Video Games Long and Storied Spokespeople: A Miscellany of Mascots

Debuted: Jumping Flash! for the Sony PlayStation 1 
Year: 1995

One of the first games released on the PSOne, Jumping Flash!'s Robbit distinguishes himself from other mascots on this list as his game is played entirely from a first-person perspective. Bearing in mind that Jumping Flash! was released a year before game changer Super Mario 64, mastering the robotic rabbit's exhilarating high-jumps in a 3D space proved a novel experience, and the usual spatial awareness problems that plague jumping sections in other first-person games were circumvented here with an elegant solution; Robbit looks down at his feet while falling to aid the player's landing. It was followed by an even better sequel the following year,

Debuted: Debuted in Ristar for the Sega Genesis
Year: 1994

Ristar may initially come off like the invention of a child's doodle, being a star with limbs, but oh, what limbs they are. Ristar can stetch and bound his way across a series of beautiful levels with the grace of a Disney Dhalsim courtesy of his extending arm mechanic.

Ristar was a Sega character who suffered from poor release timing, his game being one of the last to come out for the Genesis prior to the release of the Saturn. The game deserves special props for having the best name for a nemesis in platform game history however, the inimitable Kaiser Greedy.

Debuted: Debuted in Astal for the Sega Saturn 
Year: 1995

Astal begins with an appealing creation myth setup involving the invention of the world's first boy and girl hatching from red and green crystals; Leda, the female creator of the world's life, and Astal, her overzealous male protector. Astal is a beautiful and overlooked Saturn sidescroller, with an array of appealing gameplay mechanics, such as crystallising enemies and throwing objects in the environment, including myriad minions and uprooted trees.

Debuted: Debuted in Blinx: The Time Sweeper for the Microsoft Xbox
Year: 2002

An early Xbox release from Artoon centered around then vogue time-manipulation mechanics popularised by Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Blinx never really found his feet as a cartoon mascot for the fledgling console. A sassy cat armed with a time-manipulating vacuum cleaner, Blinx has the ability to rewind, fast-forward, pause time and more.

It's a shame Blinx: The Time Sweeper isn't better remembered, as it is a solid platformer with excellent visuals and appealing gameplay mechanics that were ahead of their time. The character's ability to record multiple copies of himself to solve switch puzzles for example, is an idea that would later be cribbed in Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time, while the God of War sequels would make use of a rewind ability to restore broken objects in a similar fashion to Blinx's own.

Debuted: Debuted in Dynamite Headdy for the Sega Genesis 
Year: 1994

Bullet hell kings Treasure once turned their hands to the 2D platformer genre, and true to form Dynamite Headdy was the batshit insane result. Racing against eye-bleeding backgrounds brought to life with a garish attention to detail, Headdy has a diverse selection of power-ups, with the ability to transform his detachable head into bombs, homing missiles, 'Kirby vacuums'™ , and more.

Debut: Debuted in Manic Miner for the ZX Spectrum 
Year: 1983  

With the notable exception of Rare, the British have never really 'got' mascot platformers, lacking the cute design sensibilities and sass of their Japanese and American contemporaries; characters such as Dizzy Egg (an egg) and Chuck Rock (a sagging caveman) have not stood the test of time very well. Miner Willy of Manic Miner fame however, the invention of Spectrum bedroom coder Matthew Smith, deserves recognition for top use of irreverent humor, particularly in sequel Jet Set Willy, where Willy's main task is to clean up an entire mansion's worth of after-party detritus that would make even Hunter S. balk.

Debut: Debuted in Pulseman for the Sega Genesis
Year: 1994

A rare Sega release from the Pokemon wizards at GameFreak, Pulseman extracts the last morsels of blast processing goodness from aging Genesis hardware. Harnessing the powers of electricity, Pulseman is a kinetic dervish, bouncing off the walls of his environment in a game that sometimes resembles a freewheeling pinball machine. The game was hindered in capturing American attention due to its release through the unpopular Sega Channel.

Debut: Debuted in Chibi-Robo! Plug Into Adventure! for the Nintendo Gamecube 
Year: 2006 

Chibi-Robo, a shiny, thumb-sized automaton with a two-pin plug trailing from his back, is a precious Nintendo creation. Tasked with accumulating happy points by doing good deeds around a family home, Chibi-Robo has to find power outlets in the environment to charge himself from time to time, a mechanic which adds a layer of extra challenge to an otherwise genial title-he also wins points as a mascot for his elegant design simplicity.

Debut: Debuted in Nights Into Dreams for the Sega Saturn 
Year: 1996

In 1996, the Sega-Nintendo-Sony console war was in full force. These companies held up their sleeves three great hopes for the platformer genre that year respectively; the N64 had Super Mario 64, the Playstation had Crash Bandicoot, and the Sega Saturn had Nights into Dreams.

While Mario 64 was the most groundbreaking game of the three, Nights was perhaps the most unusual. In the absence of a decent 3D Sonic title for the Saturn, Sonic Team instead produced this highly original game of a genderless jester figure guiding two children through the twin dream realms of Nightmare and Nightopia on a quest to rediscover their determination. The gameplay itself was also hard to describe compared to its rivals-a kind of score-based, trick-pulling flying game set on a 2D plane-but Nights remains one of the most beautifully designed characters from the Sega stable.

Debut: Debuted in Klonoa: Door to Phantomile for the Sony PSOne
Year: 1998 

The adorable Klonoa: Door to Phantomile for the PSOne is one of the best platformers of all time, and it is criminal that this titular dream traveler never became a wider star for Namco, considering their company mascot is a jaundice dot (who cameos here as an adornment on Klonoa's cap). Traditional series' gameplay involves Klonoa inflating his enemies to use as projectiles and achieve lift to reach high platforms. The 2.5D style also allows for the novelty of enemies to be thrown towards and away from the screen to solve environmental puzzles. The game did achieve enough popularity in Japan for the excellent GBA adventure Empire of Dreams and PS2 sequel Lunatea's Veil, as well as an eventual Wii remake of Phantomile, but he remains undervalued in the pantheon of platforming heroes.