With his green color and those ears, Zool looks like a goblin ninja, which sounds like a very interesting concept to explore. Imagine a Castlevania or Ghosts 'n Goblins world but with a ninja protagonaist. That would have been cool.
Forgotten Gaming Mascots #6: Zool
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 On 02/06/2021 at 10:23 AM by The Last Ninja See More From This User » |
Games: Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension (SNES, Gen, GG, GB, computers/1992), Zool 2 (Amiga, Jag, Blackberry, MS-DOS/1993)
Mascot for: Gremlin Graphics
Zool was created specifically to compete against Sonic, which is probably why Zool moves very quickly. This has been a criticism by some such as EGM, which stated "your character moves much too fast and with little control." The game does have some mini-games which gives the player some variety of gameplay. The second game is arguably better than the first, as it has two protagonists (a female counterpart of Zool named Zooz) and a two player mode. Both of these games are decent, so the question is, why was Zool eventually discarded as a mascot and gaming franchise?
What happened: Gremlin Graphics, the developer for Zool, went on to make other games after Zool 2. In 1999, they were bought by Infogrames and helped to make all kinds of computer games. Despite success with Zool, they have never returned to the franchise. Although ninjas are always cool, Zool seems to be lacking personality and his design is certainly strange. He doesn't have the appeal of Ninja Turtles or Goemon, for example. It would have been cool if they had tried to make a Zool cartoon, but truth is, we will never know if that would have worked or not. Zool appears to be lost to time.
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