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2021 has been a stellar year and a quiet renaissance for platform games.
In over 30 years of variety gaming, outside of my childhood days with 16 and 8-bit consoles, I have never been a fan of platform games. I am that typical core gamer who gets most excited about big, mature, AAA action-adventure games the most. Stuff like Grand Theft Auto, Ghost of Tsushima, and The Elder Scrolls franchise have always been my bread and butter.
Growing up, I became less interested in platformers because generally they were presented with cute, kid-friendly characters and cartoon-like action. To me, that was boring kid stuff, something to dismiss and look over while I fixated on the big new Halo game. I completely skipped out on games like Ratchet and Clank, Sly Cooper, Crash Bandicoot, and many more due to my aversion to “kiddie games;” Thankfully, this is a trait I am starting to shed.
It wasn’t until 2017 when I started to expand my palette a bit, that I grew to understand what made platforming games fun. I credit developer Insomniac Games with igniting this spark by offering me a game that was a half-measure between traditional platforming and action-adventure, Sunset Overdrive.
Sunset Overdrive was an action shooter that heavily relied upon constant movement and platforming. It was a type of gameplay I wasn’t used to but quite thoroughly enjoyed and after finishing Sunset Overdrive I wanted to play something else that felt similar.
I eventually gave the Ratchet and Clank remake a try and immediately recognized the familiar characteristics it shared with Sunset Overdrive. After playing through and enjoying Ratchet and Clank I realized that I could enjoy platform games after all and though they are still not among my favorite genre of games, my interest had been piqued and I became interested in playing more.
This takes us to 2021 where 3 of the top 10 games I have played this year are all platformers and I am happily delighted to post that fact.
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
I knew I was going to get Rift Apart as soon as I saw the first trailer. With my newfound respect for platform games and my fantastic experience with several recent Insomniac-developed games, this was a must-buy. On top of all of that, this was going to be a true AAA PlayStation 5 exclusive title, the first major one I could play on my shiny new machine.
Within the very first 2 minutes of the game, I was gobsmacked. The amalgamation of exceptionally butter-smooth animations and absolutely pristine graphical fidelity on a 4K screen was something to behold. Rift Apart is everything you could reasonably want a AAA budget action game to be; beautiful, fun, and extremely well polished.
I had a great time with this game but strangely there was something missing for me. It checked all the boxes of what a high-profile PlayStation exclusive game is and for many, Rift Apart was and still is their game of the year.
Upon reflection, I surmise that my “problem” with Rift Apart ironically, is that the game is so masterful. Rift Apart took the action-platform formula and nailed it to a T, it was a great experience but it was an experience I had had before.
This was a technically superior version of the same gaming experience we have seen time and time again and though Insomniac has made an excellent game, it didn’t strike me as very exciting outside of the opening hour or so. Even though Rift Apart is my least favorite of the three games discussed in this post, it is hands down the best made from top to bottom.
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart shows what an elite development team can do with a formula they have mastered. Very few games will come close to this level of all-around quality. It is a masterpiece product by most accounts but its lack of innovation or freshness stops it from feeling great.
This is still a game a platform fan must play however and I am certain there are many out there who disagree with my take that Rift Apart is a fantastic game that is lots of fun but not as interesting or memorable as I had hoped.
It Takes Two
Hazelight studios instantly jumped to the top echelon of my developer radar when they made A Way Out. What made A Way Out interesting was that it was a game that decided to put cooperative play right at the core of its design. It Takes Two is an evolution of that principle and in my mind, it decisively surpasses what Hazelight had already accomplished in A Way Out.
It Takes Two is an adventure-platformer that has been meticulously tailored to deliver a fantastic two-player experience. There simply isn’t a co-op game that I have played that so deliberately targets a cooperative adventure experience and pulls it off so well. There are other marvelous co-op and two-player games (Check out our feature on some of the best you can play with a friend) available to gamers today but few take the idea of co-op play so seriously and make it the absolute heart of the game.
Hazelight Studio is setting itself apart because they are pioneering the co-op-only genre of gaming. There are creative innovations everywhere to be found with It Takes two because of Hazelight’s absolute determination to center every facet of this game around a cooperative experience. The entire game was constructed with the knowledge that there will always be two players playing together.
An example of how Hazelight is pioneering the co-op genre is friend pass. Friend pass is a feature that allows anyone who owns a copy of the game to invite a friend to play with them even if they don’t have a copy of their own.
Every section of It Takes Two requires some kind of cooperation. Whether it be the two players working in unison to power a riverboat through a hectic pass or one player platforming across a surface while another places strategic handholds to create a path for the first player traverse.
It Takes Two designer Josef Faras jokes that he will pay anyone who gets bored of this game $1000 but he is making a point; there is so much variety and creativity poured into the way this game approaches its mission and cooperative play that you would be hard-pressed to get tired of it.
Just as you start to get comfortable with how a section of the game plays out the two primary characters get thrown into a new situation and you have to adapt to the new paradigm shift of how the new gameplay segment you are in will play out.
It Takes Two has been a refreshing play-through. A co-op game that doesn’t require a ton of investment, something you can pick up, play, and have a blast with as soon as the game loads up. This is light fare gaming and really well done light fare at that. This is a game you can play with a hardcore gamer, a casual gamer spouse, or even a child.
With It Takes Two Hezelight managed to nail a platforming game that is accessible to nearly every level of gamer and well done enough to keep them all entertained and engaged. An impressive feat and one of the core reasons why It Takes Two has won the 2021 Game of the Year!
Psychonauts 2
Psychonauts 2 has been a AA game with a lot of hype from certain circles in gaming. The 15-year gap between this sequel and its predecessor is a rare phenomenon in the gaming industry; even rarer, many of the same talents who made the first game were still around to make part 2.
The cult-classic status of the first Psychonauts is hard to miss if you are embedded within the gaming community. The original Psychonauts left such a major impression that even a decade later, you could still frequently find people lamenting the fact that a sequel was never made. Now that it is here, could the sequel capture the same magic as the first game? Was it able to stack up with modern platform games like the masterful Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart? Fortunately, the answer is yes.
I came into Psychonauts 2 with no experience with the series, it being on Xbox Game Pass and being a fairly hyped AA game got my attention. Coming off of Ratchet and Clank and It Takes Two, I felt I was pretty well prepared to see what yet another platformer could bring to the table. Of all three of these games, Psychonauts 2 has delighted me the most and that was something I was not expecting.
On the surface, Psychonauts 2 does not measure up with the technical perfection that is Ratchet and Clank; for example, the gameplay in Psychonauts 2 isn’t nearly as smooth, the action is solid but nothing to write home about. Visually, Psychonauts 2 looks great in large part due to the aesthetic art direction of the game but again, Ratchet and Clank blows it away on a purely visual level.
Where Psychonauts developer Double Fine shines with this game is the story and the characters. Psychonauts 2 deals with themes of the mind. Mental Illness, anxiety, addiction, the narrative, and characters in this game are heavily layered. This is a game that isn’t afraid to go into some dark and serious places and deal with themes that are traditionally ignored in most games.
With such a serious subject matter, it would be easy to assume that Psychonauts 2 is a deeply emotional, somber gaming experience, yet it isn’t that at all. Psychonauts 2 has all of the zest and joy that is typically associated with 3D platform games while still deftly dealing with mature themes. This is the rare videogame where every player will take away something different from the story.
Razputin Aquato, his family, and the varied Psychonuat agents and students really brought the world to vivid life. Of the three games discussed in this post, Psychonauts 2 by far did the best job of connecting with me personally. I grew to love the characters and worlds and I looked forward to solving the game’s mysteries and ultimately, enriching my allies’ lives.
Psychonauts 2 is a masterclass in game storytelling. Double Fine has managed to create a game that transcends the common status of games being simple entertainment, Psychonauts 2 is art. A game that is not just a thing of beauty or fun, but a game that can touch you on emotional levels through not only its cutscenes but through how it approaches its gameplay as well.
The Platformer game genre is looking strong!
Though platformers are not one of my top genres, 2021 has opened my eyes to just how fantastic these games can be. Though in most cases, these games are perfectly appropriate for most kids, they are not the “kiddie” games that only children can enjoy I used to ignorantly label them as.
Platform games can carry all of the challenge, suspense, and intrigue that their more rated M gaming counterparts do. There is also something to be said for the oftentimes light-hearted joy that platform games bring to the table, not every adventure has to be about desperate stakes and bloody revenge.
This has been a great year for the platform genre. All three of these games have received heaps of critical praise and have reached millions of gamers through services like EA Play and Xbox Game Pass. The fact that a once anti-platform genre gamer such as myself now has 3 platform games ranked in my top ten games of the year really shows how impactful the genre is right now.
In the last decade, platformers have remained strong but many of the more high-profile ones have seemed to fade away. I think 2021 has shown that the genre is due for a resurgence. A new era where once again platform games can sit prominently next to other popular genres and garner the same mainstream respect. That era may be upon us and these three games are championing that resurgence with marvelous aplomb.
Are you a platform game fan? How do you feel about these three titles? Are you new to the genre like me? Have you played and enjoyed these games? Let us know with a comment below!
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