P-Lists #001 – 2D Platformers
- By P-Wing
- September 11, 2018
- 14 Comments
#001- 2D Platformers
Hello we are proud to announce P-Lists!!! A new exciting adventure for all P dash WING dot NET fans! We may not reach a consensus but we can try dangit! With 2D Platformers being the most popular genre of games for nearly two console generations there are plenty to choose from. The genre still sees a lot of support from developers and players to this day. We’re not saying this is going to be an easy list but we’re asking you to dig deep within and find the TOP 5 2D PLATFORMERS that occupy your heart. So feel free to post a comment detailing your Top 5 or you can just discuss the idea with the P-Wing Family™ in any of our streams of ever-owning-connectivity. If you think 5 isn’t enough then…Go beyond 5! Maybe you just want the world to know your top 10…or 20! Heck! Give us your top 100 if you really feel inclined. This isn’t a contest but a conversation starter and possibly a way to find new games or give them a second look, be true to your heart when listing. Have fun!
Top Picks!
By submitting your list in the comment section or discussing it on the chat/forums the #1 2D Platformer will be taken and displayed below!
P-Wing’s Top Picks!
Refia’s Pick – sunsoft’s Gimmick (1993)
Mr. Gimmick’s only weapon is a cosmic star with a potent form of energy you must harness. Master it, and the star can cripple your enemies, carry you over dangerous territory, and enable you to reach levels – and hidden places – that are unattainable to anyone but an expert.
Apple’s Pick – Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990)
In Super Mario Bros. 3, there are more warps, more chances at extra lives, and new special suits! The Raccoon Suit lets you fly and knock out blocks. The Frog Suit helps you out-swim deadly fish. There are suits for every occasion!
Gamblor’s Pick – Ginkware Inc.’s Caverns of Gink (1985)
Caverns of Gink is platform arcade-style game that puts unique emphasis on the platforms. The player must run and jump, changing the color of the platform as he moves, until he has covered the entire level. A green arrow passes from the right side of the screen to the left, threatening to end the game if it makes contact with the player.
Rawk’s Pick – WayForward’s Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse (2014)
Embark on a brand new adventure which teams Shantae with her arch nemesis, Risky Boots! When a curse falls upon Sequin Land, Risky Boots and Shantae must join forces to battle unimaginable evil. Shantae must give up her job as Scuttle Towns “Guardian Genie” and become a pirate if she hopes to get her magic back and save the day. As a pirate, Shantae gains new weapons and tools to advance her quest and power through monsters!
SFC’s Pick – Super Icon’s Life of Pixel (2014)
Journey across the expertly-recreated worlds of more than a dozen vintage gaming systems. Life of Pixel takes you on a historical tour-de-force across the rich landscape of 8-bit and 16-bit gaming.
Titiln’s Pick – Hal Labs’ Kirby Super Star (1996)
Dream Land is under siege again! Our hero, Kirby, returns to instigate a rescue. King Dedede is snatching up Dream Land’s food supply, but he’s not the only one! Dyna Blade, Meta Knight and a slew of other evil baddies are on the loose and wreaking havoc throughout the land.
gamma’s Pick – Hudson’s DoReMi Fantasy (1996)
Milon, a young boy, heads in a mission to restore the music from the forest of his hometown and rescue his friend, the fairy Alis, from an evil wizard known as Amon, who is also responsible for the music’s disappearance. To do this, he must collect a series of magic instruments that are being held by Amon’s strongest minions. However, said instruments have had their power locked away after Amon corrupted them, so Milon must also collect stars to purify the instruments.
Mock, Hero, ladyjuice & Rinkin’s Pick – Nintendo’s Super Mario World (1991)
Mario’s off on his biggest adventure ever, and this time he’s brought along a friend. Yoshi the dinosaur teams up with Mario to battle Bowser, who has kidnapped Princess Toadstool once again. Guide Mario and Yoshi through nine peril-filled worlds to the final showdown in Bowser’s castle.
Brad’s Pick – Handheld Games’ Ratchet and Clank Going Mobile (2005)
Ratchet and Clank are transported into a cell phone via the “MCGuFIN” and have to fight their way back out.
Barbaloot’s Pick – Team Meat’s Super Meat Boy (2010)
Super Meat Boy is a tough as nails platformer where you play as an animated cube of meat who’s trying to save his girlfriend (who happens to be made of bandages) from an evil fetus in a jar wearing a tux.
Kuro’s Pick – Nintendo’s Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (1995)
The Evil Magikoopa, Kamek, is out to kidnap Baby Mario! In this sequel to Super Mario World, you play as Yoshi. Your goal is to successfully carry Baby Mario back to his parents in the Mushroom Kingdom while avoiding all of Kamek’s clever traps and evil minions. Enjoy the various backgrounds of the rich and vibrant locales of Yoshi’s Island as you race to complete your quest.
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Now this I can get behind! I am going to have on heck of a time narrowing it down to just 5! Wow! I need some time! (i have to go pick the kids up from school)
1. Gimmick! – Not rly a surprise, probably the be-all-end-all of platformers for me. This game holds up great, has physics in a Famicom game, and is one of the most satisfying games to play for me. Getting the good ending feels like you really earned it, and the game is pretty fair overall with very few artificial difficulty moments if any. The control system is truly unique and this puts it above many others for me.
2. Ninja Gaiden 1 (NES) – No platformer can really do what this game does for me. It’s flawed in that the last part is way too hard, but overall it has a fast feeling to it that’s hard to describe once you master it. Most enemies except bosses and like 2 of the regular enemies die in one hit, which means most of the time you’re killing things at the same time you’re moving forward once you have a level down, and it feels really good.
3. Akumajou Densetsu (Japanese Castlevania 3) – Japanese version specifically cause the music is way better and Grant isn’t reduced to being a piece of shit. Epic game I gotta say and probably one of the best on the Famicom/NES ever made and frankly I feel it holds up extremely well. It’s challenging and fair, there are a good number of hard parts to it but it’s just really satisfying to play and has a great atmosphere.
4. Mega Man 3 – Best game in any Mega Man series I’ve played IMO (and I’ve played almost all the classic and X games to completion other than 3 or so). The slide feels really good and I still think this is a high point of the six games that came out on NES. It also has my favorite music of the series.
5. Another World – Unconventional pick but this one just kinda always stuck with me, I really like the rotoscoping technique used and the way the game tells a good story without saying anything. It’s short but really cool.
Honorable Mentions – Mario 3, Mega Man 4-6, Kirby 64, Clash at Demonhead, Cave Story, Bonk’s Adventure PCE, Ori and the Blind Forest, Shovel Knight, Kid Icarus
I know it’s bad but I love it anyway mentions – Takeshi no Chousenjou, Atlantis no Nazo, Kanshaku Tamanage Kantarou no Toukaidou Gojuusan-tsugi, Wing of Madoola
Now THAT’S a list!!! A list devoid of Mario! Heck… devoid of any Nintendo goodness! Sorry as a fanboy I’m a little triggered but judging from everything you’ve posted you still have impeccable gamer tastes. Another World was UNJUSTLY attacked and destroyed by GCL back before your time…It is the StarTropics Debacle no one has ever whispered of…
I see you consider a lot of Metroidvania’s 2D Platformers… you’re gonna trigger a lot of people! Anyway, epic work! Gimmick taking the crown, I’m shocked. Hehe. SPOILERS: Gimmick is making my Top 5. Stay tuned.
Nintendo isn’t that good
Jk ummm did u notice how ALL those games are on a nintendo platform except for two??? And Mario 3 probably easily #6, once u get to like top 50 platformers even they are all very close. Epic.
This is quite the challenge but I think I’ve got it narrowed down! (At least I know for sure #1 is a lock! everything else…well they’re all dang good!)
1. Super Mario Bros. 3
2. Super Mario World
3. Gimmick!
4. Donkey Kong Country 3
5. Little Samson
6. Kirby’s Adventure
1 doremi fantasy
2 little samson
3 super mario brothers 3
4 super mario land 2: 6 golden coins
5 sonic & knuckles
honorable dicks:
bucky o hare
adventure island 3
ninja gaiden shadow
Very nice! I really should add some honorable mentions so… here we go!
Honorable Mentions from YOURS TRULY!
Rockin’ Kats
Shadow of the Ninja
Panic Restaurant
Donkey Kong ’94
Metal Storm
And there’s plenty more where that came from! Keep the recommendations coming gamers, we owe it to the rest of the internet….
internet,
this is for you. don’t forget.
i want to agree here.
to anyone out there who hasn’t played,
especially shadow of the ninja and metal storm..
now is the time…
we’ll be here.
5) Ninja Gaiden 2 – Tight controls, catchy music, cinematic cutscenes, wind. My god, the wind. Ninja Gaiden 2 is platforming perfection that tops the already amazing Ninja Gaiden 1, mainly because it lets you climb up and down walls making it feel a little smoother.
4) Super Mario Bros. 3 – What more can be said about this masterpiece? Mario’s fat adorable face pokes out of an equally adorable green boot as he hops around crushing harmless critters. 100/100.
3) Jinsei Owata no Daibouken (The Life Ending Adventure) – The classic internet flash game with ascii graphics designed to torture you. I like a challenge, and every screen of this game is it’s own hellish struggle. There have been many copycat ultra-hard platformers since this came out, but it still stands on top with its cute and memorable ascii appearance.
2) Caverns of Gink – Many gamers may play this obscure 1985 DOS gem and say it’s not great. They may even say it’s bad. But it was the first PC game I ever played as a child, given to me for free from the library on a floppy disk, so it holds a special place in my heart. This game has many subtleties that may go overlooked, so I feel the need highlight them and spread the word of its awesomeness.
Your name is George Jumpalot. You’re exploring the Caverns of Gink looking for an ancient idol worth millions. George’s exploration is represented by having to step on every pixel of platform until they’ve all been stepped on. Think City Connections, but on foot.
This game is the perfect allegory of the human condition. George “Jumpalot” is all of us. We all must “Jumpalot” to get through life. We all go to our jobs and sweat and struggle and jump through hoops. We reach for a level of wealth and success we can never achieve.
Caverns of Gink symbolizes this perfectly. It’s impossible to beat. Even if you spend hours practicing and manage to squeeze past the first level, what’s your reward? A second level that’s physically broken and can’t be beaten. It even spells out the creator’s name as if to laugh and mock you. This is his nightmare you’re trapped in, just like we’re all trapped in God’s nightmare, toiling in our office jobs waiting for the sweet embrace of death.
On top of the difficult platforming, you’re also constantly harassed by flying arrows that shoot from off screen. Where are they coming from? Who’s shooting them? We never actually see our attackers. This is another brilliant representation of life. Even as we work our way through life with dedication and honesty, wrenches are constantly thrown in our paths from directions we never saw coming. Friends stab us in the back. Bosses fire us. Girlfriends leave us for jerks named Brian she said she was just friends with. Every arrow in this game is named Brian and its your job to dodge them all until you can find your way off screen and beat Brian to death who’s also shooting the arrows. God damn you Brian.
Anyway, this freeware game’s on archive.org so I recommend giving it a try.
https://archive.org/details/CavernsOfGink1985TonyGinkoAction
1) Xenogears – Is there anything this game can’t do? While it’s mostly considered an RPG, there’s one section where you have to physically jump your character up platforms leading up the Towel of Babel. This not only makes it a platformer, but the BEST platformer due to the overall quality of the game. You fucking kill God in a giant robot and save the world from murderous priests and the lies of religion. Fuck yeah. Die Brian.
5: BoxBoy!
a very fun puzzle platformer game that left more of a lasting impression on me than every other recent platformer
4: Mega Man 3
great stage design, great robot masters and great music puts megaman 3 here above every other megaman
3: Donkey Kong Country 2
a big improvement on donkey kong country which was already very good. too bad about dkc3
2: Yoshi’s Island
despite the stupid baby mechanic it is an amazing game with great stage variety and cool bosses
1: Kirby Super Star
this game has so many great games in it i might as well have made the top 5 spring breeze, dyna blade, the great cave offensive, revenge of the meta knight and milky way wishes. even though it’s easy like all kirby games, it’s the platforming game i replayed the most and the changes between each mode gave it a lot of variety
“too bad about dkc3”
what a disgusting line i hear echoed all over the internet…dkc3 is a stellar title that has the internet hate mob all running wild trying to take it down. and you know what? im sad to say it but the internet has won and they have successfully dismantled everything dkc3 has worked for. the game is wonderful! maybe i am the only one who knows this anymore but you know what… it’s my little gem now…
it’s all mine…. and maybe it is better that way…
no i think my friend likes it too
too bad about the whole series imo
Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse because get hype’d for SHANTAE IN SMASH.
And also because its a rly gr8 game. No Genie powers but you get a bunch of pirate gear instead to navigate a semi-linear game structure spread across different islands.
Also has Shantae in a slave Leia outfit at one point.