Top Five Platform Games Not Featuring Sonic or Mario

Sonic The Hedgehog and Mario are the Tupac and Biggie of video game characters. While only one of them is still beloved by long time fans(due to lack luster games in recent years, Sonic may as well be a memory), both have a pretty impressive legacy overall.

These former kings of the 16-Bit era have had a healthy amount of competition over the years. Some of these upstarts have enjoyed a bit of success, and the rest were ignored by most who chose to judge a book by it's color. If you can't get enough of run and jump style game play, the following games may be worth your time.

Klonoa(PS1,PS2,GBA)
Mixing puzzle and platform elements, Klonoa walks the tight rope of being rewarding and frustrating. Good luck finding the original(Klonoa: Door to Phantomile) for for a reasonable price. Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil and his Gameboy Advance titles are more abundant, so so checking those games out won't cost you an arm and leg.

Ristar(Genises,VC)
Ristar has the most simplistic, memorable character design of any character on this list. He's basically a star(literally) with arms, legs and stylish white sneakers with yellow stripes on them. The game play is just as spiffy as his shoes. Makes sense once you realize this game was developed my SEGA's Sonic Team.

ToeJam & Earl: Panic On Funkatron(Genesis,VC)
TJ&E's second outing was really something special. Their first game resembled a PC action adventure game. Panic On funkatron is a traditional 2D platformer. Save the planet by capturing tourists in jars, and sending them back to Earth. One of the best parts about this game is Jam Out, rhyme-game involving a Boombox.

Psychonauts(PC,PS2,XBOX)
Critically acclaimed, and criminally slept on. Psychonauts is great because it does the basics almost perfectly. Dialog is intentionally funny, platforming elements and level design is great. It's the Tim Duncan of video games(unappreciated).

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy(PS2)
Wikipedia says this game "holds similarities to platform games such as Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64 in that the objective is to gather items to progress through the levels." Uh, there are a lot of games that depend on players finding things to help them finish levels. I'm still trying to figure out where the Goatee of Edginess is hidden. He has it in Jak II for some reason...