During the mascot craze of the 1990s, where every publisher seemingly invented its own anthropomorphic animal in an attempt to establish a franchise, Sunsoft introduced Aero the Acrobat, a circus-performing bat. Aero battled clowns, jugglers, and other amusing adversaries while leaping across trapezes, bouncing on trampolines, and shooting out of cannons. The bat would later ditch the circus in favor of an action-packed sequel, and even inspire a spin-off called Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel. Like most mascots, however, the bat lacked direction and failed to take flight.