Lethal01
Member
History has kept proving this not true.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
SEGA wants Sonic to surpass Mario in both games and movies
- Thread starter havoc00
- Start date
NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
They’ve had a long, long time to do that and never got it.
Kudos for not going full Mario clone and sticking to the character, I guess. Problem is, they never really figured out what the character really is about when the market evolved past 2D sidescrollers. They threw pretty much everything at the wall for almost 30 years and nothing stuck for long.
Scotty W
Banned
I love the original Sonic games, and Sonic Mania. They are not bad games (except for Sonic 1, after level 4), but they are inherently flawed. The flaw that I pointed out is precisely what has kept Sonic a perpetual embarassment for the past 25 years.
Kokoloko85
Member
Sonic is in the best position it has been for decades. But it will never surpass Mario unfortunately
BlackTron
Member
I think they figured 3D Sonic gameplay out in Sonic Adventure 1. Unfortunately, they kept moving farther away from what made it work instead of refining and improving it.
cireza
Member
Going to strongly disagree with this.
The boost formula for example has many good to excellent games, be it 2D games (on DS/3DS) and 3D games (Unleashed, Generations, Colors, Forces).
They also tried slower, more platforming oriented games. Lost World controls extremely well in 3D, and Frontiers as well. And the first 3D games were also slower games. The first Sonic Adventure actually some solid platforming. Too bad the camera was pretty bad.
And we could say the exact same thing of 3D Mario. Is it open-world ? Is it stages reminiscent of the 2D games ? Is it more open with a water gimmick ? Etc... But in this case we are never going to say that they never figured what 3D Mario is about, of course.
Last edited:
lyan
Member
I will say it but neither is Mario, from what they publish in the genre Kirby and Wonder Boy series are superior.
Well Naruto got better games than One Piece lol.
cireza
Member
This. Kirby and Donkey Kong games are largely better than the Mario games.
Evil Calvin
Afraid of Boobs
....and I want to be a billionaire!
SCB3
Member
Sure, I mean you won't but give Mario a run for it's money
Game wise, a major improvement is needed, Frontiers and Mania were great, Superstars is very mid, but theres something there with it, they just need to take their time to develop a good Sonic game which they don't
Now Movie wise, hot take, but I enjoyed both Sonic movies more than I thought I would and the 2nd one imo is better than Mario, but Mario's first outing was safe and fun and they can only build on that
Game wise, a major improvement is needed, Frontiers and Mania were great, Superstars is very mid, but theres something there with it, they just need to take their time to develop a good Sonic game which they don't
Now Movie wise, hot take, but I enjoyed both Sonic movies more than I thought I would and the 2nd one imo is better than Mario, but Mario's first outing was safe and fun and they can only build on that
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
And I want to marry Emilia Clarke.
Neither is happening.
Neither is happening.
SportsFan581
Member
You catch hate for it, but Mario was always the better platformer. The emphasis on speed made sonic too much of a push left experience (push forward on the new ones). And i say that as a total SEGA kid.
BlackTron
Member
I know I've posted already but I can't seem to get this out of my head. I'll just be driving, or doing dishes, or playing FPS games, and burst out laughing that they want Sonic to surpass Mario. It's so absurd.
Don't turn it into some sort of Luigi or Vegeta situation, Sega. Fuck, you just did.
Don't turn it into some sort of Luigi or Vegeta situation, Sega. Fuck, you just did.
I wish you were that talented but the only Sonic game ive played that might be a 9.5 is Sonic Advance 2 but the franchise has a few of good games with a ton of terrible games. Mario on the other hand regularly has 9.5-9.7s and has even almost had a 10, basically every game is good at the least there are no bad mainline games.
Also fundamentally Sonic has core Game Design issues Mario doesnt have to deal with being the whole Speed vs Platforming so its more difficult to make good right out of the gate.
Also fundamentally Sonic has core Game Design issues Mario doesnt have to deal with being the whole Speed vs Platforming so its more difficult to make good right out of the gate.
Last edited:
Punished Miku
Human Rights Subscription Service
It is absolutely a Vegeta comment. Mario is the best, but it makes Sonic Team keep going back in the hyperbolic time chamber to train. He was literally complimenting Mario as the gold standard and the inspiration for their work.
BlackTron
Member
One of my best friends loves Luigi and Vegeta, and I always seem to just edge him out in multiplayer games, making him tank many jokes. But Sonic is my guy, I even have him all over my living room, so it's like, shit. I'm one of them now
NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
Err… because they did figure it out. It had to be something very different from the 2D games, and they nailed it first try.
3D Mario has been solidly consistent for 27 years, while bringing changes to the setting and formula every time. 3D Sonic is an exercise in throwing ideas at the wall and then trying to build a game around stuff that didn’t stick because there’s too little that sticks to build a solid game around that.
The cruel irony of Sega is that they keep desperately clinging to an IP that’s stopped representing their best efforts a long time ago.
Like A Dragon, for example, has grown into an IP that on average is leagues better than Sonic has been in two decades and four generations of hardware. That they keep chasing this idea of Sonic as a Mario killer to this day, when that may have been true for four years at best in the 90s, is pure madness.
It’s like Naughty Dog kept making Jak games and people kept expecting the IP to “kill” whatever you think it was that Jak was meant to kill, when they’ve clearly found something they’re better at.
SEGAvangelist
Member
SEGA shall prevail.
cireza
Member
And yet where is the consistency ? Every single game tries different things, so it certainly doesn't read as "they figured out the 3D formula". How are 3D Land and 3D World that different from 2D games by the way ? And next to them you get Galaxy or Sunshine or Odyssey.
You paint a deliberately negative picture of Sonic while being in the "Sonic was never good" bandwagon. Do you really think that there never were good Sonic games and that a series of constantly shit games managed to sell/download 1.66 billions games ? Be it 2D or 3D there were a lot of excellent games, and well reviewed as well if this is what matters ?
Why would Nintendo get a pass by constantly changing the formula ("they change the formula every time but they definitely figured out how to do 3D Mario"), but for Sonic moving from Unleashed to Colors to Generations to Lost World to Forces to Frontiers would mean constantly failing ? All of these games were at least good, often great, and always fun. And they did the exact same thing : changing the formula, and they do this for the exact same reason as Nintendo with Mario. But because this is Sonic, let's say that it sucks because why not ?!
Last edited:
MaestroMike
Gold Member
ResurrectedContrarian
Suffers with mild autism
The original Sonic didn't become a success on the back of its level or game design, which was poor IMO even in its own time.
It was successful due to its speed and the tech alone, which felt impressive compared to other platformers.
Sadly, that means it isn't an interesting franchise anymore once that wore off and became a non-differentiator. Mario, on the other hand, continued to innovate in level and game design, so it lasted and wasn't tied to a particular tech showcase.
It was successful due to its speed and the tech alone, which felt impressive compared to other platformers.
Sadly, that means it isn't an interesting franchise anymore once that wore off and became a non-differentiator. Mario, on the other hand, continued to innovate in level and game design, so it lasted and wasn't tied to a particular tech showcase.