Games: Aero the Acrobat (SNES, Gen, GBA/1993), Aero the Acrobat 2 (SNES, Gen/1994)
Mascot for: Sunsoft
You may have heard of this one. Sunsoft actually made him the face of its company, even having him appear next to the logo at the beginning of their games. Aero is a far more unique character than most animal mascots of his time. The story of the first game has the evil Edgar Ektor capturing all the circus perfomers and Aero must rescue them. Aero can jump and do a dive-bomb move in order to attack enemies. Like Sonic, the levels were large and required exploration. The first game received critical praise and EGM awarded Aero as the best new character of 1993. The game's sequel is arguably even better than the first, picking up the story right where the first game ended. There was also a spin-off game starring one of the game's baddies.
What happened: It's strange that Sunsoft didn't try to continue this series after just two games. Perhaps the reason could be that moving Aero into a 3D game was too challenging (the vast majority of mascots couldn't transition into 3D, even Sonic for a good while). These ARE good games, so it's a shame that Sunsoft has never revived the series. Perhaps they could bring Aero back similar to what they have done recently with the Blaster Master games. Here's hoping!
You know what? I actually played this one! I rented it once at my local video place. And you know what? I didn't like it. But I was more into RPGs at the time. I'm not sure if the sequel was at the rental place, but if it was, I probably wasn't keen on trying it if I didn't like the first one. And I know that the spinoff, Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel wasn't at the rental place.
Both of these games are good, so you should give it another try if you get the chance.
Now this one I know. I've played both of these games too, and enjoyed them, but only on emulation. I have very clear memories of playing this on my PC when I lived in San Francisco back in the late nineties. It would be cool to see a revival of this in 2D or 3D.
Yes, they need to bring Aero back!
Acro-bat. I see what they did there. I noticed he's got four fingers on each hand.
The circus environment is a cool idea for a platformer.
Of course the name is a pun, but at least it's not as bad as "Chuck Rock" (ugh)
I think this might be the first one I've heard of, unless you did Bubsy already.
I wonder how things would be different if Sonic were made into a super high res 2D game for Dreamcast, kinda like Castlevania on PSX but a gen after.
Definitely remember Aero the Acro-Bat. And Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel.
Only from magazine ads, though.
