History VideoGame / Frogger

%%* GenderFlip: Lillie.

%%* GoKartingWithBowser: Swampy is an unlockable bonus character.

* PublicDomainSoundtrack: Both played straight and inverted. "Inu no Omawari-san" [[note]]A Japanese nursery rhyme that's used as the "game start" jingle.[[/note]], along with "Yankee Doodle"[[note]]which is recognized in Japan as the clapping song "Alps no Ichiman Jaku"[[/note]] and "Camptown Races" are among the straight examples, but inverted by other songs (the themes from ''Anime/RascalTheRaccoon'', ''Anime/HeidiGirlOfTheAlps'', ''Anime/HanaNoKoLunlun'', and ''Moero Arthur: Hakuba no Ouji'' are heavily used as background music). The latter is why most ports, even otherwise arcade-perfect ports, change all the music (even the public domain songs).
* RealityHasNoSoundtrack: Curiously, the SNES port, released in 1998, contains no music at all, either on the menus or in-game.

* IdiotBall: When Frogger comes across Lillie trapped in a cage over a pool of lava in the end game, does he free her? No, he just opens the cage door, hops inside and stays there, letting Swampy get the opportunity to start lowering the both of them towards the lava.
** A closer look at the cutscene shows that the cliff Frogger was on collapsed, forcing him to jump into the cage to save his hide.

* LivingToys: In this setting, Frogger, Lumpy, Berry, and Lily are all sentient "Toy Pets" custom-made by a toy company in order to compete in a tournament.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Even for a company capable of creating fully-sentient and alive toys, [[spoiler:the alleged prize of "granting any wish" turns out to be way out of their league and nothing more than [[MagicallyDelicious pure hyperbolic advertising]]]].

* TheArtifact: Two costumes in the game grant Frogger the ability to WallCrawl and turn into a ball. These are obviously repurposed from the abilities of Berry and Lumpy in ''Frogger: Helmet Chaos''; ''Toy Trials'' was developed by the same team but is a ContinuityReboot and doesn't feature either as playable characters (Lumpy, Berry, and Lily are still around, but only as [=NPCs=]).

* TheArtifact: Two costumes in the game grant Frogger the ability to WallCrawl and turn into a ball. These are obviously repurposed from the abilities of Berry and Lumpy in ''Frogger: Helmet Chaos''; ''Toy Trials'' was developed by the same team but is a ContinuityReboot and doesn't feature either as playable characters (Lumpy and Lily are still around, but only as [=NPCs=]).

* LivingToys: In this setting, Frogger, Lumpy, and Lily are all sentient "Toy Pets" custom-made by a toy company in order to compete in a tournament.

* KingIncognito: [[spoiler:Agent T, the man wearing the rabbit mascot head that frequently steps in to help the protagonist, turns out to be Tobi, the rich toy company president responsible for the tournament, all along.]]

* QuestForAWish: The grand prize for winning the toy tournament is having one wish granted. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, as it's being run by a toy company instead of a magical being, they're unable to actually grant a wish like the protagonist's original desire to have President Tobi be his dad.]]
* TerribleArtist: The protagonist submits a drawing of a dragon to be turned into a toy for the competition, but his art skills are so awful that it gets mistaken for a frog, leading to Frogger's creation. [[spoiler:It's later revealed that the drawing was perfectly fine, and the mix-up was actually sabotage.]]
* WhenYouComingHomeDad: One of the human characters participating in the toy tournament is Tobi Jr., the son of the toy company's President Tobi, who resents his dad for focusing on his job of making other children happy. [[spoiler:This is why Tobi Jr. sabotages the other contestants, such as by giving the main protagonist Frogger instead of the dragon pet he had originally wanted.]]
* WorthlessTreasureTwist: [[spoiler:When it turns out that President Tobi can't grant his original wish of adopting him (and that it might not have been the best wish in the first place, given Tobi Jr.'s relationship with his father), the protagonist realizes that the bond he formed with Frogger during the tournament is what he values most and simply wishes to keep him as his pet despite having been given Frogger by mistake.]]

* TheArtifact: Two costumes in the game grant Frogger the ability to WallCrawl and turn into a ball. These are obviously repurposed from the abilities of Berry and Lumpy in ''Frogger: Helmet Chaos''; ''Toy Trials'' was developed by the same team but is a ContinuityReboot and doesn't feature either as playable characters (Lumpy is still around, but only as an NPC).

''Frogger'' was also featured in a subplot of an episode of ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'', aptly named "The Frogger". Additionally, there is a GameShow based on and named after ''Frogger'' that premiered on streaming service Creator/{{Peacock}} in 2021.

Konami and Sega had a legal battle over who owned ''Frogger.'' Despite this, the original ''Frogger'' was the final licensed game ever produced and released for the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis in 1998 (as well as the [[UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES]] in the same year, where it is the final cartridge ever released, but only the penultimate official SNES release in any format - the title of final release proper goes to ''VideoGame/StarFox2'' in 2017 thanks to the SNES Classic) and Konami would bring installments of ''VideoGame/{{Contra}}'' and ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' to Sega consoles.

While the original game never got any in-arcade sequels, ''Frogger'' would receive many console and handheld installments that adapted the tile-hopping gameplay, and would use Frogger as the name for the player character. The most well-known of these are the Hasbro Interactive-published ''Frogger'' and ''Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge'', 3D games which feature Frogger and friends exploring levels to find five baby frogs. Konami would take over development and publishing for ''Frogger'' games on sixth-gen systems, starting with the poorly-received 3D platformer reboot ''Frogger: The Great Quest'' and then moving into the ''Frogger's Adventures'' series, which all used a similar design for Frogger and mostly similar play styles. This series would end after ''Frogger: Helmet Chaos'', and since then most ''Frogger'' games have been strictly arcade throwbacks, with the exception of the UsefulNotes/NintendoDS-exclusive spin-off ''My Frogger Toy Trials''.

[[folder:''Frogger'' (1997)]]
* TheArtifact: The game retains a pretty surprising amount of aspects from the original arcade game that many (particularly critics) argued didn't have a solid place in a home console game. For example, the TimedMission aspect remains despite how large some of the levels are and you still are sent back to the start every time you rescue a baby frog with no checkpoints. The sequel knocked out a lot of these aspects.
* BeeAfraid: Honey Bee Hollow (single-player) and Swarming Frogs (multiplayer).
* BlackoutBasement: Dark Dark Cavern, which requires you to eat several fireflies to be able to see farther.
* BraggingRightsReward: Technically in order to finish the game, all you need to do is [[spoiler:find the golden frogs in every zone and finish the last level. As such, any levels at and past where the golden frogs reside in each zone are, in all technicality, completely meaningless.]] For that reason, finishing all the levels counts as this.
* CutAndPasteEnvironments: Alongside the five retro levels, there are several stages that are just more difficult versions of preceding levels. A common element of these is that obstacles move much faster.
** Spinning Lillies is a rehash of Lily Islands, except beyond some altered level geometry and taking place as dusk, several extra hazards (a mower and several bulldogs) were added and, as the name implies, every lily pad spins. The area the red frog rested was raised, requiring the player to ride up to it with the assistance of two birds.
** Bow Wow Revenge is a recycled version of Bow Wow Falls, though it did add a new area in the bottom left corner of the map.
** Loonier Balloons is, quite obviously, a different version of Looney Balloons. Very little of it was changed but many of the paths leading to the frogs need to be taken differently.
** Boom Boom Barrel, a remix of Bang Bang Barrel. Beyond different lighting and different insects to collect, little has changed.
** Crumbled Point is a reused Cactus Point. The obstacle increase is turned up to eleven for this re-tread, though.
** The dreaded Big Boulder Alley, which takes Boulder Alley and ups the ante to the extreme. In addition to increasing the already annoying amount of obstacles, they even added enemies that weren't in Boulder Alley, and moved two of the baby frog locations to a widely expanded lower layer.
* ExcusePlot: Pretty much. The "plot" given in the manual makes very little sense, summing up as "Frogger died a long time ago and while he was gone, a bunch of baby frogs went missing. Now he's alive again and has to save them." But it still doesn't explain the more nonsensical elements of the game, such as how they ended up in the sewers and in the clouds.
* GiantSpider: The Cave Zone levels have a few, none more triumphant than in Webs Cavern.
* GoldenEnding: [[spoiler:No pun intended; getting all eight golden frogs allows you to see the game's ending upon finishing Tropical Trouble. If you miss any along the way, [[NoEnding you simply only get to see the credits and nothing else]].]]
* GrimyWater: In the sewer zone, and probably the only place where Frogger's SuperDrowningSkills are actually justified, since sewage actually ''would'' kill most living things.
* GuideDangIt:
** The game gives almost no indication that you're able to superhop on a few of the hedges in Mower Mania. The only hint that you can is that a few of the hedges are flat and recessed on the top, but if you don't have a keen eye for detail, it's incredibly easy to overlook.
** It is very easy to overlook the fact that one of the alligators that makes up the alligator bridge in Big Boulder Alley never goes under the water, even though he otherwise looks exactly the same as all the rest. That simple fact makes going across the bridge ''infinitely'' easier, though still not a cakewalk.
* InstantWinCondition: It doesn't matter what else is happening, once Frogger reaches a baby frog, that's victory (or 1/5 of it, anyway). Bees and hawks will halt their chase mid-flight and give up for no visible reason, because they can't do anything until Frogger respawns to go after the next baby.
* LivingMacGuffin: The golden frogs. Getting one of them unlocks a zone, and [[spoiler:getting all of them lets you see the game's ending.]]
* LosingHorns: A solo trombone jingle plays when you get game over. Expect to hear it a ''lot''.
* MacGuffinPersonReveal: [[spoiler:When you finish Tropical Trouble, the golden frogs are revealed to be this. If you missed any along the way, you don't get to see the ending.]]
* TheMaze:
** Webs Cavern includes a few mazes of webs to navigate through in order to rescue the baby frogs. Made interesting by the fact that you are in a ''very'' dark cave that progressively gets darker the more time you spend without eating fireflies.
** Lava Crush may count as well, as getting the green frog requires you to press certain switches in the correct order, and sometimes with careful timing.
* MeaninglessLives: You only have three lives (or five, in the PC port) so Game Overs can and do happen, but all that happens is you get spit back to the main menu, where you can restart the level you just died on. Might as well have just had infinite lives, since navigating through the menus to pick up where you left off is annoying, especially if it happens repeatedly. And it often does on the harder levels.
* MisbegottenMultiplayerMode: In a case of ExecutiveMeddling, Hasbro Interactive insisted the game needed to have a multiplayer mode, leading to one that feels quite tacked on as a result. The levels are quite difficult if you aren't familiar with the game mechanics, and one level in particular (Swarming Frogs) is going to be a CurbStompBattle if one of the players is already familiar with the game from single player mode. In one particularly bad case, Jungle Rumble has a single flag that is ''much'' harder to reach than the others, which can lead to matches that drag on forever due to everyone fighting for the one flag if all the others get taken first.
* NintendoHard: Oy. For starters, time limits are present on every level, so you can't afford to dawdle lest you die. For another thing, [[EverythingTryingToKillYou unless it's another frog, a switch, or a platform]], [[OneHitPointWonder a single touch from anything else will kill you]]. Third, you have to find each and every frog or start a new life [[CheckpointStarvation from the same starting point]]. And some of the levels are not only difficult, they're difficult and have gimmicks which will make them an utter nightmare. Uncanny Crusher, anyone?
* PoisonMushroom: There are a couple of red bugs around some stages which, if you eat them, subtract from the time limit. Another type of bug exists to do nothing but subtract from your current score.
* PowerupLetdown: Super Tongue is an almost completely pointless addition. Auto-Hop and Quick Jump both have their uses (despite their rarity), but Super Tongue just gives you a bit more reach on catching flies...which would be great, if it weren't for the fact that this is very seldom actually helpful. There's exactly ''one place'' in the entire game's set of 33 levels where you actually need it -- there's a 1-up just barely out of reach on Lily Islands. Otherwise though, its functionality goes almost completely unused.
* ShoutOut: The last level in the Sewer Zone is called [[Film/ReservoirDogs Reservoir Frogs]].
* SpritePolygonMix: The flies are all sprites in this game.
* StealthPun: The level Time Flies. At first it just seems like a flying pun because the majority of the level is spent riding on a flock of ducks, but it's actually more or less a pun on all the time-increasing flies scattered across the level.
* UnexpectedGameplayChange: Frogger Goes Skiing, where you, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin go skiing]].
[[/folder]]

* PoisonMushroom: There are a couple of red bugs around some stages which, if you eat them, subtract from the time limit. Another type of bug exists to do nothing subtract form your current score.

* SequelNumberSnarl: There are three different games called ''Frogger II'': A sequel to the original, a sequel to the first 3D ''Frogger'', and another sequel to the original, for Xbox Live Arcade.