3D Collectathon Platformers

[Alolan_Apples]

What’s your opinion towards 3D platformers that involve collection and unlocking levels, like Super Mario Galaxy and Donkey Kong 64? Do you think the genre is good and should continue having new games, or do you think it’s a dated relic from the past and should not continue? Sure that we can say that most of the N64 platformers have aged poorly, but that’s because of the hardware and data limitations. I don’t know if the genre is still good or bad.

 

[Drawdler]

The genre unironically peaked with the original Spyro trilogy and in my opinion Spyro 1 actually.

If this genre took design inspiration from that instead of Banjo-Kazooie or SM64 we could have one of the best genres, but most of them are horribly lacking in flow, or just have a majority uninspired obstacles and puzzles. I know that’s a very blunt statement, but this is my honest take.

The N64 collectathons aged poorly in way more than mechanics. None of them have the same flow as og Spyro. I’m not the biggest fan of that series but I think it is just the best in its genre by a longshot. I can’t call any of the N64 collectathons unconditionally good honestly.

In general what I consider the best 3D platformers are amongst my best games ever but it’s a hit or miss genre with a lot more misses than hits.

I haven’t played it yet but Cavern of Dreams is a recent collectathon (came out this year) that actually looks quite good. I think Zera will never actually be finished but the demos were incredibly good. This genre can still work but it is totally reliant on the level design, more specifically having flow and interesting obstacles, on occasion broken by spacial awareness puzzles. Hell even minigames or alt characters can work quite well, I thought Spyro 3 actually did that well regardless of other peoples’ issues with it.

Tbh that trumps movement mechanics for me, but many people seem to care about movement and pretty environments first with this genre.

Of course, a lot of what I’m saying is unpopular opinion, but subjectivity is implied.

Personally I don’t know if Galaxy should even count as a collectathon. I think the collectathon genre is marked by more openness and a drive for secondary collectables, and Galaxy has far more linear stages as well as overwhelming focus on stars rather than coins or any other secondary collectables. Crash has a large focus on collectables with crates but they are not mandatory at all and it has very linear stages.