Platformer Games are one of the things the Nintendo Entertainment System is genuinely for. The ones worth playing start with Super Mario Bros, Metroid, Mega Man 2.
The machine that set the rules. Almost every genre convention people still use was either invented or standardised on the NES, usually under severe technical constraints that forced the design to be tight.
This is one of its strengths. Side-scrolling platformers and action games built around one perfect verb, and arcade-derived difficulty that respects memorisation. Levels teach without a word of text because there was no room for text.
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.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
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.
Weight. Platformers rarely carry a story you will think about afterwards, and the collectible-led ones can become checklists if you let them.
Super Mario Bros is the usual first answer, and there are 13 in the library we cover.
Yes — it is one of the things the machine is known for, and there are 13 in the library we cover.
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.
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.
From the games this site covers on the Nintendo Entertainment System, matched against hand-mapped gameplay categories rather than a storefront's genre tag. A page only exists where there are at least four, which is why some console and genre combinations have no page at all.
Or browse the whole Nintendo Entertainment System library.