Best Platformer Games Like Super Metroid

The best platformer games like Super Metroid are Metroid Dread, Hollow Knight and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. 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 Metroid

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 Metroid 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 Metroid

  1. 1. Metroid Dread

    The modern entry, and the best-controlling game in the series.

  2. 2. Hollow Knight

    The genre's high point since, and enormous.

  3. 3. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

    The other half of the genre's name, and still superb.

  4. 4. Axiom Verge

    Made explicitly to be Super Metroid again, down to the glitch mechanics.

  5. 5. Ori and the Will of the Wisps

    The best-animated metroidvania, and much kinder.

  6. 6. Environmental Station Alpha

    A small game with secrets that go far deeper than they look.

  7. 7. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

    Modern metroidvania with excellent combat and a superb map system.

  8. 8. Metroid Fusion

    More directed, but the tightest of the 2D entries.

  9. 9. Blasphemous 2

    Gorgeous pixel art and deliberate, heavy combat.

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 Metroid — 9 picks, no genre filter.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best platformer game like Super Metroid?

Metroid Dread. The modern entry, and the best-controlling game in the series.

Are all of these on the Super Nintendo?

No. Super Metroid released on the Super Nintendo, 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 Metroid 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 Metroid

More Platformer Games Recommendations

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