There were MANY 2d platformers I didn’t mention. I couldn’t list them all, there are too many of them! But I wanted to mention some major ones throughout history.

We seem to forget about ones like Pitfall. I think it was interesting that the bookends of the 16-bit console war is not 2d Mario but Sonic the Hedgehog (starting the war) and Donkey Kong Country (ending the war).

I’ve always seen that there are two worlds, the world of “Game Industry”, and the world of game customers. I believe that while the “Game Industry” changes, the game customers largely do not. We still love games like Pac-Man and all. It is likely because of the “Industry” obsession with ‘progress’ and customers remaining somewhat the same that overshooting occurs. The games just completely overshoot the customers’ needs or desires. I don’t think customers ever really tired of fun 2d gaming.

We all know that successful games create copycats. I would love NSMB Wii to be successful just to have copycat 2d platformers.