Brief overview:
This particular hybrid genre is quite rare to find and very enjoyable for me. I think it can largely be credited to Ratchet & Clank for trendsetting and inspiring all the rest (even Jak 2 had used some of Ratchet’s code after Jak and Daxter [1]: The Precursor Legacy didnt have any weapons). There are some older games that might have inspired Ratchet & Clank, such as Blasto, which will also be listed here. But mostly I’m focusing on games that replicate a similar style as the Ratchet and Jak series, sometimes on purpose. Please let me know if you have any additions to the list.
The List (main):
▪︎ Ratchet & Clank (series) ▪︎ Jak and Daxter (series) ▪︎ Protodroid DeLTA ▪︎ Akimbot and Pumpkin Jack (same dev as each other) ▪︎ Tamarin ▪︎ Automaton Lung (& sequel Automaton Heart demo) ▪︎ GearGrit (and the devs’ other game Fadeout kind of) ▪︎ Cloudbuilt ▪︎ Onirism ▪︎ Metal Arms : Glitch in the System ▪︎ Ruff Trigger : The Vanocore Conspiracy ▪︎ Donald Duck PK (AKA PK : Out of the Shadows) ▪︎ SpongeBob SquarePants: Plankton’s Robotic Revenge (yes, this is really a 3rd person shooter) ▪︎ Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath ▪︎ Shadow the Hedgehog ▪︎ Spy vs Spy ▪︎ Blasto
I’ve heard recommended but can’t verify if they fit the bill or not:
▪︎ Jet Force Gemini ▪︎ Stitch: Experiment 626 ▪︎ Smarties: Meltdown ▪︎ Insecticide ▪︎ Dr. Muto ▪︎ Destroy All Humans! (series) ▪︎ Robots ▪︎ One ▪︎ MDK (series) ▪︎ Earthworm Jim 3D ▪︎ Buzz Lightyear of Star Command ▪︎ Blinx : The Time Sweeper ▪︎ Cryght ▪︎ Mega Man Legends ▪︎ Fur Fighters
Similar gameplay elements either continuously or occasionally:
▪︎ Sly Cooper (series) ▪︎ Ty the Tasmanian Tiger (series) ▪︎ Rayman (the 3D games) ▪︎ Skylar & Plux ▪︎ Spyro the Dragon (series) ▪︎ Super Mario (series) ▪︎ Crash Bandicoot (series) ▪︎ Astro Bot (series) ▪︎ *Psychonauts (series) ▪︎ Futurama ▪︎ Family Guy Video Game! ▪︎ Jumping Flash ▪︎ The Gunk ▪︎ Splatoon (series) ▪︎ Sunset Overdrive ▪︎ Returnal ▪︎ ReCore ▪︎ Lost Planet (series)
Glad to see Onirism in the list. I still don’t know where the title is from, but it’s definitely an oddball and was an unexpected find with a ton of content.
Not exactly fitting the criteria, but in terms of using shooting mechanics and leaping between obstacles, an old indie I enjoyed is A Story About My Uncle. It even had surprisingly good facial animation for its time, especially since story isn’t such a core element.
Does MDK count?
I don’t have any suggestions for your list, but just wanted to mention if you put two trailing spaces on each line it will preserve your line breaks. Alternatively, using the Markdown list method instead of inserting bullets will also maintain breaks for each item.
#Markdown list style * item 1 * item 2Looks like:
- item 1
- item 2
Trailing spaces (“#” == space):
▪︎ item 1##
▪︎ item 2Thanks, this is extremely useful. I wasnt sure if it was just displaying with them without line breaks on my end since I’m using Sync app for Lemmy
np! The way line breaks are handled isn’t intuitive and the formatting guide offered through the Lemmy web-ui doesn’t even mention it.
I really enjoyed Sunset Overdrive. The platforming mostly consists of skateboard-esque rail jumping that I actually enjoyed a lot.
Bounty Hunter - This is a really fun one. You play as Jango, hunting a rogue Jedi. You platform around with jumping, climbing, and using your jetpack. I think you’ll like it.
If you can find them, the Harry Potter games (Years 1-3 from the early 2000s) should count. They have lots of 3D platforming. Spells work like flintlock guns, since it takes a few seconds to fire another one.
Bounty Hunter has been on my radar actually! The remaster looks terrific. Thanks, I also forgot about the platforming in those Harry Potter games 😊
Saints Row IV, the other ones not so much, but with the super powers in this one there are a number of platforming elements.
Crackdown series may potentially fit.
Sunset Overdrive and the Infamous series are both made by insomniac (ratchet and clank) and fit the description.
All my suggestions are up there already, just happy to see ReCore being mentioned still. Metal Arms and Jet Force Gemini are excellent.
Wouldn’t Tomb Raider be the original?
There is also Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 from the year 2000 that is closer to what you are looking for
I will add them in! Tbh Tomb Raider feels about as much like a platformer as Uncharted, Infamous, Sunset Overdrive, Mirror’s Edge, or Assassin’s Creed to me. Even Ocarina of Time actually. These are kind of semi platformer-y but more on-rails and without as much freedom of movement or what I consider genuine platforming. More climbing and exploring (or a lot of jumping around like Returnal, which honestly feels like Ratchet Rift Apart sometimes). Heavy Metal games look interesting. Thanks for your recommendations :)
Duke Nukem Land of the babes and Duke Nukem time to kill from PS1 were third person shooters as well
You can try this
https://www.mobygames.com/game/genre:behind-view/
In the genre filter you can add Platform and Action and Shooter
Thanks, but I am looking for 3D platformers only. Not 2D platformers. Often they’re lumped together which is sad. This resource would be useful in theory, but after putting in “third person”, “platform” and “shooter” (there’s no separate option for 3D platformer vs 2D platformer), I’m getting many results of games that don’t seem to match what I’m looking for, including 2D games like Cartoon Wars: Gunner. However I did forget to mention Uncharted as having somewhat similar gameplay elements, although I wouldn’t consider it a 3D platformer. I guess Zapper very very loosely meets some of the criteria, but it’s more like a top-down Frogger-like game with some… zapping. It’s weird that there doesn’t seem to be a way of differentiating games with 3D graphics from 2D graphics in general on this site. I guess I can check all of these hit-and-miss results one by one, but word of mouth recommendations probably work better here, especially for obscure games. Notably, many of the games I listed (such as Akimbot, one of the prime examples) aren’t showing up under these filters even though they meet the parameters. I also forgot the upcoming game Pragmata is giving vibes but it’s not showing up on that site under those filters anyway.
Too bad, but I guess that’s what happens when a site is crowd-edited. Changing the genre might not be something people stop to change. Pragmata and Akimboy are just listed as a “Behind View” “Action” games. The filter uses AND operators which means that users would need to mark up games with all 3 tags to work that way.
Fun to see that 2D side scrollers are considered 3rd person by some users though!
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