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9. Rolling
Notable games: Donkey Kong Country series
There are a lot of ways to take down enemies in platformers. There is the basic stomp used by almost every platformer ever, Mario has fireballs, Samus fires lasers, Rayman throws punches, and plenty of other games have given us plenty of other methods. Donkey Kong has a few techniques for dispatching his enemies, but the skill I’m interested in is the roll. In the Country series Donkey Kong can roll into foes, knocking them out as he rolls past. What makes this attack so interesting to me is that each hit on an enemy resets the roll and keeps it going, making it into a combo attack of sorts. It took me a long time to realize that a lot of the levels are built around this feature, with enemies in perfect rows just waiting for you to roll through them all in one long chain. Not only is it satisfying to pull off a long kill chain, it also speeds up the levels immensely. The roll was upgraded in Donkey Kong Country Returns, allowing you to roll infinitely as long as you have Diddy with you and making it even easier to speed through levels and steamroll your enemies.
