In an industry where brand recognition is almost paramount to most major studios and publishers, mascots are commonplace. The 1980s and 1990s in particular were a wild west of brand design, character creation and mascot madness for the forming video game industry. With early trendsetters like Pac-Man and Mario emerging early in the race, companies feverishly attempted to work out that million dollar face that could sell a brand or franchise. Every designer and publisher looked to get a piece of the pie. Not all of these creators and marketers figured good gameplay into their design and it created a mountain of garbage, but some pretty good things emerged from it as well.

Trends come and go. It takes something amazingly special and wide-reaching for a mascot to have holding power past the realm of a few years and that’s if it catches on in the first place. Additionally, with the oversaturation of characters that have attempted to appeal to the masses, sometimes good ones incidentally turn up among the fodder. We’re taking a look at those missing mascots today. Specifically, we’re looking at the mascots whose franchises we’d love to see revived. These characters all came from some pretty creative and original titles. With time passed and few new players present in the market, we think these mascots deserve another chance to show what they can do. These are the 10 video mascots we’d love to see again.

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