Sandbox / Frogger Games

Frogger (1997)

Frogger is a 1997 3D reboot of the classic arcade game of the same name released for the PlayStation and Windows. The game was developed by SCE Cambridge Studio and published by Hasbro Interactive. The game is sometimes referred to as Frogger: He's Back! due to the tagline on the cover, but this is not considered an official subtitle.

The game plays very similarly to its arcade counterpart, as the player takes control of a frog and hops around in search of five baby frogs in each level. Movement is tile based, as the player can hop one tile at a time in any of the four cardinal directions by pressing the corresponding arrow button on their controller. The player must tap the arrow buttons repeatedly to hop around each stage to collect all of the baby frogs within a time limit, while avoiding all kinds of obstacles along the way.

The game starts off as a fairly straightforward 3D remake of the original arcade game. The first few stages recreate the famous level from the original game, with Frogger needing to cross a highway while avoiding getting run over by cars, before crossing a river by hopping across logs to avoid falling in the water, ultimately landing in one of the five ledges on the other side. However, after clearing all the retro levels, the game opens up into a more adventurous take on Frogger, with a wider variety of locations to explore, each with stage-specific gimmicks and hazards to keep the little frog on his toes.

In 1998, Frogger games were released on the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and Game Boy Color. While these versions all have covers that use the same artwork as this game, they are more straightforward ports of the arcade original and do not feature the new content created for this game. The Genesis and SNES versions are notable for being the final officially licensed games released for their respective systems in the US prior to the consoles being discontinued.

---

This version of Frogger contains the following tropes:

• The Artifact: 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 Timed Mission 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.
• Bee Afraid: Honey Bee Hollow (single-player) and Swarming Frogs (multiplayer).
• Blackout Basement: Dark Dark Cavern, which requires you to eat several fireflies to be able to see farther.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Technically in order to finish the game, all you need to do is 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.
• Cut and Paste Environments: 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.
• Excuse Plot: 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.
• Giant Spider: The Cave Zone levels have a few, none more triumphant than in Webs Cavern.
• Golden Ending: 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, you simply only get to see the credits and nothing else.
• Grimy Water: In the sewer zone, and probably the only place where Frogger's Super Drowning Skills are actually justified, since sewage actually would kill most living things.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • 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.
• Living MacGuffin: The golden frogs. Getting one of them unlocks a zone, and getting all of them lets you see the game's ending.
• Losing Horns: A solo trombone jingle plays when you get game over. Expect to hear it a lot.
• MacGuffin-Person Reveal: 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.
• The Maze:
  • 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.
• Meaningless Lives: 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.
• Misbegotten Multiplayer Mode: In a case of Executive Meddling, 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 Curb-Stomp Battle 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.
• Nintendo Hard: Oy. For starters, time limits are present on every level, so you can't afford to dawdle lest you die. For another thing, unless it's another frog, a switch, or a platform, a single touch from anything else will kill you. Third, you have to find each and every frog or start a new life 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?
• Poison Mushroom: 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.
• Power-Up Letdown: 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.
• Shout-Out: The last level in the Sewer Zone is called Reservoir Frogs.
• Sprite/Polygon Mix: The flies are all sprites in this game.
• Stealth Pun: 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.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Frogger Goes Skiing, where you, well, go skiing.

---

Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge and Frogger 2 (GBC)

Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge is the sequel to the 1997 version of Frogger (1997). It was developed by Blitz Games, published by Hasbro, and released in the year 2000 for the PlayStation, Sega Dreamcast, and Windows.

A crocodile named Swampy has learned about a new video game starring Frogger, a frog who had jumped on his back to cross a river in both the original arcade game and the 1997 reboot. Enraged by the frog's success, Swampy swears revenge on him. While Frogger is relaxing in the pond with his girlfriend Lillie and all of her baby siblings, Swampy sneaks in and kidnaps all the baby frogs. Now Frogger and Lillie have to follow Swampy on a wild goose chase through a variety of locations to save them all.

A game titled Frogger 2 was released for the Game Boy Color around the same time as the console versions, and uses the same cover art as them, minus the Swampy's Revenge subtitle. This version is a completely different game from the console game that plays more like an extended version of the original arcade game, though it features similar tile-hopping gameplay. Neither of these games should be confused for Frogger II: Threeedeep!, a sequel to the original arcade game released on 8-bit systems, or Frogger 2, a game released for the Xbox Live Arcade.

---

Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge and Frogger 2 contain the following tropes:

• Adapted Out: For some reason, all the cutscenes are missing from the PC version.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Frogger seems to have no trouble surviving being in space, despite having Super Drowning Skills.
• Black Comedy: Basically everything Swampy does involving the baby frogs, including using one as a bludgeon, tossing them all over the place to distract Frogger and Lillie, terrorizing them on a make-believe TV show, and preparing to process and ship them as food.

• Collection Sidequest: There are 25 coins in every level, and collecting all of them unlocks one of a long list of bonuses.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Swampy is an Ascended Extra of one of the alligators of the previous games that Frogger had hopped onto. His response to that frog getting fame and recognition? Kidnap all the baby frogs and go out of his way to try to kill Frogger, in the name of Revenge!
• Distaff Counterpart: This game introduces Frogger's girlfriend Lillie, a pink female frog with blue hair she wears in pigtails. Gameplay-wise, she is identical to Frogger himself.
• 11th-Hour Ranger: A baby blue frog (referred to as "Tad" in the game's multiplayer mode) takes up the reins for the final stage in the story mode after Frogger and Lillie get captured.

• Idiot Ball: 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.
• Indy Escape: Boulder Canyon plays this up, where you have to rescue a baby frog on the trap that sets off the boulder.

• The Many Deaths of You: This game took the opposite direction of the Family Unfriendly Deaths mentioned above and went more comical, such as Frogger inflating after getting stung by a bee or being flung up to the camera.
• Minecart Madness: The mines provides a section where you hop across three mine carts to avoid the obstacles.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: The main antagonist of the game is Swampy, a crocodile who is angry that Frogger is in a successful game series, so he kidnaps the baby frogs out of spite.
• Retraux: The Super Retro Levels are done entirely in retraux style, with the cars, water, logs, turtles, and basically everything except the frogs themselves looking exactly like they did in the original arcade game.
• Timed Mission: Averted surprisingly, unless you are on Hard Mode or are playing the Super Retro Levels.
• The Unfought: Swampy is never fought directly. He does manage to be a "Get Back Here!" Boss in spite of it, though, as one of the space levels involves pursuing him on a rocket as he drops obstacles and baby frogs.

Frogger 2 (GBC)

• Adapted Out: Swampy, despite being the villain of the console version, doesn't appear in this one at all, hence his removal from the game's title.
• Bee Afraid:
• Checkpoint Starvation: While the player does not have to replay the entire game up to the point they lost if they get Game Over, they will have to restart at either the beginning of the world they lost in, or at the halfway point, if they made it that far, effectively needing to clear three stages in a row without running out of lives in order to get a checkpoint.
• Frictionless Ice: The Ice Caves are covered in icy platforms. If Frogger hops on any of these, he will uncontrollably move forward until he either falls into a water pit, or stops on a non-icy surface. The primary challenge of the world involves jumping between these safe spots in the right order.
• Game-Over Man: Frogger himself, strangely. The Game Over screen shows him holding a sign with the words "Game Over" on it.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: Every level contains 16 gems that give the player points for collecting them. If the player collects them all, they will get a gem marker for that level on the level select screen, and their timer will be refilled, which, since they are almost certainly at the end of the level, will result in a much greater time bonus.
• Lethal Lava Land:
• Minecart Madness:
• No Animals Were Harmed:
• Nostalgia Level: The first world is heavily inspired by the original arcade game, consisting of a series of roads you cross while avoiding different vehicles that travel by in a straight line, and rivers you cross by hopping across logs and turtles to avoid falling in the water.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World:
• Thanking the Viewer
• Timed Mission: Every level gives Frogger a limited amount of time to reach the goal. The timer can be refilled by finding an hourglass power up, or by collecting all 16 gems.
• Underground Level: The Gator King's Lair

---

Frogger: The Great Quest and Frogger Advance

Frogger: The Great Quest is a video game in the Frogger series developed by Papa Yeti Studios and published by Konami in 2001 for the PlayStation 2. Following the success of Hasbro's Frogger reboot duology on the PlayStation, The Great Quest was an attempt to reboot the series and bring it more in line with other 3D platform games of the era, and redesigned Frogger to be a more anthropomorphic character.

Frogger, living in Firefly Swamp with his best buddy Lumpy the Toad, has grown bored of his daily life and wants to go on an adventure outside the swamp. One day, a pair of young boys wander into the swamp for some fishing, and Frogger overhears them discussing the classic fairy tale of The Frog Prince, where a princess kisses a frog and turns him into a prince. Frogger, liking this story, wishes on a falling star to find a princess who can turn him into a prince. His wish is heard by the Fairy Frogmother, who grants Frogger magical powers to help him fulfill his wish, and so he sets off out of the swamp in search of his princess.

The Great Quest completely abandons the tile-based movement of both the PlayStation games and the original arcade game, instead presenting a more conventional 3D platform game, borrowing quite a bit from Rayman 2: The Great Escape.

The following year, a game titled Frogger Advance: The Great Quest would see release on the Game Boy Advance. This game follows an abridged version of the console version's plot, but condenses the gameplay into a sidescrolling 2D platform game. Another GBA game, Frogger's Adventures: Temple of the Frog, released in the same month as The Great Quest and features a variation of Frogger's new design from it, alongside many of the characters the game introduced.

"I wish I may, I wish I must, find some tropes before I bust!"

• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: If Frogger runs out of health, he respawns a short distance away, and enemies don't regain any health in the meantime.
• Fairy Godmother: Spoofed with the Fairy Frogmother, a frog fairy who descends from the sky after Frogger wishes on a falling star. She grants him a variety of magical powers to aid him on his quest.
• Foo Fu: Frogger had a melee combat ability called Frog Fu where when he gets close to an enemy or object he attacks it.
• Gameplay Grading: Frogger Advance gives the player a letter grade at the end of each stage based on three different criteria; the number of coins collected, the number of gems collected, and the number of lives lost. Frogger needs to get an A+ on every level in order to get the best ending.
• Inflating Body Gag: Frogger has the ability to inflate his throat like a balloon to gently float downward while falling.
• Justified Extra Lives: One of the three gifts the Fairy Frog Mother gives to Frogger in the opening cutscene is that he cannot die until his quest is complete, explaining why he always revives after losing all his health.
• Oddball in the Series: The game plays differently from any main Frogger game (it features no grid-hopping, not even as a minigame), and its universe is a fantasy world that leans into a Fractured Fairy Tale. Frogger also acts very differently from how he is portrayed in the games before and after it.
• Save the Princess: This is Frogger's goal, but only by proxy: he needs to find a specific princess to get kissed by, and the one he needs happens to be imprisoned in her own castle by the Magical General of Light and Industry.
• Sequel Hook: In the final cutscene, the Witch from Dr. Starkenstein's castle interrupts the "The End" display, saying "I don't think so!" and cackling. After the credits, there's also some clips of Frogger back in his frog form and the Magical General alive and well. None of this would be followed up on since The Great Quest didn't get any direct sequels.
• Shout-Out: The boss of Dr. Starkenstein's Castle is a robotic chicken monster named Metal Chicken Ray, referencing another Konami property.
• Wish Upon a Shooting Star: Frogger wishes to find a princess on a shooting star that flies by Firefly Swamp, which summons his Fairy Frog Mother to aid him.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The game's story is a spoof of The Frog Prince, with Frogger overhearing the original tale and making a wish to find a princess who can turn him into a human prince.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: A literal case. Frogger meets several princesses throughout the game, including a fairy princess and a vampire princess, but none of them are the princess he needs to fulfill his wish, so they just point him in the right direction. One of the princesses isn't a person at all, just a boat named "River Princess" that Frogger gets confused by.

Frogger's Adventures 2: The Lost Wand

Frogger Beyond

A little funk, hip-hop, bluegrass, rock n' roll

Jumpin' and bouncin' since I was a tadpole

The flyest amphibian, chill with the fish

I can bounce 'cross the road but I won't get squished

I get jumpy with my best friend Lumpy

Mr. D and his crew wanna bump me

F-R-O-double G-E-R

I'm relaxin, cause I'm a superstar!

The Theme Tune Rap

• A Birthday, Not a Break: The game takes place on Frogger's birthday, and now that he's old enough to transition to adulthood, he has to spend the day enduring the challenges the Frog Elder Council sends his way in order to earn his rite of passage.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Frogger games usually require the right timing to hop or jump to a moving tile without falling into a pit. Frogger Beyond is slightly different: if Frogger is in line with a platform he is jumping to, he will adjust in the air to land on it no matter what. However, trying to jump early doesn't work anymore, which can cause Frogger to clip through platforms and fall into the abyss even if it looks like he made the jump. Helmet Chaos also includes this course-correction, but still lets Frogger time his jumps like normal.
• No Antagonist: Frogger Beyond is the only game in the series with no villain, since the story focuses on Frogger's rite of passage. It's also the only game to not end with a final boss.
• Theme Tune Rap: The title screen features a Frogger-themed rap song as its music. This same song plays over some of the menus.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: The Mountain world has segments that move away from the tile-hopping gameplay to present other kinds of challenges, such as snowboarding and minecart riding.

Frogger's Adventures: The Rescue

• The Bus Came Back: After having mostly disappeared after Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge, Frogger's girlfriend Lily returns in this game, sporting a new anthropomorphic design to match the rest of the characters.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: This game marks the debut of Dr. Wani, an evil crocodile who leads an army known as T.R.I.P. (Tyrannical Reptiles In Power), and wants to take over Firefly Swamp and turn everyone into subordinates. He will go on to become a recurring antagonist in the next handful of Frogger games.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Dr. Wani leads a whole organization of evil crocodile minions, named T.R.I.P. (Tyrannical Reptiles In Power).

Frogger: Ancient Shadow

• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: The opening cutscene of Ancient Shadow begins with Frogger relaxing in a chair and listening to a slightly muffled version of the title screen/main menu theme on a radio.
• Ground Pound: Frogger gets this move in Ancient Shadow and Helmet Chaos, which can press switches and reveal secrets. According to a letter from Berry in Ancient Shadow, she can't use this move because "the circus has an insurance policy that prevents me from smashing things with my butt. Besides, it's rather unladylike."
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Dr. Wani in Ancient Shadow and Helmet Chaos wears a gothic coat and cape, but leaves his legs and feet uncovered.
• Heart Container: "Maximum life boosters" in Ancient Shadow; three are bought from Mohan's store, and one is received from Berry in a hidden cutscene. Each one increases Frogger's health by one, starting at four hits and ending at eight.
• Ship Tease: In Ancient Shadow, there's a hidden cutscene where Frogger spends some time alone with Berry and receives a maximum life booster from her. According to its description, "The secret ingredient is love."
• Wall Crawl: Berry, as an Amazon tree frog, has the ability to stick to and climb up walls, allowing her to reach places Frogger can't.

Frogger: Helmet Chaos

• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Some of the paths in Helmet Chaos lead to levels where you play as Frogger's friends Lumpy and Berry. Lumpy can turn into a ball to move separately from the grid and bowl over enemies, while Berry can climb on specific walls.
• Heart Container: Flies in Helmet Chaos increase Frogger's maximum health by one. He starts with four pieces of health and has a possible total of sixteen, though reaching this may not always be possible on particular routes.
• Inflating Body Gag: Lumpy's body inflates into a large ball after he eats some berries he finds while looking for Berry's sister. This becomes a gameplay mechanic whenever the player gets to control him, letting him roll up slopes and defeat certain enemies by inflating into a sphere at will.
• Mondegreen Gag: Ronin, Dr. Wani's dragon, has a Running Gag of mishearing what other characters are saying because of his headphones, repeating it back in a mangled form. Right before his boss battle, Frogger catches on and says a mondegreen word-salad so that Ronin will hear the right thing instead.
• Remixed Level: Of a sort. Helmet Chaos has levels that are occasionally reused between alternate routes, but with different layouts for enemies and items.
• Retraux: Helmet Chaos has an unlockable Frogger minigame where everything is rendered in the style of the original arcade game... except the player characters, who still use models.
• Womb Level: Helmet Chaos has a stage that ends with Frogger falling into a river as a huge fish swims by. A subsequent image after the level complete screen shows him being swallowed, and the following level and boss are set inside the fish.

My Frogger: Toy Trials

• The Artifact: The Ninja costume and Afro costume respectively grant Frogger the ability to Wall Crawl 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 Continuity Reboot and doesn't feature either as playable characters (They're still around, but only as NPCs).
• Clothes Make the Superman: Throughout the game, Frogger can obtain costumes that give him new abilities necessary to traverse levels, such as a ninja suit that lets him stick to walls or a firefighter suit that gives him immunity to flame hazards.
• Human-Focused Adaptation: While Frogger and the other toys are sentient and the focus of the playable sections, the main plot revolves around the human characters that own the toys.
• King Incognito: 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.
• Living Toys: 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.
• Meaningless Lives: There are challenge stages in the game that swap your regular health meter with a three-life limit, but you can just retry the stage if you lose them all. Furthermore, when you lose a life during the stage, you restart from the beginning rather than from a checkpoint.
• Quest for a Wish: The grand prize for winning the toy tournament is having one wish granted. 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.
• Terrible Artist: 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. It's later revealed that the drawing was perfectly fine, and the mix-up was actually sabotage.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: 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. 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.
• Worthless Treasure Twist: 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.

---