1y ago

Why aren't modern 3D platformers as good as the PS2 era of 3D platformers?

Please prove me wrong and suggest me some modern ones that stand up to the older ones.

Also, why are there no 3rd person shooter/3D platformer hybrids aside from Ratchet & Clank / Jak series? This seems like an untapped genre hybridisation that works well together. Like literally why is no one making games like this. I would love some examples of 3rd person shooter platformers to prove me wrong again.

Edit: It's not a nostalgia thing. The quality of the PS2 platformers was actually better. Even ones I discovered recently that exist on PS2 or that I hadn't played before. If I compare them side by side with modern 3D platformers, they look like s*** compared to the PS2 ones. And case in point, there are literally no open world 3rd person shooter-3D platformers with detailed worlds/graphics outside of PS2 (that I know of) and those are the kinds of 3D platformers I enjoy most... give me an example to prove me wrong. Ok technically I know of a few examples which meet some but not all of this criteria (only because I've looked far and wide for them) but they're very basic and nowhere near as intricate as these games.

49 comments

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
- This seems like an appeal to nostalgia to me... they're old games, and therefore I must simply be blinded by nostalgia rather than the possibility that those older games might have actually been better in certain measurable ways...?🤔
  
  An appeal to nostalgia is a claim that more or less boils down to "things were better in the past."
  The NES era has a special place in my heart because those were basically the first games I played and those stick with you. But... I am not about to claim that modern equivalents aren't as good. And I don't feel the need to prove otherwise because I know that it isn't their objective quality or lack thereof that made them special to me. So the question is why is it so important to you that you can "prove" the PS2 era 3d platformers were objectively superior? Are you going to suddenly flip a switch in your head that changes your opinion of them if someone manages to "prove" otherwise?
  AND you have to keep in mind that you are more likely to remember good games and forget mediocre ones. There is a bias toward older games being thought of as being better because most of the garbage ended up being lost to time. Today's stinkers are still fresh on everyones' mind.
  
  noooo its just nostalgia!! games weren't better, they are better nowww!!!
  Games in general have gotten worse, the quality only exists in the indie space nowadays. But there's 1000s of them, so it's not easy to find the gems. As for 3PP platformers... I guess the genre isn't all that appealing to developers. Maybe there will be a new one when someone has an idea for a new fresh take on it. Great games are made from great ideas and passion, rather than them being made to fill a gap in the market.

I think the platforming zeitgeist has shifted to 2D.
Metroid Dread, Hollow Knight, Mario Wonder, Shovel Knight.
But 3D platforming is still alive as a genre.
Mario Odyssey, Sonic Frontiers, Yooka-Laylee.
And the remake scene for 3D is popping off right now.
Crash, Spyro, Ratchet, Mario 3D All Stars, Metroid Prime Remastered.
Specifically for the subgenre of 3D third-person platform-shooters, check out Splatoon 3. For 3D first-person open-world platform-shooters, Metroid Prime 4 is in development.
But for "3D open world third-person platform-shooter," that genre is essentially Ratchet & Clank. But these days I think Insomniac is busy with Spider-Man. You can maybe count Jak in there, but Naughty Dog hasn't touched that franchise in ages.
I think the take away is that each franchise has it's own niche. What you've described is so specific that you're really just talking about Ratchet. Open your requirements a bit more, and you'll find plenty of great, new platforming experiences.
Also, if you think there's untapped potential, I encourage you to make something! Unity is actually pretty easy to use.
- Hey, you're forgetting Rayman!
- If I could make games, I would definitely be making a Ratchet & Jak styled game, some kind of 3rd person shooter-platformer with detailed environments. But I just don't understand why big studios don't jump on the opportunity, instead the Jak franchise is dead (or dormant, still hoping for a return) and they only make Ratchet games occasionally, and no one seems to even attempt to make an original IP like those games despite their success and appeal and huge potential in next gen. It's mind boggling
- I think it's basically Ratchet & Jak, yeah. I would count Jak II and 3 in that genre, not Jak 1 so much although it's a great game.

Thing better when I was a teen that now that im adult. It also works for music and basically everything.
- It's not that. I'm going to have to edit my post now because I was already considering writing that disclaimer. It's not a nostalgia thing. There are literally no 3rd person shooter 3D platformers outside of PS2 and those are the kinds of 3D platformers I enjoy most... give me an example to prove me wrong
  
  I'm not sure I understand - what would you call Banjo-Kazooie? Or even Super Mario 64? What do you mean by "3d platformer"? Like "open world" kinda game?
- Everyone knows the 3D platformer genre died out and people stopped putting effort into them as much, so it would be more like if someone had a favourite genre of music that went out of fashion and was hard to find anymore.

Can't comment on the 3rd person shooter/3d platformer hybrids, but games like Mario Odyssey are fantastic modern 3d platformers. Meanwhile I've recently replayed some 3d platformers from the n64-gamecube eras and found they didn't hold up as well as I remembered.
- Super mario odyssey is the most polished and impressive 3d mario game ever made. Not sure how people think that n64 mario is better except for nostalgia.
  
  I think it comes down to the combo of nostalgia in combo with iconic games. For example, Mario 64 was so cool when it came out. Even the feel of it was new and different to anything else available.
- I agree the N64 and GameCube ones aren't as good as the PS2 ones from an objective standpoint. All the best platformers exist on PS2, I really don't know why. They just went on a roll.
  
  So...you grew up with Ps2 is what i'm hearing.

Can you give us better lists of games that fall into both your good and bad categories?
My hot-take answer was going to be that it's all nostalgia and there haven't really been any good ones (at least that I ever was aware of). Given your edit on nostalgia, maybe it's not nostalgia for an individual game or games, but rather a a time and a style?

You've answered your own question. You like 3rd-person shooter platformers, a genre which isn't as prevalent as it was in the 6th generation of consoles. Not as many games are coming out that fit your tastes. You're also nostalgic, which is perfectly fine, but you have to take off the goggles sometimes. I like Mario Sunshine better than a lot of modern 3D platformers, because I've been playing it for years and it was a big part of my childhood. But just because I love revisiting that game more than playing a new game sometimes, that doesn't mean modern games aren't reiterating and improving upon the things that made it great. A Hat in Time, Psychonauts 2, The Cosmic Shake, Spark the Electric Jester, Orbo's Odyssey, SEUM, Frogun, New Super Lucky's Tale, Supraland, Crash 4. So many great 3D platformers in recent years, with a ton of improvements to quality of life and control compared to where we were back in the day, as well as many new concepts.
Also, claiming that PS2 platformers as a whole look better than modern platformers as a whole is ridiculous, and you're also giving no examples of either case.

You're remembering the cream of that era and comparing it to all of the current area. It's natural, but misleading.

Ratchet and Clank had at least three good games on the PS3, and Rift Apart definitely counts as a modern game. I wish Insomniac (and other game devs) woul devote more resources to making hybrid shooter/platformers, but the devs who made those great PS2 games are being replaced by newer devs who want to make different things. Also publishers want to cash in on big money-making trends like live service games.

Can't really work with this without examples. I don't think 3D platformer quality went down but I also think it's always been all over the place.
Like Hat in Time wasn't that long ago.
let's see...got a picture of "3D platformers in past 10 years"
https://libreddit.kylrth.com/img/ad57oxhe2pfa1.png
I'm looking at it and honestly I need examples as to where you think Ps2 beat out this list so blatantly that there's a clear issue.
- I mean, Jak II got dark and gritty. No one really tried that again with 3D platformers.
- These are all cartoonish for one thing. The older PS2 games were more realistic despite having stylised graphics. And the gameplay is just more complex and interesting. It's hard to pinpoint it exactly
  
  ?? That doesn't make a game good. That's just artistic choice

Every now and then I think about this and I keep going back to Yooka Laylee. In theory that game should be everything people want from a 3D collect-a-thon platformer, but something (at least for me) felt wrong. I think the game is too big. Like, the developers in this modern era had all this space to go, "I can fit everything," whereas in the past on there were much harder limits. Sometimes a limit forces creative solutions that feel better. Kinda the same idea of a huge open world with nothing in it vs a small map filled with things to discover.

A Hat In Time is great.
As much as you deny it, you are just experiencing Nostalgia. I was an N64 and GameCube kid and never really had much to do with PlayStation. I played Ratchet and Clank and Jak and Daxter well into the PS4 days and was underwhelmed with both.

There is a lot of games that are like that that are very high quality. Splatoon 2 and 3 have pretty extensive single players that focus massively around platforming and shooting, plus online multiplayer. Mario Odyssey is an obvious one, Mario 3D world/Bowsers fury. A hat in time. Sonic frontiers. Yooka-laylee has two games. Psychonauts 2. Super Lucky's tale. There's remakes like Spyro reignited and crash insane trilogy. Ratchet & clank rift apart. It takes two. Bomb rush cyberpunk. Hell, I know it's not quite the same genre but I would count Fall guys.
I know that 3D platformers are nowhere near as commonly developed, especially by big companies, but let's not act like there's a drought of good quality games to play that are as good if not better than the PS2 platformers...

What modern 3D platformers?
- A Hat in Time is an example. I really don't enjoy that game. Idk why. But Yooka Laylee sucks as well. Pretty much every one just isn't good. The graphics aren't realistic or gritty like Ratchet, Jak and Sly for example, the worlds are empty or unexpansive. The combat is lacking. I could go on
  
  There seems to be one or two specific platformers that you loved and you using that(those) specific game(s) to state that PS2 3D platformers were generally great and universally better than today’s platformers. One does not follow the other.
  And you are taking your personal preference for a very specific art style and using it as your justification for calling these platformers “objectively superior”. You keep telling people to “prove” you wrong but no matter how many specific examples people give you, you are very strongly objecting based on your subjective preferences. We cant prove you out of your own particular desire for a particular game.
  
  You're...just objectively wrong then. A Hat in Time was one of the best platformers released in the past 10 years, and even if you don't like it you can't base the entire genre on your own opinion.
  From what i'm gathering your issue is less that the genre is bad and more that there aren't a lot of "dark, gritty, realistic" platformers...which...there never was.
  Like unless PS2 somehow had literally all of them you haven't given examples other than ratchet and clank) You got Sonic and Mario in early 3D, Banjo Kazooie and DK 64 at the peak of early 3D, conker's bad fur day which is dark but also extremely cartoony...
  Then you got platformers like Okami which again...cartoony. Goemon's 3D platformers and thats all cartoon
  Like I'm basically trying to say more games in the platformer genre were cartoony than not throughout 3D platformer history and we need more examples of what you really mean
  But like you're basically making a claim the entire genre currently is bad over an opinion of something that was never really that common to begin with.
  edit: I even tried looking up platformers on PS2 and was greeted with Sly2, Rayman (did that have a 3d platformer?), psyconauts, Spongebob: BFBB
  Like great games yeah, but the thing you're basing the entire topic on really seems to be a minority if your issue is a particular art style....

Would you consider Jet Set Radio a platformer? If so then Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is really, really good (and it has a kickass soundtrack like the JSR series did). Other than that, I haven't really spent a lot of time playing platformers. At the very least there have been some good remasters like the Spyro Reignited trilogy and Crash Bandicoot remaster.
I think I've heard some of the recent Sonic games have been good, though I don't really play Sonic stuff so I can't verify that myself.
I've heard Super Mario Wonder is really good, but that's not really 3d (though iirc there are some 3d wonder flower sections).
Warframe might help scratch the 3d platformer itch, it's got a decent amount of platforming tiles, especially on Jupiter (the maps are proceedurally generated from a tile set, the Jupiter tiles have a lot of verticality); though platforming isn't by any means a focus.
If you're okay with foregoing 3rd person view, you might give Mirror's Edge a try. It's a 1st-person parkour/freerunning game.
If you like the collect-a-thon aspect, check out the Lego games, especially stuff like Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones, etc. those are very much collect-a-thons and tend to have platforming elements to them. They're a lot of fun.
Otherwise... Maybe platformers just need a revival like the boomer-shooters got. From what I've heard, Yooka-Laylee kinda tried, but it ended up being nostalgia-bait and not too great standing by itself.

Does stuff like Uncharted/Tomb Raider count? I mean those were solid games that are basically platformer shooters?

is microwave dinner good
- That looks like a Roblox game..
  
  is fun

I loved the 3D platformers from back then, including the ones based on whatever movie was out at the time

I really enjoyed MDK/MDK2 as a kid. I don’t know any modern platformers to comment on quality now vs then.

I know the feeling of "these games should exist" and then the disapointment of them just not existing.
I remember back in the super smash bros brawls days wondering why there were no good smash clones and nowadays we have several, so don't lose hope. The day of the PS2 style platformer renaissance may yet come!
Speaking on PS2 though have you ever heard of/played Alien Echo? Its more of a hack and slash than a platformer but it does have shooting and its a lot of fun. Cheap too, I got my copy at a local store for $10.

I've been playing Journey To The Savage Planet lately, and while the gunplay is not awesome, and the unlocks involve collecting materials, the "rare" materials for each enemy are behind a boss or mini-boss, and it's effectively a 3D metroidvania. There's enough hard platforming that I take more fall damage than enemy damage (or at least close), even in the boss fight I'm currently stuck on.

Nitrorad covers games old and new in this genre, but the shooter hybrid 3d platformer is short of a niche inside a niche. I think 3d platformer are having a bit of a resurgence at the moment, but I don't think it's trickled down to that subgenre. I will shout out pseudoregalia I almost didn't give it a chance with the furry bait protagonist but the platforming is so satisfying. I hope the dev makes some sort of sequel

I thought Tinykin from last year was really good. A bit short, and certainly not the hardest game on earth, but still fun.

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