Summary
A lot of players grew up playing the NES when it debuted in 1985 in North America. Their game of choice at theNES launch had to beSuper Mario Bros., which took the nation by storm, leading to tons of merchandise, sequels, and even cartoons. Mario helped define the platformer genre, and many games would come to dethrone the king, fromCrash BandicoottoSonic the Hedgehog.
The gaming world is big enough for all of these mascot characters to exist, and all of these franchises are great. However, some players like customizing their characters more like in RPGs. There have been platformers that have offered customization, so let’s go through the best ones and rank them based on creativity and how good their platforming is.
BattleBlock Theaterwas the next game from The Behemoth, the studio that made a hit on the Xbox 360 indie marketplace withCastle Crashers.BattleBlock Theaterhas that same weird energy that its predecessor had with weird NPCs and enemies,a narrator that showed distastefor the player, and an out-of-this-world soundtrack.
Levels were short and challenging 2D affairs akin to something more likeSuper Meat BoythanSuper Mario World. Players could customize their avatar with various heads from aliens to pyramids, and also color their bodies. The further they got, the more items would appear. The best part was the co-op, which allowed four players to frolic around levels and cause mischief online.
Yoshi’s Crafted Worldwas indeed a platformer, but one with less creativity beyond costumes. Players could choose the color of their Yoshi at the start of levels and then dress them in various cardboard costumes, which added to the DIY theming of the game.
It’s not as cool as creating a Yoshi with specific colors and patterns, but it’s more customization than other Mario games have offered. Options aside, it’s a great platformer with a stunning visual style that often gets overlooked on Switch.
TheSonicfranchisehas had a huge presence online with the rise of the Internet in the late 90s and early 2000s. Fans have been making content for years, from games to comics, andSonic Forcesfinally gave them an official outlet to showcase their creativity.
Players could make a character based on a few different creatures and customize their body with colors, clothes, and accessories, more of which would unlock as the game went on. It’s not the best Sonic game in the franchise, but it should be noted as a standout entry that gave fans what they wanted with a pretty creative host of levels.
The original Xbox didn’t get a lot of platformer exclusives on the console, but two are notable. The first game,Blinx: The Time Sweeper, starred the titular cat who went throughtime fixing anomalies. In the sequel,Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space, Blinx took on more of a side role, and players could instead make their own fuzzy character.
Also, the game was split between levels with time officers and levels wherein players could cause havoc in time with the pig-like Tom Tom Gang. It was a risky sequel with a lot of ideas thrown at the wall, complete with multiplayer, too, and fans were there for it even though it didn’t make a huge splash on Xbox.
Tearawaywas a unique platformer by the same devs asLittleBigPlanet, Media Molecule. It wasa PS Vita exclusivewherein players could customize their avatar’s envelope-like face along with their body. In the remake on PS4, they added a female option but kept the customization options overall relatively low.
While the avatar customization wasn’t as wild asLittleBigPlanet’soptions, the gameplay was more creative, which used every button and motion control the PS Vita system and PS4 controller were capable of. Both versions are worth a playthrough to see all the little differences.
The first game in the franchise was unique as it gave players a way to make their own levels on top of customizing their male and female Sackboys with tons of clothing patterns and colors.LittleBigPlanet 2was a big leap forward, which smoothed out gameplay hiccups like tightening the platforming as well as making levels more memorable.
There was a new host of creative tools, too, to make more than just platforming levels. On top of that, the clothing choices were upgraded, and some fun costume crossover packs made the Sackboys even cuter, like turning them intoFinal Fantasy 7charactersor DC superheroes.
