A guardian spirit through a dying forest; hand-painted, with an escape up the flooding Ginso Tree.
Rhythm levels to Black Betty and the best 2D platforming of its decade; Ubisoft Montpellier.
Classic and modern Sonic through the series' best levels; the birthday game.
An 8-bit knight with a shovel; the retro platformer done right.
Bigger, harder and with an owl; Moon Studios' sequel.
Retro Studios revives the ape; hard, beautiful platforming.
Sackboy and a level editor; play, create, share on the PS3.
Planetoids with their own gravity and an orchestra; the best 3D Mario.
Faith runs across white rooftops in first person; DICE's parkour experiment.
Rewind time, run along walls and the Prince who narrates his own mistakes.
Yoshi, more galaxies and the Green Stars; the sequel that equals it.
A summer camp for psychics and the levels inside people's heads; Tim Schafer's cult platformer.
Green Hill Zone at speed; Sega's answer to Mario in 1991.
A drunk squirrel, a singing poo and a Matrix parody; Rare's adult cartoon on the N64.
A bear and a bird collect jiggies; Rare's 3D platformer at its most joyful.
Wumpa fruit and a marsupial running into the screen; Sony's answer to Mario.
Tails, the spin dash and Chemical Plant; the best of the Genesis Sonics.
Yoshi, the cape and 96 exits on the SNES; the launch title that still plays perfectly.
Eight robot masters in any order; the NES difficulty and the Dr Wily theme.
A worm in a super suit; the strangest and best-animated platformer of the 16-bit era.
Jumpman climbs girders to save Pauline; Mario's first appearance, 1981.
Sixty minutes to save the princess, rotoscoped animation and the first cinematic platformer.
A physicist teleported to an alien planet; Eric Chahi's wordless cinematic game.
The raccoon suit, the world map and the airships; the best NES game.
120 stars, the castle and the first analogue 3D playground.
A purple dragon glides through pastel worlds; Insomniac's first hit.
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