Short-lived platforming franchises

[electricmastro]

A thread about the platformers of yesteryear featuring those mascot-sort of characters which might have had some semblance of a franchise at one point, but still ultimately became short-lived. Examples include:

 

Gex

 

Earthworm Jim

 

Vectorman

 

Ecco the Dolphin

 

Jumping Flash!

 

Clockwork Knight

 

Aero the Acro-Bat

 

Spot

 

Croc

 

Tempo

 

Bug!

 

Chameleon Twist

 

Zool

 

Alfred Chicken

 

James Pond

[Steven Pendleton]

I guess there is Magician Lord on the Neo Geo. It had a sequel in development, but it was cancelled, so it isn't really a franchise since there is only 1 game, but it is something that comes to mind.

[Lostdragon]

Easy one. 

 

Prophecy I - The Viking Child (Imagitec Design) 

 

 

Annouced as the start of a Trilogy by Martin Hooley and never progressed past the first title. 

 

Annouced conversions for the C64GS, MS and Game Gear were canned, as was the planned sequel. 

[electricmastro]

5 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

Easy one. 

 

Prophecy I - The Viking Child (Imagitec Design) 

 

 

Annouced as the start of a Trilogy by Martin Hooley and never progressed past the first title. 

 

Annouced conversions for the C64GS, MS and Game Gear were canned, as was the planned sequel. 

Ah, I saw that on Game Boy. It looked amusing enough:

 

 

[Lostdragon]

1 hour ago, electricmastro said:

Ah, I saw that on Game Boy. It looked amusing enough:

 

 

GB version has some minor changes over the Lynx version, but best of all, boasts some rather lovely in-game music, something missing on the other versions ?

[electricmastro]

More mascot plaformers, which don't have follow-ups as far as I know:

 

Ristar
Dynamite Headdy
Rocket: Robot on Wheels
Rockin' Kats
Rocky Rodent
Mr. Bones
Plok
Psycho Fox
Puggsy
Spanky's Quest
Mr. Nutz
High Seas Havoc
Tinhead
Rolo to the Rescue
Jersey Devil
Kingsley's Adventure
Monkey Magic
Smart Ball
Claymates
Tonic Trouble
B.O.B.
Ardy Lightfoot
Socket
Glover
Flicky
Awesome Possum

Edited April 28, 2022 by electricmastro

[Lostdragon]

 

 

Mr Nutz-Hoppin Mad was down for a European release as Mr Nutz II

 

Pugsy II was teased when you completed Pugsy, no idea if any real work was done on it. 

Edited April 28, 2022 by Lostdragon

[electricmastro]

22 minutes ago, Lostdragon said:

 

 

Mr Nutz-Hoppin Mad was down for a European release as Mr Nutz II

 

Pugsy II was teased when you completed Pugsy, no idea if any real work was done on it. 

Ah, I understood that Hoppin Mad was more of an expanded version of the first game on Amiga. Didn't know about that.

 

It's also too bad Puggsy II didn't release. I think the little guy earned it after how well his first game turned out:

 

 

[Mikebloke]

Hmm I think Ecco the dolphin didn't do too bad, yes skipped a generation for Saturn (probably a good thing given we didn't even get a real Sonic game) but had GG, MD and DC releases.

Clockwork Knight was embarrassing in that it was actually one game split into two due to trying to push it out quickly for release.

 

Was there a Mega Drive game like Three Dirty Dwarfs? I seem to remember something similarly named but can't find it now, I'm sure there is a platformer involving switchable dwarf characters.

[str0m]

6 hours ago, Mikebloke said:

Was there a Mega Drive game like Three Dirty Dwarfs? I seem to remember something similarly named but can't find it now, I'm sure there is a platformer involving switchable dwarf characters.

That was on the Saturn

[mbd39]

Pandemonium on PS1.

Edited April 29, 2022 by mbd39

[electricmastro]

I should also mention Aero's companion game Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel. Somehow, Zero manages to be edgy, but cute at the same time, which has an appeal to me.

 

[Mikebloke]

8 hours ago, str0m said:

That was on the Saturn

Yeah I mean like a similar game. For some reason I have it in my head it was in some kind of mega drive collection and it drives me mad whether I'm just making it all up or not. Definitely played it at some point but never got the Saturn game. 

[electricmastro]

5 hours ago, mbd39 said:

Pandemonium on PS1.

Ah yeah, that one had quirky charm too.

 

[GameGirl420]

Crash Bandicoot... love the franchise,think it's underrated. Never achieved the same massive success as Sonic or Mario!!

[electricmastro]

4 minutes ago, lushgirl_80 said:

Crash Bandicoot... love the franchise,think it's underrated. Never achieved the same massive success as Sonic or Mario!!

I dunno, despite not being the same as Mario, Crash has still had like 15 games released over the course of 25 years and seems to be talked about quite a bit to this day, Crash Bandicoot 4 having come out in 2020.

[Rogerpoco]

One Game Wonder-

Uniracers/Unirally.

There were bigger plans for it, until Pixar decided to sue them or whatever.

Fantastic game, would have loved to have seen more of it!

The Unis were certainly characters!!!

Edited April 30, 2022 by Rogerpoco

[GameGirl420]

Yeah yeah yeah but... Crash is still underrated imo. It was short lived considering the initial release and it even went into hiatus for many years. Heck I never knew there was a 4th game til today,and I keep up with new releases all the time. 

 

Whatevs dont wanna argue about it whatevs lol..

[electricmastro]

2 minutes ago, lushgirl_80 said:

Yeah yeah yeah but... Crash is still underrated imo. It was short lived considering the initial release and it even went into hiatus for many years. Heck I never knew there was a 4th game til today,and I keep up with new releases all the time. 

 

Whatevs dont wanna argue about it whatevs lol..

Heh, fair enough!

[electricmastro]

8 minutes ago, Rogerpoco said:

One Game Wonder-

Uniracers/Unirally.

There were bigger plans for it, until Pixar decided to sue them or whatever.

Fantastic game, would have loved to have seen more of it!

The Unis were certainly characters!!!

Amusing world they inhabited too!

 

[Rogerpoco]

2 minutes ago, electricmastro said:

Amusing world they inhabited too!

 

The manual is FANTASTIC, it's definitely a story, their existence is to race, lol!!!

[TheDevil'sCompass]

Here are a few that had 1 sequel or none:

 

Sammy Lightfoot

Miner 2049er

Rick Dangerous

Montezuma's Revenge

 

[Goochman]

Alternate Reality

[Tanooki]

Is it really a franchise in all honesty when all you get a 1-2 games tops?  That's not a franchise, it's a green lit idea that came to market, and if it got lucky, a follow up.

 

 

A franchise would be more like Bonk, Hudson's Adventure Island/Takahashi Meijin, Wonderboy, Final Fight, Strider, Bionic Commando... just enough games and a long enough stretch to count.

 

And in that I'd actually nominate Adventure Island.  Outside of the 3D Gamecube(JP) remaster 2.5D title of that, the games all came out in a period of just under a decade from the mid 1980s to mid 1990s including Japanese dates this franchise trucked along, then just faded away.  Largely on Nintendo/SNES, there were a couple GB games but they were just NES ports basically, and then you had the one off on the companies own hardware on PCE/TG and that's largely it, dead now basically for over 15 years despite being fairly popular.  Towards the end they even tried to do more with it, change things, give it new life which worked, but then they just stopped and now that one (#2 on SNES) is expensive compared to the rest.

 

If that's too big I guess we could pick on Final Fight.   FF1-3 between arcade/SNES sequels, the terrible PS2 era streetwise, and that 1v1 fighter on a sega platform, I think that was largely about it, started out high in 2D and went to rot fast with incompetent 3D outings.

[electricmastro]

5 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Is it really a franchise in all honesty when all you get a 1-2 games tops?  That's not a franchise, it's a green lit idea that came to market, and if it got lucky, a follow up.

 

 

A franchise would be more like Bonk, Hudson's Adventure Island/Takahashi Meijin, Wonderboy, Final Fight, Strider, Bionic Commando... just enough games and a long enough stretch to count.

 

And in that I'd actually nominate Adventure Island.  Outside of the 3D Gamecube(JP) remaster 2.5D title of that, the games all came out in a period of just under a decade from the mid 1980s to mid 1990s including Japanese dates this franchise trucked along, then just faded away.  Largely on Nintendo/SNES, there were a couple GB games but they were just NES ports basically, and then you had the one off on the companies own hardware on PCE/TG and that's largely it, dead now basically for over 15 years despite being fairly popular.  Towards the end they even tried to do more with it, change things, give it new life which worked, but then they just stopped and now that one (#2 on SNES) is expensive compared to the rest.

 

If that's too big I guess we could pick on Final Fight.   FF1-3 between arcade/SNES sequels, the terrible PS2 era streetwise, and that 1v1 fighter on a sega platform, I think that was largely about it, started out high in 2D and went to rot fast with incompetent 3D outings.

 

I could worded it more like a series of games that had potential to become longer franchises, or games that started off with the intent of being a franchise in the first place, but then became short lived, but felt that would have overcomplicated it. I’m sure everyone understands what I’m trying to say regardless though, and what fun can be had in discussing it. Haha.