Ardy Lightfoot

Exceedingly obscure Platform Game for the Super Nintendo, focusing around eponymous hero Ardy Lightfoot and Ridiculously Cute Critter Pec on a quest to retrieve a set of Mineral MacGuffins because... uh... well, we're not sure; though the game has a plot and cutscenes, there's no written dialogue, meaning it's easy to miss out on the plot. If Wikipedia is to believed, said MacGuffins are the shattered pieces of the sacred rainbow, and whoever obtains them gets one wish. It doesn't really matter, because who pays attention to the plot, anyway?

Ardy was released during the 90's, the height of the Mascot with Attitude craze. However, it was released after consumers had grown wise to the genre flooding, and Ardy, despite being a good game, became ignored. It's also worth mentioning that Ardy Lightfoot was published by Titus Software.

It's fairly standard platformer fare, but it's solid, well-made (if infuriatingly hard) stuff-- and the music is pretty cool, too.

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Tropes used in Ardy Lightfoot include:

• The Ace (Don Jacoby)
• Big Bad (Visconti)
• Defeat Means Friendship (Gilson the pirate owl, who becomes your ally as soon as you defeat him)
• The Dragon (Beecroft)
• Heroic Sacrifice (Don Jacoby He gets better. And then does it again at the very end.]])
• Interface Screw (the potions in the Mouse Trap level, which reverse left and right-- the only way to remedy them is to get the other potion a screen or so away. Over spikes of doom.)
• Mineral MacGuffin
• Mood Whiplash (For the first few levels of the game, it's fairly cartoony and upbeat. Then suddenly, you get eaten by a giant worm and your opponent is digested, door-nail dead. )
• More Teeth Than the Osmond Family (Pec. No, really.)
• Nintendo Hard
• Non-Human Sidekick (though Ardy himself isn't human, Pec is a super-deformed... penguin thing?)
• Pirates
• Projectile Platforms
• Ridiculously Cute Critter (Pec)
• Turns Red (Every boss save Beecroft)
• Viewers Are Goldfish (after Don Jacoby's heroic sacrifice, it flashes back to it. Roughly ten seconds after you see it. Oi.)
• What Could Have Been
• Womb Level (Level 6 - 'Eaten!', which is exactly what it sounds like)