What were the first platformers to make good use of the Amiga?

[Megalomaniac]

While there were lots of shoot 'em ups designed around the Amiga from reasonably early on (Hybris, Datastorm, Menace, Insanity Fight perhaps), the same thing doesn't seem to have happened with platformers. Despite the Amiga's potential for full-screen multidirectional smooth scrolling having clear potential to make better platform games (not just better looking and sounding ones), especially console-style ones that move on from the Manic Miner / Monty Mole influences (not a criticism of those games, but they weren't necessarily what people wanted into the 90s), this doesn't seem to have happened until well into the Amiga's life.

Things like Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands and Rick Dangerous may be great fun, but they're all ST ports, and not wildly beyond what the 8-bits can do. Slightly later releases like Chuck Rock, Fire & Ice and Robocod (all later ported to multiple consoles, but originating on the 16-bit computers) are much more consciously consolesque, but all have technical limitations (indeed, I believe the first two use 16-colour palettes?). All of those, and just about all other highly-rated platformers on LemonAmiga, have ST versions which at least superficially look much the same.

Turrican in 1990 (and that a platform shooter) is the earliest one that jumps out where I look at it and think "the ST couldn't do that"). Tellingly, I've a feeling that Turrican II may be the second such game. I don't count Shadow of the Beast because (although Lemon calls it a platformer) for me it doesn't have enough elements of a platformer, no timed jumps or sequential jumps, and the ladders are 'passive' zones with no combat. It doesn't feel like there was much before late 1992, when we got Amiga-led developments like Putty, Tearaway Thomas and (my own loathing of it notwithstanding) Zool, which screamed 'console like' in their look and feel at first glance.

Have I missed any technically-wonderful Amiga developments from earlier than about 1992, which show the extent to which the Amiga can compete with the 16-bit consoles in a way the ST or C64 can't hope to? Or is there perhaps a timing overlap here - did the fashion for 'console-style' platformers over '8-bit style' or 'arcade-style' ones simply happen at much the same time as it became essential for European developers (who made almost all Amiga platfomers) to lead with the Amiga and chase the console market?

[DisasterIncarna]

Arnie - that was amiga/c64 only.

maybe search on HOL for platformers that had no conversions and manually check the dates below what you need?

https://amiga.abime.net/games/list/?...&conversion=no

^ change from grid view to list view to show dates.

[lmimmfn]

Switchblade 2? I thought that was awesome on the Amiga, so smooth.

[Megalomaniac]

Switchblade II is a good shout, very impressive consoleseque Japanese-style look and feel, smooth scrolling, with varied levels and some impressive outdoor sections. The spikes aren't great design though, and the lack of ingame music is a minor gripe - though I'd rather that than have terrible or ill-fitting music you can't turn off. A better game than the first one, or Zool (by the same guy) in my book. Interesting that Jeremy Smith from Core who did the first one didn't like it though.

Arnie is a strange choice, a budget Green Beret clone with pretty mediocre visuals (reasonably smooth motion though) that's a bit too hard and certainly unoriginal. Simply not having an ST version doesn't automatically mean a technical tour de force. A shame Realms of Fantasy (the guys who did the early Premier Manager games) didn't port the excellent C64 Commando clone of the same name by Chris Butler, in truth.

[rothers]

Surely it's Robocod 2?

[DisasterIncarna]

Originally Posted by rothers

Surely it's Robocod 2?

part of the OP's post mentioned "the st couldnt do that", robocod 1/2 is on the st and while not exactly the same it still looks "robocod".

[CCCP alert]

The first one with proper parallax, not copperlist, background layer I remember is Soccer Kid but that's quite a late game so must be something else before it.

[Pyromania]

James Pond Robocod Trilogy were fun platformers to play and looked great.

[Megalomaniac]

Robocod isn't a bad call, the comic aesthetic feels very British somehow but the gameplay style feels consoley, especially the multidirectional scrolling. All that counts against it is the occasional slowdown, and the rather bad vertical scroll when you fall a long way - can't say I cared at the time though.

There is an ST version, definitely ported down from the Amiga rather than the other way around, but frankly its near-unplayable because of the tiny playing area, terrible scrolling, awkward floaty control and lack of sound effects. I'd say that Amiga Robocod does plenty that the ST probably can't - the existence of a bad cash-in ST version as well doesn't disqualify it in my mind. Incidentally, as an extreme case of bad journalistic standards, The One For Amiga Games and The One For ST Games printed the exact same review for both - same score, same screenshots, same text that just says "the best platformer for your computer" rather than specifying - literally the only difference is the page numbers at the bottom. Borderline fraud, frankly. The C64 version is surprisingly playable though, nasty washed-out look aside.

[donnie]

Shadow of the beast came out in 89.

[chip]

Amiga platformers rulez !

[gimbal]

I'd vote for Turrican. Large levels, multiscrolling and music + sfx at the same time... it's weird to specifically highlight that in a game, but so many at the time made you choose.

Chuck Rock was also a good one (but music OR sfx...). Cartoonesque intro and especially because it had the mechanic of using rocks as movable platforms which could block projectiles or boulders and would sink into water. And it did more with physics than the average platformer. It really stood out to me at the time. Nice water effect too. I would only wish they had polished the collision detection a little bit more in the Amiga version, it can be hard to land hits without getting hit yourself.

A nice attention to detail which I found console-esque is that in the title screen when you see the band playing, they actually went the mile to only make them play when their instrument is heard in the music In the Sega version one of them also switches between guitar and keyboard.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by donnie

Shadow of the beast came out in 89.

It's not really a "platformer" though. In that you aren't really jumping around between platforms in the way you'd expect. It's why I also wouldn't describe Arnie (or Green Beret which it's obviously knocking off) a platformer either (even though you can kind of move between platforms)

[DisasterIncarna]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

It's not really a "platformer" though. In that you aren't really jumping around between platforms in the way you'd expect. It's why I also wouldn't describe Arnie (or Green Beret which it's obviously knocking off) a platformer either (even though you can kind of move between platforms)

what kind of platformer do you think qualifies in this case? stuff like rodland or just anything that kinda forces you to jump around on different levels/platforms rather than be more "on the rails" platforming while scrolling.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

Turrican in 1990 (and that a platform shooter) is the earliest one that jumps out where I look at it and think "the ST couldn't do that").

But the ST did that in 1990: https://www.atarimania.com/game-atar...can_10715.html
[ Show youtube player ]

I'd argue Turrican 2 is when you can see (not hear ) the difference quite clearly between the Amiga and the ST version.

[Estrayk]

and the most impressive of all is that the atari st has some 50fps platform games like on the amiga as well.

[ Show youtube player ]

[Galahad/FLT]

Sorry but the Beast series are emphatically platformers, puzzle platformers to be more precise.

That they don't follow the same exact formula as Mr.Nutz or Turrican, they are still platformers.

Make a list of all the game genres, and platformer is the genre they hit every time.

[Megalomaniac]

Turrican and Enchanted Land (albeit using push-scrolling) are both among the most impressive action games on the ST. ST Turrican 2 suffers a bit from rough-looking visual conversion, inferior backgrounds (to both Amiga Turrican 2 and ST Turrican 1) and noticeably inferior scrolling - still pretty playable, and adored by the ST scene based on the YouTube video I've just looked at, but definitely not quite as impressive. Chuck Rock suffers on Amiga from the 16 colour visuals looking a bit washed-out - I'd say ST Enchanted Land has a more consoley look - though there are clever ideas in the gameplay, and that intro definitely screams 'console'.

I know getting into genre definitions is awkward, a lot of great games break boundaries or invent new genres of their own, but SOTB isn't a platformer in my book. Admittedly it's not a favourite of mine, but I'm not seeing any of the elements that make a platformer. I don't really know why Lemon lists it as such when similar titles such as Wrath of the Demon, Psygnosis' Barbarian II and Elvira Arcade Game are down as Arcade, which is where I'd put SOTB. Even Yo! Joe! apparently isn't a platformer on Lemon, yet SOTB is, which especially confuses me.

[Anubis]

Wait, best was not just the Demo? (that is how it felt )

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

Even Yo! Joe! apparently isn't a platformer on Lemon, yet SOTB is, which especially confuses me.

Which goes to show that a genre 'Arcade' isn't really helpful.