Last generation, thanks in large part to the access to Steam and the growing market for indie games, saw a return of new, good quality 2D platformers after the genre fell out of favour for a long while. And the big guys took notice as old favourites returned in a big way and new franchises were met with success. I'm quite pleased about it as this was a genre I grew up on. What do you think? Is there too much now? Is it the new FPS? What would you like to see regain popularity? I'm pulling for the 3D collecathon platformer
It's nice to have some 2D platformers again (though I'm not particularly a fan of the genre) but it's overkill, especially with Nintendo. We've had New Super Mario Bros. U, New Super Luigi U, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Yoshi's New Island, Yarn Yoshi, Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, Kirby Triple Deluxe...and that's just in the past year or so. They really need to have some variety in their game lineup lately. And then 90% of indie games are 2D sidescrollers/platformers that are often generic and uninspired, but hailed as the second coming of Christ because of their "retro-style" unfair difficulty and archaic gameplay tropes.
I think Nintendo should take a loooooong break from 2D Mario platformers. I don't have a problem with the other Nintendo 2D platformers (DK, Yoshi, etc.), but Mario needs to stop. And yes, like TRI89, I want a return to 3D open-world collectathons. Last year, I played Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, and Donkey Kong 64. I really love those games but they're roughly 15 years old. Something new would be good.
I'm really crossing my fingers that A Hat in Time brings back the 3D collect-a-thon platformer. What I've seen so far looks good. Somewhere, in some alternate reality, I hope Nintendo buys back Banjo and brings together the old creative team since none of them are at Rare now and they're all doing their own thing. Add a UK outlet to the lineup of Retro and Next Level Games for Western software, since they're not doing much with NST recently. Anyway, 2D Platformers... last generation was a good time. Donkey Kong Country Returns, Rayman Origins, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Wario Land, Muramasa, Klonoa, Sonic Generations, Braid, Super Meat Boy. A lot of them, and all really good. I don't know why they lost favour for two console generations, but glad they're back if though it's a little much. A couple mix up the formula a bit (Jungle Beat is incredibly original), the rest are just really fine-tuned. I'd like to see more games try to expand the genre a bit rather than just perfect it. The New Super Mario Bros. games though, eehhh... They sell. But so did the old ones, except those were good. Nintendo needs to fix that.
