Best Platformer Games Like Super Mario Odyssey

The best platformer games like Super Mario Odyssey are Super Mario 64, Astro Bot and A Hat in Time. 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 Super Mario Odyssey

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 Super Mario Odyssey 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 Super Mario Odyssey

  1. 1. Super Mario 64

    The original, and its moveset is still the deepest thing about it.

  2. 2. Astro Bot

    The only recent platformer with as many ideas per hour.

  3. 3. A Hat in Time

    The best indie take on the collectathon, and very funny.

  4. 4. Super Mario Galaxy 2

    Idea-per-level design at its absolute peak.

  5. 5. Kirby and the Forgotten Land

    Ability-swapping platforming that keeps changing your verbs.

  6. 6. Banjo-Kazooie

    The classic collectathon, and denser than Odyssey with things to find.

  7. 7. Psychonauts 2

    Every level is a new concept, executed properly.

  8. 8. Sonic Frontiers

    If open 3D traversal was the appeal more than the platforming.

  9. 9. Pseudoregalia

    A small game entirely about how good it feels to move.

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 Super Mario Odyssey — 9 picks, no genre filter.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best platformer game like Super Mario Odyssey?

Super Mario 64. The original, and its moveset is still the deepest thing about it.

Are all of these on the Nintendo Switch?

No. Super Mario Odyssey released on the Nintendo Switch, 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 Super Mario Odyssey 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 Super Mario Odyssey

More Platformer Games Recommendations

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