QOTW: What Is Your Favorite Platforming Game?
These things were changed up quite a bit once the 32bit era reared its head. No longer were single mascots depended on to sell systems by business-savvy console manufacturers, in most cases. Platformers did not disappear, however, and they continued to populate release lists, and software libraries. Some would even say that a single 3D platformer--Super Mario 64--did more to bring gaming into 3D in earnest than any game before it. Whatever the case, it's hard to say that platformers haven't had a very drastic change in identity during these past few generations of hardware.
As platformers have changed, so have our expectations of them. In the days of 8bit systems, we wanted nothing but for them to challenge our manual dexterity. Then, games like Super Mario Bros. 3 got us accustomed to secrets-laden worlds in a big way, forever imbuing us with the desire to explore these abstract, alien world. This finally took hold in the 32bit generation and beyond, whose platform games are sprawling affairs that are very much daunting to uninitiated, almost perversely riddled with secrets, boasting life-spans longer than many entire game systems.
This week, in any event, we asked ourselves to ruminate on our favorite platform games. Needless to say, this genre is very close to a good many of us, and we relished the chance to ruminate on some of our old favorites. But if you believe we've skimped on our selections, go ahead and Talk about platform games in our boards!
In any case, my favorite platform game is Super Mario World--for a number of reasons. Super Mario World was merely an extrapolation and refinement of the ideas put forth in Super Mario 3--namely, a quasi-non-linear platform game. For those who haven't played it, it was a great game; it mixed-up the platform conventions in very subtle ways, and was, at its core, a huge, polished, and deep game. One highlight includes the level "Tubular," in the Star Secret world--it was the one where you had to pick-up a series of Mario-inflating powerups in order to keep from plummeting to the ground. It was insanely challenging, but it was also an interesting enough way to mix-up the platform genre's conventions. The ghost-houses in that game were also amazing, and played with those very conventions in ways just as interesting.
So yeah, to me, Super Mario World represents the best of what that sort of game could be, while retaining intact every aspect of what it is that makes it great.
What about some of Rare's other platform offerings? the cursing squirrel. Capcom put out some quality products in the late '80s, and Ghouls 'N Ghosts, Aladdin, and Strider are all personal platform favorites. And while technically not a platformer, remember Uniracers for the SNES? That game was great. They should really bring that back. Four-player Uniracers on the GBA would be sweet.
Oh yeah, platformers. Sonic. The 2D Sonic the Hedgehog games, collectively, represent my favorite platforming game. The visceral sensation of speed that the Sonic the Hedgehog games deliver is something that has been rarely imitated and never matched, making it infinitely more unique than the Mario games, which have served as platforming templates over the years. The fluid level design, combined with the series' "sit back and enjoy the ride" roller coaster mentality still sends the 10-year-old inside my head swimming.
But I have to get more specific than just a series. The first Sonic game had its hooks in me when I first played it at my cousin's house, but the first love is not necessarily the true love. Even then, I knew there was room for improvement in the formula. The speed was there and it was good, but Sonic was still trying to play Mario's game, which is a losing battle.
Sonic 2 brought more speed, that crazy burnout move, and, much to my chagrin, Miles "Tails" Powers. The addition of the two-tailed fox sidekick makes Sonic 2 my least favorite of the Sonic games, as tacking on extra weight to the patron saint of velocity is taking the series in the opposite direction it should've gone. Yes, I know you're given the option to play without Tails from the get-go, but it irritates me to no end knowing that he's there, lurking in the background. Sonic Team knew it had to make some big changes in its second game, but Tails was not the correct answer.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is Sonic perfection. Sure, Tails is still there, but the introduction of Knuckles, a character whose mechanics were entirely different from Sonic's, acted as a sort of counterbalance to the useless redundancy of Tails. The constant reliance on the burnout move and the inclusion of different hedgehog-launching devices, such as turnstiles and cannons, gave the game more speed than it knew what to do with. The Genesis had been given some time to mature, and the developers were able to really harness the console's power, making 3 the best-looking Sonic game. And the bonus levels in Sonic 3--in which you run around the pseudo-3D world, collect blue orbs, and avoid red ones--are my favorites of the series.
Since Sonic 3, the series hasn't had much to offer me. Sonic CD was outstanding, with inarguably the best music of the series, but I never had a Sega CD, so my play with Sonic CD was limited to my friend's house. I could never really get into Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic Adventure 2.
What's missing is my favorite platformer of all time: Super Mario Bros. 3. I'm not even going to attempt to argue about whether Super Mario Bros. 3 is the best platformer overall--all I'm saying is that it's a great game and holds a lot of nostalgic value for me personally. The gameworlds are huge, and the level design is one of the ultimate expressions of creative perfection. Mario can run, swim, fly, and even assume specific powers from his enemies. Who can forget the seven Koopa kids and the amazingly detailed, for its time, Bowser character model? Similar to what Mario's N64 outing did for 3D platformers, Super Mario Bros. 3 set new precedents of how 2D platformers should be made. It excels in all of the major elements--gameplay, graphics, sound, and value--by which a game is judged. And although it has a typical Mario story involving rescuing the princess and saving the Mushroom Kingdom, there are enough twists and turns to keep the plot interesting and entertaining throughout. To top it off, the game is very challenging, particularly in the latter levels.
Like so many things that were part of our childhood, as time marches on, the 2D platformer slowly fades away. But the memories of spectacular games like Super Mario Bros. 3, and even some lesser-known platformers like the Alex Kidd series, will live on in our minds and hearts through perpetuity. This is the era of 3D gaming, and I've learned to embrace that fact, but at least for the platformer genre, the 2D era was golden.
Thinking back to what really got me into platforming games, one name keeps flitting through my mind: Pitfall! It was my first experience with the jump, hunt, and collect gameplay that pervades the platforming genre to this day, and it hooked me from the start. The game's dwindling timer keeps the pressure on, and this feature ultimately kept me from ever completing the game. I managed to collect all the objects several times but always ran out of time before I made it back to the starting point. Back then, the Internet was just a glimmer in Al Gore's eye, and gaming mags were still in the 'zine stage. If you got stuck playing a game, you had to rely on your friends for help. I remember not being able to make it across the ropeless alligator pits. I died countless times until I ran into a friend at the arcade who told me that you had to jump and land on their puny heads without touching their mouths. I was skeptical at first, but when I went home and tried it, I was astonished to find that the local gaming guru was right. I have many fond memories of Pitfall!, and I feel I would be remiss not to mention it in this piece.
The early Mario games heavily influenced the entire industry, but one platforming game was so different from the rest that it has yet to be copied. Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis is that game. While the majority of platforming games for both the SNES and Genesis followed the same methodical jump-and-seek mechanics of the Mario platformers, Sonic the Hedgehog's emphasis on speed--and the level design that supported it--was a completely new concept, and one that certainly deserves mention. I remember the first time I played it--I was astonished at how fast it played and that my mind could somehow keep up with it. Sonic the Hedgehog was the first time we were introduced to Dr. Robotnik, Sega's perennial malefactor, and the series' health system, which relies upon collecting rings to maintain life. The first time my rings spilled out, I remember yelling "No!" and thinking I was dead. Sonic the Hedgehog heralded a new kind of fun in video games when it was released in 1991, and it still hasn't been replicated to this day.
What would a feature about platforming games be without mentioning the Castlevania series? I have grown up with this franchise, and I will forever regard it as one of the best. There hasn't been a Castlevania I didn't like, but my favorite has to be Metroid than what most have come to expect from the series, but the incredibly detailed graphics, emotive sound, multiple playable characters, and engulfing story make Symphony of the Night my all-time favorite Castlevania game. And consequently, one of the best platforming games ever.
Now that I've dispensed my honorable mentions, it's time to pick a favorite. You may have noticed that not a single 3D game has made my list thus far, but that's about to change. Two-dimensional graphics were a mainstay in video games for well more than a decade, but I believe that 3D graphics will be around much longer than that. Some may say we're on the brink of virtual reality, but I disagree. The technology for it still isn't here, and even if it were, it would be too expensive for the mass market. Like it or not, polygonal graphics will be here for a long time to come.
With this in mind, the best platformer of all time has to be Rayman 2, that have far better graphics, but none of them can match Super Mario 64's smart level and game design.
The key to Super Mario 64's success is its simplicity. In most other 3D platforming games that came after it, collecting items was the main focus. But SM64 placed the emphasis on gameplay and steered clear of leaving the player to figure out what needed to be done. Despite the fact that there are 120 stars to collect, you never get the feeling of hopelessness that can sometimes occur when you're playing one of Rare's platformers, and you have a dozen loose strings to tie up over 10 gargantuan levels. There's very little to write down while playing Super Mario 64, and this makes it more accessible to everyone. Fun, challenging, and timeless, Super Mario 64 is the greatest platforming game of all time.
This game wasn't graphically spectacular, and it did have some problems here and there, but overall, it was a complete package--oodles of large, expansive levels, crazy items and gadgets, and tons of replay value. I played this game for months on end and still never managed to find everything. I know that it will probably be a cold day in you-know-where before I ever go back and finish up this game, but that's just me and my incredibly short attention span. I especially like the way the game controls, how it uses every button the dual shock has to offer, and how it manages to do so without being confusing. I wish more games would have a control scheme as good as Ape Escape's. I'm really excited about the prospect of a sequel on the PS2. While we haven't heard much about this game at all, I'm sure that it will be everything the first one was and more. Nowadays, I stay away from most platformers, but I would gladly revisit one series in particular--the Super Star Wars games that graced the SNES. Since I first saw the Star Wars movies, I've always loved the franchise, and this extended to looking favorably at games that bear the ultimate sci-fi license. I truly enjoyed the vector-based arcade game, but the Super Star Wars titles were a step above. In Super Star Wars, you begin the game as Luke running across the surface of Tatooine and eventually face the Sarlacc pit monster. You then proceed to leap across a frustratingly difficult series of platforms on a huge sand crawler and move on to other parts of the planet, like the Mos Eisley Cantina, where Chewbacca and Han Solo await. The series also includes cool minigames, like the speeder level in which you have to shoot the Jawas riding on jet bikes. The soundtrack from the movies is also reproduced beautifully on the SNES, such that the aural experience matches the visual feast to a tee. Never before has so many great elements of the Star Wars movies been portrayed so perfectly in a video game. Part of why I'm into codes and tricks for video games today can be attributed to my love of this game. My favorite code ever is definitely the debug code you can use to unlock any of the playable characters from the beginning of Super Star Wars, as well as a nifty level skip. It is also the first code I remember that requires two controllers to pull off. If I remember correctly, to pull off the debug for Super Star Wars, you need to press A, A, A, A, X, B, B, B, B, Y, X, X, X, X, A, Y, Y, Y, Y, B and then Start when the title screen flashes. Future games in the series take you to the icy reaches of Hoth and to the surface of the planet Endor, while also introducing new play mechanics, like force powers. These games are timeless and more than enough reason for anyone to pick up an SNES and to also hope for a series return on the Game Boy Advance. Until this does happen, however, I'll be looking forward to Star Wars Galaxies.  Super Metroid, on the other hand, swallowed me whole, and became the center of my life for more time than is healthy for a person. My parents didn't want me to have a game system because they were concerned I would turn into my uncle, who was known to sit and play Space Invaders or Pac-Man on his 2600 for an entire day. It's true, I watched him play Columns on my Game Gear for 12 hours one weekend (with the AC adapter of course...using batteries for that amount of time with the GG might have caused a shortage and a fire). Some people call that kind of gaming stamina sickening. I call it amazing. And my parents were right...I did turn into my uncle. I had just been liberated from my parents abode by my father's foot, and had moved into a bachelor pad with a few of my friends from high school. My SNES sat on our TV in the living room, and after I picked up Super Metroid, all I did was eat, sleep, drink, and play Super Metroid. I think I had a job, too.
What really got me about Metroid was its perfection. A lot of the ideas used in the game had been seen before, and there wasn't any particular feature that stuck out above the rest. Sitting down to play it was the real feature. The music was moody, and fit the game and its rich worlds like a glove. The visuals were great, with the dead soil of the surface standing as a stark contrast with the softer, living look of some sections of Brinstar. I'm told it was a perfect sequel as well, and judging by the few hours I had played of the first game, I'm inclined to agree.
I loved getting lost in all of it. I don't think the game frustrated me all, which is very rare. Even my favorite games have those moments where I twist the controller, or fight back an urged to throw it at something. Not so in this case. I loved the depth, and how it made an essentially linear game seem otherwise. My roommates got into the game as well, and before too long we were drawing lots, flipping coins, and blackmailing each other to play it. Super Metroid was one of those games that had me up until the wee hours of the morning with the controller locked in my cramped hands. Super Metroid isn't only my favorite platforming game; it's at the high end of my favorite games list. I've got history with this game, and I'll probably still be telling people how great it was when I'm 80. Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com |
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