Mario 64 style platformers

[JuntMonkey]

Super Mario 64 was completely new, and IMO is still the best game ever made. Even though the game was such a classic, the gameplay has only been duplicated a handful of times. There are 3D platformers such as Sly Cooper and Rayman 2 but, while excellent, they're not what I'm talking about because they're mostly linear. I'm most interested in the games that give you a bunch of very large open levels that have many different goals within them that can often be tackled in any order.

The list that I know of goes something like this, in about this order of greatness:

Super Mario 64
Banjo-Kazooie
Donkey Kong 64
Rocket: Robot on Wheels
Jak & Daxter
Mario Sunshine
Banjo-Tooie

The only one none of you have heard of is Rocket, which was for the N64 and is actually quite good. It's made by the Sly Cooper people, and sometimes appears on "overlooked games" lists.

Anybody have any more? I do not count Conker because each section is tiny and the game is pretty linear. Jak 2-3 and the Ratchet & Clanks also are not the same thing.

Edit to add Mario Sunshine.

[Ryanski]

Pretty much any zelda game, though not as much as some of the ones you mentioned probably.

[MarkSummers]

uhh, no. all the zeldas before Ocarina of Time were 2D and even though the most recent zelda games are 3D, there isn't even a button to jump manually.

[Neuge]

Psychonauts is a fantastic game.

[Freakin]

i thought every update to the existing franchise on teh n64 sucked balls... except mario kart.

i really hated the 3dification of the big games. top down zelda and side-scroller mario were much much better games

[JuntMonkey]

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Psychonauts is a fantastic game.

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Yea forgot about that. I didn't like it much at the time but looking back I do.

[jah7_fsu1]

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i really hated the 3dification of the big games. top down zelda and side-scroller mario were much much better games

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Well it had to happen someday, and as much as I love A Link to the Past, Super Mario World, etc, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have at least as good a time with the 64 versions of both.

[Moozh]

I don't get it. I would put Banjo-Tooie at the top of that list. It's my favorite N64 game. Great puzzles (solutions often span multiple levels), funny dialogue, lots of fun.

[JuntMonkey]

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I don't get it. I would put Banjo-Tooie at the top of that list. It's my favorite N64 game. Great puzzles (solutions often span multiple levels), funny dialogue, lots of fun.

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The order is questionable for me after Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie, which are definitely my top two. DK64 was a bit of a disappointment compared to those two games - Rare went overboard with collecting items and the overly massive size of the world (not that huge is bad, but in this case the design just didn't work well with the size).

Banjo-Tooie continues that trend, and they tried to jam so much in that there's serious slowdown at parts and it's just overwhelming. Simply not as crisply designed as Banjo-Kazooie.

That being said, if you could guarantee that Banjo-Kazooie 3 (coming for Xbox 360) would be "only" as good as 2, I'd be pretty excited and would snatch it up quickly.

[Moozh]

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That being said, if you could guarantee that Banjo-Kazooie 3 (coming for Xbox 360) would be "only" as good as 2, I'd be pretty excited and would snatch it up quickly.

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XBox! Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!