Sort of a followup to a previous asker--some of the fondest memories of my childhood involved starfox adventures & spyro, but I haven't had much luck with similar games outside of Skylar and Plux and Hat in Time. I've tried a handful of others but came away disappointed. Any suggestions? Fantasy is great but I'm wide open when it comes to theming.
(With reference to this post here.)
This may sound very odd at first, but have you taken a look at Darksiders? Appearances notwithstanding, it’s less a God of War style brawler and more a 3D Legend of Zelda clone that just happens to take place in a heavy metal post-apoc setting, with a big emphasis on exploration and puzzle-solving. It gets a bit gory in places, which is normally a deal-breaker for me, but it has enough other virtues to its credit that I’m willing to look past that.
(Note, however, that I mean the first game specifically; each instalment in the series goes in a different direction genre-wise, and consequently neither of the sequels really fit your criteria.)
Flipping ratings from M to E, you could also have a look at Super Lucky’s Tale. This one has sort of the opposite problem from Darksiders for me in that its tone is a little too saccharine for my taste, but the gameplay’s solid, albeit on the easy side. It’s a largely linear collectathon platformer that gives you pretty much exactly what it says on the tin!
Finally, I’m assuming you already saw Hob name-checked in the preceding post, so I won’t spend much time on it here, save to say that it’s a very pretty piece of work if you don’t mind wonky jumping physics and frequent terrain clipping issues – but then, if you’re a fan of late 1990s/early 2000s adventure platformers, that particular problem isn’t anything new for you.
As far as forthcoming titles go, you might keep an eye on Ary and the Secret of Seasons, Omno and Recompile; you’ve got an open world exploration game, a short-form puzzle platformer, and a 3D Metroidvania, respectively, all with many features in common with the titles you’ve cited.