Thread:LunaMouse23/@comment-4457974-20181013165019/@comment-4457974-20181016015426

Well... I haven't had first-hand experience with most media from this era, but I'm not the biggest fan of the character designs. I mean, most of them aren't terrible or anything, but something about them is a little off to me, and I really really dislike Hopsalot's preschool/kindergarten design, even though his first grade design is quite good. That's especially unfortunate considering he's my favorite character. I also like Frankie's pretty well, and Kisha's (even though Kisha was ridiculously different even by JumpStart standards, and I didn't necessarily like that level of change, I liked the design itself). That's not to say that era was aesthetically bankrupt or anything, though; the Mythies and their concept art, for example, are very cute. Also, while I know that as time goes on characters will be dropped, getting rid of Casey and Edison is going too far. I also noticed that as time went on, all the characters other than Frankie began to be de-emphasized. IMO, not having a strong cast of "mascot" characters isn't good for branding and identity. Even back when JumpStart had different characters for every game, those characters were heavily emphasized. And I think that's good for making the series memorable. I still remember the strong impression the cast made on me when I first played JumpStart Advanced 1st Grade when I was 7 or so. It seemed like such a fun and interesting group of characters, and it's a big factor as to how I got "hooked" on JumpStart.

I don't want to be too much of a naysayer because they did have some interesting ideas, and at least at the start, I can definitely see some effort put into the characters through profiles I've read on the site and such. But I do have some problems with that era. Other than the characters, I also get the impression that there wasn't as big a focus on educational value, which is also a problem.