r/TopCharacterTropes • u/mp3help • 18d ago

miscellaneous [Interesting Trope] Attempts at fanservice/virality that failed not because they were hated, but because nobody noticed them or cared at all.

Gallery image

Gallery image

1) Hoopy the Hoop, Portal (2007) When you defeat GLaDOS and her room is destroyed at the end of the game, debris rains down in the final cutscene, including a big metal hoop that bounces around a bit. Developer Erik Wolpaw said the team dubbed it "Hoopy the Hoop" and expected it to become the big meme of Portal. Of course, none of the fans paid much attention to the hoop since "The Cake is a Lie" became the biggest meme of the game, and overall one of the biggest video game memes of all time.

2) Burgh, Pokemon Black and White (2010) When designing Burgh, developer Yusuke Ohmura said Gamefreak had many of their female employees give input on his design to create their ideal handsome man. However, as someone who's been in the Pokemon fandom for almost 3 decades, in the 15+ years since Pokemon Black and White released, I have personally never seen any fans swoon over Burgh, or even mention him in general. If anything, characters like N and Colress are far more well-known within the fandom as the most handsome and beloved male characters of Pokemon Gen 5.

14.6k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

3.0k

u/Big-Director4193 18d ago

1.2k

u/therealchadius 18d ago

The 90s and early 2000s were filled with "Watch out Mario/Sonic! Forgettable Platforming Mascot is here to take the crown!" They would usually get 1 game and then drop off the face of the earth.

573

u/5050Saint 18d ago

That and terms like Halo-killer or Final Fantasy-killer. It was the click bait of its time.

247

u/Lazydusto 18d ago

Every new MMO was the next WoW-killer too.

40

u/Hazzamo 18d ago

Or every modern military shooter was CoD-Killer

33

u/Samus159 18d ago

Or every looter shooter was the Destiny killer. But the real Destiny killer was Destiny all along (it got better (or is getting better, to be determined))

9

u/LordSloth113 18d ago

Last I saw is they’re un-sunsetting (sunrising?) all the old content, so fingers crossed

6

u/Samus159 18d ago

Yeah, that's all they’ve shared with us at the moment for the future of D2, but they said something along the lines of wanting to do more in the Destiny universe, so maybe D3, maybe spin offs, maybe more D2 content, but we’ll have to wait and see

3

u/Rogol_Darn 17d ago

Can't say I'm surprised considering the thing they shuttered destiny for already shit the bed again

1

u/JunkySundew11 12d ago

I genuinely thought hell would freeze over before they undid it

8

u/Mysterious_Yellow805 18d ago

Or every rpg was a Skyrim killer

5

u/Thin-Limit7697 17d ago

Or every monster taming/catching game in the last 10 years was a Pokemon killer.

Palworld can at least claim the merit of being the Pokemon lawyers' survivor, though.

3

u/Dry-Yesterday-9176 17d ago

And every pirate game has sea of thieves killer

12

u/jackofallcards 18d ago

Which no such MMO exists to this day as WoW is still alive and kicking apparently very well

6

u/TheMoonDude 18d ago

Not only alive, you can choose different flavors of it too: Retail, all the varieties of Classic, Season of Discovery and soon Forever.

3

u/asphaltdragon 18d ago

Eh, alive, yeah, but I wouldn't really say it's kicking. WoW Forever is seeming to take off though. But there's plenty of other MMOs that are just as popular as WoW nowadays. FFXIV has around as many players.

7

u/ThrowACephalopod 18d ago

The MMO landscape is just more diverse now. It used to be that people only played WoW and every other MMO was niche and quickly died.

But now we have lots of different games. WoW is certainly still kicking (with retail bringing in the more competitive crowd and forever looking to appeal to the older audience and recapture the magic, so to speak), but FFXIV, ESO, and Old School RuneScape all also have very sizable playerbases.

WoW wasn't really killed, it just has peers now.

4

u/Flamingo-Sini 18d ago

There was a short time when FFxIv released Shadowbringers (excellent expansion) and WoW did Shadowlands (absolute dogshit expansion) and FFxIv got more players than WoW for a while. People even talked about an exodus, but that might have been exaggerated. WoW catched itself and got more players again now. Definitly not killed, but dethroned for a short while.

1

u/jebberwockie 18d ago

Current retail content patch aside, WoW has been doing very well lately.

6

u/blueriging 17d ago

At least they all had an excuse: WoW actually killed EverQuest, so if one huge MMO can be taken out by a challenger, maybe this one could be too.

2

u/sparkycf272 17d ago

Every new shooter was the next Destiny-killer. Little did they know, the killer was already in the building.

2

u/StAliaOfTheBlade 16d ago

Every platformer fighting game wasthre Smash-killer. Every portable console (computer) was the Switch-killer

1

u/omega_br 14d ago

Funny since many of these are just wow clones or runescape clones

16

u/Gadgez 18d ago

Don't worry, guys, the PS3 killer app is finally here, I got a good feeling about this Haze game.

7

u/Quaytsar 18d ago

Turns out, the real Halo killer was Halo all along!

3

u/MysteriousDesk3 17d ago

The real halo killer was 343 / Microsoft

1

u/Sea-Writer-6961 18d ago

You are your own enemy

3

u/KindBass 18d ago

Dark Cloud

8

u/jackofallcards 18d ago

Dark Cloud and DC2 kicked ass but had absolutely nothing in common with Zelda whatsoever except the character in the first one looked kinda like a Link ripoff

Still, worked on my 12 year old brain and I had to have it, these ads were everywhere

3

u/5050Saint 18d ago

The EXACT one I was thinking of!

3

u/DreamworldPineapple 17d ago

Call of Duty was released with the fanfare of being the 'Medal of Honor killer' and it's probably the only time one of those taglines was right

3

u/samx3i 17d ago

I remember a game called "Dark Cloud" was billed as a "Zelda killer."

I might be one of dozens who even remember it.

2

u/5050Saint 17d ago

I owned the PSM that had touted it as the Zelda killer. I think they also called Legend of Dragoon the Final Fantasy killer.

2

u/samx3i 17d ago

Someone remembers!

2

u/dizastermaster7 15d ago

Destiny survived long enough to become the new thing to be killed.

2

u/szhaddad 14d ago

I still remember Anthem being called Destiny-killer... Yeah right. Never dodged a bullet so much like Neo on the rooftop as I'd did when I didn't give in to the knee-jerk reaction to pre-order it as a few of my friends did. What a disappointment.

1

u/eagleblue44 17d ago

Has there ever been an instance of something being advertised as an (insert game) killer that actually ended up being just as if not more popular than the game it said it was killing? I remember there being an oblivion killer that also epically failed.

130

u/probablynotfine 18d ago

Pour some out for Gex

22

u/Pteraxii 18d ago

say Gex.

6

u/Yellowscourge 17d ago

It's TAIL TIME!

3

u/Dale_Carvello 17d ago

Is it just me, or am I engulfed in flaaaames!!?

4

u/TheMoonDude 18d ago

What for?

1

u/IeRoyaume 17d ago

Loved these. Despite some flaws, truly memorable!

96

u/BoulderCreature 18d ago

Bubsy is the epitome of this to me and I’m always surprised when I hear they’re making another game with him. There’s one very average Bubsy game and a ton of dogshit ones and yet people keep deciding to make more

32

u/SavageNorth 18d ago

Bubsy was straight up the worst offender, all three of his original games were considered atrocious with the third one being widely considered a contender for worst PS1 game ever made

The character himself was so exgriegiously annoying, so steeped in out of touch design by executive committee that he was widely reviled on release, a completely unironically pinnacle of the character archetype.

Anyway, fast forward 20 years and his terrible games start popping up as content for game reviewers looking for an easy target, in the internet era this naturally is developed into something of an ironic fandom and led to new games being developed as they knew people would buy it just to rip on it.

By all accounts the new ones aren't much better but what did people really expect

14

u/BoulderCreature 18d ago

Bubsy 3D was the first game I got for PlayStation and I still kinda marvel that I stuck with video games after playing that slop. Still haven’t experienced a worse game than that

10

u/Nerevarine91 18d ago

It’s literally not finished. Even calling it a game feels like a stretch. It’s barely a modeling demo

4

u/Lohenngram 16d ago

Still haven’t experienced a worse game than that

That was the reason you stuck with gaming! Because after starting with Bubsy 3D, literally everything was a step up from it.

1

u/BubsyFanboy 16d ago

Four games.

And yet you remember him. Because unlike the other mascots of the era, he's not some edgelord, but a dork.

You'd be surprised by both the quality of the new games and the unironic fanbase.

2

u/SavageNorth 16d ago

Eh the new games are at best mid

They're a step up from the originals but let's be real, the bar is a trip hazard in hell

0

u/BubsyFanboy 16d ago

Except the first game (Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind) is genuinely really good and either 2 or FFT is fun too depending who you ask. Only 3D is the one that is unfinished, but even it has interesting ideas (Bubsy 3D camera > Mario 64 camera; tank controls would be fitting if the game doubled down on being a puzzle game)

But the new games are easier if you're into that and Bubsy 4D is genuinely fun.

1

u/SavageNorth 16d ago

I've played the originals dude

None of them are particularly good, they have fall damage in a platformer FFS

3D was a hot mess but it's also clearly unfinished so it's hard to really judge it as a game

New ones are fine, inoffensive but forgettable given the modern competition

1

u/BubsyFanboy 16d ago

Fall damage is not a problem at all if you know how to glide. If anything it's more intuitive than Mario 64's ground pound cancelling the fall.

And Bubsy 4D doesn't really have much competition atm aside from the devs themselves (Demon Tides).

1

u/NoCry8625 14d ago

I was gonna accuse you of ragebaiting but then I saw your username.

I guess I too have been a fan boy of bad games and refused to accept their problems lmao.

1

u/BubsyFanboy 13d ago

Oh, I am aware of their faults. I just think people often place them in the wrong areas. The most heavily memed and repeated criticisms are often the dumbest ones.

2

u/tinyrottedpig 16d ago

I think the funniest part is that for some reason the most recent game (Bubsy 4D) was actually really good, I really loved that they leaned into the idea that he's past his "prime", but his prime was actually just him being an annoying weird mascot no one liked.

Him being this older guy going through a mid life crisis made his antics and nonstop talking actually charming rather than irritating, because the game knows he's lame and plays into that fact, so it integer overloads back into genuinely being endearing with how much he tries to be relatable.

2

u/BoulderCreature 16d ago

Huh, that’s pretty interesting, but I’m still not going to try it

2

u/Sea-Writer-6961 18d ago

Also whoever is in charge of the art has a furry paw fetish

1

u/Commercial-Paint-319 17d ago

I had not noticed that but now that you mention it uhhhhhh🥶

1

u/ConcerningThirst 16d ago

They made one that came out this year after a very long hiatus, looked good and got decent reviews.

0

u/BubsyFanboy 16d ago

Sooooo is it just one game or multiple?

Pedantics aside, nah, most Bubsy games are just average or actually good.

15

u/One_Hunt_6672 18d ago

2

u/Kana515 17d ago

Literally was just about to look for this, always so funny to me, but I still wanna give this game a try one day.

10

u/VariationAshamed9833 18d ago

only one that got its success was crash bandicoot

3

u/Seahearn4 17d ago

Spyro the Dragon had at least 3 games, but the first one was the best. And I think it got a TV show too.

7

u/Krillo90 18d ago

Somehow Croc got two games. Gex got three!

7

u/FoxtailZerda 17d ago

I'll never forget that ad for Ty the Tasmanian Tiger where Crash, Spyro, and Sonic are in body casts after losing to Ty.

7

u/ProfDeCube 18d ago

Blinx got 2 games actually ;)

6

u/LukeWarmwater- 18d ago

Here's hoping that Gwimbly can still make his comeback

6

u/SadUnderstanding7019 18d ago

I liked Blinx...

3

u/GrimDallows 18d ago

Man feels weird how Crash Bandicoot went through a completely forgotten phase and then bounced back into popularity.

3

u/MacksNotCool 18d ago

"move over mario"- 40 blinks or whatever it was

2

u/Sanquinity 18d ago

Remember the whole craze with "this will be the WoW killer"? For like 5~7 years it felt like every company wanted to try and take WoW's crown. D&D, LotR, Star wars, Aion, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls, Rift... Even the big franchise names couldn't do it. GW2 and Star Wars came the closest I think. Though multiple of these mmos are still running.

2

u/BrittaUnfiltered67 18d ago

Curse Microsoft and Sony for abandoning their mascot characters.

2

u/Dale_Carvello 17d ago

I loved Sparkster from Rocket Knight Adventures.

2

u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 17d ago

No joke, if any marketing says "x" killer, 9/10 times it flops

2

u/Material_Soup6086 17d ago

In a minor win for Xbox, Halo spawned a wave of "Is [Shitass FPS] the Halo killer?" in the 2000s.

2

u/The_Janitor7 17d ago

"as raunchy as south park" was thrown around a lot

1

u/Abacus118 18d ago

Then turns out Sonic should have been looking out for himself.

1

u/valdis812 18d ago

Crash came somewhat close for a while.