Tier List Template

Best 3D Platformers Tier List

Ranking the most influential and well-crafted 3D platforming games.

25 visible games

S

Banjo-Kazooie Trouble brews when Gruntilda the witch captures the unbearably beautiful cub, Tooty. But before the grisly hag can steal the bear's good looks, big brother Banjo and his fine-feathered friend, Kazooie, join forces to stop her. Combining their 24 moves and special powers, Banjo and Kazooie will fend off armies of beasts. Bear and bird must hunt down the 100 puzzle pieces and 900 musical notes that will ultimately lead them to Gruntilda. However. miles of swamp, desert, and snow and one bear of an adventure stand in their way. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped Crash Bandicoot: Warped is the third game in the Crash Bandicoot series and the first to feature Coco as a playable character. The player takes control of Crash and Coco Bandicoot, who must travel back and forward in time and gather 25 crystals before Uka Uka and Doctor Neo Cortex can do so. Much of the game takes place in the Time Twister which acts as the hub area of the game. The Time-Twister is split up into five chambers, each chamber has five buttons that open portals to different levels. The goal in each level is to find and obtain the crystal hidden in the level. Crash Bandicoot: Warped was lauded by critics in many areas, and the game has been considered one of the best video games of all time. Spyro the Dragon The first game in the Spyro series has been completely remade from the ground up. It stars the title character, a young purple dragon named Spyro, and his dragonfly friend, Sparx, who must journey across the Dragon Kingdom to defeat Gnasty Gnorc, who has overtaken the 5 dragon Homeworlds by trapping the other dragons in crystal and turning their hoard of gems into an army of minions. Super Mario 64 Mario is super in a whole new way! Combining the finest 3-D graphics ever developed for a video game and an explosive soundtrack, Super Mario 64 becomes a new standard for video games. It's packed with bruising battles, daunting obstacle courses, and underwater adventures. Retrieve the Power Stars from their hidden locations and confront your arch-nemesis— Bowser, King of the Koopas! • Run freely in a grassy meadow, tip-toe through a gloomy dungeon, climb to the top of a mountain, or take a swim in the moat! • Leap headfirst into a watery painting and soon you'll be searching for the surface in an underwater realm! • On-the-fly, 3-D rendered gameplay delivers the action of ruthless enemy attacks from every angle! • Find the Caps that give Mario super powers and ponder the mysteries of the pyramid; you can even race Koopas for fabulous prizes! • With the Nintendo 64 Controller and its analog Control Stick, Mario can crawl, kick down obstacles, swim, do reverse flips, and even stick the landing on his backwards somersault! • Saved game information is stored for up to four players in memory. Super Mario Odyssey Explore incredible places far from the Mushroom Kingdom as you join Mario and his new ally Cappy on a massive, globe-trotting 3D adventure. Use amazing new abilities, like the power to capture and control objects, animals, and enemies to collect Power Moons so you can power up the Odyssey airship and save Princess Peach from Bowser’s wedding plans!

A

A Hat in Time A Hat in Time is a cute-as-heck 3D platformer featuring a little girl who stitches hats for wicked powers! Freely explore giant worlds and recover Time Pieces to travel to new heights! Banjo-Tooie Grunty returns—and that's bad news for Banjo and Kazooie! In this all-new adventure, combine everything you learned in the award-winning prequel, Banjo-Kazooie, with dozens of brand-new moves and abilities. Explore eight original worlds-like a monstrous factory and a dilapidated amusement park. Solve incredible puzzles that link those worlds together—sometimes you'll have to complete tasks in several worlds to solve a single puzzle! Donkey Kong 64 K. Rool has kidnapped the Kongs! Can Donkey Kong rescue his friends, reclaim the Golden Bananas and save his homeland from certain doom? Take out some Kremlings with Chunky's Pineapple Launcher or Lanky's Trombone. Float through the air using Tiny's Ponytail Twirl. Even rocket to the sky with Diddy's Jetbarrel! Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy is a 2001 platform video game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the Sony PlayStation 2 on December 4, 2001, as the first game of the Jak and Daxter series. The game follows the protagonist, a young teenager named Jak, as he tries to help his friend Daxter after he is transformed into an "ottsel", a fictional hybrid of an otter and a weasel. The game offers a large range of missions, collectables and objectives, often in the form of minigames, which provide a variety of gameplay experiences, as well as puzzles and platforming stages, which are completed by the player to proceed with the story. Psychonauts Psychonauts is a platform-adventure game developed by Double Fine Productions and released in 2005. It follows Razputin “Raz” Aquato, a young psychic who runs away from the circus to attend a summer camp for aspiring psychonauts. Players explore imaginative levels set inside the minds of different characters, each reflecting their mental states. Gameplay combines platforming, combat, and the use of psychic abilities such as telekinesis and levitation. The game was praised for its creativity, humor, and distinctive art style. Psychonauts 2 Psychonauts 2 is a platform-adventure game developed by Double Fine Productions and released in 2021. It continues the story of Razputin “Raz” Aquato, a young psychic who joins the international psychic espionage agency known as the Psychonauts. Gameplay combines platforming, exploration, and combat with psychic abilities such as telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and mental connection. Players journey through imaginative levels set inside characters’ minds, each reflecting their personalities and struggles. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus is a stealth-platformer developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Released in 2002 for the PlayStation 2, the game follows Sly Cooper, a skilled raccoon thief, as he and his gang attempt to recover the Thievius Raccoonus, a book containing the secrets of his family's thieving legacy. The gameplay combines stealth, platforming, puzzle-solving, and light combat, and is noted for its cel-shaded visuals and humorous narrative. This game is divided into five worlds, each themed around a particular part of the world and the villain headquartered there. Most worlds are structured as a central hub with entrances to numerous individual levels. Each of the levels has a primary goals which earns the player a key. You must collect all the keys in the world to fight the world's boss. Many of the levels have a platformer structure. The objective of these worlds is to reach the location of the key. There are substantial stealth elements here as the player must dodge searchlights and trips lasers which set off alarms and avoid alerting guards. In addition to the main objective, there are clue bottles to find. Finding all the clues in a level allows you to open a safe with a page from the Thievius Raccoonus which grants a new ability of some sort. After getting this, there is also a master thief sprint where the player must get from the start of a level to the exit within a time limit. Super Mario Galaxy A 3D platformer and first Wii entry in the Super Mario franchise, Super Mario Galaxy sees Mario jump across planets and galaxies with varying items, enemies, geographies and gravity mechanics in order to reach his enemy Bowser, who has attacked the Mushroom Kingdom and hijacked Princess Peach's castle with her inside.

B

Crash Bandicoot: Warped Crash Bandicoot: Warped is the third game in the Crash Bandicoot series and the first to feature Coco as a playable character. The player takes control of Crash and Coco Bandicoot, who must travel back and forward in time and gather 25 crystals before Uka Uka and Doctor Neo Cortex can do so. Much of the game takes place in the Time Twister which acts as the hub area of the game. The Time-Twister is split up into five chambers, each chamber has five buttons that open portals to different levels. The goal in each level is to find and obtain the crystal hidden in the level. Crash Bandicoot: Warped was lauded by critics in many areas, and the game has been considered one of the best video games of all time. Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil Klonoa 2 puts players in the role of Klonoa, who, along with a new cast of friends, has stumbled into another adventure, this time to save the world of Lunatea and help unveil the mysteries of the enchanted world. The game features gameplay inspired by the original Klonoa with 2D side-scrolling in a 3D-rendered environment. Klonoa's equipped weapon is a crystal ring which contains the life of Lolo inside helping him. Klonoa, a long-eared creature, has stumbled on yet another mystical adventure. In Klonoa 2, a dark kingdom threatens the enchanted realm of Lunatea. Now it's up to Klonoa and his friends, Lolo and Popka, to prevent evil forces from bringing monsters and sickness into their world. Help Klonoa through 24 magical stages featuring hover-board gliding, perceptual changes, and new treacherous foes. On your adventure, you'll drop off waterfalls, get shot into the air by cannon, and gain special abilities from your defeated enemies. Rayman 2: The Great Escape The PC version of Rayman 2: The Great Escape retains the same level structure from the Nintendo 64 version with higher resolution graphics and a higher frame rate. Sonic Adventure 2 Sonic Adventure 2, even though it has the same name, it is actually a remaster for the original Sonic Adventure 2, with updated graphics and the assets from Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. Spyro: Year of the Dragon The Dragon Realms are celebrating the ‘Year of the Dragon’ when a mysterious cloaked figure emerges to steal all the Dragon Eggs. Under the spell of the evil Sorceress, an army of Rhynocs is now guarding the helpless eggs in the Forgotten Realms. With new and old friends, Spyro is on a quest to recover the lost eggs, defeat the Rhynoc army and stop the evil Sorceress. Ty the Tasmanian Tiger G'day, Mate. Explore the wilds of Australia with TY the Tasmanian Tiger, the charming Aussie platformer. Stone the crows! Are you ready to explore the wilds of the Australian Outback in this remastered version of the classic game, TY the Tasmanian Tiger? Join TY on a ripper of an adventure to free his family from the dreaming and stop the nefarious evil genius boss cass from removing mammals from the top of the food chain. To help you on your quest, you've got a beaut arsenal of boomerangs, sharp teeth, and the help of a few friends!

C

Conker's Bad Fur Day Humorous action-platformer that does away with the tedious item collection found in most games in the genre. Instead, BFD employs a combination of standard jump, run and explore mechanics and context-sensitive gags and actions. For instance, in the beginning of the game, by pressing the B button on the first pad he encounters, Conker drinks some Alka-Seltzer to wipe out his hangover, at which point players can proceed forward. Later on these pads are used to activate a slingshot and throwing knives; to turn Conker into an anvil and drop downward; to shoot automatic, double-handed guns; to activate a The Matrix-inspired slow-motion effect and flip through the air shooting enemies; and much, much more. Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time is the eighth Crash Bandicoot series game, though the fourth chronologically. The game retains the series' core platforming gameplay and adds new elements through the use of the Quantum Masks, who can alter levels and provide means to traverse or overcome obstacles. It also includes additional game modes for replaying levels, and the ability to control five characters, three of whom – Cortex, Dingodile, and Tawna – have their own unique gameplay and levels. Glover Glover is a platforming video game featuring a magical, four-fingered glove named Glover in his quest to restore the Crystal Kingdom by retrieving crystals that were lost. Sly 2: Band of Thieves A port of Sly 2: Band of Thieves enhanced with up-rendering, rewind, quick save, and custom video filters. Super Robot Wars Y Super Robot Wars is a grid-based tactical combat RPG that brings units and pilots from a variety of anime together to battle their mutual foes. Rise, Unite, and Triumph!

D

F