The 10 WORST 3D Platformers

“Frogger: The Great Quest” (2001)

Pay no attention to the creepy face Frogger is given in this adventure. There are worse things lurking in the shadows here. “Frogger: The Great Quest” is a platformer that fights you the very second you gain control of the amphibious menace as the controls are insanely inaccurate. Frogger will always go too far or not far enough in his jumps. On top of that, there’s no whimsy, no creativity imbued into the environments. They all just look like generic locations meant for an entirely different game. Perhaps Frogger should stick to what he does best: playing in traffic.

“Tonic Trouble” (1999)

While there are many of us who likely grew up with this game, we gotta put away the rose-tinted glasses for a second. “Tonic Trouble” really isn’t all that great. Sure, it’s got the same excellent character design as “Rayman”, but that’s to be expected when the game is made by the same director. Gameplay-wise, it’s a boring mess. So many of the levels feel unfinished with their basic layouts while bosses serve nothing more than being walking punching bags. Even with all of this, there’s a piece of us that thinks Ubisoft should give “Tonic Trouble” another shot, assuming they still own the IP.

“Balan Wonderworld” (2021)

“A brand new 3D platformer from the co-creator of ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’” is what we were sold on. Objectively, we got what we were sold. Subjectively, it was nowhere near the quality it should have been with that prestige. “Balan Wonderworld” was such an underbaked game that it made “Tonic Trouble” look like a complete package. Most of the controls did the same function regardless of which costumes you had equipped. Mechanics such as feeding and raising Tims go totally unexplained and feel like nonsensical bloat. As for the worlds themselves, well, how do you make a game based around musical theater feel so lifeless?

“Hell Pie” (2022)

To its credit, “Hell Pie” does a pretty decent job with its swinging gimmick. You can pull fun little maneuvers with your trajectory, but that’s about as fun as it gets. The rest of the game feels like it was designed by a ten-year-old who only recently discovered the fun behind swear words. This isn’t us being prudish, mind you. The inspiration of “Conker’s Bad Fur Day” is rather explicit throughout the game, but the humor only ever goes so far as “look, cartoon characters are dropping the F-bomb, haha! Isn’t that funny??”. There’s no wit, just shock value. Eventually, you start to wonder what part of “Conker” the devs found funny: the ways players were made to interact with the world or the censor beeps. You can kinda guess which is the right answer once you come across the fiftieth swarm of enemies made of poo.

“Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric” (2014)

In hindsight, it’s almost shocking that SEGA had a ton of confidence in “Sonic Boom” as “Rise of Lyric” killed this era of the Blue Blur before it could even begin. At launch, the game was insanely broken beyond repair as objects glitched out and exploits were quickly discovered. We could forgive the unstable cutscenes showcasing character models T-posing before the camera cuts away. But once Knuckles starts exploiting the pause menu to defy gravity and skip large chunks of the game, someone’s gotta take the blame, and it ain’t going to be the QA department. According to them, they did their job - it was management who wanted the game out anyways.

“Ninjabread Man” (2005)

Data Design Interactive will forever be one of the most notorious developers to ever exist in the history of video games, right up there with LJN and Atari. Throughout the 2000’s, Data Design Interactive pushed out tons of shovelware to flood store shelves in hopes that stupid kids like yours truly would buy their games. “Ninjabread Man” is the poster child for their shoddy quality and rightfully so. Not including the tutorial, the game is only three levels long and can be 100% completed in roughly thirty minutes. But to make the experience even more insufferable, combat is utterly janky to the point where it becomes a boring turn-based RPG. And would you believe this game would get reskinned three separate times under completely different titles? If you played “Anubis II”, “Rock ‘N’ Roll Adventures”, or “Myth Makers: Trixie in Toyland”, then you’ve played “Ninjabread Man”.

“Crash TwinSanity” (2004)

It pains yours truly to put a “Crash Bandicoot” game on here, but we gotta stop with the revisionism; “Crash TwinSanity” was never as good as some have pretended it was. Appreciate the ideas. Laugh at the witty humor. Relish in what did make it into the final game. But let’s not pretend this game isn’t an unfinished, unpolished mess. The controls aren’t super responsive, certain glitches can cause instant death or failure in a handful of levels - dude, there’s a boss that can still damage you or even kill you even though it's dead! There are levels that are very clearly unbalanced and not properly designed to fit the physics of ball-rolling and throwing Cortex across the room. “Crash TwinSanity” is a broken game, and we gotta stop pretending like it was this amazing hidden gem.

“Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly” (2002)

Unlike some corners of the “Crash” fanbase, Spyro fans can at least universally agree on “Enter the Dragonfly”. This game was abhorrent in the worst ways possible. There are so many bugs and glitches plaguing this game that it makes “Enter the Dragonfly” borderline unplayable. And once you’ve learned what happened behind the scenes, it almost makes sense why the game turned out the way it did. What started out as a loving relationship between co-developers Check Six Studios and Equinoxe Digital Entertainment quickly turned into an intense feud between management. From numerous interviews with devs conducted by online journalist The Wumpa Gem, much of the beef stemmed from creative differences, missed deadlines, stubborn behaviour, and even missing payments towards staff. It was just a constant trainwreck behind the scenes, and it wound up severely impacting “Enter the Dragonfly”.

“Sonic the Hedgehog” (2006)

You cannot talk about awful 3D platformers without mentioning “Sonic ‘06”. This was the game that was meant to celebrate the franchise’s fifteenth anniversary and expand the world with even more characters, more locations, and more mechanics. All of this while bringing the Blue Blur into the next generation of console gaming. And it sucked! If “Crash TwinSanity” and “Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly” were in a total state of disrepair, “Sonic ‘06” was a trainwreck on top of a trainwreck. There are so many moments where the physics forget to function entirely, collision detection fails to sync up with environments, characters go flying off ledges - it’s utter insanity! Anyone trying to take the stance of “actually, ‘Sonic ‘06’ was great” clearly has not played the game. Play the ACTUAL game, not the P-06 mod.

“Bubsy 3D” (1996)

Really, this isn’t a shocker by any stretch of the imagination. “Bubsy 3D” is the absolute worst 3D platformer ever made on every front. Level design, audio, controls, you name it - “Bubsy 3D” is awful in every possible category. The tank controls make platforming insanely frustrating. Every level feels like a freakin’ visual assault with its random colors and bizarre structure. And of course, Bubsy doesn’t know when to shut the hell up. There are absolutely no redeeming qualities here. None, zilch, nada. You’d be better off playing any of the nine games we’ve gone over today than this mangy mascot game.

Have you fallen victim to any of these disasters? Let us know down in the comments, and don’t forget to subscribe to MojoPlays.