The 20 Best Commodore 64 Platform Games In Order Of Greatness 

Rick Dangerous should have been way higher on the list, it's an underrated classic

I'm surprised NewZealand Story didn't make it to the list. But I bet you can't make a top 20 C64 racing games list, you're really going to have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for that one :P

Brilliant video, enjoy watching these on a Saturday afternoon, thanks.

One of my best budget purchases was CJ’s Elephant Antics.

Oh, my, this was instant nostalgy! Like I was transported back to the 80s again! Thanks for the video, the list of games is wonderful! Have a great C64 weekend!

My favourite C64 platformers have to be Rainbow Islands and Rodland, the conversions really bring the gameplay home pretty much intact.

Great to include some of the new stuff 👍

Great rundown - no arguments with any of these, and a few I'd not heard of. Will have to check them out.

Thank you for such great memories popping back in my head.

Bubble bobble is my favourite game ever, funny because I mostly like rpgs.....

A few more Honourable mentions: Bionic Commando, Jet Set Willy/Manic Miner, Head Over Heels, Mr Do's Castle, Rainbow Islands, Hunchback 2, Bounder, Bounty Bob, New Zealand Story. Such a massive back Catalogue it's easy to miss but I consider the above games still genuinely playable today in addition to your list.

I ultra like your selection !

Once again a nice solid collection 👍 keep up the good videos

...and The Newzealand Story is also nice! and Hard 'n' Heavy...

Totally agree with all those. I do remember quite liking Rainbow Islands, new zealand story and the CJ games. :)

Nice to see the old bread bin getting love in later years still, class video as always buddy catch you in the next one :)

Great list! Just missing two of my all time classic favs: Frantic Freddie and Dino Eggs.

Really enjoyed this list, especially since I haven't kept up with the more recent C-64 releases.

A good list, although I personally would have put "Sam's Journey" at number one. I bought the full game and man, it blows me away how incredible it is in ALL areas - Graphics, design and gameplay are perfect and the game is huge. The very pinnacle of C64 gaming that does many things I didn't think possible on our favourite bread-bin.

Nebulus, Thing On A Spring, Bombjack, and the Monty Mole games.

Great list. Also love rainbow islands and wonderboy

Great looking list. My only possible thought of s missing entry (or just an excuse for a top 21 list) would be Rainbow Islands. I always thought the C64 version was one of the best platformers on the system. But your list still looks awesome. Good work 👍

Great list of games here 👍👍

Lode runner and Bruce Lee stole hours of my youth.. I use to play Bruce Lee in 2 player with my brother back in the late 80s, early 90s.. Ghost n Goblins was also an all time favourite. If i had been aware of Mayhem in Monsterland back in the day I would have been blown away... Although in 1994 we got a 486DX2/66 PC, with DOOM, which was a mind blowing experience. But it's the nostalgia of the c64 that I come back to as an adult

Jumpman is still one of my all time favorites. And I think Castlevania is a pretty good port and plays decent. Funny thing I didn't play many platform style games with my C64 growing up. But still I played some great games and had a blast. I also loved Double Dragon and it was challenging. And Donkey Kong was my first exposure as I didn't play the arcade till later. I also loved Centipede, Buck Rogers, Blue Print, Blue Max, Choplifter, After Burner, Out Run, Robotron and so many others.

Man, this brings back memories and about 4 broken joysticks back in the day 😂 Hawkeye was a fav of mine, music was killer. SUBBED!

I think my favorite is Rainbow Island, followed by Giana Sisters, Turrican II and Bubble Bobble.

Wonderful list! There is so much to choose from. One of my favorites that isn't on the list is Hard 'n Heavy. Excellent gameplay and awesome music. Unofficially, we called it a sequel to Giana Sisters.

AWESOME! I just ordered the full sized C-64 and I'm looking forward to adding some classic ROM's because the preloaded games list is looking pretty weak indeed. Thanks for the heads up my friend, can't wait to get these games loaded so they can be PLAYED!!👍 👍

giana sisters was one of my favorite games on the c64....nice vid

Great list 👍. I know it’s hard to include everything but I would have definitely put Monty on the run in that list. For me it would be number one.

FYI... Rick dangerous was bloody epic on the c64 Bubble bobble, imho best game EVER Myth on the c64 absolutely kicked arse (and tape loading music kicks arse out of the disk version) - the cyberdyne tape loader was on super slow though! Turrican 2... totally agree, sublime! Not even seen “it’s magic II” gonna have to get that! Creatures 1&2 smashes the Amiga out the park as such better version! Super Mario c64 plays great and looks mint GGS never been a fan of it (sorry) Mayhem showed the world how much potential the c64 had (should’ve chosen that back in the day instead the super dreadful SF2!!!)

Ahh Turrican 1+2, Bubble Bobble, Gianna Sisters! 😍

A good top 20. Would have liked to see Miner 2049'er and/or Bounty Bob Strikes Back too, along with Hunchback II and Kong Strikes Back. Still, it's all personal choice at the end of the day and this is a great top 20.

Finally someone who has respect for the newer titles as well for the older classics. We need more of this type of guys!

I think my version of this list would be very similar.. I love how easily Turrican 2 could be at the top of both the Amiga and C64 lists. Some of these newer titles are pretty mind blowing, too.

Nice list, I miss a few titles, which at least with nostalgia-tinted glasses should've been mentioned. But there were so many games for the C64... So, here's 3 titles I missed in this list: Last Ninja II with its amazing graphics and sound and it played better than part 1. IK+ was a great fighting game with 3 active fighters. Project Firestart, one of the first survival horrorgames, quite advanced for the time.

SUBSCRIBED!

My choice? The legendary Turrican 2 top of the shop, no problem at all. Turrican 1 takes second place, with System 3's classy Flimbo's Quest coming in at third position. Not much can be said about the Turrican series that hasn't already been said as they were outstanding, groundbreaking games that completely redefined what the C64 was capable of when placed in skilled, programming hands. Meanwhile, Flimbo's Quest was amazingly cute and colourful, and featured some of the best parallax scrolling and fluid animation I'd ever seen in a C64 game. In fact, Flimbo was near pixel-perfect when it came to jumping or shooting, and that's so important in a platformer. Just wish someone would remake the game for PC, to be honest, as it was a really fun game to play. It also had some really lovely music, too. Anyway, very nice video as always, bud, and it's great to re-live happy memories with you from the golden era of computer gaming. Have to admit that I didn't know that Mario eventually appeared on the C64...that came as a very pleasant surprise to me. All the best. 😉

I think one of my favorite Commodore 64 puzzle platformer the game Big Mac it's super simple looking but it's a fun game to get lost into

I spent a lot of time in my childhood playing Turrican 1 and 2. Seemed like almost everyone owned games like Rainbow Islands, New Zealand Story and CJ's Elephant Antics back in those days.

Wow! some absolute minters in this list! Nice to see the more modern games included, I find it amazing to see what the old C64 is still capable of when the code is sweet. As you know m8, I'm a Amiga fanboy and I must say, I found the games in this list more impressive than your best Amiga platform vid. Only Commodore makes it possible ;)

Pretty strange that so many of these games are new - but you're not wrong about them!

Definitely agree with Turrican II at the top, the only issue i ever had with it was if you got to the last level with that daft splitter ball rather than something more useful like the lazer cannon...

You didn't know Lode Runner ? How is that even possible ? but your list is pretty good. Anyhow, here are 10 more nice platformers, I deem to be excellent ("in order of greatness"): 10. Wizard & Ultimate Wizard (EA) 9. Spelunker (Broderbund) 8. Pitfall 2 (Activision) 7. Space Taxi (Muse) - well a kind of a platformer, but any reason to mention this outstanding classic is leggit 6. Jumpman (Broderbund) - dated graphics (similar to Load Runner), but superior gameplay 5. Castles of Dr. Creep (Broderbund) - great platform / puzzle mix 4. Bagitman - excellent arcade port (that most people will also very likely never have heard of) 3. Pharaoh's curse (Synapse) - excellent platformer, imho also superior to the (pretty good) Montezuma's revenge by Parker. 2. Infernal Runner (Loriciels) - a unique masterpiece with an incredible soundtrack. Nobody who has played it, will ever forget it (those who have played will, will know, what i mean). I truly adore this game. There is nothing like it. 1. Nemesis the Warlock (Martech) - based upon the 2000 AD comicbook character ... I LOVE this game. It's just insanely great. I mean, come on, a game in which you have to kill enemies to climb onto their corpses to reach upper platforms ? How cool is that ? Has also an excellent Theme by Rob hubbard. Imho one of the most underrated games on the C64 and clearly the best 2000 AD-based game.

Bruce Lee the best. Still play it to this day co-op mode with a friend playing Yamu.

You had me with Turrican. Although, and I'm not sure if it was a platformer, technically, but Tower Toppler was another favorite.

Great video, Jealous of Myth, the Amstrad just copped a speccy port.

Another great video OSG, but I'm a bit disappointed you didn't say 'Master System' in a posh voice 😂 I do agree with you that Sam's Journey should've been number one though, as it's an astounding game, and just amazing to play. I said after playing it completion back when it came out that it was THE most playable and enjoyable game EVER on the C64, in my review of the game on Protovision's website, it was an absolute joy playing that game, and I'll have to go back and do it all again one of these days!! Can't fault you on the other games mate, there's some belters here for sure, and I'll deffo have to go back to Mayhem one day, I've still never finished it!! Keep up the great work bud... Cheers!

Rainbow Islands, Rodland, Turrican 3, Zorro, two new bruce lee remakes,

I love platform games, maybe the c64 games are better then the Amiga ones. But that must because I owned the c64 much longer then the Amiga. Some of them on this list I never played, gonna try them! thanks again!

What no bounty Bob strikes back! definitely should be on the list

Bubble Bobble should be higher, it's an amazing conversion.

Mayhem in Monsterland, Creatures and Bubble Bobble were solid favourites for me. Fox Fights Back and Head over Heels were possibly my favourites. Both were super difficult though

Bomb Jack was brilliant fun ...bizzy the egg series .. brilliant at the time

You know, I decided to watch this because I am a huge retro fan... I'm like: I missed a lot on the C-64 era, as I was more on early PC computer back then... or on ColecoVision before taking a few years break and back on AtariST in 1986... So I'm not gonna know any of the games on this guy's list, right?... Boy was I wrong. Many titles were ported to the Atari 8 bit platform my uncle and dad bought, like Montezuma's revenge, Bruce Lee and a few others... then some of them I played on my AtariST (Great Giana sisters)... I did play Lode Runner on my Tandy 1000 (or maybe Tandy1200 I dont remember), but ultimately I preferred "Joust" a lot more. So yeah, you got me in the feels, I played far too many of these titles. Thanks for the nostalgia trip !

Creatures, Mayhem, Nebulus, Sam's Journey would be my top 4, in descending order. I maybe would not regard Turrican as a platformer per se, as it's more of a blend between platformer and shoot-em-up and Creatures 2 is not very platformy compared to its predecessor, more of a fancy puzzle game, arguably.

I'd never seen the Super Mario Bros C64 version - looked very good. I'd never heard of Sam's Journey - had to do a double take that it was running on a C64. Did you ever play any of the Commander Keen games on a PC, back in the day? Would love to see them ported to the C64. Great Vid, thanks.

My fave is Rainbow Islands

I love your videos OSG and I have a suggestion to make them even better. The volume level between your voiceover and game music is quite different so if I set the volume for the speech to be normal then the music is much louder. If I set the volume for the music at a normal volume then the speech is quiet. I feel a slight tweak would be a big improvement :-D

Brilliant selection... Rick Dangerous amazing game...however I would of had Flimbos Quest on here... as for Bubble Bobble music on C64 I agree 100% prefer SID version compared to original just sounds perfect.

I loved The Goonies on C64.

Great list. I'd give some honorable mentions to HERO, Daffy Duck, and the recently released (last year) Doc Cosmos. Oh, and Hawkeye as well. Since it's technically a side scrolling platformer/shooter combo., as well as the EUROPEAN version of Bionic Commando

13:07 What's the song in the end? Found it, from Cobra by Ben Daglish.

How could you forget Trollie Wallie by Interceptor Software with it's awesome soundtrack, especially for 1984? I played this for many hours day after day in order to finally become good enough to complete it.

Phwoar, Guns and Ghosts looks incredible.

I really like Oxyron’s 2016 port of Donkey Kong.... even more than the DK Jr port featured here but that’s because I’m a DK purist and the gameplay on Oxyron’s port is sublime, very true to the arcade original imho

Bubble bobble was awsome

I think I'd put Datasoft's "Black Magic" somewhere on the list. It was almost an open-world game, with regard to the size of the map and the versatility of the tools you were given to deal with threats and obstacles. Feel a bit deprived I never got to play the "Turrican" games, though.

I've thought that Canabalt is a platformer as well! :)

I loved Bruce Lee. Great list!

Mail order monsters!!! With on line gaming I'm shocked mail order monsters didn't get a reboot

Also enjoyed Head over Heels, Bounty Bob Strikes back! and Booty.

Have you ever done an episode on the names of that day like Ben Daglish, David Whittaker and Rob Hubbard? Their music was phenomenal.

Bruce Lee is a great game, the new Bruce Lee 2 is fantastic, its a lot harder now, have you played it? Draconus and the Goonies and ghost hunters I played a lot as a kid

I really don't know the new titles but more or less I do agree with you, except for one thing, you didn't mention ghouls'n'ghosts, I really loved the c64 version.

I remember getting Commodore Format and seeing the 100% score for Monster in Mayhemland.

big mac / manic minor well worthy of being on the list also

Great list. Some of these games seems almost impossible for c64. I cant even think all the programming tricks for making them.

Another awesome platformer was Frantic Freddie, it was amazing for 1983 with a stunning soundtrack. PS: There is an unofficial sequel, Frantic Freddie II that was released in 2019 too.

I love turrican. Both games are awesome.

Totally agree! Sam's Journey should be on first place. I could not believe it when I fired it up! WOW..just WOW! But great list! :-D

Sam's Journey to me reminds me of a cross between Mario 3 and the Alex Kidd games

Wheres Flimbos Quest? Just imagine if someone made that Mrio back in the day and leaked it, things could have been very different!

HERO.

Would like to have seen Last Ninja 2 but I do really like Bruce Lee 👍👍🎮🎮

No disrespect intended to sensible CPC fans, but there's a distinct irony here. I recently came across a video ridiculously claiming Amstrad CPC 'supremacy' on the basis of a ~5 seconds demo of a style- over-substance racing game using unreliable, monitor-dependent hacks, and requiring 128K minimum. Yet there are several fully completed games in this list alone, many of which were released several decades ago, that are, and always will be, far beyond the capabilities of the CPC, and all running on a stock 1982 64K computer, with true, device independent, 50+ FPS hardware, and with audio far beyond the capabilities of the CPC as well :)

i'm surprised not to see Saboteur here but since you can list only 20 it's hard competition as there was a ton of platformers

I enjoyed Hard Hat Mack, Burgertime, Mr Robot, Wizard, and Jumpman from the earlier years

I would definitely add a game to my list that is not here: Terry's Big Adventure! That was my second favorite platformer after Giana Sisters. I think it would be better to have a list that would last as long as there are commercial games for the C64. And by commercial game, I mean what we could see on store shelves.2019 game along with 1983 game, how smart list is that? As far as I know, the first commercial games for the C64 were released in 1983 and the last one could be Alien 3 in 1991. Mayhem In Monsterland released in 1993, but it was released by email I think. So in my opinion, C64 games realeased by shops were from 1983 to 1991.

9:28 That damned torch... .. .

Was Montezuma's Revenge that game, that if you play long enough, then you have to play leves blindfolded? I mean, literally blindfolded. The screen is black and you have to remember where everything was. :D

No CJ's Elephant Antics (Codemasters)? :)

I like these best of lists, now I'am looking forward to more worst of lists.

HOW CAN FLIMBO QUEST NOT BE HERE MY NORDIC LORDS..!

Prince of Persia for the NES got a 30th anniversary mod, which brings it as close to the PC port as the NES can get, i thought that you should know.

Best part about Lode Runner was it let you make your own levels and save them to disk. Making swear words out of ladders made 12 year old me giggle quite a bit.

Jumpman & Jumpman Jr.

I would have split these into videos from the era and those not from the C64 era as you're simply missing out too many classics.

No Flimbo's Quest?