The most beautiful, sophisticated and friendly representatives of the genre, released in the 2010s.
About nomination
Perhaps it will be difficult to find a gamer who at least has not watched his hero die in some pit with spikes, which the developers generously strewn the way to the happy end. Platformers – the genre is almost as specific as the souls, and its especially picky representatives require no less strong nerves and remarkable patience.
However, from jumping and fighting obstacles you can get not only a charge of fun and satisfaction from the conquered peaks, but sometimes aesthetic pleasure. In this nomination, we collected those platformers of the past decade that we remember more than others: sometimes unbearable complexity, sometimes an original visual solution, and sometimes a rare pleasant opportunity to relax and not swear, dying for the tenth time in a particularly problematic place.
Tenth place – LittleBigPlanet 2 (2011)
Your place in this top LittleBigPlanet 2 won not quite honestly. In a good way, in its place was supposed to be the first part, devoted exclusively to platformers. However, it did not fit into the time frame of the “results of the decade”, so its place was taken by a sequel, not so committed to the purity of the genre.
Compared to millions of sandbox levels, the single-player LittleBigPlanet 2 campaign looks like a short editorial demo, but what a spectacular frenzy each step of the story is filled with! LittleBigPlanet 2 demonstrates what talented people are capable of, if you give them decent tools and do not hold back by any framework. What is one weapon of the Creator, with which you can build a bridge of sticky puddings!
Ninth place – Celeste (2018)
Celeste is both simple and complex – this description fits perfectly with all its aspects. A rather primitive allegory of ascent honestly plays its part in the plot. Unpretentious mechanics develop and deepen with each new stage, promptly throwing up surprises and fresh finds. The smoothly growing difficulty of the levels does not scare away inexperienced users, but at the same time, the game can set the heat for hardcore hardcore players. Celeste is often recommended for those who are completely ignorant of platforming and want to find out what it is – and we sincerely join these recommendations.
Eighth place – Guacamelee! (2013)
What you need to know about Guacamelee? That this is an incredibly funny, bright, stylish and crazy game. What is unbeaten Mexican folklore here perfectly beat. That the hero is a modest farmer who at the very beginning dies and turns into a powerful wrestler-luchador. That the hero’s combat skills are ideally woven into the platforming. That the writers are not shy about the most incredible plot twists, writing down the adventures of heroes in the realm of the dead. That the local cooperative deserves to get to know it at all costs: the real fun begins if you connect a friend to the game. And that chicken is power!
Seventh place – Rayman Legends (2013)
You thought mascot Ubisoft – crazy rabbits? No, the role of the company’s unofficial mascot has been played by Rayman for many years – a strange creature in which all parts of the body live independently of each other and for which the game designer Michel Ancel awarded the French Order of Arts and Literature.
However, even the most legendary and charming hero will not stretch the game alone. IN Rayman legends, the freshest part of the main series, we fell in love with a huge, bright and diverse world, simple controls, a positive attitude and a fabulous plot. Pleasure from the adventures of Rayman can equally be obtained by both lovers of relaxing gameplay and fans of the most difficult tests, and this is not the most common achievement for representatives of the genre.
Sixth place – Dead Cells (2018)
Dying and learning from death is commonplace for platformers. But Dead cells he takes the idea of casting embrasures with his own corpses and brings it to the absolute: sometimes here you can move on only by dying. The protagonist is a parasite that infects the dead, so the main thing is not just to die, but during die in order to use new opportunities in a new life.
Although Dead Cells is rogue-like, tailored to all the laws of procedural generation, the levels are cobbled together from large recognizable pieces, so you should not expect a completely different experience from each passage. However, the game does not have time to scare off the monotony, in addition, in the new year Dead Cells is waiting for the first paid update. The developers promise to add three new biomes, but they are not going to expand and extend the short adventure too much; perhaps they are already mulling over Dead Cells 2 instead.
The creators of platformers often cut off everything superfluous from their creations, including the plot, leaving bare mechanics of overcoming obstacles. The authors of the Ori story went a completely different way. There is plenty of everything here, and sometimes it even seems that this Total too much: luxurious hand-drawn backgrounds, lots of fates, lots of options and possibilities …
However, blaming the studio Moon in excessive embellishment, the tongue will not turn. No matter how fantastic the backdrops look, they lack beauty for the sake of beauty. We’ll be able to get to that tree, we’ll see that mountain near, but we’ll definitely return here. And most importantly, each shining flower, each dying animal and each treacherous spike perform their own parts, which ultimately merge into a single powerful choir; and then a beautiful fairy tale rises to the heights of a philosophical parable to take a soul cleaner than tearful melodramas.
Fourth Place – Shovel Knight (2014)
If you don’t know anything about Shovel knight, its screenshots can be easily attributed to those years when the game mode was asked by simple boxes Nintendo Entertainment System. The creators deliberately abandoned everything that brought the world graphic progress, and built the game out of acid-insolent tones, two-dimensional conventions and the rejection of details.
However, the adventures of a shovel knight only look outdated. At the first hour, it becomes clear that the mechanic Shovel Knight will give odds to many projects of recent years. In addition, the game is exceptionally friendly and hospitable: it does not frighten away with extremely complex battles and trials, it always makes it possible to prepare for an important battle, and practically does not punish for miss. On the contrary, it pushes in every way – go, go on, look at how much good I have in store … hey, just not so fast, otherwise you will miss a bunch of interesting things!
In general, nothing can be explained about this item: the name is enough. Any game related to Mario or Zelda automatically becomes an event, a phenomenon, a legend, a conqueror of the charts and a cash bestseller. That’s Super mario odyssey instantly loved by critics and ordinary users, captivating the hearts with its ingenuity and originality.
However, one cannot help but recall that the cult status of the mustachioed plumber, as well as his associates and opponents, appeared out of the blue. Super Mario Odyssey, like all other Super Mario, is distinguished by a fusion of adult professionalism and indefatigable children’s craving for everything bright, unusual and magical. It’s easy to imagine how wise gray-haired game designers bounce in their office chairs and clap their hands when they hear a great idea: “Let’s give Mario a hat that will turn it into anything – for example, a ball of electricity or tyrex!” … and then take off holiday caps, lay down the pipes and begin to scrupulously calculate how to translate these amazing abilities into adequate gameplay. Which, I must say, they succeeded brilliantly.
Second Place – Cuphead (2017)
Retro game Cuphead It was created long and difficult. A tiny team worked on it: brothers Chad and Jared moldenhower yes animator Jake Clark. The creators sorted out one and a half hundred options for the appearance of the protagonist, came up with mechanics and abandoned them, set release dates, so that after they were moved, they built their own houses and attracted outsourcers …
As it turned out, everything was not in vain. The release came out truly triumphant: Cuphead was showered with praises and awards, and in two years, players sold out more than five million copies.
The formula for the success of “Cup-headed” is not simple: it is a limited number of mechanics, each of whom is used to the best in all kinds of situations. This emphasis is not so much on the reaction as on the calculation of patterns of behavior of enemies. This is a parry, which in the hopeless complexity of the game becomes a saving straw. And finally, the absolute spirit of the era of jazz and that old, real “Disney”, which has not yet become a “corporation of evil”: it’s hard not to fall for manual animation in the style of animated films of the 1930s, when Mickey Mouse was just starting his victorious path to the title legends.
First Place – Super Meat Boy (2010)
And which platformers of the 2010s were the best for you? Tell us in the comments!
