tha_dvd_man

Well we did a thread like this on console FPS's a few days ago, and after playing a couple older PSX platformers earlier today at my friend's dorm room (Ape Escape and Jumping Flash), I felt compelled to start a similiar thread on the platformer genre.

So what do you think are the best, or at least your favorite, 3D platformers ever? These are mine, in order of release (if I'm not mistaken):

Jumping Flash 2 (didn't play the original fully, and I assume 2 is better)
Nights
Mario 64
Banjo Kazooie
Ape Escape
Jak & Daxter
Mario Sunshine

I don't think I'm forgetting any. And the only platformers that are, from what I've heard, great and that I haven't played are Spyro and Sly Cooper.

...arg...I was going to write up why I chose each but I don't have any time. I will later.

What do you guys think?

edstein

Sonic on Dreamcast was good.

edstein

I'd put a vote in for Crash Bandicoot too.

Noonan

Mario 64 all the way, with Jax & Daxter as a close 2nd. I've been playing Sly Cooper recently, and honestly it's making its way to the top of my list too.

MrKen

I really liked Maximo.

It got great reviews too.. the worst thing that people had to say about it was that "it required too much hand-eye coordination" or something silly like that. There were also complaints that when you died, you lost stuff.

darkside

Mario 64 is still the best one I've every played.

~~ PAL ~~

Maximo is a very good game, but it's tough too!

It took me a while to become familiar with the controls and different attacks, not to mention finding the 19 power-ups! As MrKen said, everytime you die you lose all power-ups except the ones locked on the belt. However, it was very satisfying to finally beat the game, with full mastery and retained all the power-ups at the end.

tha_dvd_man

I heard Maximo required way too much repeating of levels from dying, which sounds a little tedious. That kind of thing is not good game design. I wasn't too interested in it in the first place anyways. Maybe I'll get around to it one day.

As for Crash Bandicoot, I remember being really hyped for the game and having it pre-ordered, only for it to be the biggest letdown I've ever experienced. Walk forward, jump, walk forward, jump, spin, walk, jump twice, etc. Just really, really derivitive to me. Couldn't have fun with it. Which is why I was REALLY surprised with Jak & Daxter-- I hadn't played anything I liked in the least bit from Naughty Dog, and J&D became one of my most favorite platformers ever. It felt so open-ended, yet the levels were really tightly and well designed. And even better, there was so much variety in the gameplay. It really made me do a complete 180 on my feelings for Naughty Dog.

As for Sonic Adventure, I was disappointed with that as well. The 'adventure' elements were out of place and boring, and just made the game drag. And the actual levels just seemed to resort too much to simply "hold the forward button for as long as possible without hitting an obstacle, and lacked much variety in gameplay. Some of the other playable characters were really boring as well. Felt kind of like Crash Bandicoot on steroids......and you know how I feel about CB.

Decker

I'll just echo what tha dvd man said about J&D; that is a very fun, pretty and well designed game (if a little on the easy side).
Maximo turned me off by being way too hard. Maybe I'll try again now that I got a free Prima guide from BB
I really liked the first MDK game which I thought had a lot of innovations and humor, but was way too short, of course.

Playing Sly Cooper now and I just love it. it's climbing to the top of my list as well.

I'm curious to see how Rachet & Clank turns out. It must be pretty good because Sony is putting tons of marketing and advertising behind it at the expense of poor, neglected Sly

jrutz

Could NiGHTS on the Saturn be considered a platformer???

Definitely Ape Escape, the later Crash titles on the PSX, Klonoa. I never played Mario 64, but I would have to say Rayman 2 could hold its own against it.

And MDK 2 was pretty freakin' good too!

Jeremy

RichC2

MDK, MDK2 if those count.

The only "regular" 3d platformer I could stomach to finish was Jak and Daxter, so that gets my vote.

einTier

whatever the best is, is sure isn't Castlevania 64.

tha_dvd_man

Oops! I forgot about Nights. That was a wonderful and beautiful game. I also forgot about Rayman, which I haven't played and is supposedly good. Maybe I'll give Rayman3 a rent. Kloana was good, but it's essentially a 2D game with polygonal graphics (although I suppose you could say the same about Nights. hmm....)

I also played both MDK games, and I never thought of labeling them as platformers. I suppose now that I think about it they did have platforming elements.

And has anyone played the Jumping Flash games? I rented the sequel (about three times) in the early PSX days, and I remember absolutely loving it. The first-person view made it really interesting, and the 500-foot jumps were insane! I really liked the 'cutesy' levels, too. Such a memorable game. And now that I think about it, the level design kind of reminds me a little bit of Mario Sunshine...

Decker

I've gotta give some love for Ape Escape. They always say that it's essential in a platformer to have a distintive, marketable main character. Obviously that's not always true. I can't even remember who you played as in that game, but I sure loved it. Catching monkeys was a lot more fun than the easter egg hunts that were most 3D platformers. I loved the control system, still one of my favorites. There have been few expierences in gaming that has matched the fun I had the first time I fired up that RC car in that game

Aghama

Gotta show some love for Rocket: Robot on Wheels. Even though the last couple levels dragged a bit, there was a ton of originality in this game. You finally get a chance to beat one of those $^@#ing tic-tac-toe playing chickens.

Edit: Sucker Punch made Sly Cooper too? I'll have to check that out sooner than I thought.

tha_dvd_man

Decker- gotta agree with ya on Ape Escape. The gameplay and level design were simply great, and the control scheme for catching the monkeys was really fun.

And just for the fun of it.......worst platformer I've ever played: Rascal for PSX. Beautiful graphics, but playing more than 30 minutes of it is reason enough to commit suicide. Most boring and unispired level design ever, and the character literally controlled like a truck.

Josh H

Mario Sunshine
Mario 64
Rayman 2
Banjo-Kazooie.

Of the one's I've played those are the only ones I'd classify as great games.

CreatureX

5. Space Station Silicon Valley (N64)
4. Banjo Kazooie (N64)
3. Conker's Bad Fur Day (N64)
2. Super Mario Sunshine (GCN)
1. Super Mario 64 (N64)

outcastja

From all the platforms I played, I enjoyed Naughty Dog's games the most.

chess

i love platformers.

mostly last gen, but my $.02:

1 Mario 64 (by quite a stretch...and sunshine looks great!)
2 Crash Bandicoot 2 + 3 (PS1...perfect controls)
3 Rayman 2 (DC version)
4 Banjo Kazooi and Tooi (N64
5 Gex 2 (PS1 version)
6 Conker's Bad Fur Day (N64)

looking forward to checking out the PS2 and GC platformers!!! might pick up a used copy of Ape Escape soon too.

Decker

Whoa, chess, I gotta disagree with you about Gex 2. I thought that game was the perfect example of everything that's wrong with the 3D platform genre. I hate games that are nothing more than hop from platform to platform and collect coins. That tired gameplay gets old real fast. I think a lot of platform designers installed the easter egg hunt in order to keep people moving in the right direction; hoping they would be wowwed by the "total freedom of movement". The fact is, in reality, platforming is really best suited for 2D gameplay.
Some like Klonda and the good but long since forgotten Pandamonium went for 2D gameplay in a 3D background and others like Crash went for pseudo-3D gameplay that still kept people moving in the right direction. To make a real 3D platformer that still is fun isn't easy and it's a credit to Mario, J&D, Sly Cooper and others that it can be done well if enough time is put into the level design.

chess

fair enough, but i remember really liking gex 2 on PS1 at the time...clever level designs and loads of personality. collecting the eggs wasn't something you HAD to do to get to the next level, but it did open more levels quicker. it's actually pretty rare that a game motivates me to find all of the "coins" in every level, but i did with gex. same for the rest on my short list...except for conker which didn't really have that sort of thing.

oddly gex 3 didn't do it for me at all...not nearly as much thought in the levels...felt like a moneymaking exercise (like tomb raider and resident evil).

Outlaw

I don't really think Nights is a platformer, there is no platform jumping in it . It was a cool game though.

As for my favorite 3d platformers ever:

4. Klonoa 1 and 2- awesome game!
3. Banjo-Kazooie- Interesting concept having 2 characters in one, although Banjo Tooie was a letdown compared to this one.
2. Super Mario Sunshine- An improvement of one of the best games ever.
1. Super Mario 64- The standard in 3D gaming excellence!

I haven't had a chance to play Sly Cooper yet , but its looking pretty good.

tha_dvd_man

Which do you guys like more, Mario 64 or Mario Sunshine?

I haven't played Mario 64 in a while, but being the first true 3D platformer I'd ever played (well, besides Jumping Flash) made it really stand out in my mind. The controls were excellent, the level design mostly brilliant and memorable, and overall it just screamed of Miyamato quality. I also liked the somewhat adventurous feel to the game; it had platforming in it of course, but there was a real sense of making your way from one end of a level to the other (which Mario Sunshine didn't have), and the castle aspect of the game (which I loved) really added to that feel. There are a few levels in that game that when I think back to them, really stand out as some of the best gaming moments I've ever experienced. But I feel that if I go back and play them again after all these years, it could kind of tarnish my memory of them. As I remember the game, it was an almost dream-like experience at times. One of my all-time fave games.

Mario Sunshine, on the other hand, went for much tighter and compact, but extremely well-designed levels. In my opinion most of the levles in SMS are the epitome of good platformer level design. They have a sense of immensity while still remaining somewhat small, and they offer a large variety of gameplay while giving the player a variety of things to do at one time (an area where Jak & Daxter excels at as well). That's a pretty big achievement in my eyes. The controls were also absolutely spot on, and I found the water jetpack to be a great addition to the gameplay and more than simply a gimmick.

I have my problems with it, though, that I think keep it from toppling Mario64 in my mind -- at least Mario64 the way I remember it. I love games with an adventurous feel, and while the level design in SMS was brilliant, like I said, they're very much more compact and don't involve a lot of exploration of places you've never been to before. I suppose objectively I would have to say it's better for the gameplay that way, but any game with a sense of adventure and exploration gets the nod in my book. This is perpetuated even further, unfortunately, by having to do the same levels over and over and over, and over. Even with different objectives each time, I really do not like having to repeat areas in games at all. I thought this was a rather cheap way to lengthen the game.
And to top it off, Mario Sunshine is sadly one of the least polished Nintendo games- let alone Nintendo platformers- I have ever played. Bugs, clipping issues resulting in falling through surfaces, and a stubborn and sometimes erratic camera that doesn't do what it should or let you do with it what you should when you need to. I certainly didn't expect this.

So while Mario Sunshine was a very good game, and in many respects more well designed than Mario 64, I just can't say the experience was nearly as fun and memorable as M64 was. Anyone else agree? Disagree?

RichC2

I'm probably still one of the few that thinks Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine are two of the most positively boring games in existence. Hell bad games generally don't get boring as fast as the 3d outings of everyone's favorite plummer. (No it's not the most boring 3d series out there, but it's still not fun.)

To their credit - they're well made games from a technical stand point.

But serious lack of creativity (at least imo), bland levels, and extreme repetition killed 'em both, fast.

But out side of that - eh

(and just to note, I had N64/Mario64 as soon as they were available in the US, the game went fast (sold), the system is still a little underrated.)