was influenced by miner 2049r)

 

I'm gonna throw out some obscure ones:

Fixed Screen: Diet Go Go, Gussun Paradise
Scrolling: Little Ralph is about the only one I can see myself playing a lot multiple times.