Hi everyone,

i am getting that platformer itch again ;)

I am looking for a decent platformer, less medroidvania, but more like old school Mario games.
Here is a list of platformers i recently played and how i liked them, in no particular order:

- Shovel Knight: Great, and the music was even better
- Freedom Planet: Great
- Steamworld DIg: OK
- Superfrog HD: OK
- Rogue Legacy: Great
- Spelunky: I found it too difficult
- La Mulana: too difficult/too convoluted. I do not like the feeling that i need a guide to finish ;)
- UnEpic: Good, but at the end the difficulty spikes so i could not finish it.
- Cave Story+: Good, but i dot not have the motivation to find all alternative endings
- Duck Tales Remastered: Great, but almost too easy
- Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams: OK, somehow did not appeal to me
- Jazz Jack Rabbit 2: Great, but lost my disc :(

What caught my eye is the Shantae Series. Is that any good? I am open to other suggestions as well, i am sure there are a lot of great platformers out there. Well made pixel art is prefered over any kind of 3D engine by the way.

My related question concerns Controllers. At the moment i am using a 360 pad, but that does not really work for older games that were designed for digital controls. That D-Pad is absolutely useless, and while the analog stick works, depending on the calibration it's either to slow, or to sensitive for old games. Is the XBOne Pad worth the upgrade in regards to the D-Pad? I heard it has gotten a lot better, but the XBOne pad is not cheap. Or are there maybe other alternatives?

Personal opinion for controllers is to get one of Logitech's F series (F310, F510 or F710, though I think the F510 is discontinued). Those have a switch that allows them to switch from XInput to DirectInput and back, so they can work both with newer and older games. The also have a button to switch the D-Pad with the Left Analogue stick, so you can play with whichever one feels better for the game you are playing.

No idea about the XBox controllers, nor suggestions for games unfortunately.

Based on your recommendations, I highly recommend giving and [url=http://www.gog.com/game/odallus_the_dark_call]Odallus a try. I also recommend the Apogee platformers, but I don't know how much you'd care for those as they are something of an acquired taste.

Regarding the games you might try GUACAMELEE! GOLD EDITION and/or APOTHEON

Even though it is a bit Metroidvania in style (but then again so are Steamworld Dig, UnEpic and Shantae) the best game in this genre that can be found on GOG is still Dust: An Elysian Tale.

It isn't for everyone, but you might try a free game called Syoban Action.

If you like that game, there is a commercial game called Eryi's Action. It isn't on this site, but it can be bought DRM-free from the developer's web page, and there is a nice demo of the first two levels. If the game isn't for you, you will know before you finish the demo, trust me.

The distinguishing trait of these two games is that, while appearing to be a simple Mario platformer on the surface, the game will punish reasonable actions by killing you, sometimes in rather hilarious ways. Fortunately, there's no game over; running out of lives has no effect other than your lives count going into the negatives.

Sorry for my late answer...

I totally forgot about Dust. I bought it here some time ago on a sale and did not even install it.
I did that now, and while it looks and feels like a good game, it is not really what i am looking for currently. I think the same applies to Guacamelee (which i do not own). I heard good things about that game as well, but i am not really looking for brawler style games.

I have looked at a video of Syoban Action. That game looks and feels more like a troll game to me, with invisible blocks and unavoidable traps all over. Really not what i am looking for ;)

How about Rayman Origins? It's awesome!

There's the free Eversion http://zarat.us/tra/eversion/ and the paid version on Steam. If Mario and Silent Hill had a child, it would be this game. You'll love it. :P

If you like older DOS ones, how about Prehistorik or Dangerous Dave series? No saves there though.

Spoiler Alert is very fun, pure platformer, play in reverse!

This!
You want Rayman Origins. It's a mostly traditional, Mario-esque 2D platformer. Up there among the very best 2D platformers of all time.

<span class="bold">TY the Tasmanian Tiger 4</span>   (Steam)

 ▪  Developer's website
 ▪  Gameplay video
 ▪  Review