What are the most underrated and unknown platformers?

[Nerd_Solitude]

I don't think it's that obscure but Cave Story is highly underrated for how great of a game it is. I almost never hear people talk about it.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

I don't think it's that obscure but Cave Story is highly underrated for how great of a game it is. I almost never hear people talk about it.

A lot of indie hits are mentioned offhand or not at all nowadays. Braid, Fez, VVVVVV, and so on.

The ones I continue to hear about are Shovel Knight and Super Meat Boy.

 

[prnzoDraGoonZweiOrta]

ok my head is drawing a blank (which obv is uncommon for me as I nearly always have the opposite problem) but uhm... the Rocket Knight/Sparkster franchise? all 4 are badass, top-notch Konami masterwurx. Metal Slug 1st n 2nd mission for NGPC? even though it's on lots of Sega compilations, it feels like Pulseman never got his due... Ristar maybe did, but not the former. also for Gen/MD - DecapAttack/Magical Hat's Turbo-Flying Adventure... Socket/Time Dominator... GameFAQs lists Impossible Mission for multiple 80's platforms n Zillion for SMS as 2D Plats but c'mon now. If the Wonder Boy/Monster World series n Simon's Quest are retroactively considered metroidvanias than Impossible Mission n ZiLLion certainly are as weLL. AstaL, Clockwork Knight 1 n 2, Bug n Bug Too!, Mr. Bones... there's too many, I will have to organize n compile a list for ya brvh - as you can tell I try to be thorough xD

 

[Viviana Santos]

Tomba! and its sequel Tomba! 2 are excellent and very underrated games in my opinion.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

View attachment 43182View attachment 43183Tomba! and its sequel Tomba! 2 are excellent and very underrated games in my opinion.

True! The PAL community loves them, but they never took over in the U.S., so that basically sealed their fate in a lot of ways. Super unfair how hard U.S. controls the narrative on retro games to be honest. Too many games get unfairly overlooked because they did poorly in the U.S.

 

[Antilocal123]

Rascal on the PlayStation, the BEST platformer ever created that revolutionized the genre and helped create the atmosphere for gaming we have today!

 

[Viviana Santos]

The Adventure of Little Ralph Slaps

 

[DaxterDotEXE]

GODS on the Amiga! (Also TURRICAN)

 

[stealthRUSH stealthRUSH]

2D
Rocky Rodent
Hermie Hopperhead
Tempo, Super Tempo
Punky Skunk
Kitchen Panic
Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa
DinoCity
TryRush Deppy
Marvel Land
Dragon Egg!

3D
Ling Rise
Super Magnetic Neo
Napple Tale
Ninja Jajamaru-kun Onigiri Ninpouchou
Shake Kids
Floating Runner
Dreams to Reality
Tiny Bullets
Doraemon Nobita to Fukkatsu no Hoshi
Ten Made Jack

 

[Turbo Kid]

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

OH! I actually know this one! I played Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit a while back!

On PS3. Bad place to play it. It was fun to play, but not fantastic enough to get past how unstable the port was. Dead serious, it kept crashing and freezing and had framerate hitches. Thankfully, I think the PC version is free from all these faults, same with the 360 version, so play those if you’re interested.

 

[Bakuma1997]

The Wagyan Land series

The platformer component is fire, you can temporaly turn enemies in plataform by screaming at them, and being aimed at kids is sort of easy, the part that make it unique but may be a turnoff is the fact that the "bosses" are minigames based on word chain minigames, the fact that only the first two are translated doesn't help matters, fortunately i use savestates so all is good

 

[Turbo Kid]

Some more I thought of:

OH! I actually know this one! I played Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit a while back!

On PS3. Bad place to play it. It was fun to play, but not fantastic enough to get past how unstable the port was. Dead serious, it kept crashing and freezing and had framerate hitches. Thankfully, I think the PC version is free from all these faults, same with the 360 version, so play those if you’re interested.

Yeah, I think I played it on the Xbox 360 myself.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

Watching a video about Tempo right now.

If there was ever THE GAME I most wanted to play on emulation or a modded console, it would possibly be Super Tempo. There are other contenders for that title, but Super Tempo sticks in my mind as this mysterious sequel to this expressive and overlooked platformer on the 32X. There’s also Pocket Tempo for Game Gear, which is by far the easiest title to set up and play on emulator, but I’m hesitant considering I swear I remember gameplay looking choppy when I looked it up.

Post automatically merged: Aug 27, 2025

There’s also this game: Lunistice.

Kind of a junk food platformer with a very well done artstyle that mimics the 32 bit days. I would call it junk food because I think its main gameplay isn’t amazing, but it’s cute and colorful and easy to play. I think, instead, the term “comfort food” is more applicable here.

It’s on both Steam and Switch. More people have played the Switch release, but it has a latgescale modding project in the works on the PC version called 1.5 Accel Coda.