I’m really in the mood for a game like Shovel Knight after listening to some chiptune tracks the other day. Something fair, but challenging would be ideal. Must have a good soundtrack!
Along these lines I’ve already played:
- Shovel Knight
- Celeste
- The Messenger
- Hollow Knight (well, in terms of the difficulty not the music)
Does anyone know of any I’ve missed? They don’t necessarily have to be modern indie games - old NES/SNES games for example. SMB3 and SMW are classics.
VVVVVV is pretty great.
“Banging Chiptune soundtrack” instantly made me think of VVVVVV
You just can’t beat “Pushing Onwards”
that one vertical up/down fall -flashbacks still haunt me.
Super Meat Boy?
Oh damn I actually played this on X360! It was excellent. I’m tempted to get it again on Steam now that you mention it.
It goes on sale fairly often or is part of bundles a lot.
I think it was Cave Story that prompted the modern indie revival of this genre
Oh man, cave story is awesome. Especially that special secret ending that expands on the background of it all a lot.
Went in here scrolling to see if Cave Story was mentioned, Loved the game OP should try it
Ohh yes I do have this on Steam! I think I played a few hours, can’t remember if I ever finished it. Either way I should totally go back and play it.
Ninja Gaiden.
If you like the soundtrack for The Messenger, check out these “24 bit” remixes where they combine the 8 bit and 16 bit songs
Broforce is not that hard, but it’s so fun that it might be worth a play.
You’d like 20xx and 30xx if you liked the Megaman X style of games, fjeyre all chip tune and in a similar style to what you’ve played. Also, Megaman X (and Megaman Zero, the continuation of the X franchise) are fantastic.
Music wise, give Spark Mandrill’s theme a listen from MegamanX and tell me it doesn’t hit just right.
I’ve actually never got into the Megaman games. I’ve always found them unfairly difficult… but maybe I haven’t given them enough of a chance. Is there any particular one you’d recommend to start with?
The Megaman series feels difficult to me too, the Megaman X series feels difficult but it’s got a soft spot due to when I was growing up. I highly recommend the Legacy Collection for megamanX, it gives some features the originals were lacking that were infuriating (like remembering passwords in order to ‘save’).
20xx and 30xx are ‘spiritual successors’ to the Megaman X series, but it’s a rogue-like, meaning portions of it are randomly generated and when you die you do start over and the power ups you get are not set in stone in terms of order or whether you’ll see them at all. So if you liked Megaman X but wanted something that’s got an ‘active’ community and even co-op, it’s definitely worth a look.
Thanks! I like the sound of the Legacy collection - I’ll take a look :)
Megaman X, the SNES original, is a great starting point. X2 and X3 afterwards will offer significant challenge even after you master the first game. X1 has the best music of the 3.
If you go for the NES classics, I personally find 6 the easiest. It also has some absolutely amazing tracks, like Tomahawk Man’s stage. 4 and 5 are weak points, in my opinion.
Thanks, I’ll give X a try first and then move onto the others if I enjoy it :)
Micro Mages? Essentially a modern nes-game, co-op for up to 4 players.
edit: while not really a platformer (but does include platforming sections, iirc) and soundtrack does slap hard with the chiptunes: Retro City Rampage
The fact that this fits on a NES cart is really neat! Thanks for the suggestion - I hadn’t heard of this one before
the game from steam also comes as a nes rom-image, you can use it any nes emulator. I used Mesen, got quite a bit more customization & scaling options etc… and save states because I suck at it :D
If you allow technical nonplatformers in there (Hollow Knight? If you are into Metroidvanias, play Super Metroid, it has great music. Also, Axiom Verge.) I could go up and down my various game collections for a while.
But in spirit of the actual question, here’s one that I don’t think anyone else here will recommend: LOVE. Simple, short, lots of room for mastery. And I like the music.
If you are a fan of the classics, the SMW modding community is huge. We have a wide variety of difficulties, and most modern hacks have all custom music- in engine, playable on console, ofc, so it’s all 16-bit.
LOVE seems nice! Very low fi soundtrack.
I hadn’t considered SMW mods - thanks, I’ll look into that
super meat boy
I’m a big fan of those games, and I really enjoyed HUNTDOWN. It’s a shooting platformer, more Contra than anything on your list, but is good times and has top choons to listen to while you’re playing.
It’s been a while since I played it, but I think They Bleed Pixels might fit the bill on both counts.
Also I recently started The End is Nigh which is another Edmund McMillen game very similar to Super Meatboy. Seems good so far.
I haven’t seen this mentioned yet, so I’ll say it: The End is Nigh. Shit’s hard as balls but very fair and rewarding to play, only go for it if you’re a real glutton for punishment.
How does it compare to super meat boy?
Made by the same guy, actually. I would say it’s similar to Meat Boy in difficulty if you just play the main game, but there are rabbitholes to go down that get much, much harder if you’re a completionist.
Rainbow island and the New Zealand story used to be my favourites. But I hate platformers, so not sure how that goes. At least there’s some progression of difficulty in RI.
