Referred to as the ‘Forgotten Mascot’
Astro Bot was released just a few days ago on September 6, 2024. Since then, the game has received almost universal praise via very impressive review scores.
We recently learned that there are some fighting game references contained within Astro Bot. Under certain circumstances, a bot dressed up as Guilty Gear’s Sol Badguy can be located.
Additionally, the player can locate other bots dressed up as Street Fighter’s Ryu and Ken, as well as Tekken’s Kazuya Mishima. Should Ryu or Ken be interacted with, they’ll perform iconic intro animations from Street Fighter Alpha and Street Fighter 3: Third Strike.
However, it turns out that there’s one more character that technically has ties to a fighting game that can be found within Astro Bot. Perhaps more accurately, this character serves as the final boss of a platform brawler released on the PlayStation 3 on November 20, 2012.
Indeed, players would be matched up against Polygon Man as the arcade mode’s final boss. Generally speaking, Polygon Man would fight the player through polygonal recreations of the playable roster.
While the player dealt with Polygon Man’s minions, Polygon Man himself would transform into various stage hazards that exclusively affected the opponent. Once all of his minions were defeated in a round, Polygon Man would revert back to his original form, then attempt to slam into the opponent, leaving a wide opening for a counterattack.
It’s certainly interesting to note that Polygon Man himself was incapable of eliminating stocks from the player. Instead, this was done by his minions due to the nature of the game’s mechanics.
Overall, Polygon Man wasn’t all that threatening as a final boss, but he brought a lot of character to the table with his voiced lines. When he wasn’t attacking, he was often taunting the opponent through words.
Of course, Polygon Man was actually created around 1995 as a mascot in hopes of appealing to young North American gamers. However, the character was quickly shelved as the Japanese board of PlayStation at the time didn’t particularly like him as the mascot.
Needless to say, Astro Bot itself refers to Polygon Man through the title of “Forgotten Mascot.” A rather fitting name for a character with a history that only a small subset of gamers are probably aware of.
When interacted with, Polygon Man will break off into multiple polygons before reforming himself. Otherwise, he can generally be seen laughing at the player. Check it all out below:
OMG POLYGON MAN!!! I love this guy!! Reminds me of the days when I played PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale as a kid!! They really should make a sequel!#AstroBot #PS5 #PlayStation #GabbFrogClips pic.twitter.com/aIzyX29vIP
— Gabb Frog (@GabbFrog) September 7, 2024
For the Astro Bot video game, it features several cameos of games that has been featured within PlayStation’s system history. This includes fighting game characters including:
-Guilty Gear’s Sol Badguy
-PSASBR’s Polygon Man
-Street Fighter’s Ryu & Ken
-Tekken’s Kazuya Mishima pic.twitter.com/QFoDgMZVvw— Fighting Game Anniversaries (@FGAnniversaries) September 6, 2024