/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.5341939]

You know those (usually anthropomorphic) mascot characters that started popping out everywhere after Sonic the Hedgehog became a hit? Just how many of them were out there? I mean we all remember Bubsy because the internet never shut up about him but what about forgotten ones no one remember anymore? How many of them were there? How many of them had good or at least decent games about them that no one remembers? Pic related, it's a mascot character that no one remembers with a pretty good game about him.

[Anonymous No.5341956]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_CZKlrpo48
>collection of 4 short arcade vs games
One day I just spontaneously remembered this existed. I still believe this game is not real and I created it out of sheer power of imagination.

[Anonymous No.5341961]

I'M AWESOME

[Anonymous No.5342159]

There were far too many of them and most of them were awful. I'm glad they died out.

[Anonymous No.5342168]

>>5341939
Bubsy is the best scotformers

[Anonymous No.5342187]

So many people (especially /vr/) throw around mascot platformer as if it's an accurate description of every fucking platformer of the era

Bubsy is a good example of a mascot character because he got multiple games and an attempted cartoon show

The others were just characters that appeared in one game and maybe were successful enough to get a sequel, but that's about it.

Do you guys watch Animaniacs and go "Dur this is just a mascot cartoon"?

[Anonymous No.5342190]

>>5342187
No, I watch Animaniacs and go "how did anyone find this funny?".

[Anonymous No.5342193]

>>5342190
t. add zoomer

Regardless, replace Animaniacs with any cartoon with an animal character

Hell, I'd call The Simpsons mascot characters and it had tons of clones without being animals by the logic of "Mascot Platformer" spouters.

[Anonymous No.5342205]

God "mascot platformer" is such a useless buzzword

Is Qbert a mascot platformer? Is Mario in Donkey Kong a mascot platformer? Again, it doesn't even have to be an animal as Mario proves

But what the fuck kind of character should represent the player in a platformer? And yes of course there were platformers because it was a 2D system

[Anonymous No.5342220]

What Could Pauthubly Go Wrong?

[Anonymous No.5342249]

>>5341939
> How many of them were there?
Dozens, with this asshole down at the bottom.

[Anonymous No.5342532]

A mascot platformer is a "you know it when you see it" sort of thing.

>Mr. Nutz
>Awesome Possum
>Rocky Rodent
>Fire & Ice
>Bonk
>Quik n' Silva
>Fire & Ice
>Plok (fun fact: there was an unreleased, and now lost, cartoon pilot for it)
>Superfrog
>Kid Chaos
>High Seas Havoc
>Titus the Fox
>Jazz Jackrabbit
>Zool
>Pulseman
>Socket
>Cool Spot
>Aero the Acrobat
>The Feline That Must Not Be Named
>actual, real mascots from the likes of Disney and WB

[Anonymous No.5342705]

>>5342249
Damn I remember those games. Not exactly in a good way, either. I remember getting a CD with like 100 shareware games and the Skunny onews were just kind of like "ehh, these are okay-ish?" Like so many cheap PC games at the time the graphics were garish, the sound obnoxious, and the controls were clunky.

[Anonymous No.5342768]

>>5342532
>Plok
good game
the grandpa flashback part is top shelf
>the feline that must not be named
>bubsy
honestly its not that bad

[Anonymous No.5343057]

>>5341939
imo a mascot platformer is a platformer from the 16-bit era starring an animal with an attitude/personality with possibly a catchy name. May focus heavily on speed as they were typically Sonic-derivative.
Saying any platformer starring a cartoon character is a “mascot platformer” is dumb as stated earlier that’d qualify even Mario or Pac-Man from Pac Land as mascot platformers.

[Anonymous No.5343071]

>>5342768
Bubsy 1 was ok with bullshit moments.
Bubsy 2 and Bubsy 3D were just as bad as the memers say

[Anonymous No.5343109]

>>5341939
>mascot platformer LITERALLY wears a red shirt with blue overalls and a hat and gloves
Were they trying to look like some other video game character?

[Anonymous No.5343119]

>>5342532
>Plok
meh game, ultra omega god tier ost
thank you based follin

[Anonymous No.5343127]

>>5341939
>You know those (usually anthropomorphic) mascot characters that started popping out everywhere after Sonic the Hedgehog became a hit?
yeah

[Anonymous No.5343154]

>>5342705
Skunny's issues that cement his place at the bottom of the barrel go so much further than just that.
The games use multiple unlicensed sound samples from various movies and TV series and Skunny Kart's sheer existence is a legal grey area due to it being based on the game engine of the Wacky Wheels prototype, even featuring graphics that were edited from that game.

[Anonymous No.5343171]

>>5342190
Based.

[Anonymous No.5343220]

On the subject, the word "scotformer" sounds like something some YouTuber whose entire gimmick is to pretend he's retarded would come up with. I can't think of his name but that guy who sits on a yoga ball and greenscreens some shitty horse movie behind him, he's the guy I'm referring to in particular.

>*slurred speech* so you remember back in the 90s *friends theme* when you used to invite all your friends to play games like Super Mario 64 *Mario dying voice*, Banjo Kazooie *guhuh*, or Donkey Kong 64 *gorilla sounds* and eat some 'za from the 'hut? Those are what I like to call "mascot platformers", *zoom in his face*, "scotformers".

[Anonymous No.5343234]

>>5341939
we remember bubsy for different reasons friend

[Anonymous No.5343238]

>>5343234
Shut up kiwi

[Anonymous No.5343512]

>>5343220
NakeyJakey's the one you mean. How did you forget his name when that observation was spot on? You got me chuckling with that impersonation.

[Anonymous No.5343528]

>>5343512
Yeah, that's the guy. I only saw that video he did of some rockstar skateboarding game, I wasn't too interested in what else he had to say.

[Anonymous No.5343534]

Psycho Fox for the Sega System is probably the standout here.

[Anonymous No.5344227]

Hmm...

I think an eponymously titled character isn't sufficient to make a scotformer a scotformer. For example, would you call B.O.B. a scotformer? I think not.

The marketing appeal of the game has to at least partly rely on the appeal of the character for the game to be a scotformer. Therefore, something like Earthworm Jim is not a scotformer, because, although people might think Earthworm Jim is a cool character, he wasn't designed specifically to pull in sales. Irreverent characters like Earthworm Jim, Dynamite Headdy, etc. can't make for scotformers.

Is Sonic the Hedgehog even a scotformer? I would say no. Sonic was a notable entity on his own right but the original games were not relying on Sonic as the main draw card. Sonic was a well designed character in the context of a well designed game. So Sonic, Ristar, Kirby, Super Mario, etc., these aren't scotformers.

The quintessential scotformer would be Bubsy the Bobcat. A forced character, with voiced sampling to introduce each level. Gameplay, music, graphics etc at a b-grade level but plenty of emphasis on the character.

That's the key thing, there has to be excessive emphasis on the character. Sonic is one that is close to boarderline that I'd rule as not a scotformer. Sparkster, on the other hand, is a boarderline one that I would rule as being a scotformer.

Usually, licensed games I wouldn't call a scotformer. So Aladdin, The Lion King, etc.. Looney Tunes, Mickey Mouse, their games aren't scotformers. A game like Cool Spot, is almost a scotformer, except that it's character is so out there. Similarly, Toe Jam and Earl, despite that it's not even a platformer, is not a scotformer because it's characters are bizzarre and not designed to appeal. But a game like Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool... that's a scotformer. This is so because the license is not especially notable, so there's the forced character aspect, secondly, the game is a generic platformer in the typical style of scotformers.

[Anonymous No.5344253]

>>5344227
I guess it basically boils down to how much tude the character has and how much its games feel like cynical cashgrabs with no real artistic merit or design sense.

[Anonymous No.5345180]

>>5344227
>something like Earthworm Jim is not a scotformer, because, although people might think Earthworm Jim is a cool character, he wasn't designed specifically to pull in sales

Are you high? Earthworm Jim had his own cartoon and line of action figures, and the title character was prominently featured in all advertising material. They blatantly capitalized on the personality and design and general wackiness of the main character, Earthworm Jim is 100% a scotformer.

A good rule of thumb is; if the marketing campaign seems to be trying really hard to sell you on the character, rather than the game, it's a scotformer. If the protagonist has a kitschy nickname like "the Blue Bomber™" or "the Fastest Thing Alive™" it's definitely a scotformer.

That's not even scratching the surface of everything wrong with this post. Stop using the word "scotformer" if you don't know what it means.

[Anonymous No.5345183]

>>5345180
So you call Megaman a scotformer?

[Anonymous No.5345259]

>>5345183
rofl yes, look at any advertisement for a Megaman game. Look at this ad for the unreleased Rockman World compilation, this has scotformer written all over it.

It really isn't rocket science. If your ad campaign comes across like it was made to sell a character rather than a game, your game, is SCOT.

[Anonymous No.5345301]

[Anonymous No.5345308]

>>5342205
how about "attempt at a mascot" platformer?

[Anonymous No.5345978]

>>5341939
I used to love that game. I still like it.

[Anonymous No.5345998]

>>5345259
I don't agree. I wouldn't put Megaman in the same category as Bubsy.

For one thing, Megaman as a character is fairly generic. He's really close to Astroboy. There's not much attitude in his design, he's just a good solid character, in-step with the design of the game, but he doesn't stick out as a "Hey! I'm Megaman! Buy my game!" sort of character.

Secondly, the Megaman games have a lot of attention to other areas besides megaman himself. The music, level design, solid gameplay Mechanics, graphical design etc. It's clear that Capcom weren't thinking that they could make this really cool character and people would just buy the game for the character. You could actually replace Megaman with any other character and the games would still be enjoyable.

As the Megaman games' popularity grew, they certainly did try to capitalise on the character and market Megaman in his own right, with a cartoon series, etc. but I wouldn't consider this sort of cross-promotion, after the fact, as making a game a scotformer. If that were the case, then a game like Tomb Raider would be a 3d-scotformer.

[Anonymous No.5346305]

>>5344227
I imagine a scotformer is easily identified by the design choices used for a character. Mario is a man with a mustache and a hat because it was the easiest way to draw a nose, and miyamoto said he isn't able to draw hair very well. Megaman wears a suit of blue armor because the nes had more shades of blue than other colors and to easily show that he has a new power equipped. Why the fuck is Crash a bandicoot? Why is Banjo a bear? Those seem to have been chosen based on a comitte design to make the next sonic, and would fit the definition of scotformer.

[Anonymous No.5346328]

>>5342187
Woody the Woodpecker gives off a strong mascot cartoon vibe. Animaniacs just feels like a cartoon with a character

[Anonymous No.5346340]

>>5346305
Banjo is a bear because if he was a human he'd look really shitty

[Anonymous No.5346747]

>>5346340
He could've been a pig, he could've been a bull, he could've been a fucking ham sandwich, they chose that he should be a bear just because they could.

[Anonymous No.5346768]

>>5345998
Every scotformer series has its fanboys who will defend everything about the series, it doesn't mean Megaman isn't a scotformer. And "scotformer" isn't even meant as a pejorative, I think you're taking this way too personally.

Also HAHAHAHA you think Tomb Raider wasn't a scotformer

[Anonymous No.5347737]

>>5346768
A general rule of thumb is that scotformers are typically western games, and follow western game design cues, specifically the characters design doesn't meld with the mechanics of the game or vice versa.

[Anonymous No.5347847]

>>5342532
>no James Pond
FFS anon