Best Platformer Games Like Jak and Daxter

The best platformer games like Jak and Daxter are Ratchet and Clank, Sly Cooper and Banjo-Kazooie. Below are 9, each with the reason it is here — and, at the end, what filtering to platformer costs you.

Why Platformer Is a Good Answer for Jak and Daxter

Filtering to platformer means you want the movement itself to be the pleasure. It is the right filter when the thing you liked was getting from one place to another.

What you get: A game you can judge in ten seconds. Platformers live or die on the jump, and a good one feels right before anything else happens.

What made Jak and Daxter worth playing in the first place is covered on the full list. This page is the platformer part of that answer, and only the platformer part.

9 Platformer Games Like Jak and Daxter

  1. 1. Ratchet and Clank

    The other Insomniac/Naughty Dog PS2 platformer, weapon-focused rather than movement-focused.

  2. 2. Sly Cooper

    The third pillar of the PS2 platformer trio — stealth and heist structure.

  3. 3. Banjo-Kazooie

    The collectathon done at its best, if that was the part you liked.

  4. 4. Psychonauts

    Platforming built around genuinely inventive level concepts and writing.

  5. 5. A Hat in Time

    A modern collectathon that understands what made these games move well.

  6. 6. Super Mario Odyssey

    The high-water mark for movement in a 3D platformer.

  7. 7. Ape Escape

    PS1's best 3D platformer, built around the dual-stick gadget system.

  8. 8. Sunset Overdrive

    If you preferred Jak II — open world, traversal-led combat, same irreverence.

  9. 9. Astro Bot

    The most joyful modern platformer, and the closest thing to Jak 1's polish.

What This Filter Leaves Out

Weight. Platformers rarely carry a story you will think about afterwards, and the collectible-led ones can become checklists if you let them.

The full list is on games like Jak and Daxter — 9 picks, no genre filter.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best platformer game like Jak and Daxter?

Ratchet and Clank. The other Insomniac/Naughty Dog PS2 platformer, weapon-focused rather than movement-focused.

Are all of these on the PlayStation 2?

No. Jak and Daxter released on the PlayStation 2, but a recommendation is only useful if you can play it, so the picks above span platforms and eras. What they share is the genre and the reason.

What separates a good platformer from a bad one?

Whether the move set is complete early. The great ones give you everything in the first level and spend the rest asking better questions of it; the weak ones drip-feed abilities to disguise thin level design.

2D or 3D?

Different games. 2D platformers are about precision on a single screen; 3D ones are about reading space and camera. Each pick below says which it is.

How are these chosen?

By hand. Each pick was written for the full Jak and Daxter list first, on what the game actually does, and this page is the part of that list that is platformer — never a genre tag lookup, which is how "best racing games like Super Mario 64" used to be a page on this site.

Other Angles on Jak and Daxter

More Platformer Games Recommendations

Or read the platformer guide for where to start in the genre generally.