Summary

• Limiting dimensions in 2D games forces creative decisions, leading to unique experiences like Super Mario Bros. Wonder.
• Pixel art style in 2D games can create visually stunning worlds, but finding a variety of gameplay styles can be challenging.
• 2D games like Ori and the Blind Forest and Hollow Knight showcase beautiful artwork and deep gameplay mechanics in the genre.

While 3D gaming has long since overtaken the mainstream, 2D gaming has not gone anywhere. In fact, some of the best and most inventive games of the last couple decades have been in the 2D space. Something about limiting your options by a whole dimens𝔍ion can force creative decisions that developers might not have gotten to otherwise, and something sp🧸ecial can come from it.

While there have been a lot of great 2D games that have come out over time, many 2D games still use the charming style of pixel art. While pixel art can create absolutely beautiful visuals, for somebody looking for a different flav💧or, it can be a bit more difficult to find a variety of 2D games to scratch different itches.

10 Super Mario Bros. Wonder ꦦ

The most recent of the mainline entries into the 2D proper Mario games, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Mario Bros. Wonder continues the tradition of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Nintendo putting out banger aft🍌er banger. Nint𓄧endo seems to be able to constantly iterate upon their 2D level design and mechanics, and Wonder is no different.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder introduces Wonder Flowers, which come with a number of new mechanics into the game to freshen things up. It also once again features mul🦹tiplayer, either local or online, allowing you to play through the game with friends. Or enemi🎃es, should you so choose.

9 Cuphead

One of the most blindingly difficult games on the list, Cuphead does sport one of the most impressive art styles around. Reminscient of the oldest-school of cartoons, Cuphead is an absolute marvel to look at. Just don't get too distracted looking at its majesty, lest you become one of the game's many victims.

Cuphead also features multiplayer, though it's just local co-op instead of online co-op. Still though, if you're willing to brave the beautiful horrors that Cuphead presents, you're going to be in for a wonderfully unique time.

8 🍃 Ori And The Blind Forest

Another game that has brilliantly unique and gorgeous artwork is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ori and the Blind Forest (and its seque♏l, Ori and the Will of the Wisps). This is one of those games that has it all, from a interesting world,🦋 great story, a score that absolutely belongs in your chill and contemplative Spotify playlist, and smooth gameplay.

Ori introduces a save system that works with in-world lore, as well as including many of the Metroidvania mechanics you've come to expect. It's a great game for people who love the genre, and it's a great game to introduce the genre to someone fresh.

7 🍸 Hollow🍃 Knight

Featuring a hand-drawn art style, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Hollow Knight has a Gothic charm you'd be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. It's a little bit Metroidvania and a little bit Souls-like, finding a sweet spot between the two that feels like something fresh.

If you'd like a straight-from-the-horses-mouth take on just how beloved this game is, take a look at the Steam reviews, where many players actually say they feel like they paid far too little for this game. When you've got gamers saying they'd like to give you more money, you've made something truly special.

6 Pentiment

Coming from the well-loved Obsidian Entertainment, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pentiment is not just one of the most unique-looking games on this list, it's one of the most unique looking games ever made. Looking like it was pulled straight out of medieval artwork, Pentiment blends that artwork with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:an RPG well-worth your time.

From the moment it starts, Pentiment is going to feel very much unlike anything else you've ever played. As mentioned in the introduction, forcing limitations on a game can create the space for brilliant design decisions that could not have been made otherwise; the entirety of Pentiment is a testament to this.

5 Rimworld

Rimworld is a great game that is, at some point, going to break your heart. It's unavoidable, and the longer you try to keep it from happening, the worse it's going to hurt when it inevitably does. Rimworld tasks you with managing the survivors of a crash on an alien planet, eventually planning on leaving that new planet behind.

This might seem like a standard video-game task, but it most assuredly is not. Rimworld has such absurd intracies to it, such a profound depth to everything, that it can come to consume your every waking thought. And so, when everything goes wrong at some point and many of your survivors die, there's going to be a very real depth to your sorrow.

4 Inside

From the developers that brought you Limbo, Inside is a game very much𒈔 in the same vein. A 2D platformer with exceptionally unique puzzles and a very limited color pallete, Inside does a great job of telling a story using a very limited set of tools to do so.

While Inside limits the tools visually and in the storytelling, it uses the tools that it does allow itself brilliantly. If you're looking for a 2D platformer with some great puzzles and an interesting story, Inside is an easy grab.

3 Slay The Spire 🐭

A deck-building, 2D roguelike, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Slay The Spire is a great choice if you're looking for a game with an immense amount of replayability. With it being a roguelike, dying means you start more or less from scratch, with the opportunity to build your deck with a very different strategy in mind.

There is a ton of depth to Slay The Spire, and it's a very easy to game pick up and play for an hour, or for a few. It's also a very fun game to go achievement hunting in, adding a reason to run very specific builds to accomplish one task instead of a good all-around one.

2 Darkest Dungeon �💃�

A game so brutal that calling it so does not quite do it justice, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Darkest Dungeon is much like Rimworld in the fact that it's going to break your heart. You'll think it won't, because just experiencing a little bit of the combat in Darkest Dungeon tips you to the fact that some of your Dungeon Delvers are, in fact, going to die. But you'll grow attached to some of them anyways, and it's not going to stop them from meeting a dark fate.

That being said, the combination of Roguelike/lite mechanics with the overarching metagame of Darkest Dung♒eon is a blend found practically nowhere else, and it has an artstyle that can 🅰make the most horrific looking things beautifully so. If you have thick skin and a little dose of masochism, Darkest Dungeon is going to be your jam.

1 Spelunky

Spelunky is both one of the most easily accessible 2D games out there (as well as Roguelikes), and also one of the most difficult to fully complete. Spelunky ꦛhas a way of lulling you into a false sense of security by surrounding you with a lot of cuteness that can, in actuality, kill you in the blink of an eye.

See that cute little monkey hanging on that vine? It might jump onto your back, pull one your bo꧑mbs out of your backpack, and kill you. A cute little totem! Walking to get a closer look, you get impaled by the spikes that launch out of the sides. Spelunky is full of little thinꦦgs that can end your run in a heartbeat, but it makes accomplishing wonders in those caves all the more rewarding.