Someone on bsky claimed that Metroid Fusion had the objectively worst wall jump in gaming. I countered with Nes Strider as a worst and a vague suggestion that Chun Li in Street Fighter having one of the best. I personally thought Fusion had a nice wall jump, though it kind of feels like it’s in there out of obligation because of Super and it is judged too harshly mainly because of comparisons to the wall jump in Super.
Anyway, tell me your favorite wall jumps, and rank them if you like. I’d put Chun Li and NES Batman at the top.
Jet Set Radio and Mirror’s Edge are close runner ups.
Batman (NES) is such a strong contender for the throne — it’s got a nice, chunky feel to it, combined with very fine (and necessary!) control over your jump height. Hard to believe it’s such an early game.
As for Metroids: I really like the amount of finesse Super Metroid’s walljump provides, and its tricky inputs feel really nice when mastered, but the actual feel of the jump itself is kinda middling. I feel like a good feeling wall-jump should make it feel like you’re propelling yourself away from the wall. In that light, Metroid Fusion changing the walljump to do just that fits the game’s more linear, action-forward focus (and it works quite well as an evasive maneuver until the game takes it away from you). Zero Mission overcorrects from Fusion by practically gluing you to the wall you are jumping up, which frankly (to me) feels more insulting on an ideological level than what Fusion did.
The hack Super Metroid: X-Fusion has a weird design compromise where you can’t jump off a single wall more than once, but you can scale alternating walls indefinitely. The hack also gives the high-jump boots an additional property where they give Samus a massive horizontal speed boost when walljumping, which feels really nice tbh.
Mega Man X’s wall climb feels really good, but it also feels like a categorically different thing.
In the first level of Gunstar Heroes when the main boss of the stage appears, the screen briefly scrolls fast enough where you can just mash the jump button against the side of the screen and go much higher than you normally would (this serves no purpose).
I like the walljump in the 3D Marios because if you get the angle slightly wrong you can spring off into an unintended direction, but if you still hit another wall after that then you can just keep springing around unpredictably like a big fucked up grasshopper until you fly off the level.
I like Megaman X’s wall climb because when you do it, it looks like megaman is throwing a crying tantrum.
ahaha i knew there was some reason that was the first thing i thought of when i read this post. in fighting games i guess it makes sense… are there any other big ones with this feature from different genres?
mario 64’s wall jump was such a sweet spot between super metroids what the fuck movements am i even doing with my hands to do this and like every single mario after which basically felt like it was wall jumping for you
