The Lost Vikings (franchise)

The Lost Vikings is a side-scrolling puzzle/platform video game series, so named after its titular protagonists. The series was developed by Silicon & Synapse (later Blizzard Entertainment). Inspiration was taken from when creating the game.

Story
Three Vikings — Erik the Swift, Baleog the Fierce, and Olaf the Stout — get kidnapped by Tomator, emperor of the alien Croutonian empire, for an inter-galactic zoo. They are able to escape the ship, but get lost in various periods of time. They must traverse various bizarre locations, and eventually confront and defeat Tomator to find their way home.