best platformers of all time donkey kong country

#BEST PLATFORMERS OF ALL TIME DONKEY KONG COUNTRY SERIES#

Many enemies are positioned throughout the level to where if you're moving at max speed you'll bop right from one to another in an almost automated fashion without having to make any on-the-fly adjustments in midair. While Mario and Sonic games certainly feature level designs that accommodate speedrunning and smooth movement through the level, DKC games and those that they've inspired tend to be designed with a specific optimal path that dictates everything from enemy placement to the timing of moving platforms.

Flow-state level design - This is an aspect of DKC's design that very much lives on in modern titles like Rayman Legends and Tropical Freeze.There are a handful of defining features that bely DKC influence when I see them integrated into a platformer's design:

#BEST PLATFORMERS OF ALL TIME DONKEY KONG COUNTRY SERIES#

The beloved modern titles in the DKC series (Returns and Tropical Freeze) are, of course, also working within the template established in the original trilogy on SNES to a notable extent. I can see that DKC DNA clearly running through games such as Rayman Origins/Legends, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, and Kaze and the Wild Masks (to name a handful of somewhat recent examples). This little trilogy defined not only Donkey Kong as a franchise but also established some genre staples Personally, I think that DKC forged a brand of platforming unique enough to serve as the foundation upon which future platformers would be built. I've seen people write off the first DKC on SNES pretty much wholesale in terms of its design, crediting nearly all of its success to the novelty of its pre-rendered 3D sprite graphics at the time. Now, some of you might question my inclusion of DKC in that list of highly influential players in the realm of 2D platformers. Super Meat Boy - Popularized the quick-restart 'masocore' brand of hyper-difficult 2D platforming with bite-sized levels.Donkey Kong Country - What this thread is about.Sonic the Hedgehog - Established a speedier, more momentum-driven alternative to Mario's design with multiple paths through a level and more verticality.Established the most popular, common design of side-scrolling 2D platforming that defined the entire genre

There are four that come to mind for me that I feel established templates that most other games in the genre since their inception have iterated on to some degree: I feel that there are a handful of platformers that serve as the pillars upon which all others stand.

Best platformers of all time donkey kong country