Feature: Jump, Man
By Super Mario Bros. just blew out 40 candles. To toast the milestone, Omar revisits four decades of the medium’s most elastic verb slash noun…
When did you last leave the ground?
Perhaps you vaulted a kerb to dodge an autumn puddle, bobbed along to House of Pain or that Blackpink track, or cannon-balled onto the bed just to savour the mattress squeak. All laudable.
In videogames, though, a hop is sleight-of-hand: still twitching with aftertouch once your feet have left the floor. Every launch pads the air with mid-flight steering and momentum maths—a pocket flight, a moment’s liberty. Blast skyward, star-scraping, before gravity remembers its job. And that’s only World 1-1.
Naturally, bouncing in games isn’t always that, or merely that. Leaping remains one of the finest verbs on a controller, yet it stretches into countless flavours. Below are a handful I adore—and most are ready to download on Switch…
Triple Leaps
Mario is Jumpman, the reason so many of us spring, man. His arc is the benchmark—tuned, weighted, precise—against which all others are gauged and on which most are built.
Among his many brilliant hop-children, Super Mario 64 remains my pick: its meaty momentum makes jogging across an empty plaza sing. The crown jewel is the triple-jump that climbs so high the camera cranes like it’s watching a rocket launch, ending in an acrobatic unfurl no analyst can parse. Wa-ha!
Wall Kicks
Caroming between walls feels instinctively joyous, as if evolution wired us to delight in sharp reversals. The zig-zag scratches a symmetry-itch inside my skull—especially when you hold into the barrier while hitting jump, begging brick to behave like floor.
Rayman Legends delights further: present it with a lip at the base of a partition and you’ll sprint skyward, keep sprinting as the surface bends to become ceiling, then flip off before gravity files a complaint.
The stage Up, Up and Escape is nothing but that—a phone-booth-tall shaft of vines and shatter-blocks drawn in bright lums. The controls grant enough wiggle room to turn the ascent into an improvised dance: floor becomes right-side becomes upside-downside in one fluid scribble.
Pogo-ing Off Baddies
In reality, stomping on strangers is frowned upon and ergonomically ineffective (though I’m sure someone keeps stats).
In games, however, it’s bliss—especially when holding the button rebounds you higher, adding a snap to the recoil.
I needed time to click with Tropical Freeze. A single stage flipped the switch: Bopopolis, which asks “What If The Floor Was Entirely Foes?” then soundtracks the answer with DK Island Swing.
The ground isn’t lava—it’s owls, walruses, penguins. Each critter doubles as a trampoline and a decision: tap for a polite hop, hold for a stress-boosted vault, chain them into a percussion solo of motion. I’d pay retail for that stage alone.
Air Dash
Disclaimer: this roll-call is personal, non-exhaustive, and written under a no-anger treaty.
Double-jumps have legions of fans; I get it, they’re rad. You might file flutter kicks under the same umbrella and adore Yoshi’s Story for those giant sneakers (I’m with you). Maybe the up-down duet of Klonoa’s ring-slam or DK’s rock-spike in Bananza hits the spot.
All fair. Still, the crown goes to Celeste. Does Madeline’s dash even qualify? It does today.
The burst is instant, multi-purpose, and threads the entire choreography of the game. The whoosh followed by a return to mortal speed gifts a split-second freeze-frame, a breath snagged between inhale and exhale. Half the joy is watching her ponytail whip the other way mid-air.
The (Very) Extended Leap
VVVVVV is founded on an anti-jump: tap to flip gravity and the ceiling becomes ground. Yet it still delivers majestic free-fall set-pieces; if refining aerial steering is the essence of videogame hops, then the Vedi Vidi Vici chamber is their Everest.
You “not-jump” from the floor, scream upward through a tunnel lined with teeth, micro-jigging left-right until muscle memory etches a glowing wire as taut as a guitar string. Die, retry, carve the line deeper. Reach the summit, the platform crumbles, and—joke’s on you—retrace the entire solo backwards. Glorious.
A Swing Counts As A Hop
Does a swing qualify as a hop? Sure—confirmed by my inner council of one.
Yet which one reigns supreme? Bionic Commando? Spider-Man 2 on GameCube? Samus’ occasional corkscrew launch?
All strong contenders, but all mistaken—the crown sits atop Penny’s Big Breakaway. I despised it at first sight, then combo fever rewired me. Pursuing chains demands you embrace the yo-yo’s acrobatics: dive off a ledge, whip the toy skyward, plant a physics-defying anchor in thin air, time the arc for a heartbeat, and convert pure plummet into sudden lift. In that blink, the whole thing turns beautiful.
Let me know if you’d like the next block processed the same way.the atmosphere inside Majora’s Mask. It also conveys a feeling of force and motion. In Super Metroid or Crash Bandicoot you can vault directly upward, yet it’s that mid-air somersault that tells you you’re truly advancing.
This likewise registers as a flirtation with finesse. Most recently, there’s the sensation of poise as Hornet executes those pirouette-like twirls when she slashes the bounce-blooms in Silksong (dear devs, if you ship a title with spinning motions and whoosh audio, I shall purchase it).
Silksong is merely the newest illustration of titles that feel like sprinting with serifs, leaping in calligraphy.
What Does A Leap Actually Sound Like?
I’ve just tested myself, right now, and apparently there’s an involuntary diaphragmatic Ugh! It’s hard-wired, apparently. I didn’t, mind you, emit a whoosh because I’m no aircraft.
As legendary as Mario’s boing and Sonic’s woop jump noises are, I lean toward a voiced hut! plus a crisp swoosh.
It’s the audio that can render a leap feel kinetic, reactive, and rewarding.
Mirror’s Edge 2D comes from the same maker as the Fancy Pants Adventures and is (miraculously) still runnable here in your browser. Faith still boasts superb 2D animation, including the sprintiest, most muscular-looking dash, and not only may you roll upon touchdown after every hop, the jumps themselves carry a flawless fwoosh that feels half wind-rush, half trouser-fabric rustle, and entirely amplifies the rooftop-open-air-parkour flow. Test it on your lunch break!
Leaps As Wonder
A genuine voyage demands a feeling of transformation, of departing the mundane and reaching somewhere fresh. Odyssey brims with surprises and novelty, then, just before the finish, it offers tranquillity, hush, and awe—visually, aurally, and mechanically via the jump.
Mario’s hop is so entrenched by now, yet suddenly we’re lunar and nearly unanchored, one newton shy of Galaxy-style detachment.
Every bound is now a majestic/comedic (depending how frantically you spin Mario mid-flight) gliding spectacle. It’s the stillness before the climax, the entire stage essentially one giant leap before touching down for the finale.
Nintendo knows exactly what it’s doing: planting spring blossoms here to trigger rocketing corkscrew spins. Then it hands you a frog.
I could ramble about hops until sundown. I haven’t even touched the Deku Tree silk-shot, or that chuk! cue when you back-flip in Banjo, or skimming off a half-pipe into Robotnik inside Casino Night Zone, or the countless leaps of Smash.
Still, it feels proper to pause for now with Mario, after four decades of heart-in-throat-missed-the-ledge-again fun—but also four decades of sprinting and springing in games as a celebration of pure locomotion joy, across terra firma and through open sky.
Which vaults are your personal favourites?