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Discussion What is the greatest 2D platformer of all time?

What is the greatest 2D platformer of all time?

  • Super Mario Bros. 3

    Votes: 17 9.1%

  • Mega Man 2

    Votes: 1 0.5%

  • Super Mario World

    Votes: 32 17.1%

  • Mega Man X

    Votes: 1 0.5%

  • Super Metroid

    Votes: 11 5.9%

  • Sonic 3 & Knuckles

    Votes: 9 4.8%

  • Yoshi's Island

    Votes: 15 8.0%

  • Donkey Kong Country 2

    Votes: 13 7.0%

  • Symphony of the Night

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Wario Land 4

    Votes: 3 1.6%

  • Super Meat Boy

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Rayman Origins

    Votes: 1 0.5%

  • Rayman Legends

    Votes: 4 2.1%

  • Tropical Freeze

    Votes: 49 26.2%

  • Hollow Knight

    Votes: 5 2.7%

  • Sonic Mania

    Votes: 4 2.1%

  • Cuphead

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Celeste

    Votes: 12 6.4%

  • Pizza Tower

    Votes: 3 1.6%

  • Other

    Votes: 7 3.7%
  • Total voters
    187
Stilt Village

Stilt Village

GBA
This isn't really an "in the lead-up to Mario Wonder" thing, I was just curious how Famiboards would vote. I think I got everything that could realistically win and then some, but I couldn't make the poll entries go on forever however much I wanted to include some games, so smash that Other button and leave a comment below if you have a cooler choice, like Rondo of Blood, or a lamer choice, like Chibi-Robo Zip Lash.

Also, yes, Metroidvanias are platformers, do you call Banjo-Kazooie an adventure game or something? I briefly considered leaving them off altogether because I knew they'd lose votes solely for this reason, but fuck it, we ball.
 
If we’re counting Super Metroid, Symphony of the Night etc., everything is on the table so I’m going with Tetris.

It’s Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World for me. I waffle between which I like more so it changes depending on the day.
 
0
Thor 2: The Dark World…..uh I mean Super Mario World.


I do believe it could potentially change to Mario: Wonder.
 
0
I love platformers but for some reason I'm pickier with them than other genres. There's a pretty big difference between greatest-of-all-time platformers to me and other platformers in terms of how much I enjoy them, even within the same series!

I'll say that for 2D platformers, my shortlist is Rayman Legends, Sonic Mania, Donkey Kong Country 1, and Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, Metroid: Zero Mission, and Metroid Dread :p. Even within DKC1 -> DKCTF, there's a big gap in enjoyment to me for some reason (well, I know the reasons, I'm more so lamenting being bizarre). I guess there's some other Metroidvanias I really like that could be included, but those generally have less platforming than Metroid, like Touhou: Luna Nights.

I'll pick Super Metroid. That's a top 3 game for me.
 
There are two potential answers here, to me

Tropical Freeze is the Full Package sort of best platformer of all time. It's massive, more than most people will ever see, it flows incredibly, the soundtrack is hours long and every theme's a banger. It is as full as such a game can be without trending into the excessive.

But then there's the other answer, which is the platformer cut down to its barest, most beautiful essentials, every step meaningful and every second played one that teaches you or hones you into a more and more finely tuned instrument.

And nothing embodies that second answer, to me, like Cyber Shadow.



Cyber Shadow is what retro-styled platformers should be. Hard as nails but relentlessly fair, with a very generous checkpoint system and a death->reload loop that lasts for around a second. Every song is great. The sprite work is second to none, while keeping to NES-accurate colour palettes. The writing is good, too, and fits a lot of theme into a short script.

But it's the gameplay. Of course it's the gameplay. Every level you go into is some new thing with new obstacles for you to tackle with a constantly evolving toolkit, where the start of the game feels very precisely engineered but also relatively simple, but by the end of the first chapter you can already see the direction the game is heading, and by the end you are a flying god whose feet are carrying him through the bowels of Hell

It's such a ride, from beginning to end, and it encourages you to play again because why wouldn't you? Wouldn't you like to see if you can complete its challenges? How few deaths can you get?

Shovel Knight would be the other answer here—and I'm absolutely shocked it's not on this poll—but Shovel Knight, Tropical Freeze, they've already gotten their flowers. Everyone knows.

I'm telling you, though. Cyber Shadow? This is the real stuff
 
Other.

1600px-DKGBBoxAmerica.jpg


DK '94 Baybee!

It's a great game! I keep saying more people should play it(like if it were on NSO or something) but Nintendo keeps getting in my way. 😠
 
Either Tropical Freeze or Mario 3. Both understand how unique each level should be too keep things interesting and surprising without delving into gimmick nonsense that makes it barely feel like a coherent game.

I don't particularly consider Metroidvanias to be platformers since you barely do any platforming. Hollow Knight has White Palace that's basically Meat Boy, sure, but in SotN I can't remember a single time jumping was used for any interesting purposes. At least in Super Metroid you can walljump and freeze critters.

I've recently played a game which IIRC was called a Lone Fungus that actually had much more platforming variety and challenges, but most don't get that involved with the genre.
 
lot of shooter and metroidvania, can't say i agree with the list tbh. anyway, I can't decide, I'll go with a three-way tie: Tropical Freeze, Super Mario World and SMB3
 
For me, it's Super Mario World.

There are a lot of fantastic games on this list. Some of then I've played and love - the Mega Man games, the Sonic games, Celeste, SMB3. And many of them are on my to-play list, having started but not necessarily finishing them - I'm currently playing through the wonderful Yoshi's Island, but I really want to get to the DKC games, the Rayman games, and Wario Land's 3 and 4 are the games that come to mind first, but I'd like to play all of the games on this list.

But even then, after decades of playing games, Super Mario World is the game I call my favorite of all time. Is it nostalgia? Sure. I played it first when I was seven and it got its hooks into me. But I played a lot of games at around the same time as a kid, including a few on this list, and they didn't become my favorite game. And I played games before and after that point, incredible experiences, but I always found myself holding onto Super Mario World as my favorite game.

So what is it about this game that I hold so dear? Because you could definitely argue that other 2D platformers have surpassed it. It was a 1990 Super Famicom game, predating most of the big visual flare of its era. Sonic came on the scene with its impressive presentation and physics based gameplay. Super Metroid (which I'll count here since it was listed above) codified a whole genre. The Kirby franchise pushed the amount of powers through thr roof for its platformer/beat-em-up/exploration hybrid style. Donkey Kong Country had gorgeous pre-rendered graphics. Yoshi's Island was extremely ambitious in its presentation and its scope. And that's just in that era - the modern era of platformers has brought some wild competition. Celeste is a masterpiece. Sonic Mania is the revival we needed for the character. The Rayman games are lauded for their presentation. And I don't need to go into how much people (here in particular) adore the ambition and scale of Tropical Freeze. You can even argue for Super Mario Bros. 3 as the best, it being an exceedingly modern feeling title that set the standard for Super Mario and stands as arguably the best NES game of all time.

But I always return to the early Super Famicom game that could. I think the World Map is a big part of it. The world map system is still my favorite of any game's interpretation, trading the (very good) bonuses of its predecessor in favor of a sprawling world that you discover. Almost every branch is created through your gameplay (besides the branch at the very start showing you that the world map branches in the first place), and worlds end up feeling really expansive with many ways to get through them. I love how even a basic world like Donut Plains has several branches that weave through each other. Take the linear path around the lake, or go through the lake itself. Maybe cut right to the Boo house, or go to the other Boo house. Will you use that to Warp to Star World (an area that uses secret exits for fast travel, replacing Warp Zones and Warp Whistles), or use the shortcut through the Valley of Bowser to go right before Morton's Castle? Then we got Vanilla Dome splitting into two paths, each branching into different, mutually exclusive paths through the Twin Bridges. Or Forest of Illusion requiring you to find many secret Exits to make you way out. How about Chocolate Island, which can branch off if you find an early secret exit but will require a separate secret to progress the normal way? Even Valley of Bowser has multiple possible paths to reach the final level, rewarding you for beating the game's hardest secret fortress with an easy entrance to the final boss. It makes a game that is actually relatively brief (I can now finish the game in around five hours with 100%, not trying to speed run) into one that feels sprawling and massive. Dinosaur Land was my stomping ground! A perfect place to explore that grew and changed as I explored it! It was perfect for my little kid brain and it still brings me joy now. Future Mario world maps weren't the same. The earlier New Super Mario Bros. games went for SMB3 style worlds with SMW secret exits, and they were...fine. Not as winding and explorative as the SMB3 maps and with less interesting branches with secrets than the SMW stuff. New Super Mario Bros. U brings back the interconnected world map, but the individual world maps are still designed like the other titles and the branches overall don't reach the highs of how World presented it. Dinosaur Land is, so far, my favorite world map of any platformer.

And that's just the game around the game. In the levels, we have a Mario with perfect controls. You can make an argument for SMB3 Mario being better, and that game does control excellently, but SMW Mario has amazing precision and the flow of good momentum. Incredibly approachable but also inherently satisfying. The Cape Feather may have ridiculous flight capabilities (that admittedly come with practice - little kid me couldn't nail the flight like I do now), but it's still my favorite Mario power of all time. Yoshi as a rideable mount is incredibly charming, providing good benefits and drawbacks, and I always found that I wanted to keep him around because he was Mario's buddy on this adventure!! And after SMB3 prioritized short, bite-sized levels, SMW's levels feel like the perfect length - not too long, not too short.

Super Mario World is inherently fun and inherently charming. Every time I revisit it I am reminded just how much I love it. The fact that Super Mario Bros. Wonder has even some chance to finally eclipse it is equal parts exciting and...kind of unprecedented. I already mentioned how many phenomenal games have come out. 2D platformers, 3D platformers. Lots of favorites, many of which you can argue best Super Mario World...but I always held onto Super Mario World as my top favorite, my favorite game from my favorite franchise. But if SMB Wonder does it? That's a much more direct comparison to World right there. That might just become my new favorite game of all time. After 20 years of one game being my favorite, that would be wild.
 
I’m not usually a stickler for rigid genre classifications, but I think in most gamers’ minds, “2D platformers” are distinct from “games that have 2D platforming elements”. Cuphead or Symphony of the Night don’t exactly scratch the same itch as Mario and DK.

So uhhh I’m counting out like half the list, and from what’s left I guess I’d pick Celeste? Either that or Super Mario World.
 
i voted Celeste but for me it's a tossup between Yoshi's Island, Celeste, and N++ (which should be in the poll!). the three of those pretty much cover the full breadth of everything i want from the genre (beautiful visuals and weird worlds & creatures; tight, precise level design and a perfect video-gamey narrative; massive amounts of excellent level design stemming from a very small set of perfectly-tuned mechanics) and they are all equally perfect imo. could play any one of those for a thousand hours
 
It's gotta be Yoshi's Island for me. Pretty much a perfect game in my book.

Controls feel so damn good. Lots of room for optional challenges, but also options to make things easier on yourself if you want. Levels are full of collectibles and secrets to encourage exploration, while also always throwing so many fresh ideas at you that never really feel like they're getting in the way of the gameplay. Its art style and music are timeless. There's just enough story to get you invested and motivated to see things through to the end. Every boss is unique and keeps you on your toes, all the way up to the final boss.

I could not say enough good things about Yoshi's Island. I replay it probably once every year or two and my appreciation for it only gets deeper with time.
 
Out of the list, Pizza Tower. Movement feels absolutely superb and the level design is expertly crafted. P-ranks are some of the most fun adrenaline rushes I've ever had with a game; on the whole, a gimmicky as hell level like Golf feeling as natural to P-rank as any other is a testament to just how much care went into the game design. 5 years of waiting well spent.
 
Over 30 years later and it's still Super Mario World. I've played a lot since then and a lot of them are great, but none are SMW. Just a perfect feeling game.
 
Super Mario Bros. 3, without a doubt...at least for now. ;)

The first Donkey Kong Country second.
 
0
I will say I think I generally prefer platformers that have fast fluid movement like Rayman Legends, Pizza Tower, and dare I say, Sonic (half the time)

Paxie said:
Out of the list, Pizza Tower. Movement feels absolutely superb and the level design is expertly crafted. P-ranks are some of the most fun adrenaline rushes I've ever had with a game; on the whole, a gimmicky as hell level like Golf feeling as natural to P-rank as any other is a testament to just how much care went into the game design. 5 years of waiting well spent.
Click to expand...
Yeah I'm playing it right now and it really is incredible. Though I would think the fact that you can accidentally spike the ball in the golf level would make it hard to P-rank compared to other levels? Maybe that isn't the case.
 
0
Tropical Freeze pretty easily, followed by Sonic Mania. Nothing else on this list (that I’ve played) comes close, although I’d put Ori 2 in a comfortable 3rd place.

I’m fine with including Metroid, but Cuphead really sticks out here.
 
Tropical Freeze, Celeste, and Super Mario Bros 3 for me.

I don't really consider Metroid, Mega Man, Castlevania, Hollow Knight, etc platformers since they are way more focused on other things rather than platforming.
 
Probably a tie between Sonic 3&Knuckles and Mania. I understand how tightly designed Mario games are and I can see the ingenuity of Tropical Freeze's level design but playing around with those classic Sonic pinball physics really scratches a very particular itch of mine like nothing else. As much as people dunk on Sonic, the core concept of fusing some marble mardness fun with a sidescrolling platformer was a genius idea in my view
 
Having replayed Sonic 3K recently, I am surprisingly picking this. I always loved the game but on my last replay everything just clicked. The multiple playable characters, the Super forms, the music, the level design, it's just an incredible game - so good they had to split it into two! I played through it when Amy came out to Origins and then replayed it again as Sonic immediately after which I never do.

I also replayed SMB3, SMW and Tropical Freeze recently. I remain steadfast that SMB3 > SMW, but SMB3 I would place as second behind S3K. Its biggest issue is Dark Land isn't very good with all of the autoscrollers. SMW's level design and variety is lacking compared to SMB3 as fun as the map and secrets are. Tropical Freeze is a fantastic game but sometimes it feels like a bit too much of everything, I am less likely to revisit it than some of these other options and the boss battles are too longwinded for my liking.

My top 3 would be S3K, SMB3, and DKC2.
 
Jimmy Joe said:
There are two potential answers here, to me

Tropical Freeze is the Full Package sort of best platformer of all time. It's massive, more than most people will ever see, it flows incredibly, the soundtrack is hours long and every theme's a banger. It is as full as such a game can be without trending into the excessive.

But then there's the other answer, which is the platformer cut down to its barest, most beautiful essentials, every step meaningful and every second played one that teaches you or hones you into a more and more finely tuned instrument.

And nothing embodies that second answer, to me, like Cyber Shadow.



Cyber Shadow is what retro-styled platformers should be. Hard as nails but relentlessly fair, with a very generous checkpoint system and a death->reload loop that lasts for around a second. Every song is great. The sprite work is second to none, while keeping to NES-accurate colour palettes. The writing is good, too, and fits a lot of theme into a short script.

But it's the gameplay. Of course it's the gameplay. Every level you go into is some new thing with new obstacles for you to tackle with a constantly evolving toolkit, where the start of the game feels very precisely engineered but also relatively simple, but by the end of the first chapter you can already see the direction the game is heading, and by the end you are a flying god whose feet are carrying him through the bowels of Hell

It's such a ride, from beginning to end, and it encourages you to play again because why wouldn't you? Wouldn't you like to see if you can complete its challenges? How few deaths can you get?

Shovel Knight would be the other answer here—and I'm absolutely shocked it's not on this poll—but Shovel Knight, Tropical Freeze, they've already gotten their flowers. Everyone knows.

I'm telling you, though. Cyber Shadow? This is the real stuff
Click to expand...

Ok. You win. I'm playing this shit.
 
I've played and beaten all of those games (and most major 2d platformers in general) and for me it's Tropical Freeze by a distance. (I'm obviously not counting the Metroidvanias)

I know quality is subjective but the one opinion where I always immediately think "this person doesn't understand game design" is whenever I hear someone say that the SNES DKC games are better than DKC:TF.

Don't have time to go into all the different levels on which TF works, but it works on at least 4 different levels and the brilliance of its level design unfolds almost like an onion as you progress from just beating the levels, to discovering the secrets, to beating the levels on hard, to getting gold or shiny gold medals. The brilliance of the level design and detail that goes into everything is clear from the start, but it's only by the end of that journey that you realize just how genius it all is.

I'm also amazed at the Sonic answers. I always loved Sonic as a kid and think the 2d games do a whole bunch of wonderful things, but I can't see them as near the best of the platformer class with all the serious design flaws they have.

On the other hand, it's amazing how underappreciated the Rayman games have become over time. Those are fantastic games. If they were Nintendo-published and had a rabid fanbase behind them (which Ubisoft just really doesn't) I'm convinced they'd have a much better reputation and results in polls like this. They are really, really good.

Shoutout to Celeste as well. Hated the whole "atmosphere" and story of that game, but as a pure platformer it was bliss.
 
Super Mario World, only Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freezy came closer to surpass(theres some element that prevents it to be the superior 2D plataform game
 
0
Warioland 2 for me, the game kept me really occupied for a long time and I kept replaying it. The level design, navigational puzzles, mechanics and flow of the game did it for me, very pick up & play.
 
TheWolvesDen said:
I am terrible at platformers. I can't beat most of them. I did beat Sonic 2 this year though, and that was like "OH SHIT, THIS MOPS THE FLOOR OF SONIC 1". I was in awe.
Click to expand...
2 and 3K make 1 feel like a proof-of-concept demo by comparison. And that's coming from someone who fell in love with 1 as a kid.
 
chocolate_supra said:
2 and 3K make 1 feel like a proof-of-concept demo by comparison. And that's coming from someone who fell in love with 1 as a kid.
Click to expand...

It really does make me want to try 3K and Mania. Surprisingly Sonic is the only prestige platformer I can seem to get through in some way. I liked Rush a lot. But can't beat a Mario game even if my life depended on it.


Sidenote, I know Kirby and Yoshi as games with flutter/hover etc don't really get seen in the same light (I lean in that direction personally) , I feel we gotta mention Kirby Super Star for the convo.
 
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