When Goku fuses with Rambo.
- Professor DANIEL GENBREAK, well-known as a brilliant but eccentric genetic designer, is on the brink on solving what will be his highest achievement yet in a current laboratory project.
GENBREAK is banished from the labs accused of having deviated from the experiment to one which could put the WORLD IN DANGER by the creation of a mass of uncontrollable beings...
Blind with rage on account of his dismissal, GENBREAK decides to make by the thousands his evil creations, spreading panic and destruction...
Thereby the NEW LIFE LABORATORIES develop a powerful vaccine superior to the rest of the experiments; an ANTIDOTE for the evil "GENBREAK VIRUS" which will later be named...
Thunder Hoop. Well, that's what the game's title is.
Thunder Hoop is a 1992 arcade Run-and-Gun-platformer hybrid made by Spanish company Gaelco (the same guys behind Biomechanical Toy), one of the company's many titles released during its peak of operations during the 90s.
As narrated by the opening, in the future a rogue geneticist named Dr. DANIEL GENBREAK has unleashed his creations on humanity, and to counter Genbreak's creations, a top-secret Super-Soldier research called the "Thunder Hoop" Project is developed. Said project manifests into a humanoid form as a teenager, albeit one with superhuman strength, agility and stamina, and the ability to launch energy blasts from his hands. After escaping the lab he's created in, Thunder Hoop makes a beeline for Genbreak's mutant-infested laboratories to put an end to the mutation outbreak.
A sequel is released a couple years later, called Thunder Hoop 2 (or Thunder Hoop Strikes Back). In-universe, a decade has passed since Genbreak Lab's destruction, but Dr. Genbreak, having survived the events of the first game, is back for revenge. A now-adult Thunder Hoop must fight him again. Said sequel forgoes most of the platforming elements from the original, making it a far more straightforward Run-and-Gun actioner.
A third game, Thunder Hoop III, was planned, but cancelled in the last minute for reasons unknown.
The "Thunder Hoop" duology contains examples of:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The second stage is set in one such sewer below Genbreak Labs, infested with assorted monsters and containing multiple platforms Thunder Hoop can leap around.
- Acid Pool: Green pools of acid in Genbreak Labs are a recurring hazard in both games, and dropping in any of them will lead to Thunder Hoop losing a life.
- Alien Blood: Mutant enemies in both games tends to bleed green or blue when killed.
- Animation Bump: Strikes Back has far more crisp, improved animation compared to the first, and the graphics used for enemies and the titular character's attacks took a massive leap ahead.
- Asteroids Monster: The Hambur, a gigantic floating lizard-head mutant enemy requiring multiple hits to kill, who upon being shot to bits will explode into a dozen smaller floating Hamburs. The smaller versions of Hamburs, however, die in one hit.
- Badasses Wear Bandanas: Thunder Hoop, the player character, and an all-powerful mutant-killing badass, certainly wears one, in both games.
- Bat People: One of the bosses in the sequel, a humanoid-bat mutant who spends the whole stage swooping around Thunder Hoop while breathing green fireballs.
- Battle Aura: Happens whenever Thunder Hoop charges himself when his power is at maximum, in both games, which coats him in a golden sphere of energy that damages everything in his way, though the sphere disappears once Thunder Hoop's power runs low.
- Beast Man: Unlike the first game where the enemies and bosses are gigantic monsters, the sequel has many animal-human hybrids, from frog, lizard and dog-people mooks to the turtle-man and bat-human bosses.
- Blob Monster: A recurring enemy type Thunder Hoop frequently encounters, from small, crawling gelatinous ("Babosa") easy-to-kill blue blobs with eyes to slightly larger green blobs with two legs ("Bouble").
- Bloodier and Gorier: Strikes Back is noticeably more violent and gorier than its predecessor. The original game's comic-like nature is all but gone, and the onscreen deaths are far more graphic and gorn-tastic.
- Body of Bodies: Skuas from the first game, an amalgamation of insect, reptilian and assorted organs into a monstrous form. Thankfully it's tethered to the ground and easy to hit, though it still has Combat Tentacles.
- Born as an Adult:
- Downplayed with Thunder Hoop himself, who's born as a teenager.
- Played straight for several enemies birthed from incubation pods or mutant eggs, who immediately attack Thunder Hoop on sight.
- Camera Abuse: The second game's ending cinematics concludes with Thunder Hoop picking up and throwing the stone slab that says "R.I.P. Genbreak" towards the camera. Complete with cracking lens!
- Captain Ersatz: Thunder Hoop is a rather blatant one to Goku, best described as "an Akira Toriyama protagonist re-designed by Rob Liefeld".
- Creepily Long Arms: The human-amphibian boss in the sequel has elongated, webbed claws which he will use to claw at Thunder Hoop from a distance.
- Deadly Disc:
- One of the mutant creatures, Madmachine, having fused itself with a lumberjack vehicle, has a disc attached to its front, which it uses either to slice up Thunder Hoop while ramming towards him or launch the saw from a distance (and then regenerate a new one).
- The sequel has a red-skinned, winged reptilian monster boss who wields a circular disc in its claws, which it uses to attack Thunder Hoop.
- Disney Death: The second game's last stage ends with Thunder Hoop finally destroying Dr. Genbreak's final creation, blowing up the entire lab in the process, with Genbreak getting blown up in the quarters as the entire base is exploding around Thunder Hoop before the screen fades to black, leaving the audience to wonder what happened to him. It is implied that he escaped from the lab afterwards, because after the end credits appear over a black screen with a stone slab that says "R.I.P. Genbreak", he is shown picking up the slab and throwing it into the camera.
- Down in the Dumps: The stage immediately following the sewers is set in a gigantic junkyard filled with mutants.
- Escaped from the Lab: In the backstory, Thunder Hoop, the artificially-created superhuman, managed to escape Genbreak Labs in the middle of an outbreak.
- Evilutionary Biologist: The game's main villain, Dr. Daniel Genbreak, is a rogue geneticist whose experiments got him sacked from the scientific community. He then unleashes the legions of creatures he created in his secret lab in response, leading to a massive outbreak of mutated monstrosities all over the city.
- Fartillery: The blue, bipedal "Peth" enemies, mutants who fart weak projectiles at Thunder Hoop as an attack. They're truly one of the most hilariously outrageous enemy types in the game.
- Fiendish Fish: Fishes appearing throughout the game are all enemies, which attacks Thunder Hoop on sight, whether they're the flying fishes on ground environments or underwater levels.
- Flying Seafood Special:
- There are multiple areas containing flying fishes (called "Flyfish", yeah pretty creative) as enemies, even though most of these are absolutely far away from water. Somehow.
- The sequel has winged Psycho Electric Eel enemies.
- Frog Men: Frog-human mutants are another recurring enemy introduced in the sequel.
- Goomba Springboard:
- You might notice enemies tend to show up in large numbers in certain areas (and moving in a cyclical pattern), for good reasons. Most of these areas either contains hidden ledges or bonuses on top of the screen, without any platforms available, so instead Thunder Hoop will simply jump on enemies' heads (rather than blasting them from a distance) to gain higher ground.
- The first game have a long corridor where the ground is toxic waste, with platforms too far apart for Thunder Hoop to cross. But conveniently there are plenty of flying enemies and octopus-creatures jumping out of the toxic, form Thunder Hoop to use as Goomba platforms.
- Goomba Stomp: One of the methods available in both games, for Thunder Hoop to take down enemies with.
- Hand Blast: The method used by Thunder Hoop to attack lab-grown mutations from afar.
- Harmless Enemy: The yellow, screw-shaped mutant critters with a dopey face are completely motionless, unable to move around while suspended in the air, can't hurt Thunder Hoop when touched, and exists for the hero to use as temporary platforms.
- Heli-Critter: One of the minor enemies, Helix, octopus-like creatures with propellers on their heads.
- Inflating Body Gag: In the second game, human enemies hit by Thunder Hoop's blasts will somehow comically inflate before exploding.
- Lizard Folk: The lizard-midget enemies in the sequel, who stood up to Thunder Hoop's waist and tries attacking him with their dual arm-blades.
- Mirror Match: Negative, the game's Final Boss and the hero's Evil Counterpart released by Professor Genbreak in a last-ditch attempt to stop Thunder Hoop. He's the only humanoid boss with ranged, Hand Blast attacks like the titular hero, and the subsequent boss fight has Thunder Hoop and his clone swapping energy bolts until one goes down.
- Mook Maker:
- The "Mother" enemy is a stationary flesh sac underwater, who will release hordes and hordes of her offsprings to attack Thunder Hoop.
- Mutant eggs, each of which can spawn multiple enemies, though it has its limits; after creating a certain amount of mooks, the egg dissolves on its own (of course, it can also be destroyed by Thunder Hoop's energy blasts).
- Mutant: Most of the enemies, due to being genetically-created beings made in Dr. Genbreak's labs. Technically the titular hero counts as this also since he's an artificially-created bio-weapon.
- Non-Action Big Bad: The game's main villain, Dr. Genbreak, spends the entire game seated in his lab and ordering his science staff around, and activating his legions of monster bosses to keep Thunder Hoop at bay. The final confrontation has him sending a clone of Thunder Hoop instead, and once the Final Boss is defeated, Thunder Hoop destroys Dr. Genbreak's lab automatically in a cutscene.
- People Jars: How Thunder Hoop is depicted as a test subject in the first game's cinematics. In the "Continue?" screen if the player loses a life, Thunder Hoop is depicted as trapped in another tank of liquid as a Game-Over Man unless the player uses a continue.
- Rodents of Unusual Size: Giant rats (called "Mutant Raths") show up, unsurprisingly, in the sewer stage. They're one of the few animal-based enemies in the game (well, save for being oversized), unlike the others that are mutated freaks, though they first appear as normal-sized rodents before enlarging themselves when Thunder Hoop appears.
- Rolling Attack:
- The Killballs, pillbug-men mutant enemies, bipedal pill bugs on two-legs, can roll themselves into a ball to tackle Thunder Hoop.
- There's also Negative, the Final Boss, who gets an upgrade over the hero with the ability to roll himself bounce over the place, even staying in mid-air while in ball form and spamming his energy blasts while curled up.
- Segmented Serpent: The first boss of the first game, a gigantic purple serpent monster sticking out the ground with its body depected as purple segmented orbs. Said monster can detach its head into a missile to attack Thunder Hoop from a distance.
- Sequel Hook: Dr. Genbreak is revealed to be still alive after destroying Genbreak labs. This was followed in the sequel, Thunder Hoop Strikes Back.
- Sinister Stingrays: The "Manta" enemies are flying rays, one of the many Flying Seafood Special-veriety of enemies created by Genbreak labs.
- Slippery as an Eel: The eel-like Angul enemies in the underwater levels are hostile and attacks Thunder Hoop in sight.
- Space Base: The entirety of Strikes Back is set in one of these operated by the villains.
- Stationary Boss: All the bosses except the last one, basically. The purple serpent monster is attached to the ground, as is Squas the mass of giant insect organs. Meanwhile Dust sticks it's head out from the right corner, while Korgan is confined in a slime pool.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: Thunder Hoop can stay submerged underwater for extended periods of time, and even making his trademark "Yep! Yep! Yep!" roar every time he fires a shot at enemies. There are in fact entire levels set underwater and Thunder Hoop can move around or remain stationary for several minutes just fine. Justified since he's an artificial, lab-created human.
- Super-Soldier: Thunder Hoop, who is developed as a bio-weapon against the mutants.
- Swamps Are Evil: The original game's fourth stage is set in a monster-infested swamp, featuring a Muck Monster, Korgan rising out a pool of slime as its boss.
- Synchronized Swarming: Certain groups of smaller, flying enemies, including bugs, floating blobs, the dissolved versions of the gigantic Hamburs and flying sperm (yes), will move in a circular motion drawing patterns in a single spot. It allows Thunder Hoop to hop on them and bounce from one enemy to another while remaining mid-air on the same spot for several seconds.
- Unexpected Shmup Level: The sequel has one of these halfway through when Thunder Hoop charges his energy to maximum, gaining a fiery energy aura around him that propels him across outer space, where the game goes from fighting mutants on foot to a Gradius-style horizontal space shooter.
- Unique Enemy: The second game has two blue-skinned mutants who swing pairs of Epic Flails at Thunder Kid, capable of deflecting their energy blasts besides throwing those flails as a ranged attack, but they're pretty much just mooks among the enemies.
- Vacuum Mouth: On the third boss, Dust, a giant fish-head monster sticking out the ground. It will alternate between trying to suck Thunder Hoop into its maws, or regurgitate garbage and debris it has swallowed towards Thunder Hoop as a ranged attack.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Thunder Hoop in the sequel spends the whole game kicking ass shirtless, just to complete his "badass as an adult" look.
- Xenomorph Xerox: The Bass enemies are purple Xenos, complete with rounded, phallic heads and extended stinger tails. They're even hatched from fleshy eggs that opens up like petals, just like in the movies! (Though they're Born as an Adult immediately rather than having a chestburster-expy, and their eggs are considerably larger than those seen from the films.)
