Way back in the 80s and 90s, platform games were the most fun genre with a plethora of legendary hits such as Donkey Kong, Super, Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog, WonderBoy, Castlevania, Pitfall, and countless others. These games could be found on all the old console games such as the Atari systems, Colecovision, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Nintendo 64 and on and on up until today. Furthermore, some of these games such as a few from the Super Mario franchise are considered to be among the best video games of all time.

However, now we just don’t have console games any more, we also have online games on the PC and mobile devices like the ones you can try out at Ladbrokes games. Online games like these and others such as MMORPGs, shooters, Battle Royales, and MOBAs are all very entertaining and popular, but they have taken away from the popularity of the old school platform games mentioned above.

This begs the question whether these types of retro games are still popular in 2021. The fast answer is that the genre as a whole is down due to all the hotter game genres online, but there are definitely silver linings in this trend as some new platform games can still become big hits today. Some even come from unheard-of single developers on the PC or mobile devices. Here are 10 of the best platform games of the last decade. These are in no certain order:

  • Fez – Charming modern platform game that innovated the genre when it need to be.
  • Limbo – The most mysterious game on this list by far as it leaves everything up to the imaginations of the players.
  • Shovel Knight – A monster hit back in 2014 where digging and imagination are key.
  • Super Meat Boy – Insanely difficult game that pokes fun at those players who try to beat it.
  • Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX (featured image) –Just released to energize a good platform game series.
  • Ori and the Blind Forest – Allows the player to relax instead of stressing.
  • Super Mario Odyssey – Simply one of the best games of all time.
  • Sonic Mania – An excellent homage to the first Sonic games when the franchise was great.
  • Hollow Knight – Think a platform version of Dark Souls and you would not be too far off the mark.
  • Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom – You can change your character into many different forms in order to adventure in the game world.

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2 COMMENTS

  1. I would consider retro games to still be relevant today (maybe even popular depending on how you use that term relative to other games or genres), especially within indie game development. For instance, Team Meat (Super Meat Boy), Yacht Club Games (Shovel Knight), WayForward (Shantae), Toby Fox (Undertale), Terry Cavanagh (VVVVVV), Hempuli (Baba Is You), and Studio Pixel (Cave Story) are all examples of independent game developers.

    Also I wouldn’t consider Super Mario Odyssey to be a “retro” game since it’s just too modern. Just because a titular character from the 80s is in a game from the late 2010s doesn’t make that game “retro”. Retro typically refers to game design characteristics mimicking features of older hardware, such as 8-bit and 16-bit art, sound and music.

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    • Retro platformer is a bit more specific, but I think that also holds true, though those types of games tend to be more of amalgamations of multiple genres rather than just pure platformer: (e.g. Action + Platformer, Puzzle + Platformer, Metroidvania + Platformer, etc.).

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