Clockwork Knight

Behold the original wielder of the Keyblade! Sir Tongara de Pepperouchau III, a toy soldier, must save the Clockwork Princess Chelsea from the unknown enemy that kidnapped her. After all, who else will bring the toys to life every night? You'll have to fight your fellow toys too; they've been corrupted.

This game is a sidescrolling platformer which spans 5 areas with 3 levels each (except for the 5th area which only contains the 13th level; it is the final boss level). Pepper uses his key weapon to combat his enemies. One stab with the key will stun the enemy, and you can keep hitting them to "inflate" them and ultimately make them pop, which creates an explosion of confetti. Alternatively, you can throw stunned enemies at each other. Throughout the levels you can collect power-ups like helmets which give you an extra life, keys which refill your health, and crowns which let you play a roulette game after a level or count towards a continue. You could only fight the final boss on normal or hard difficulty; training mode would end the game after level 12. Also, you had to beat the game in one sitting.

The game spawned a sequel, which I played on a demo disc that came with the Sega Saturn. I never got to finish that one, since the demo was only one level (beating it would take you to the game over screen, which was frightening), and I never got the full game. The third game was never finished, and it was similar to Bomberman. Though it was a simple game, I liked it. Though I usually like any sidescroller that I play.

Here are the intros for the first game and the second game.

A beta for the third game can be found

here