Top 25 Best 2D Platfomers #5 – #1

Symphony of the Night put the "Vania" in Metroidvania. It was a combination platformer, RPG, action, and adventure game that defined what Castlevania would be for many coming years. Even now, modern Castlevanias follow this formula on the DS, and on current consoles as downloadable releases. Sure, some Castlevania releases have become more action- than platform-oriented, but we will always look back on these open-world Castelvania titles as the best in the series.

Super Metroid, quite obviously, put the "Metroid" in Metroidvania. It’s also likely the best Metroid game of all time. Its map was incredibly huge and hid tons of secrets. It told a story of isolation on a destroyed enemy world without ever actually having a line of dialogue. It created the most beloved Metroid upgrade system, which later Metroid games were never able to emulate. This is what pure Metroid is supposed to be.

Sonic is the other king of platforming, right alongside Mario, and since Sonic 3 & Knuckles was the best Sonic game, it deserves to be on this list. Many of you may not know that Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were supposed to be the same game. That’s why it gets one slot on this list. We are also sort-of including Sonic 2’s Knuckles mode along with this as well.

We are coming close to the top of the list, which means that we are once again encountering “best-ofs” from many franchises. Mega Man 2 is easily the best Mega Man game out there, though the recently released Mega Man 9 competes. It had bosses with multiple weaknesses, weapons that were useable in normal gameplay, and music that most gamers still remember to this day.

Here it is. The cream of the crop of platforming games. No matter what anyone tells you, no platforming game is better than Super Mario Bros. 3, the best of the Mario franchise. It introduced a wide variety of power-ups, and an inventory system to help manage them that we still haven’t seen in a Mario title since. It allowed you to skip levels via warp zones, or methodically go through each level one by one to pick up every special item and play at every slot machine house. Its levels had great themes, from giant world to pipe world, breaking the conventions of fire, ice, grass, desert worlds that we were used to seeing. It even introduced the Koopa Kids! This game was simply platforming excellence, and it is unlikely that any title will surpass it any time soon.