Floigan Bros. (subtitled Episode 1) is a late-era Sega Dreamcast video game, released in 2001.
The evil Baron Malodorous is planning to steal the land occupied by the Floigan Bros. junkyard for himself. It's up to the small and resourceful Hoigle Floigan (Jason Marsden), and his big and loveable brother Moigle (Frank Welker), to defend their property from Malodorous and his gang of Mercenary Kittens. Moigle is developing a mysterious secret machine that might help them in this purpose, but requires some pieces scattered around the junkyard. Together, the brothers must traverse the area and recover the necessary parts.
The game can in many ways be considered a love letter to Golden Age cartoon shorts and classically mismatched comedy pairs such as Laurel and Hardy. Expect liberal amounts of Slapstick and Cartoon Physics. The game's humor and visuals, which notably avoid the use of Cel Shading, were a point of praise for many critics.
Another point of interest is Moigle's AI. The player only directly controls Hoigle, who can interact in several ways with his brother. He can play games with him, bring him food, hug him... or insult him and punch him to make him sad and angry respectively. In fact, toying with poor Moigle's emotions is more often than not necessary to solve puzzles and progress in the game. Depending on how you've treated him along the game, one player's Moigle can end up being significantly different from another's. Indeed, back when the game's servers were online, players used to have an option to trade Moigles.
It is also notable for being one of the first games to include Downloadable Content, in the form of FMTs (Fun Moigle Things). That is, for each month of the year, a new downloadable gizmo or mechanic with which to customize Moigle would be released for download. Due to the game's unfortunate release date, it is believed not all of these were initially released in the first place. However, as they were on-disk DLC, an enterprising group of gamers, with help from the game's developers, unlocked them all in 2017
, 16 years after the game's original release.
As the title indicates, this was not intended to be the Floigans' only outing. Early in the Dreamcast's lifespan, a cloud of hype surrounded the game, being billed as "revolutionary". Bernie Stolar, then-president of Sega of America, went as far as saying that Floigan Bros. would "do for SEGA what Mario did for Nintendo". An entire franchise, containing many more episodes, was planned. Alas, it was not to be. The game was stuck in Development Hell for a couple of years, and together with the Dreamcast's short lifespan, it meant it only got released for a bargain price after the console's discontinuation, when interest had mostly waned.
This game provides examples of:
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: As obnoxious Moigle can be, the ending reveals that the surprise machine you've been working to build all through the game is a firework for Hoigle's birthday.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Moigle to Hoigle. He's childish, sometimes uncooperative, blames Hoigle when things go wrong, and likes to rub it in when he wins at games.
- Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: There's magpies around the junkyard you can slap around, and in one minigame, are required to. Malodorous' cats also get some abuse, but in their case it's entirely deserved.
- Cats Are Mean: Baron Malodorous has a number of mean cats working for him, including some deceptively cute ones.
- Cats Have Nine Lives: Some of Baron Malodorous' cats throw bombs. Because of this trope, you have to throw the bombs back at them nine times. You even see their soul fly up each time they are blown up.
- Cool Airship: Baron Malodorous has one that he flies over the Floigans' junkyard, and that he drops cats from. It gets popped by Moigle's firework in the ending.
- Down in the Dumps: The games takes place entirely in and around the Floigans' junkyard.
- Every Man Has His Price: Moigle will award you points depending on how you perform in the different minigames against him, or when you find a new machine part. You can then give Moigle these points to make him do things or learn new skills. The option to do this is literally called "bribe".
- Fat and Skinny: Hoigle is short and thin, while Moigle is tall and fat.
- Femme Fatale: Parodied with the Cute Kitten, who has the same attitude while using her cuteness instead of her feminine charms.
- Genius Ditz: Moigle. Hoigle clearly has more general smarts than him, but it's him who is engineering the machine you're trying to build. Hoigle insists he's a genius.
- Mood-Swinger: Moigle's an emotional guy. As Hoigle, you're expected to take advantage of this to advance in the game.
- Ocular Gushers: Moigle when he cries. They're enough to fill a small creek.
- Old Save Bonus: This was intended to be implemented if further episodes were ever made. You would have been able to import Moigle's learned skills into the next games.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Moigle can apparently communicate with mice. He enlists their help to find the machine's parts.
- Team Pet: Spitz, the Floigans' bulldog. He's mostly on your side, though he can become cranky and aggressive if scratched by cats.
- Trampoline Tummy: At certain points, you have to run in circles around Moigle to make him fall on the ground dizzily, then use his belly like this to reach tall places.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Moigle fears spiders. Fortunately, you help him overcome it during the course of the game.
