Esper Bōkentai: Maō no Toride

Before Symphony of the Night, there was Esper Bōkentai: Maō no Toride. This sequel to Psychic 5 is mostly known for 2 things: the staggeringly high jump height across all characters - a tradition carried on from Psychic 5 - and being one of the earliest experimental attempts to bring RPG elements to the explorable platformer genre.

Compared to Psychic 5 where you start with all 5 playable characters, in this game, you start with only Akio and rescue the remaining 4 as you progress. Once rescued, they become playable characters and you can swap them in as the active character. The possessed furniture objects are now not strictly hostile, many are friendly NPCs that will talk to you, but it's possible to turn them against you if you pick the wrong dialogue option too. There are no longer 8 separate stages, only a single world with inter-connected screens to freely go back and forth. The game now has a map in the pause menu to aid you in navigating the new world structure. The leveling system affects your maximum life, maximum Esper, offensive power, defensive power, movement speed and jump height. Finally, there is a special "Boost" stat which determines which door you can access.