Gaming mascots that have sad stories

Mamoru endou

Mamoru endou

Koopa Troopa
Hello there everyone on this forum, I want to tell you all about gaming mascots that got dumped by the developer

Alex Kidd. He was Sega's attempt at a mascot during their master system days, but after six games in a row, Sega dumped him in favor of Sonic the hedgehog because they wanted a mascot with attitude, Sega forgot the character even existed, outside of Sonic and Sega all-stars racing, the character is basically dead.

Crash bandicoot. After Crash team racing, Naughty dog dumped him in favor of Jak and Daxter, leaving him in the hands of various developers (Travelers Tales, Radical Entertainment, Sierra) until Activision snatched him up and Crash died after mind over mutant.

Spyro the dragon. After Spyro Year of the dragon, Insomniac games dumped him in favor of Ratchet and Clank leaving him in the hands of different developers (Spyro enter the dragonfly I'm looking at you) before being rebooted as the Legend of Spyro by Krome studios, the guys behind Ty the tasmanian tiger, then Activision snatched him up and Spyro went Skylanders.

What are your thoughts on these, what are some gaming mascots with sad stories.
 
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What they did to Slash in Snowboard Kids was a travesty.

We went from this

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to whatever the hell this is

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Idk, personally I like the more realistic Slash but I get that people have other opinions
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nevermind

As for mascots with sad stories, again I raise you Mario. He's truly been tormented by Nintendo ever since he was born. It's almost like Miyamoto created him to live a miserable life!! He's been made to do all sorts of trivial and convoluted things, all for the player's delight. His face has been stretched beyond recognition! He's been chucked to high heavens by Piantas!! Heck, just a few months ago his torso got pulled into a towering tube of suffering!!! And all of this is clearly being done against the poor man's will! I mean, when's the last time Mario got to go in to work as a normal plumber and make an honest living?! Please Nintendo, leave Mario alone!!
 
Klonoa, I guess.

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The main character has the vibe of a mascot, and indeed his design evokes classic characters like Felix, and also the animal mascot ones like Sonic. I am not sure if Klonoa was meant to replace Pac-Man as the face of Namco (this was before they merged with Bandai), but he did have the qualities of a mascot, but not one that is desperate to win the hearts of players (unlike Bubsy or Gex).

The games are pretty solid but it appears that he's unable to find his footing since his latest games didn't seem to be successful enough. For one, if the Wii remake of the first game were successful, the second game would've gotten one, but since it didn't, we can infer that the first game's remake didn't achieve the viability for furthering the revival. Even back then, when there were games following the second one, the portable games that followed might not have sold enough for him to continue. In other words, while Klonoa has a solid game and world-building, it didn't translate to success.

From another angle, I think that the Klonoa games did something interesting with the characters and setting. The main character Klonoa has a different setting between his first game (Door to Phantomile) and his second (Lunatea's Veil), and there is a reason for this: basically he does not belong to either of the universes set out from the games, so even though the games ended happily for the worlds, the main character having to leave behind the friends and memories from those worlds evokes a sadness for the main character. Undoubtedly, if a third Klonoa game were developed, the characters and settings (and Klonoa's design) will be unrelated to the previous two games and would likely end sadly for the main character again.

So there are a few layers in Klonoa's sadness.

Thank you for reading.
 
Mamoru endou said:
Spyro the dragon. After Spyro Year of the dragon, Insomniac games dumped him in favor of Ratchet and Clank leaving him in the hands of different developers (Spyro enter the dragonfly I'm looking at you) before being rebooted as the Legend of Spyro by Krome studios, the guys behind Ty the tasmanian tiger, then Activision snatched him up and Spyro went Skylanders.

What are your thoughts on these, what are some gaming mascots with sad stories.
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Spyro had a bit of a rough rough but afaik didn't those remakes do pretty well? They were received well enough. That being said, them being under Activision supervision is a thing I wouldn't wish my worst enemies on.

As for this thread, I'll pitch in and say that Rayman's got it plenty rough. He had two of some of the best games in the series, perhaps in the platformer genre, Rayman Origins and Legends. Mind you that Origins came after pretty much years and years of Rayman 3, where we got teased with Rayman 4. And years after Raving Rabbids was released, which devolved into a party minigame compilation which just led to Rabbids taking over and leaving Rayman out. Also never mind that Origins released to really bad sales numbers, likely due to mismanagement by Ubisoft.

Never mind that Ubisoft would just continue horribly mangle the marketing for the follow-up, Rayman Legends, by trying to delay this game when it was about to release in a few weeks (this delay was caused by the faltering Wii U and the previous faltering game, ZombiU). What's worse was that the delay was compounded with Legends losing its exclusivity to the Wii U (a console that desperately needed more games) and bad timing; it was going to release in a less crowded window, and the delay pushed Legends to be released alongside the likes of GTA V. It was a stunning display of gross incompetency that even Michel Ancel, creator of Rayman, protested the thing.

And then, remember what I said about the long excruciating wait fans had to deal with after Rayman 3. The time period that Rayman Legends released toward the time of this post is a longer time period than between Rayman 3 and Rayman Origins.

Rayman is also Ubisoft property, which like Spyro, is a kind of ownership I ALSO wouldn't wish my worst enemies on. Not only Rayman had to deal with that, but was under the watch of an abusive company that treated its employees, particularly female, POC, and LGBTQIA+ ones, as utter trash. Even Michel Ancel was caught in the act. It got so bad I didn't even want Rayman as paid DLC in Smash (he can remain as a very good and fun mod over Min Min though).

Doesn't help that Rayman was teased a trophy in Smash for Wii U only for that to not amount to anything. We also got those Mario + Rabbid game where Rayman wasn't involved at all until some DLC for a sequel, and even then, Rayman can't even see Mario (Mario gets to oogle at his purple clothe though I guess???)
 
Commander Keen, he was the mascot of id software before before they dumped him in favor making another FPS game where you shoot demons with guns after the success of Wolfenstein 3D and that game was Doom, I'll never forgive id software for what they did to my boy Commander Keen

Another mascot with a sad story was Hudson soft's Milan, he had only two games, only one game was released in the US was Milan's secret castle, the other one Dorei MI fantasy was only released in Japan, it seems like Hudson Soft was too busy with Bomberman to release that one.

Another one is Master Higgins from Adventure Island, I don't care if they copied Sega's Wonder Boy, it's a shame we never got another adventure island after that Wii remake that they made

Poor Earthworm Jim, he hasn't had a game since Earthworm Jim 3D and is now gone but not forgotten, add to the list Jazz Jackrabbit, Croc, Battletoads, Banjo Kazooie, and many others that have died
 

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Rayman, a failing, once great series that was overshadowed by its own side characters. It got a new game, Rayman Legends, that was hailed as one of the best platformers of all time...But then it got no sequel and Raymans latest appearance was in a crossover with its own characters.
 
Ray Trace said:
What they did to Slash in Snowboard Kids was a travesty.
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LIKE LOOK AT HOW THEY MASSACURED MY GIRL?!?!?!?!? AND THEN THEY REMOVED TWO OF THE BEST GIRLS FROM THE ENTIRE FRANCHISE (NICOLE AND LINDA) SO THE GENDER DIVERSITY IS DOWN THE GODDAMN TOILET... OH BUT ITS OKAY WE REMADE KAEDE AND RENAMED HER TO KOYUKI BUT ALSO WE REMOVED ALL OF HER DISTINCT CHARACTERISTICS AS AN ALMOST EXACT BABY LUIGI LOOKALIKE BUT GIRL RAHHH
 
Mamoru endou said:
It's sad that they they decided to make their characters look like anime, it's wrong
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its honestly funny because in snowboard kids plus they have cutscenes that look like an anime already

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in an alternate universe they have a short one season slice of life anime i am sure of it
 
One character in gaming that is very infamous and has a very sad backstory is Awesome Possum. He was supposed to be a "hero" for Atari/Tengen that would promote saving the environment but because he was so annoying (at least I find him annoying) and his game was so bad he wound up probably being very hated. The game probably did very poorly in sales as well, given how crappy it was. I don't know any of this for sure but given how bad I think the game and the character is and how annoying I found him in longplays I watched of the game I would assume at least somebody out there feels the same way as me about both. Oh yeah! The game would also make you feel really depressed by asking you questions about and giving you facts on how mankind is destroying the world environment.
 
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Larry "Cheatsy" Koopa said:
One character in gaming that is very infamous and has a very sad backstory is Awesome Possum. He was supposed to be a "hero" for Atari/Tengen that would promote saving the environment but because he was so annoying (at least I find him annoying) and his game was so bad he wound up probably being very hated. The game probably did very poorly in sales as well, given how crappy it was. I don't know any of this for sure but given how bad I think the game and the character is and how annoying I found him in longplays I watched of the game I would assume at least somebody out there feels the same way as me about both. Oh yeah! The game would also make you feel really depressed by asking you questions about and giving you facts on how mankind is destroying the world environment.
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Now that is a sad story, another one is Bug which was on the Saturn, but they found him annoying like awesome possum with his one-liners, boogerman also suffered the same fate for being too gross, and we can't leave out Rocky rodent too
 
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Mamoru endou said:
Now that is a sad story, another one is Bug which was on the Saturn, but they found him annoying like awesome possum with his one-liners, boogerman also suffered the same fate for being too gross, and we can't leave out Rocky rodent too
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I know amazingly who Rocky Rodent is but I don't know who Bug is.
 
Larry "Cheatsy" Koopa said:
I know amazingly who Rocky Rodent is but I don't know who Bug is.
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Here's more, Commander Keen, he was the mascot of id software before before they dumped him in favor making another FPS game where you shoot demons with guns after the success of Wolfenstein 3D and that game was Doom, I'll never forgive id software for what they did to my boy Commander Keen

Another mascot with a sad story was Hudson soft's Milan, he had only two games, only one game was released in the US was Milan's secret castle for the NES, the other one Dorei MI fantasy for the SNES was only released in Japan, it seems like Hudson Soft was too busy with Bomberman to release that one.

Another one is Master Higgins from Adventure Island for the NES, I don't care if they copied Sega's Wonder Boy, it's a shame we never got another adventure island after that Wii remake that they made

Poor Earthworm Jim, he hasn't had a game since Earthworm Jim 3D and is now gone but not forgotten, add to the list Jazz Jackrabbit, Croc, Battletoads, Banjo Kazooie, and many others that have died
 
Meh, there's always the potential still that mascots like this might be picked up again; you never know. Epic Games isn't making any more Jazz Jackrabbit games any time soon, though. As far as Banjo Kazooie, Microsoft owns them and already made a game, and they might reuse them again in the future for all we know. I mean, seriously, you never know when companies might decide to pull characters out of a hat again. So who knows. Like, seriously, sometimes stuff happens you wouldn't expect with game franchises that have been dormant for a while. Spyro was dormant for a long time before Activision came out with the Reignited Trilogy. Sometimes it happens unexpectedly. Hopefully someday they'll bring some of these dormant game mascots back. I mean, Kao the Kangaroo was dormant for a while too and they recently brought him back in 2022; he had been inactive since 2005.
 
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Larry "Cheatsy" Koopa said:
Meh, there's always the potential still that mascots like this might be picked up again; you never know. Epic Games isn't making any more Jazz Jackrabbit games any time soon, though. As far as Banjo Kazooie, Microsoft owns them and already made a game, and they might reuse them again in the future for all we know. I mean, seriously, you never know when companies might decide to pull characters out of a hat again. So who knows. Like, seriously, sometimes stuff happens you wouldn't expect with game franchises that have been dormant for a while. Spyro was dormant for a long time before Activision came out with the Reignited Trilogy. Sometimes it happens unexpectedly. Hopefully someday they'll bring some of these dormant game mascots back. I mean, Kao the Kangaroo was dormant for a while too and they recently brought him back in 2022; he had been inactive since 2005.
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I sure hope so, I'd love to see those mascots make a comeback someday
 
Larry "Cheatsy" Koopa said:
@Mamoru endou By the way personally I REALLY wish they hadn't brought Bubsy the Bobcat back. We have Billionsoft to thank for that by the way.
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He shouldn't have never been brought back, here's another mascot that I miss, Ty the tasmanian tiger, Krome studios made him before they made the legend of Spyro trilogy
 
Mamoru endou said:
He shouldn't have never been brought back, here's another mascot that I miss, Ty the tasmanian tiger, Krome studios made him before they made the legend of Spyro trilogy
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I have 3 of the Ty games for the PS2 I got for my birthday last year. They're fun to play. Activision owns him now and they might bring him back. Also I think I remember hearing the Bubsy games made after they brought the franchise back were as bad as ever LOL.
 
Larry "Cheatsy" Koopa said:
I have 3 of the Ty games for the PS2 I got for my birthday last year. They're fun to play. Activision owns him now and they might bring him back. Also I think I remember hearing the Bubsy games made after they brought the franchise back were as bad as ever LOL.
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They might do a crash, Spyro, and Ty crossover
 
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