What happened to Video Game Mascots?
What happened to Video Game Mascots?
In 1985, after the video game crash of 1983 and 1984, Nintendo would rise from the ashes of the video game disaster from one year back when they created a new console that had an icon that would lead it to resurrecting the video game phenomena. His name was Mario and he starred in Super Mario Bros. where the game made his popularity grow even more to this day. This started a little trend with other game franchises with companies creating their own characters to define themselves and to lead them strong in the gaming industry. These special characters would be recognized as company and video game mascots. Let me go on record by saying that I really enjoy mascots in video games because most of their games are very powerful in their own respective styles in gameplay, game design, and popularity. Some are unique, underrated, overrated, or top dog in the gaming world. When I see a mascot, I can see a potential winner for publishers and developers alike. Mario, Sonic, Link, Samus, and so many others had so many details about them that made them strong for society and the gaming community, but it seems like it has become more of a long, lost gem in the past. The reason is that most games nowadays are created with characters that are generic and just boring. I'm not saying that all games with generic characters are bad, but how many of them do you see that have such a huge cult following now? None. Why is that? Back in 1980s and 1990s, video game mascots were very special as they each of them have their own strengths and weaknesses. Let us take a look at a few.
Mario (Super Mario Bros.)
This character would have to be considered the very first mascot in the early days of gaming. Mario is mostly considered as a Nintendo character because of his position of where he stands and his creator being one of the key people in the company. Mario creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, revolutionized video game mascots for the first time when he designed Mario as a typical plumber with a cartoony look. While Mario looks nowhere big as your common human these days, his short and robust body made him so popular that it is nearly impossible for anyone not knowing who this guy is. When people look at Mario, they may ask themselves, "Where did he start?" Mario made his debut in the 1981 arcade game; Donkey Kong. The simple basis for Mario is that he would have to jump on many platforms to reach where Donkey is for kidnapping his love interest named Pauline. The concept was very simple. You had to go through four levels to stop Donkey Kong and to reunite with Pauline as the end. What many people realized right away was that the game was all about getting a high score by the multiple number of playthroughs that a game player must endure. Mario's next entry in the franchise was the 1983 arcade game, Mario Bros. Playing this game was different than just playing Donkey Kong, but the premise of reaching a high score stuck out like a sore thumb. For the first time in a Mario game, we are introduced to Mario's brother, Luigi. Luigi has never been described who he really is based on his appearance. Many people started to believe that he was a clone of Mario, but his character become more recognizable in the 2001 Gamecube classic, Luigi's Mansion. From what we can see, Luigi is the polar opposite of Mario where the famous plumber is more heroic and courageous while Luigi is more considered to be a coward as he is afraid to fight. Back to Mario Bros. the game was more about competition rather than just getting a high score and most of the enemies were crabs, flys, and koopa troopas, and you had to be careful with watching your enemies come through pipes. Surprisingly, the whole idea with the pipes and the koopa troopas became mainstream when the next entry took a different approach from anything else. In 1985, we were introduced to Nintendo's highest-selling title for the NES; Super Mario Bros. For the first time in this game, Mario and Luigi are in a world filled with mushrooms, pipes, fire flowers, goombas, and koopa troopas and the object was to rescue another damsel-in-distress. However, the damsel-in-distress was Princess Peach/Toadstool and her character was better received than Pauline for being generic in every way. We are also introduced to the game's main antagonist named Bowser. He is a reptile king who kidnaps the Princess in order to rule the Mushroom Kingdom and the whole thing with Mario saving the princess from Bowser would become an ongoing tradition for the rest of the series. With many sequels being successful and spin-offs being either good or bad, Mario has been a legend for five video game generations from the old days of the NES up to Nintendo's current console; the Wii. The main entries take a lot of time and planning to please the every gamer and they continue to get better because of the constant grasp of the overall impression of what made Mario for what he is now.
Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog)
Probably considered the most overrated character in the number of video game mascots, Sonic was one of those examples as to where "Genesis Does what Nintendon't". Sonic The Hedgehog started his glory days with the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive console in 1991. With Nintendo's constant success of releasing Mario titles for the past decade, Sega needed to capitalize themselves with a mascot to compete against the Italian plumber. While Alex Kidd started to go downhill, Sega introduced us to Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic was the first video game mascot to be introduced as a blue hedgehog with only one word to define his character: Speed. Yes; you heard me right. Sonic was all about speed where he must finish a level from beginning to finish with quick movement. Whether it was collecting rings or the chaos emeralds from the evil Dr. Robotnik/Eggman, Sonic had to face the evils of the mad scientist with his army of robots and rescuing the forest animals. The first Sonic game on the Genesis was the start of a new idea for platforming games and it was so much different than the Mario franchise. Only one year passed when the gaming community received a sequel called Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The overall impression of Sonic the Hedgehog was present in the sequel, but what made it more unique was the debut of Sonic's new partner; Miles "Tails" Prower. Tails was always behind Sonic, but he could fly and create machines based on his own intelligence. While Sonic was a character who has a flamboyant attitude, Tails always made calculations as to what should or shouldn't be done. In 1993, Sonic made another return, but with a new game that was considered to be the best game in the franchise. Sega was experimenting with CD-based games for the Sega Genesis and Sonic would lead them with Sonic CD. Sonic CD took everything you liked about Sonic the Hedgehog and made so many improvements in the gameplay. We are also introduced to Sonic's biggest fan named Amy Rose and Sonic's dark and robotic counterpart named Mecha Sonic. Another quality gem for the game is the soundtrack as the Sega CD showed off some unique sound capabilities that tried to surpass the Super Nintendo but bit the dust after about a year. With the failure of the Sega CD, Sega decided that Sonic should return back to the Genesis with the next installments called Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and its direct sequel, Sonic & Knuckles. Sega showed that Sonic was the best way to keep up with Mario by all means, but his brief appearances in the Sega Saturn made many fans believe that Sonic was dead. That was not the case when in 1999, Sega made another Sonic game to take place after Sonic & Knuckles, and it was the first Sonic game to include the basis of adventure and variety with many different characters to play as. Of course what I am talking about is Sonic Adventure for the Sega's 6th Generation Console; the Dreamcast. Sonic Adventure was a universal success and it showed that Sonic had potential to work really well as a 3D franchise. For the next ten years, other Sonic games started to come in with a few being very decent and most others that are currently just horrendous as they could possibly be. At this point, I have been wondering what is up with Sega as they just milk the Sonic franchise for money and not show proper respect for their mascot. Some believe that Sonic is long dead and some believe that he just needs to take a rest so that he can make a comeback in the future. Overall, Sonic is a great character, but his praise and negative bashing is just out of this world and the fanbase is scattered as to where everyone cannot come as a whole again. Probably where the fanbase started to go haywire is when Sonic's original voice actor, Ryan Drummond, was unofficially replaced by the 4kids Corporation with their own voice actor, Jason Griffith. Sega grasping the idea of placing product continuity between their games and the Sonic X TV series. If you ask me, that was a really poor choice from either Sega or Sonic's development group, Sonic Team. They need to go back to where the fans enjoy Sonic more in either his classic roots or to bringing back the original voice cast.
Solid Snake (Metal Gear)
While not an official mascot for Konami, per se, but Solid Snake is one of those generic characters where his appearance is referenced from many characters and actors from so many feature films like Kyle Reese from The Terminator and Snake Plissken from John Carpenter's Escape from New York. Snake's popularity started out with Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear on the MSX2 in Japan in 1987. Three years later, Snake appeared once more in the sequel, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. Probably the best place where Snake's popularity skyrocketed was in the 1998 Playstation classic, Metal Gear Solid. For the first time in a Metal Gear game, we see what Snake's personality is like through the use of cinematic cutscenes that look identical to a major, motion picture. Snake is portrayed as an ex-military grunt who worked for a covert ops group named Fox-Hound. During the events of the first two games, Snake infiltrated an enemy fortress called "Outer Heaven" and a fictional country called Zanzibar Land (not to be confused with the real country of Zanzibar). After fighting his former commander and losing his best friend from the game before, Snake retires to Alaska to live the rest of his days a dog-musher and an alcoholic. The year is 2005 when Snake is brought in a US Submarine by his commanding officer, Roy Campbell who informs him that Fox-Hound has become a resistance force who seek to start war all over the world with one man leading them as Snake's twin brother, Liquid Snake. Snake's character is so unique because you see him as he is trying to free himself from having to fight, but he cannot because of every Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force possessing their own Metal Gear. His life is being revolved from a man who lives in peace to a rogue who fights back to make the use of Metal Gears go away. Wherever you see Snake in a Metal Gear game, you know that his character will face many foes and demons that will make him understand that the only way for him to live is to fight in battle. It is very enjoyable and I always come to the fact that maybe Snake should end up as Konami's own mascot to define the company. It is not my place to say it as the character is created and owned by Hideo Kojima himself.
As we have seen in this blog, mascots are really big successes in the gaming industry, but they seem to have faded away from existence. My own guess is that no one can come up with a character that is creative. What company has a ninja to become a mascot? Maybe Ryu Hayabusa from the Ninja Gaiden games, but he should deserve more games to make him worthy of a mascot. I know that Namco's I-Ninja is not a mascot because Namco already has Pac-Man to back them up with their victories. Why aren't there anymore out there, today? Is it because people are starting to become somewhat more comfortable with being generic? Let us think about this for one minute. Why do you think people dress up as their favorite video game mascot? It is because the character has a huge cult following that is out of this world and there are hardly any that are not present at this time. Whatever happened to Captain Commando or Mega Man? Where is the next entry for the Rocket Knight Adventures series? Where's the newest mascot? Probably the newest mascot would have to be Sack Boy from LittleBigPlanet on the Playstation 3, but why have we not seen more to make companies more popular? It seems like it left many people for a long time and they do not seem to enjoy the process of creating something new to gain more recognition.
In conclusion, mascots need to make a comeback with those being old or new and it may be the reason why most games are starting to go downhill and become obscure with how they deliver in games. I truly miss the old days where I play as some of the classic mascots but I would like to see some new ones that can become successful as those like Mario or Sonic. I do not want to see another company make another FPS game as they continue to become somewhat the same. I want to see a Platforming, RPG, Racing, Fighting, or Action game that has a character to represent a company in all their rights in any possible way. The joy of games can be revived if we have those that can stand strong for many companies alike and many games yet to come. It is a big step to bring back innovation, and I stand by my word to the very end.
In 1985, after the video game crash of 1983 and 1984, Nintendo would rise from the ashes of the video game disaster from one year back when they created a new console that had an icon that would lead it to resurrecting the video game phenomena. His name was Mario and he starred in Super Mario Bros. where the game made his popularity grow even more to this day. This started a little trend with other game franchises with companies creating their own characters to define themselves and to lead them strong in the gaming industry. These special characters would be recognized as company and video game mascots. Let me go on record by saying that I really enjoy mascots in video games because most of their games are very powerful in their own respective styles in gameplay, game design, and popularity. Some are unique, underrated, overrated, or top dog in the gaming world. When I see a mascot, I can see a potential winner for publishers and developers alike. Mario, Sonic, Link, Samus, and so many others had so many details about them that made them strong for society and the gaming community, but it seems like it has become more of a long, lost gem in the past. The reason is that most games nowadays are created with characters that are generic and just boring. I'm not saying that all games with generic characters are bad, but how many of them do you see that have such a huge cult following now? None. Why is that? Back in 1980s and 1990s, video game mascots were very special as they each of them have their own strengths and weaknesses. Let us take a look at a few.
Mario (Super Mario Bros.)
This character would have to be considered the very first mascot in the early days of gaming. Mario is mostly considered as a Nintendo character because of his position of where he stands and his creator being one of the key people in the company. Mario creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, revolutionized video game mascots for the first time when he designed Mario as a typical plumber with a cartoony look. While Mario looks nowhere big as your common human these days, his short and robust body made him so popular that it is nearly impossible for anyone not knowing who this guy is. When people look at Mario, they may ask themselves, "Where did he start?" Mario made his debut in the 1981 arcade game; Donkey Kong. The simple basis for Mario is that he would have to jump on many platforms to reach where Donkey is for kidnapping his love interest named Pauline. The concept was very simple. You had to go through four levels to stop Donkey Kong and to reunite with Pauline as the end. What many people realized right away was that the game was all about getting a high score by the multiple number of playthroughs that a game player must endure. Mario's next entry in the franchise was the 1983 arcade game, Mario Bros. Playing this game was different than just playing Donkey Kong, but the premise of reaching a high score stuck out like a sore thumb. For the first time in a Mario game, we are introduced to Mario's brother, Luigi. Luigi has never been described who he really is based on his appearance. Many people started to believe that he was a clone of Mario, but his character become more recognizable in the 2001 Gamecube classic, Luigi's Mansion. From what we can see, Luigi is the polar opposite of Mario where the famous plumber is more heroic and courageous while Luigi is more considered to be a coward as he is afraid to fight. Back to Mario Bros. the game was more about competition rather than just getting a high score and most of the enemies were crabs, flys, and koopa troopas, and you had to be careful with watching your enemies come through pipes. Surprisingly, the whole idea with the pipes and the koopa troopas became mainstream when the next entry took a different approach from anything else. In 1985, we were introduced to Nintendo's highest-selling title for the NES; Super Mario Bros. For the first time in this game, Mario and Luigi are in a world filled with mushrooms, pipes, fire flowers, goombas, and koopa troopas and the object was to rescue another damsel-in-distress. However, the damsel-in-distress was Princess Peach/Toadstool and her character was better received than Pauline for being generic in every way. We are also introduced to the game's main antagonist named Bowser. He is a reptile king who kidnaps the Princess in order to rule the Mushroom Kingdom and the whole thing with Mario saving the princess from Bowser would become an ongoing tradition for the rest of the series. With many sequels being successful and spin-offs being either good or bad, Mario has been a legend for five video game generations from the old days of the NES up to Nintendo's current console; the Wii. The main entries take a lot of time and planning to please the every gamer and they continue to get better because of the constant grasp of the overall impression of what made Mario for what he is now.
Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog)
Probably considered the most overrated character in the number of video game mascots, Sonic was one of those examples as to where "Genesis Does what Nintendon't". Sonic The Hedgehog started his glory days with the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive console in 1991. With Nintendo's constant success of releasing Mario titles for the past decade, Sega needed to capitalize themselves with a mascot to compete against the Italian plumber. While Alex Kidd started to go downhill, Sega introduced us to Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic was the first video game mascot to be introduced as a blue hedgehog with only one word to define his character: Speed. Yes; you heard me right. Sonic was all about speed where he must finish a level from beginning to finish with quick movement. Whether it was collecting rings or the chaos emeralds from the evil Dr. Robotnik/Eggman, Sonic had to face the evils of the mad scientist with his army of robots and rescuing the forest animals. The first Sonic game on the Genesis was the start of a new idea for platforming games and it was so much different than the Mario franchise. Only one year passed when the gaming community received a sequel called Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The overall impression of Sonic the Hedgehog was present in the sequel, but what made it more unique was the debut of Sonic's new partner; Miles "Tails" Prower. Tails was always behind Sonic, but he could fly and create machines based on his own intelligence. While Sonic was a character who has a flamboyant attitude, Tails always made calculations as to what should or shouldn't be done. In 1993, Sonic made another return, but with a new game that was considered to be the best game in the franchise. Sega was experimenting with CD-based games for the Sega Genesis and Sonic would lead them with Sonic CD. Sonic CD took everything you liked about Sonic the Hedgehog and made so many improvements in the gameplay. We are also introduced to Sonic's biggest fan named Amy Rose and Sonic's dark and robotic counterpart named Mecha Sonic. Another quality gem for the game is the soundtrack as the Sega CD showed off some unique sound capabilities that tried to surpass the Super Nintendo but bit the dust after about a year. With the failure of the Sega CD, Sega decided that Sonic should return back to the Genesis with the next installments called Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and its direct sequel, Sonic & Knuckles. Sega showed that Sonic was the best way to keep up with Mario by all means, but his brief appearances in the Sega Saturn made many fans believe that Sonic was dead. That was not the case when in 1999, Sega made another Sonic game to take place after Sonic & Knuckles, and it was the first Sonic game to include the basis of adventure and variety with many different characters to play as. Of course what I am talking about is Sonic Adventure for the Sega's 6th Generation Console; the Dreamcast. Sonic Adventure was a universal success and it showed that Sonic had potential to work really well as a 3D franchise. For the next ten years, other Sonic games started to come in with a few being very decent and most others that are currently just horrendous as they could possibly be. At this point, I have been wondering what is up with Sega as they just milk the Sonic franchise for money and not show proper respect for their mascot. Some believe that Sonic is long dead and some believe that he just needs to take a rest so that he can make a comeback in the future. Overall, Sonic is a great character, but his praise and negative bashing is just out of this world and the fanbase is scattered as to where everyone cannot come as a whole again. Probably where the fanbase started to go haywire is when Sonic's original voice actor, Ryan Drummond, was unofficially replaced by the 4kids Corporation with their own voice actor, Jason Griffith. Sega grasping the idea of placing product continuity between their games and the Sonic X TV series. If you ask me, that was a really poor choice from either Sega or Sonic's development group, Sonic Team. They need to go back to where the fans enjoy Sonic more in either his classic roots or to bringing back the original voice cast.
Solid Snake (Metal Gear)
While not an official mascot for Konami, per se, but Solid Snake is one of those generic characters where his appearance is referenced from many characters and actors from so many feature films like Kyle Reese from The Terminator and Snake Plissken from John Carpenter's Escape from New York. Snake's popularity started out with Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear on the MSX2 in Japan in 1987. Three years later, Snake appeared once more in the sequel, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. Probably the best place where Snake's popularity skyrocketed was in the 1998 Playstation classic, Metal Gear Solid. For the first time in a Metal Gear game, we see what Snake's personality is like through the use of cinematic cutscenes that look identical to a major, motion picture. Snake is portrayed as an ex-military grunt who worked for a covert ops group named Fox-Hound. During the events of the first two games, Snake infiltrated an enemy fortress called "Outer Heaven" and a fictional country called Zanzibar Land (not to be confused with the real country of Zanzibar). After fighting his former commander and losing his best friend from the game before, Snake retires to Alaska to live the rest of his days a dog-musher and an alcoholic. The year is 2005 when Snake is brought in a US Submarine by his commanding officer, Roy Campbell who informs him that Fox-Hound has become a resistance force who seek to start war all over the world with one man leading them as Snake's twin brother, Liquid Snake. Snake's character is so unique because you see him as he is trying to free himself from having to fight, but he cannot because of every Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force possessing their own Metal Gear. His life is being revolved from a man who lives in peace to a rogue who fights back to make the use of Metal Gears go away. Wherever you see Snake in a Metal Gear game, you know that his character will face many foes and demons that will make him understand that the only way for him to live is to fight in battle. It is very enjoyable and I always come to the fact that maybe Snake should end up as Konami's own mascot to define the company. It is not my place to say it as the character is created and owned by Hideo Kojima himself.
As we have seen in this blog, mascots are really big successes in the gaming industry, but they seem to have faded away from existence. My own guess is that no one can come up with a character that is creative. What company has a ninja to become a mascot? Maybe Ryu Hayabusa from the Ninja Gaiden games, but he should deserve more games to make him worthy of a mascot. I know that Namco's I-Ninja is not a mascot because Namco already has Pac-Man to back them up with their victories. Why aren't there anymore out there, today? Is it because people are starting to become somewhat more comfortable with being generic? Let us think about this for one minute. Why do you think people dress up as their favorite video game mascot? It is because the character has a huge cult following that is out of this world and there are hardly any that are not present at this time. Whatever happened to Captain Commando or Mega Man? Where is the next entry for the Rocket Knight Adventures series? Where's the newest mascot? Probably the newest mascot would have to be Sack Boy from LittleBigPlanet on the Playstation 3, but why have we not seen more to make companies more popular? It seems like it left many people for a long time and they do not seem to enjoy the process of creating something new to gain more recognition.
In conclusion, mascots need to make a comeback with those being old or new and it may be the reason why most games are starting to go downhill and become obscure with how they deliver in games. I truly miss the old days where I play as some of the classic mascots but I would like to see some new ones that can become successful as those like Mario or Sonic. I do not want to see another company make another FPS game as they continue to become somewhat the same. I want to see a Platforming, RPG, Racing, Fighting, or Action game that has a character to represent a company in all their rights in any possible way. The joy of games can be revived if we have those that can stand strong for many companies alike and many games yet to come. It is a big step to bring back innovation, and I stand by my word to the very end.
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