Defenders of Dynatron City started out as a 1992 video game for the NES developed by Lucasfilm Games. It also got a six issue comic and an animated pilot to help with promotion... And then people actually played the game. To cut a long story short, the play experience everything had been building up to put a damper on whatever future the property might've had.
The setting is Dynatron City, the futuristic home of Proto-Cola, a drink that causes mutation, much to the delight of the consumer. Unfortunately, that's not what the Mad Scientist that created it was intending, so he falls back on the old standard of building a robot army to scare away city residents.
Some stuff happens and suddenly there is a team of super powered construction workers there to fight the bad guy. Including Jet Headstrong, Buzzsaw Girl, Toolbox, Ms. Megawatt, Monkey Kid, and Radium Dog.
Fun fact: The above image, as well as some of the comic series, were done by Steve Purcell early in his career with LucasArts.
Tropes appearing in Defenders Of Dynatron City include:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The cityscape art in the animated special full of little helicopters are done with some very primitive CGI rendering that looks nothing like the traditional animation making up the bulk of the show.
- Animesque: The animated pilot. Being animated by Spectrum Animation and directed by industry veteran Junji Nishimura helps.
- Badass in Distress: If one of the heroes is defeated, they're captured and held hostage, requiring you to rescue them before you can use them again.
- Cursed with Awesome: Proto-Cola was made to spread terror through the mutations it causes. People think it's awesome. Who doesn't want to have an extra pair of arms or be able to launch their own head across the room?
- Flying Face: Atom Ed, the Floating Head, who was just sitting around the villain's lab.
- Hitbox Dissonance: One of the most infamous examples of its console generation. The player can almost never score a hit on the enemies, who can almost always score a hit on the player. You might almost think it was The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard instead.
- Losing Your Head: Jet Headstrong can fire his head like a missile before re-attaching it back.
- The Mall: The Mega Mall.
- May Contain Evil: Proto-Cola and its mutating side-effects. Subverted as pretty much every single mutation is beneficial.
- Mecha-Mook: The villain's supported by an army of robot soldiers.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: While the other defenders were pretty well-defined, Toolbox's gimmick included producing whatever tool/gadget was handy at the moment. Such as a raygun that made attacking robots ballroom dance with each other, then fall down and explode.
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Nintendo Hard: Besides rather unforgiving mission design, the game is somewhat notorious for how hard it is to gauge whether the player's attacks will hit enemies. - One-Wheeled Wonder: Buzzsaw Girl, a mutant heroine whose lower body was a buzzsaw that functioned as a wheel.
- Retraux: Was made in the 90s, but deliberately made to look like the future as envisioned in the 50s.
- Strong Flesh, Weak Steel: The villain's robot soldiers turn out to be extremely easy to defeat in the pilot episode (which just rubs salt in the wound of how hard it is in the game).
- Timed Mission: All of the levels have a time limit. Usually one that leaves very little room for error, especially in later stages.
- Use Your Head: Jet Headstrong and Toolbox. For the former it's a missile, for the latter it's a giant hammer.
