YMMV / Frogger

Frogger (1997) has its own page here.

For the series as a whole:

• Spiritual Successor: The Australian mobile game Crossy Road. It's the same concept, but with a large cast and an endless, randomly generated level. Lampshaded by the unlockable Doge character from the above game; "So clone" will appear on the screen occasionally, aside from other things. Also, to a lesser extent, Blitz' Zapper, which features similar grid-based tile-hopping gameplay to their earlier title Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge.

The original arcade game

• Covered Up: Most American players may not recognize "Inu no Omawari-san", which is a traditional Japanese nursery rhyme. In this game, it is used as the "game start" jingle. Also the four anime themes as mentioned later.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The game was and is far more popular in the West than in its native Japan, to the point that most entries after the first have been outsourced to Western developers.
• I Am Not Shazam: The frog's name is not Frogger (at least it wasn't originally). You're trying to get five different frogs to safety in each level, so actually you're playing as multiple frogs that are unnamed. Later games—starting with the first sequel, ThreeeDeep!, in 1984—did make the game about one frog though and thus that was adopted as his official name, leading to some confusion about the premise of the original arcade game. The 1997 game retained the original's style of gameplay despite now being about one frog, meaning he apparently teleports back to the starting point every time he rescues a baby frog.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • The main gameplay music of the original arcade game is an almost note-for-note knockoff of the theme to the 1977 anime Rascal the Raccoon.
  • All of the music in the GBA port (which was part of a compilation), even the non-copyrighted music.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: If you're savvy enough about Japanese culture, this will most likely be the first thing that pops into your head after playing the game a bit, given that most of the music in the game are lifted either from Japanese nursery rhymes or kodomomuke anime.

Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge

• Contested Sequel: It has been argued whether the Sequel Difficulty Drop was needed, or if the Nintendo Hard nature of the first game is what made it good. Critics, however, called it a Surprisingly Improved Sequel (see Critical Dissonance above).
• Moral Event Horizon: Most of Swampy's actions are Played for Laughs as he recklessly mishandles the baby frogs all over the place, though none actually die from any of it. Then his grand plan is unveiled: he's going to use an underground processing facility to turn them into Swampy Cakes, profiting off of Frogger and Lillie's children as meals. And all because Frogger hopped on his head in the original arcade game!
• Nightmare Fuel: Some of the enemies found in the game could be considered off-putting and creepy, especially by younger players. These include simpler enemy types such as huge insects (often in large numbers), to more bizarre ideas, like mummified kangaroo things, brains connected to propellers with crudely drawn faces (?), and monkeys who appear to have been experimented on, complete with wide, crazed grins. Perhaps the two most memorable enemies are both found in the last few levels of the game - knight statues with red eyes that attempt to slice Frogger in half with their axes (said axes even being coated with blood), and an absolutely terrifying blue ghost that won't stop chasing Frogger unless certain conditions are met (either reaching a certain point in the level or collecting a baby frog nearby).
• Polished Port: The PC port polished up the visuals and performance from the PS1 original, and the Dreamcast version is basically 1:1 to the PC port. About the only things missing are the idle background groove after getting a level's results jingle, and the moving water surface loading screens.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: This one is generally much milder and tamer compared to its Nintendo Hard predecessor, mainly because the levels are now linear and the baby frogs serve as checkpoints. Also, the levels are filled with extra lives and you now get a move that lets you hop across two squares at once.

Frogger: The Great Quest

• Accidental Innuendo: You'd almost be convinced every line was intended to be taken a different way considering how frequently it happens, but probably the most ridiculous example is in the intro cutscene:
  Frogger: I wish I may, I wish I must, to find a princess before I bust!
• Audience-Alienating Premise: The sudden shift away from the tile hopping to full-on 3D platforming alienated tons of fans of the series. The tile hopping was the exact aspect that made the games stand out to begin with, and they certainly hadn't pushed the concept all the way yet when this came out, plus the market was quite saturated with B-grade 3D platformers at the time, so it's a wonder why they thought this would be a game-selling concept. Of course, that also is assuming the ugly art style that is evident from the front cover wasn't enough to turn you away to begin with.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The fight against Mr. D ends with him being revealed to be another Frogger, in a rather out-of-place and bizarre The Empire Strikes Back reference.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: A common criticism, since enemies slice off little to no health and Death Is a Slap on the Wrist.
• Nightmare Fuel: Aside from the models of some of the NPCs that give off an unintentional form of this, plenty of the enemies are rather freaky in design, largely due to the art style.
• So Bad, It's Good: Despite being regarded as one of the worst Frogger games, a lot of people have found plenty of ironic enjoyment with the game. Between the hilariously terrible voice acting and the writing that frequently borders on Accidental Innuendo, the obnoxious sound design, the poor level layouts, and everything in between, it's a game that has to be seen to be believed.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Just about everything, really. The game is notorious for having an absolutely hideous art style, with it being the only contributing factor to why the enemies might scare you, as they otherwise pose little to no threat.
  • Frogger was made to be more human-like... a little too human-like, his non-frog teeth being a contributing factor.
  • Many of the NPCs are real eyesores to look at, having wide eyes with shoddy textures that make them appear like a wooden doll. The fairies especially, with the females suffering from the same problems as the humans, and one of the males looking more like an evil imp/goblin you're supposed to be disgusted with.

Frogger's Adventures series

• That One Boss: The boss for the fire world in Frogger Beyond. This three-phase fight suffers Checkpoint Starvation, relies on a randomized order to hit switches in across the four corners of the map, has moving platforms that force you to stop and wait when you may potentially be on the run from the deadly fire, and the third phase has an incredibly bad case of Guide Dang It! with respect to the attack pattern — unlike the first two phases where running away was enough to avoid it, here you have to perform a Violation of Common Sense and stand perfectly still, wait for the attack, and hop one space away immediately after, something that runs completely contrary to everything the player has learned so far. When you're a One-Hit-Point Wonder, this is a pretty fatal design choice.
• That One Level: The first snow level in Frogger Beyond is atrocious. The level begins with usual platforming, but a minute into the level it undergoes an Unexpected Gameplay Change in the form of Minecart Madness. The section goes on for an eternity, the minecart has extremely touchy and inconsistent speeding up and slowing down that makes jumps extremely annoying to time, the timing of them requires extreme precision, and you remain a One-Hit-Point Wonder despite the section clearly not being designed around that at all.

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