The Tuesday 10s: Best 3D Platformers of the Past Ten Years

After a nice, much needed week off, SuperPhillip Central is back with a brand-new article and a brand-new series of articles. Introducing: The Tuesday 10s--themed lists of some of the very best in gaming. Rather than obsess with the order of things like I would do with a top ten list, when it comes to The Tuesday 10s, these lists will be entirely unordered.

Let's kick off this inaugural edition of The Tuesday 10s with a category near and dear to my heart, the 3D platformer. It's a genre that used to be all the rage back when I was a middle school version of myself, but as you can tell by the past tense used, it's not so hot anymore. So, expect to see lots of Mario representation on this first installment of The Tuesday 10s!

I hope for this new article series to show up most Tuesdays on the site. After all, it wouldn't make much sense for The Tuesday 10s to appear on a Wednesday... Now, with all that out of the way, here are my selections for the best 3D platformers of the past ten years!

Super Mario Odyssey (NSW)

Speaking of which, we begin this installment with Super Mario Odyssey, the latest 3D platformer featuring Mario. Taking the idea of the large, expansive playgrounds of Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine and absolutely running (and jumping) with the concept, Super Mario Odyssey featured kingdoms that stretched far and wide, offering plenty of platforming, scores of secrets, and multiple opportunities for hunting down stray Power Moons. An abundant supply was hidden throughout each kingdom, and I enjoyed searching for them all. If you wanted to be a completionist, you could do that, but if you just wanted to complete the game with the minimum amount of Power Moons, you could also opt to do that, too. I feel the abundance (or overabundance, if you will) of Power Moons was like a joyous Easter egg hunt, and those with lesser skill could go after the ones that were less challenging to collect, meaning most could beat the game by choosing their own difficulty as it were.

Then, there's Cappy, who offered the ability for Mario to capture the powers and move sets of various objects, items, and enemies, bringing a whole new element to 3D Mario. While many of these were one-offs, the captured items that were used for traversal purposes shined the most. From the sun-soaked sands of Tostarena to the Japanese-style feudal castle of Bowser's Kingdom, every kingdom brought with it new ideas, personality, and charm. I won't call Super Mario Odyssey my favorite of Mario's 3D adventures, but it is darn close.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)

Now, THIS. THIS is what I would call my favorite 3D Mario game, if I had to choose. Well, it's definitely my favorite from Mario's repertoire of the past ten years, and it just comes under the wire, too, by about a month. It's of course Super Mario Galaxy 2, a game that greatly expanded on the ideas and concept of the original Galaxy, one of my favorite games of all time, period.

What makes Super Mario Galaxy 2 great is that it's pure, unadulterated platforming goodness. While not open like Super Mario Odyssey, the levels and galaxies are straight up obstacle courses with all the gravitational goodness of its predecessor put to some insanely ingenious uses. I had thought Super Mario Galaxy put the level designers' to the limit, and that they had revealed all of their tricks with that game. I was definitely wrong, as Super Mario Galaxy 2 is even more creative at times. I wanted more Super Mario Galaxy greatness, and that's exactly what I got with its brilliant, super sequel.

Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)

Run, jump, and move through a wild assortment of traditional Mario obstacle courses, but this time in 3D. Yes, Super Mario 3D Land was set up essentially as your typical "point A to point B" Mario platformer but instead of being limited to 2D, another dimension was added, creating one incredible experience. 3D Land absolutely offered an amazing stereoscopic 3D experience on the Nintendo 3DS hardware, making it so enemies and objects seemingly popped out of the screen right at you, and made judging jumps easier of an activity than ever before. Super Mario 3D Land may have been built for bite-size play sessions with its mere minutes of gameplay per level, but it was a game that I wasn't able to put down for long periods of time. It's a game, like many on this first Tuesday 10, that I will continue coming back to if not to just marvel at its masterful level design and it being just plain fun to play.

Super Mario 3D World (Wii U)

Take the concept of Super Mario 3D Land and make it more suitable for a home console, particularly as Mario's first HD 3D adventure. How do you do that? Ask Nintendo, because that's exactly what they did, and made a much bigger and better game out of it (and you just saw how much I enjoyed 3D Land)! Super Mario 3D World greatly expanded on the level design of its 3DS predecessor, delivering much more complex, sophisticated, and challenging levels. The addition of multiplayer meant up to four players at once could locally scramble around the levels, either helping or hindering one another, depending on how mischievous they were feeling at the time. The Cat Suit stays near the top of my list as one of the best Super Mario power-ups to date, as it was just a blast to claw enemies, climb up walls, and just scurry about. Super Mario 3D World remains one of the few holdovers from the Wii U that has yet to be ported to the Nintendo Switch, but as rumors have hinted, hopefully we won't have to wait too long to see the game arrive on Nintendo's hybrid.

Ratchet & Clank (PS4)

Tying in with the movie from the same year, Ratchet & Clank had a lot less bite to it when compared to the original game--both Ratchet and Clank had a much less strained relationship in the beginning and the character development wasn't as immense from start to finish. That said, nearly everything else about the Ratchet & Clank remake on the PlayStation 4 delivered in spades. The game, for one, looks like a million bolts. It's a game where I had to do a double take--no, triple take--just to confirm that what I was seeing was footage and screenshots from a game and not the movie itself. Various additions like upgrade-able weapons, which the original game lacked, meant that you wanted to use every weapon and gun in the game just to level them up to make them even more useful and powerful than they were. Ratchet & Clank is a shorter game than the 2002 original, but a lot of the unnecessary fat was cut and filler removed. It makes repeated play-throughs, something necessary to do for the Platinum trophy (a fun thing to go for) more enjoyable.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (PS3, Vita)

Let's continue with PlayStation platformers with a series that is sadly now in limbo. It's Sly Cooper, and his fourth game, Thieves in Time, was a globe-trotting, time-traveling adventure that granted our clever raccoon various disguises which bestowed him different abilities. Sanzaru Games definitely delivered a delightful romp with Thieves in Time, keeping in spirit of Sucker Punch's signature original trilogy, while adding their own spin to things to keep this fourth entry exciting. It's just an absolute shame that this game ended on a cliffhanger, which at this point in time remains completely unresolved. Will you ever return home, Sly--whether home to your own time, or to a modern PlayStation platform?

Tearaway (Vita) / Tearaway: Unfolded (PS4)

Whether it's Tearaway on the PlayStation Vita or its revised Tearaway: Unfolded version on the PlayStation 4, Media Molecule breathed fresh, creative life into the 3D platforming genre on PlayStation with its papercraft world. Using both the Vita hardware itself and to a lesser extent, the PlayStation 4's DualShock controller, in remarkably novel and ingenious ways, Tearaway could have easily felt like a gimmick-filled 3D platformer. Instead, its "gimmicks" were complementary to the gameplay, from touching the rear pad of the Vita to raise platforms from the ground, to drawing decorations to be plastered around the game world. Tearaway is a delightful game that took risks and mostly succeeded with each. But, what else could you expect from the masterful minds behind creations like LittleBigPlanet and Dreams?

Sonic Generations (PS3, 360, PC)

While not having nearly as many the amount of entries on this Tuesday 10 than his old rival Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog does get some representation on this list, and it's what I and many fans of the Blue Blur consider his best 3D adventure. Sure, half of it is played in a 2D perspective, but let's not split hairs here. What plays out in 3D are some of the best modern stages in Sonic history. Yes, I can hear "well, that's a low bar" from the peanut gallery, but these levels are actually well done and thoughtfully designed. They feature a combination of modern-day Sonic "boost formula" Sonic, where Sonic is cruising through stages at insane speeds, but they also feature careful, precision-based platforming sections as well. It helps, too, that Sonic Generations is in itself a love letter to Sonic fans old and new with its zone selection, picking out levels from each major Sonic game from the original Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis to Sonic Colors on the Nintendo Wii.

A Hat in Time (Multi)

Gears for Breakfast's 3D platforming tour de force, A Hat in Time, was modeled after Nintendo 64-era "collectathons" of the 3D platforming persuasion, and for the most part, it was a fun romp. Using different hats and caps as Hat Kid to unleash various powers and abilities was enjoyable, as was exploring the absolutely large and dense levels of the game. I particularly enjoyed A Hat in Time's cheeky sense of humor, which it wore on its cap like a badge of honor. Though the game played a little too close to N64-era platformers when its troublesome camera was concerned, overall, A Hat in Time brought with its plenty of personality with its robust roster of charming characters, well designed levels, and comfortable controls to make for a winner in my book--one that I can't help but take off my own hat and bow to with respect.

Yooka-Laylee (PS4, XB1, NSW, PC)

Speaking of N64-era 3D platformers of the "collectathon" variety, we have Yooka-Laylee. The story of Yooka-Laylee is the story of former designers and staffers from Rare's golden era who joined forces to form Playtonic Games. And of course, their first project just had to be a game *ahem* heavily inspired by one of the games many of the staff worked on at their time at Rare, none other than the much-cherished Banjo-Kazooie. (I'm included in that group that absolutely cherishes that game very much.)

At its core, Yooka-Laylee has a lot of interesting ideas to it, but not all of these are executed to their greatest ability. For instance, the mine cart sections and arcade game portions of Yooka-Laylee are rather dreadful, but stuff like the expansive worlds, unique challenges for each, and fun move sets for the combo of Yooka and Laylee deliver well. While the follow-up of Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is a much better game than Playtonic's first go at designing a game for their chameleon and bat duo, the original Yooka-Laylee still offers enough entertainment for me to give it a hearty recommendation.

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I hope you enjoyed this very first installment of the Tuesday 10s! What topics would you like to see me cover for future weeks? Let me know in the comments!

A Hat in Time (NSW, PS4, XB1, PC) Review

For the first review of 2020, SuperPhillip Central takes a look at A Hat in Time, recently released on the Switch after months of online clamoring for the game from owners and fans alike of Nintendo's hybrid console. Check out the full review of A Hat in Time below.

A Neat Hat Trick

I cannot get enough 3D platformers, and perhaps part of that is growing up with the Nintendo 64, a console with an abundance of games in the genre. Heck, the whole generation was a love letter to the genre Super Mario 64 made popular. Nowadays, the genre is much more underrepresented, but the occasional gem does pop up and shine every now and then. One of these is Gears for Breakfast's A Hat in Time, which finally made its way to the Nintendo Switch as of this past fall. What a time for a review, then! While offering plenty of appeal, this promising 3D platformer does run into some problems that many games of the 3D platform genre suffer from, unfortunately. 

A Hat in Time begins with our heroine Hat Kid traveling in the stars aboard her spaceship. Suddenly, a member of the Mafia pulls alongside her, demanding a toll for passage. When Hat Kid declines, the Mafia man damages the window of the spaceship, thus sucking out Hat Kid and more importantly, the Time Pieces her ship uses as fuel. In order to return to her course to reach her intended destination, she'll have to retrieve as many Time Pieces as possible while interacting with the wacky characters of A Hat in Time's handful of worlds. 

The characters in A Hat in Time are suitably wacky and whimsical, each with their own charming personalities and eccentricities. Each line of dialogue is spoken, and the voice acting is rather nice and well done. I grew fond of plenty of the characters in the game, such as a menacing and foreboding specter that loves to make shadowy and sinister soul-stealing deals via contracts and a loudmouth director with a Scottish accent that never failed to make me smile. 

Hat Kid walks on tightropes like a regular circus star.

A Hat in Time's story plays out over the course of five worlds or chapters. These chapters are split up into acts, which greatly changes not only the objective of the level but also sometimes the geography of the world as well. While most of the levels in the game occur in open, completely nonlinear areas, sometimes you're in much more scripted levels. For instance, the second chapter, Dead Bird Studio's first act has Hat Kid stealthily making her way through various movies being filmed, all the while trying to remain undetected. Subsequent acts in this chapter don't take place in the same setting. Some take place aboard a train in a whodunnit mystery scenario while another places you in a small city set where you perform various actions to raise your publicity for a movie being shot. 

Shh! Make sure to stay quiet on set, Hat Kid!

Apart from completing the main objective in each act of A Hat in Time, there is a wide assortment of activities to be performed. From collecting Balls of Yarn to craft new hats that bestow Hat Kid with new powers (and there are more than enough of these Balls of Yarn so that you need not find every single one in the game to make progress) to discovering locations of Time Rifts, there is plenty to see and do in each level. One aspect that I greatly enjoyed in A Hat in Time is just discovering all of the little secrets found through proficient exploration. The motivation was there because I always knew that my wandering about a level and finding a distinct platforming challenge meant I would be properly rewarded for it.

"Catch me if you can!"

That said, on many occasions in A Hat in Time I would find myself getting easily lost due to the size and scope of some of the levels. Particularly, the Subcon Forest, which is the third chapter in the game, has an extremely large, expansive size and scope, and a lot of the time there aren't too many well defined points of interest. Things simply seem to blur together, making it difficult to navigate, something that would have been remedied with an in-game map. Though perhaps this would have taken away from the mystery and rewards for exploring, but even still, it would have made wandering across these large areas more enjoyable. Many times I'd lose track of where I needed to go or where I had found a collectible I couldn't get right away. I'd spend over ten minutes trying to remember where its location was and attempt to track it down. A map system would have been helpful here.

Some of the areas of A Hat in Time are a little too large for their own good without the assistance of a map.

There are bonus Time Pieces to earn when Time Rifts become detected in levels. These present you with a snapshot of the Time Rift's location, and challenge you to find them based on your knowledge of the scenery surrounding the rift in the snapshot. When you discover the rift's location, you're taken into a platforming challenge room, not unlike those seen in Super Mario Sunshine's bonus areas. These Time Rifts take a lot of platforming prowess to complete, and are pure, unadulterated, and enjoyable in their run and jump action.

Hat Kid has a host of abilities she can learn, and many of these come from the hats she can equip through acquiring the aforementioned assortments of Balls of Yarn. Different hats bestow different abilities, such as the Sprint Cap allowing Hat Kid to speed across levels with a high level of agility, the Brewing Hat grants the ability to chuck explosives that can destroy certain objects in Hat Kid's way, and the Dweller's Mask temporarily turns transparent platforms completely solid for our heroine to jump safely on. Those are but half of the available hats in the game, and each has alternate skins--or flairs, as the game calls them--that are unlocked through discovered coins found hidden in some truly crafty locations in levels. The various variants of hat varieties presents some entertainment in tricking out Hat Kid, as well as the color schemes you can also unlock to customize Hat Kid even further.

Forget explosive potions; Right now it looks like trouble is the only thing brewing here.

Apart from the hat abilities, Hat Kid can purchase badges and eventually equip up to three at once. These grant helpful bonus abilities like automatically picking up collectibles in close proximity to Hat Kid, like a magnet, and even one that points out locations of hidden collectibles. Though, the latter simply points an arrow in the general vicinity and doesn't straight up give away where these collectibles are. At the same token, I wish A Hat in Time was set up to show what acts of chapters have been completely ransacked of collectibles. As is, you have to enter each act of each chapter and equip the badge in question to see if you have everything in a given act or not. Very obnoxious and not really that intuitive design-wise for a completionist like myself.

The Windmill is a platforming challenge featured in A Hat in Time's
fourth chapter, a much more wide open world to explore.

Hat Kid controls splendidly in A Hat in Time. There is a certain finesse and tightness on display here, that is really nice to see and makes for a game that is fun to control. The elephant in the room, however, is the camera, which has been a thorn in the side of many 3D platformers, and it's present here as a problem in A Hat in Time. While in open areas, the camera behaves itself, it's when you enter narrower, more cramped and claustrophobic areas where you'll start seriously cursing at the camera as it causes you unintentional deaths from repeated missed jumps. There aren't too many scenarios like this in the base game, but the bonus chapter that unlocks after beating A Hat in Time is full of these. There is one particular act that features an iceberg-struck ship that has since capsized. You have to navigate through narrow chambers of freezing water that is quickly damaging with prolonged exposure to it, and the camera is as much of an enemy as anything else inside. It's by far one of the worst levels I've played in an otherwise strong 3D platformer in a long time.

Careful, Hat Kid, or you might stumble straight into a shocking development.

Performance-wise, it's a mixed bag regardless of what platform you're playing on. The screens provided in this review that I took are from the Nintendo Switch version. As you can see, anti-aliasing is something the team didn't implement in the game and it shows in a rather unappealing way. There are also frame-rate hitches--up to a second of pure stuttering sometimes--and lengthy load times, especially the initial one when starting up the game. The other console versions deal with various glitches as well, making A Hat in Time a game best played in its original PC form, if you have access to it. As I had a preference for portable play, the Switch version was my preferred platform.

A Hat in Time is generally a good time from beginning to end. It's just that the camera can be a real nuisance when it concerns tight and narrow areas, and technical performance problems in the form of glitches and frame-rate issues result in the game having a less than polished feel to it. That notwithstanding, A Hat in Time is otherwise a resounding success in my book. It offers satisfying worlds to explore, pleasing platforming, amusing characters, and I can't help but tip my own hat to the game.

[SPC Says: B]

Top Five Most Anticipated Digital-Only Games

Gaming is heading towards digital more and more as each year passes by. It's fantastic that developers are able to create mid-tier games that last generation were all but endangered in the retail space. Now, we have genres that wouldn't fit into the AAA-line of thinking that this industry continues to lean towards readily available on many digital marketplaces. The titles that I'm most excited for this year are but some of the incredibly hype-worthy games coming from developers both small and large.

I passionately encourage you to please recommend to me other digital games that are coming out that I may not even know about. It would be with great thanks from me for you guys to do that. Also, after you're done reading my picks, let's chat about digital games in the comments section!

5) '90s Arcade Racer - Developed by Antonis Pelekanos and Nicalis

A lot of the games on this list are inspired by retro classics. This next indie title, '90s Arcade Racer is one that can thank Daytona USA for its inspiration. I have been wanting a modern racer that is less simulation and more about crazy drifts for the longest time. It's gotten so bad for me that I was honest to goodness willing to pull the proverbial trigger on Ridge Racer... for the Vita. Let that sink in how deep my desperation goes. However, '90s Arcade Racer is a game that seems to scratch my itch for thrills, chills, and drifting goodness. Of course, since the game is being published by Nicalis, we will probably have to wait until 2020 to see the game released. Perhaps I'm being hard on Nicalis, but the publisher does not have a good "track" record on releasing games in a timely fashion. Still, I'm sure the wait will be definitely worth it!

4) Midora - Developed by Epic Minds

Midora has an art style highly reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, and in addition to the art, the gameplay is similar to the legendary franchise its inspired by. Currently, the team at Epic Minds is planning 12 unique dungeons full of insane traps, enemies, and obstacles. Furthermore, we're bound to get a high number of secondary items aside from Midora's main means to attack to open up the possibilities for different combat strategies and puzzle concepts. Midora may seem too heavily inspired by The Minish Cap, but I think that is what draws me to this game. It's an ode to 16-bit Zelda, and despite not being overly innovative, I still feel the need to play this game.

3) Mekazoo - Developed by The Good Mood Creators

If you see a theme on my five selections for downloadable games that I have the most excitement for, it's probably that all of the games here are in genres that are my favorites or games inspired by favorite franchises and games of mine. Mekazoo is a 2.5D platformer which has you switching between one of a handful of different animals, such as an armadillo, a frog, and a kangaroo, and platforming with great acrobatics through multiple tiered levels. It's an exciting prospect and the trailer for the game shows this action beautifully. With a release period for late this year, I cannot wait to see more footage and imagination shown from The Good Mood Creators and their greatly interesting game.

2) Mighty No. 9 - Developed by Comcept 

A project led by the driving force behind the Mega Man series, Keiji Inafune, Mighty No. 9 definitely has its roots greatly inspired by the Blue Bomber's games. With a formula just like the Mega Man games, eight bosses that strike a resemblance to Robot Masters, and similar gameplay, Mighty No. 9 might as well be considered an all-new Mega Man game. While the Kickstarter campaign is a bit dubious in how much money it continually wants and how the mock-up for the project is nothing close to what the actual work-in-progress looks like, I am still drooling over the prospect of playing a Mega Man-like game from the man most closely tied to the franchise.

1) A Hat in Time - Developed by Gears for Breakfast

A Hat in Time satiates my hunger and thirst for a traditional 3D collect-a-thon style platformer akin to classic games like Super Mario 64 and my favorite of the bunch, Banjo-Kazooie. The game is set to feature fully explorable worlds; the ability to battle enemies and bosses with either Hat Kid's umbrella or an ode to Mario, a jump to the noggin; collectibles aplenty like badges that can be equipped to change the player's play style; cooperative gameplay; and an art style similar to what was seen in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. A Hat in Time is such an exciting project to me, someone who is a huge fan of Nintendo 64 era 3D platformers, and I am chomping at the bit to see this game released to the public.