Mario Week continues today with Battle Grounds as we say “forget next summer’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the real super hero smack down has always been Mario vs Sonic!” Back in the school yard you were either Sega or Nintendo, i.e., Mario or Sonic. Today’s Sony and Microsoft fanboys like to take to the message boards anonymously and call each other names. The real veterans of the Great Console Wars did battle face to face in the playgrounds across America in the late 80’s early 90’s.
So today Nelson and I restart that war as he takes the side of the blue blazer and I of the plucky plumber. Nelson, as always, you may start.
Nelson: Back in the hay day of Mario and Sonic was one of the best times to be a gamer. Sure we have a lot of flash and flair these days, but sometimes not a lot of pay off. But for games like Sonic you had to use what you had and make it work to your advantage. Sonic had a real sense of speed once you got going. Sonic was also the first game I could think of to get extra content in the form of the Sonic & Knuckles. Why Nintendo didn’t rip that idea off with Mario, I’ll never know. I guess they wouldn’t have needed it with all the spin offs for Mario, but then again had they done that then maybe there would have been a proper sequel to Super Mario world a lot soon than what we got.
Josh: First off Nintendo didn’t have to rip off Sonic and Knuckles cartridge inside a cartridge because it was a fad, and a terrible fad at that. Every time Sega tried something new it fell flat, every time Nintendo tried something new (with the exception of the Virtual Boy) it’s an innovation. But back to the argument at hand. Mario is by far the better game character. Every time we’ve gotten a new generation of consoles Mario is at the forefront showing everyone the way. With the NES in 1985 Super Mario Bros. was released and there was no game on the market as fun and that’s why it’s the best selling game of all-time. Then with the SNES Super Mario World was colorful and bright and the best platformer of the 16 bit era, then we get to the 3D era with Super Mario 64 and Mario showed the world how you teach an old dog new tricks. Super Mario 64 literally showed everyone how to make a 3D video game, but until that point anything Sony tried with the Playstaion or what Sega did with the Saturn was absolute garbage. Once Mario showed you how to do it pandoras box was open, but somehow pretty much every copycat paled in comparison. The only games that seemed to match Mario were Ocarina of Time and the Banjo Series from Rare. Even today, Mario is showing us how great he is and was with Super Mario Maker. What has Sonic done lately?
Nelson: I’ll give you the fact that both Sony and Sega’s attempt to compete in the 3D platformer space was lest than stellar, but Super Mario 64 was not that fun. I never owned it personally but I did get many opportunities to play it. More often then not I found myself frustrated at the mechanics. Sonic Adventure I dare say was more polished than Mario 64, and more enjoyable. Mario’s problem was also one of the reason’s he’s so prolific these days, the diversity of his property. For several years, we had dozens of spinoffs for Mario but no proper sequel to Super Mario World until the New Super Mario Bros. Wii. By proper I mean with the original style of game play. That’s what people really want out of him. Though sonic has his fair share of spinoffs, Sonic stayed close to his roots more through out the 90s and 2000s than Mario
Josh: Sonic Adventure more polished than Super Mario 64!? Well if you’re not going to take this seriously…
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