12 more Platformer Gaming Stars (Patreon)

Continuing my "leap year" series, here's 12 more platformer gaming stars! (Including the 2 I posted a little earlier this month!) From left to right, top to bottom, we've got:

Kirby! (1992, Gameboy) You know who this is. Kirby's got the "BEAM" power here, which is the first equippable power in any Kirby game. (He's had a couple of others since then.)

Princess Peach! (1985, NES) Peach has been around nearly as long as Mario, but has only been playable in a tiny handful of platformer games. We didn't get to play as Fire Flower Peach in a game until Mario 3D Word in 2013... 28 years after her debut!

Knuckles (1994, Genesis) Knuckles was playable for the first time in Sonic and Knuckles, although the technical marvels of "lock-on" cartridges allowed you to patch him into Sonic 3... which I guess makes him a really early example of a DLC character! He's losing his temper here at the infamous Carnival Night Zone barrel, an obstacle that confused many 90s children.

Box Boy (2015, 3DS) The Box Boy games are a really cute series of puzzle platformers made by HAL, the same studio that makes Kirby.  I guess they have the market cornered on squares and circles.

Toad  (1985, NES), Blue Toad (2009, Wii), and Yellow Toad (2009, Wii) As we all know, these are three completely distinct characters. 

Dynamite Headdy (1994, Genesis) Dynamite Headdy is a deeply, deeply weird game about a... puppet(?)... who fights using interchangeable heads. Ostensibly, it's about an invasion in a land of toys, but the game presents this story as a stage play, to the point where some enemies will accidentally knock over sets, or pull you back stage to battle in the rafters.

Klonoa (1997, PS1) The Klonoa games are deeply underrated... fun, puzzle-y platformers with cute characters and dreamy stories (that occasionally get abruptly, weirdly maudlin at the end.)

Crash Bandicoot (1996, PS1) I completely missed the entire Crash Bandicoot series during it's original run, but I finally got a chance to try them when the remastered trilogy came out a few years ago. I will be honest with you all: I kind of hate these games, lol. (But Crash is a fun character.)

Commander Keen (1990, PC) Before Doom, id Software had Keen! He was probably the most famous mascot platformer on PCs at the time. In my mind, Commander Keen is a real "friend's house" game, by which I mean we mostly played it at my friend Allen's house because he was the only person we knew who had a powerful enough computer. (And a colour monitor!!)

Ristar (1995, Genesis)   Another personal fav, made by many of the same devs as Sonic. Ristar grabs and throws enemies -- mechanics once considered for an early  version of Sonic (when he was a rabbit who threw things with his ears).  

Raz from Psychonauts (2005, PC/Xbox/PS2) Psychonauts mashes up platforming stages with the exploration and narrative focus of 90s point-and-click adventure games. It's a fantastic game, and I am really looking forward to the long-awaited sequel!

Jazz Jackrabbit (1994, PC) If Commander Keen was the PC's answer to Mario, Jazz Jackrabbit was (kind of shamelessly) the PC Sonic. Like Sonic, he ran fast and had copious attitude. But also: he had a gun. Like Keen, the studio behind Jazz (Epic) later went on to make shooters, like Unreal and Gears of War.

Whew! I'm having a lot of fun with this little side project.  Like I mentioned last time... I just really like platformers, and have been playing them a long time, so it's fun to tap into that familiarity for something... particularly for some of the more obscure or forgotten characters.

'til next time!