2D platformers are a dying art, just managing to scrape along with the help of handheld consoles like the PSP and Nintendo DS.

The Playstation 1(PSX) is the last non-handheld console to have repeated decent 2D platformers released and these are the Top 10 of those.

10. The Adventures of Lomax

Lomax is a spin-off videogame from the Lemmings series. In the game you play as an adventurous lemming called Lomax who is quested with rescuing his friends from the evil villain with possibly the most awesomely bad name “Evil Ed”.

It plays reasonable well, the controls are strangely a little under-responsive and the lemming sound effects do get pretty annoying but otherwise the game is fun to play through on a quiet weekend.

9. Strider 2

After a 9 year holiday ‘Strider Hiryu’ appeared in the Marvel Vs. Capcom fighting roster, Marvel quickly realizing that he was still popular decided to make him a sequel, thus 10 years after the original Strider comes Strider 2.

In Strider 2 you control (non-surprisingly) Strider Hiryu, on his quest to overthrow an evil dictatorship and along the way slash up as many enemies as possible in the name of peace and justice; on the whole the plot is flimsy but that is to be expected for this type of game.

Strider 2 uses strange 3d backgrounds with 2d sprite based artwork layered on top, the graphics are decent but don’t really stand out.

Gameplay, like in the original, is non-stop hacking and slashing, it’s great fun while its lasts but sadly the game finishes rather quickly.

8. Rayman

The evil Mr Dark has stolen the world-protecting ‘Great Protoon’, it’s up to Rayman to recapture the Protoon before Mr Dark destroys the world!

Rayman deceptively looks like a kiddy game, but don’t be fooled it’s an amazingly difficult game which can cause endless frustration and blisters all over your hands.

The graphics are pure 2d and are very detailed, the music and SFXs are very cartoony which suits this game fine.

If you are a 2D platformer enthusiast it’s definitely worth a play through, even just to see where the Rayman series began.

7. Mega Man X6

The story picks up just three weeks after where Mega Man X5 ended; on a bleak heavily damaged earth, Zero is missing, Earth’s surface is rendered uninhabitable, and a reploid named the Zero Nightmare is spreading chaos throughout the remains of the world.

Thus it’s up to Mega Man to find out what happened to Zero and put an end to Zero Nightmare.

It’s very hard  to decide which was the best Mega Man for the PSX, none of them lived up to the SNES games but they are all still decent games. X6 was ultimately my best because it brought back the hardcore difficulty of the previous Mega man games, which X5 sorely missed.

The graphics are sharp, clean and remarkably pretty, it’s nearly entirely 2D with only an occasional 3D effect coming in.

The controls are responsive, like the previous Mega Man, and the gameplay is brutal in its difficulty but always remaining fun.

6. Tomba!

Seven evil pigs have appeared and are destroying Tomba’s island, and one of their underlings just stole his bracelet! It’s up to Tomba to sort this mess out, retrieve his bracelet and along the way vanquish the evil pigs!

Tomba is definitely an under-appreciated game, it was released to great critical praise but failed to ever pick up sales.

Tomba plays as platformer/rpg hybrid, each time you kill a monster or finish quests you get ‘adventure points’ aka XP which allows you to get unlockables and open up new places to travel.

The graphics are vibrant and colorful, the sound effects are amusing and the storyline is shallow, what more could you want from a platformer?

5. Klonoa: Door to Phantomile

The evil lord Ghadius is attacking the Dream world, he wants to change it into a Nightmare world! It’s up Klonoa to stop him before Dreams are ruined forever!

The basic gameplay in Klonoa is very simple… jump and shoot, the depth comes from what you do with the enemies once you have shot them. Some explode on a timer, some allow you to hop on for a ride, some even give you the ability to super jump.

The graphics are definitely on the cute side, but don’t let it fool you it’s still one hell of a great platforming game.

4. Heart of Darkness

When I rented this game out as a kid I had heard no hype about it, no information about how much effort had been put into it and I had no idea how great of a game it was.  I can remember being so amazed at how good the cut scenes were in Heart of Darkness that I hooked my PlayStation up to my VHS and recorded them all so I could show my friends.

The plot follows Andy a regular kid with an overactive imagination, whose dog vanishes during a solar eclipse. Andy decides the best course of action would be to go to his tree house and jump into his ’space ship’ to search for his dog, thus somehow entering a new world… called the Darklands, ruled by the Master of Darkness, Andy has to overcome the Darkness to rescue his Dog!

Heart of Darkness took four years of development, and was the first game to have a fully orchestrated score. Although sadly it failed to pick up much commercial success.
The main problem with the game is that is very heavily based around the cut scenes and thus the gameplay is rather short.

None the less, it’s a very impressive platformer to play through, or for nostalgia’s sake you’ll find all the FMVs on youtube.

2. Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus, 3. Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee

Two amazing looking, sounding and innovative platformers. Both of the Oddworld games were released to a massive commercial success and critical praise.

In the games you play as Abe, a Mudokon slave at the ‘Rupture Farm Meat Processing Factory’.  Abe upon learning his masters are planning to turn him and his fellow mudokens into food, sets forth a on quest to rescue as many slaves as he can and put an end to the Rupture Farm Processing factory before it kills his fellow mudokens.

I can still remember the weekend I rented this game back in 97′, I had read all the reviews, looked at all the screenshots, read every preview, but even the hype didn’t stand up to how awesome this game was.
I can remember being awe of how lifelike the graphics and character movements were, the weekend ended up being a frustrating one as I worked through game but an amazingly fun one.

The Oddworld games contain great cinematic cut scenes, eye popping visuals, very unique puzzles and a very high quality musical score.

1. Castlevania: Symphony of The Night

If you were expecting a twist on this list then I’m sorry to disappoint, Castlevania is by far the best platformers to be released on the playstation and to this day is still regarded by many as the best platformer ever released.

Castlevania: SotN totally changed the way Castlevania games were played; instead of the level by level approach, they opened up the entire castle and allowed you to explore while combining RPG elements into the gameplay.

For most people reading this list I doubt I need to go into any more details about how awesome this game is, and for the people who haven’t played it you can grab a re-release on Xbox Live Arcade or on the PSP.