Games Like Tomba!

Insomniac Games' gem-collecting adventure placed players in the wings of a young purple dragon exploring vast, colorful worlds. Spyro the Dragon's open, exploratory design and warm personality made it an instant PlayStation classic and launched one of gaming's most beloved franchises.

Rare's audacious, boundary-pushing platformer used the deceptively cute character of Conker the squirrel as a vehicle for adult humor, cinematic parodies, and surprisingly emotional moments. One of the N64's most technically impressive games and its most unexpectedly mature.

Delphine Software's 1992 cinematic action-adventure masterpiece — Flashback: The Quest for Identity follows Conrad B. Hart, an agent who wakes with no memory in 2142, using rotoscoped animation and Prince-of-Persia-style fluid platforming to navigate a conspiracy involving shapeshifting aliens infiltrating human society. One of the most cinematic games of the 16-bit era.

Jordan Mechner's 1989 Apple II classic on SNES — Prince of Persia follows an unnamed prisoner escaping the Grand Vizier Jaffar's dungeons to save the Princess in 60 minutes of game time, with rotoscoped animation creating realistic human movement and sword combat demanding careful guard engagement. One of the defining games of the early 1990s.

WayForward's half-genie hero arrived in 2002 — a year after the Game Boy Advance had replaced the Game Boy Color — making it one of the most technically accomplished and rarest GBC games. Shantae uses belly-dancing transformation magic across a connected world of villages and dungeons, combining Arabian Nights aesthetics with Metroidvania-style exploration in one of the handheld era's great hidden gems.

The first game to require the DualShock analog sticks — Ape Escape's 204-monkey catching adventure across 26 stages used every feature of Sony's then-new controller in creative ways.

Konami's 2001 PS1 package and the Western debut of the Sharp X68000 Castlevania — Castlevania Chronicles includes the 1993 X68000 computer original plus a redrawn 'Arranged Mode' with enhanced graphics and Simon Belmont with updated sprites, providing the most faithfully arcade-accurate classic Castlevania port alongside the most demanding difficulty of any entry in the franchise.

Naughty Dog's refinement of the Crash Bandicoot formula — adding the slide, body slam, and super-powered spin makes Crash more capable, and 27 stages with expanded variety mark it as the series' most balanced entry.

The commercial peak of the Crash Bandicoot series — Warped's time-travel premise introduces motorbikes, planes, sea-doos, and baby T-rex riding across 30 time-period stages, making it the most varied entry in the trilogy.

Naughty Dog's technically dazzling PlayStation launch platformer introduced the world to the wacky orange marsupial and demonstrated that 3D platforming could be precise, challenging, and visually spectacular. The game that made Sony's console a genuine rival to Nintendo.

Capcom's dinosaur-based survival horror — essentially Resident Evil redesigned for faster, smarter predators — features real-time creature AI that makes the Velociraptors genuinely terrifying rather than scripted obstacles. Regina's infiltration mission in Secret Operation Wipeout demonstrated that the studio's survival horror formula could absorb a radically different threat profile without losing any of its tension, and the game stands as the PS1's finest horror experience outside of Resident Evil 2 and Silent Hill.

Crystal Dynamics' 1998 PS1 3D platformer — Gex: Enter the Gecko follows the wisecracking gecko into the Media Dimension to defeat Rez across themed television worlds. Gecko wall-crawling and tail whip combat in a pop-culture-reference-heavy adventure that was one of PS1's notable 3D platformers alongside Spyro and Crash.