10 Badly Reviewed Platformers That Are Actually Pretty Good

Platformers are kind of my jam. While it’s always tricky for me to truly nail down my favorite genre of video game, I’m positive that platformers are somewhere in my Top 3, at the very least. As you’d then expect, I’ve played a lot of games in this category.

But ask me to pick my actual favorite game in the genre, and I’m going to have an even harder time. But I think it’s Yoshi’s Island. Or wait, maybe Celeste? Oh, oh, but I’m forgetting Astro Bot. And Mario Galaxy. And also Shovel Knight: Specter Of Torment. But man, Banjo-Kazooie takes me back…

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There was a major disconnect between critics and fans on these Nintendo games.

You see the issue, yeah?

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. All of these games are universal critical darlings, and it’s easy to see why. But eventually, if you hang around the genre long enough, you will run out of the hyper-well-reviewed options at some point. What then?

That’s where this list comes in. Not every platformer always receives a stellar review score, but that doesn’t mean you need to trust a number on OpenCritic to dictate everything you always choose to play. Here are 10 platformers that didn’t review all that well, but are still worth your time.

10 Sonic Colors: Ultimate

OpenCritic Score: 74

Look, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not personally the biggest Sonic The Hedgehog fan in the world. I mostly left the blue blur behind around the turn of the millennium for more… mushroomy kingdoms. But that doesn’t mean I can’t pretend the series still drops some solid games from time to time.

Sonic Colors originally came out for the DS and Wii in 2010 to mixed reviews, but then got a second chance with the Ultimate version of the game coming to Switch, PS4, and Xbox One in 2021. This time around, the results were… Well, still mixed.

This was largely due to the fact that the game launched in pretty poor shape, but that’s since been mostly patched out. What’s left now is a totally enjoyable, mostly linear-style Sonic game that does a pretty cool job of melding the OG games’ vibe with modern, 2.5D-ish feel. It’s well worth checking out if you have any nostalgia for the series at all.

9 Kirby Star Allies

OpenCritic Score: 74

Kirby’s Adventure for the NES is one of the first video games I can remember beating entirely on my own without help from my older brother. I have a lot of nostalgia for the little guy. However, I’d also be lying if I couldn’t admit that most of the time in the last decade or so, Kirby has been the king of middling platformers for Nintendo.

Kirby Star Allies was yet another entry that didn’t blow critics away, but I’ve had a blast with this one. It’s a 1-4-player co-op title that kind of handles like “Baby’s First Super Smash Bros. Game” once you have a full party in action. But the difficulty does, in fact, ramp. And there’s even a boss rush challenge mode you can undertake, which really is no joke at the highest difficulty levels.

I will contend that this one is more geared towards kids, but I’ve had a really great time working through this game with my two nephews. If you’re looking for a more than solid co-op Kirby game to play with some youths, I really don’t think you can go wrong here.

8 Super Perils Of Baking

OpenCritic Score: 73

Lillymo Games is a really under-the-radar indie team, but they’ve got several solid titles under their belt at this point. To be clear, a 73 overall score on OpenCritic isn’t bad for the challenging platformer Super Perils Of Baking, but it’s still selling the game a little short.

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This is actually a remake of Lillymo’s first ever game from 2018, but it’s such a dramatic improvement and reimagining that this 2022 edition is completely unrecognizable after so many positive changes. Now, it’s a vibrant, precise platformer with multiple playable characters, awesome art, a storybook narrative, and a pretty baller soundtrack.

It’s not revolutionary, but I do think it’s more than “Fair” if you had to give it a one-word label. Anyone looking for an old-school, 2D side-scrolling platformer should take a look at this one.

7 Badland

OpenCritic Score: 73

Badland originally got big on mobile before eventually making the jump to the world of console gaming. I think as a result, some were just too eager to write it off as a mobile game you could now play with a controller, but Badland deserved better buzz than that. This is another 2D side-scroller, but it’s a little different from what you might be expecting.

The visuals and artstyle of Badland are striking and full of contrast, and the gameplay itself is a little more fast-paced and brutal than you might realize going in. The lead art designer of this game went on to make the extremely challenging (yet completely amazing) Bionic Bay, which is easily my personal favorite 2D platformer of 2025 so far.

You can see a lot of the same DNA here in Badland, down to some puzzling ways to think about forward motion, a design that encourages speed-running, and the ability to run parts of levels in multi-player fashion.

6 Yooka-Laylee

OpenCritic Score: 72

I totally get why Yooka-Layee reviewed in the “Fair” range, and the developers seem like they’d even agree. I mean shoot, the game itself is getting a full reboot in 2025 called Yooka-Replayee that’s aiming to tweak and improve every shortcoming that critics and players alike complained about back when the game originally launched in 2017.

But put the baggage aside that it didn’t quite live up to our hopes of being a worthy spiritual successor to the all-time classic that is Banjo-Kazooie, and there’s still a lot to like in Yooka 1.0. The characters are charming, the world designs are super fun, and there’s an underlying tone of humor that hits more often than it doesn’t. Trowzer the Snake still makes me chuckle.

For anyone looking for a modern collect-a-thon style of platformer, this is a fun one. Other modern games in this specific platformer genre, like A Hat In Time, are much better regarded, and I’m not really sure why. Yooka-Laylee is highly enjoyable at the end of the day, it just didn’t live up to sky-high expectations.

5 Bound

OpenCritic Score: 72

Sometimes, we get platformers that aim for something a little more high-brow. Bound is one of those types, and is a truly beautiful visual feast in which we control an abstract, artsy, ribbon-twirling ballet dancer avatar journeying across a world that belongs in an art museum.

This game also scores bonus points in my book for making its way to PSVR, which is the way I’d recommend experiencing it if you have the capability. No, it’s not a speedy, precision-based platformer that some of us tend to crave, but it’s also unfair to expect that of a game like Bound.

If you’re willing to set aside what you typically search for in a platformer and are down to jump in with an open mind to something a bit more out there, Bound is awesome. It’s full of emotion and symbolism that goes a long way towards making it something special too, but the audience at the time just seems like it was taken off-guard by what the game actually wound up being.

4 Type:Rider

OpenCritic Score: 70

Maybe it’s just because I’m an English major and a giant nerd, but I think Type:Rider is a super unique and enjoyable game that I would’ve scored above the 70 overall rating it was given by reviewers of the day. Levels here are broken up into different styles of fonts, and you’ll learn the history of typography as you platform and roll around as a colon come to life (colon as in :, not as in intestines).

I wound up snagging all the Type:Rider’s trophies on my PS4 back in the day, and I had a great time from start to finish. It’s not challenging at all, but it’s super-creative and educational in a way that’s simply fun instead of feeling like you’re back in school with a textbook in front of you.

This game’s cardinal sin is that it doesn’t include a platinum trophy, which is absolute lunacy. Does that make the game worse? No, not technically. But I do understand it’s a dealbreaker for some when going back for an older title. If you can look beyond this clear misstep, Type:Rider is a really nice, “play in one sitting” type of unique platformer.

3 Super Lucky’s Tale

OpenCritic Score: 67

Super Lucky’s Tale is another 3D platformer that’s probably a little more geared towards a younger audience, but a 67 for this game still feels pretty low regardless. This is a game that oozes charm and is packed with endearing characters, a visually appealing artstyle, and enough varied combat to warrant more of a following than it’s garnered to date.

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This one takes on a bit of a collect-a-thon approach too, but not to the same extent you’d expect from others in the field. As such, it’s more approachable by nature, but no less worth experiencing, even though the challenge level won’t push platformer pros to their limits. It also has a few decent puzzles here and there, and levels switch up nicely along the way in each new world.

I bought this game for one of my nephews as an introduction to the 3D platforming genre, and it’s honestly great for that purpose. This is one that got knocked for being more for kiddos, but I mean… We all started somewhere too. If you’re looking for a game to buy for one of your kids, a niece, nephew, etc., Super Lucky’s Tale is a genuinely solid choice.

2 Knack

OpenCritic Score: 58

Look, I get it. I can see the comments already. “This dude is really defending Knack right now? The meme of the PS4 launch?” Yeah, I am. While I don’t think it belongs in the upper-echelon of platformers from the 2010s, I do think a rating of 58 on OpenCritic is pretty unfair.

I’m willing to contend that maybe I just wanted to feel like the PS4 was worth it at launch, and Knack was one of a small handful of launch titles that was available when I grabbed my console. But either way, it really is an enjoyable 3D mascot platformer, and I’ll stand by that. Yeah, the game is about as deep as a LEGO title, but those typically don’t get as critically panned as my poor boy Knack did.

While Knack 2 improved on the original a little bit, it wasn’t enough to save this series from the reputation it got slapped with after its first endeavor. Honestly, this kind of bums me out. I’m one that would be curious to see what Knack could look like in the modern day with over a decade of learning to pull from. I’m telling you, though, there’s still more fun to be had with Knack than what a 58 suggests.

1 Glover

OpenCritic Score: 43

Glover came out in 1998 to exactly zero fanfare. Watch a trailer, and I suppose it isn’t the biggest surprise in the world. A game where you’re an anthropomorphic glove that can turn a rubber ball into different types of balls doesn’t exactly scream blockbuster. It didn’t help either that Super Mario 64 launched two years prior, and 3D platformers as we knew them now had a crazy high bar to hit.

No, Glover is no Mario. But its recent re-release on PC landed with a measly 43 on OpenCritic, and that makes me super sad. I had this game on N64 back in the day and got it for Christmas when I was six years old, so I know I have a lot of weird nostalgia for the title built-in. Regardless, this is a much cooler game than a 43 would suggest.

Glover is a fever dream. It’s one of the weirdest games you’ll ever play in your life. But this also means it’s pretty impressively creative. The soundtrack bangs. The level designs are memorable. The gameplay, while admittedly wonky, is unlike any other platformer you’ve ever experienced. I have to give Glover props for trying something different, and fans of the N64 era will rate this one higher than a 43.

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