Mario and Sonic Went to Beijing And All They Got Were These Crappy Mini-Games

[Indigo Rush]

Mario versus Sonic...

...we live in a reality where this isn't exciting.

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The Setup
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The year is 2008. Super Mario Bros. Sonic the Hedgehog. Arguably the two most famous video-game characters in the history of the medium. Nintendo and SEGA are both giants in the game industry, and are forces to be reckoned with. Once aggressive rivals in the 1990’s, they seem to be on friendly terms nowadays. Meanwhile, the Nintendo Wii seemingly has the world by its throat with the largest install base of video-game consoles since the PlayStation 2 (which was on its way out at this point). There was practically a Wii in every living room. People of all ages and backgrounds, gamers and non-gamers alike from ages 0 to 100 played the Wii, and the DS’s install-base was nothing to sneeze at either.

With the red and blue team on friendly terms, it was time to talk business. Mario and Sonic. There had been murmurs of the two giants meeting together in Super Smash Bros Melee with Sonic as a guest fighter, and while that would later become a reality for Super Smash Bros Brawl, at the time the match-up had not yet become a reality. But now the timing was right. The main mascots of their respective companies are going to star in the crossover that fans had wanted for years. These are the most recognizable characters in gaming starring on the best-selling console of the generation. Nintendo is the king of polished gameplay, SEGA is the king of exciting presentation.

The stars were aligned. So it was with excitement that Nintendo and SEGA announced that the two platforming kings and several lucky side-characters friends were to co-star in their very first dedicated crossover!

…at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

...oh. Okay.

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Why This Made Sense
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It certainly seemed like an odd choice to make. These are characters from platforming games first, so why would they jump straight-away to a sports-party type of game? Well, a little background context might help shed some light on this decision.

As already explained, the Wii and DS have an impressive install-base at this moment, and their unique methods of control are through motion and touch, respectively. Out-of-the-box, this fosters a platform that excels in mini-games and other forms of more “casual” play, which in this instance, would include many sports games, too. With that said, Mario is the undisputed king of party games, with Sonic being no stranger to doing things differently anyway; both series are suited for such a spin-off, so this isn’t quite as far-fetched of a concept so far. Furthermore, bear in mind that a majority of the install-base for these consoles are non-gamers; a platformer or an RPG may not be the most appealing or intuitive game for them.

Just about everyone owns a Wii at this point. Not taking advantage of this fact is simple idiocy. 

With a party game with an emphasis on motion controls, not only is the form of input more congruous (swing your Wii Remote to swing the ping-pong paddle), but it’s easy enough for anyone to understand. Beyond even that, Mario and Sonic are different kinds of platformers, so if there were to be a crossover in the platforming genre, a lot of R&D would be dedicated to creating a system that works for both series’ respective gameplay style, and unfortunately an RPG may not have the same broad appeal as a party game would. Finally, the Olympics setup avoids a strict ‘friend or foe’ approach, as the Olympic Games are all about friendly competition. In this situation, Mario and Sonic are both competing, but in a way that isn’t mean-spirited or out of spite. And going even further, under the medium of a party-type game, it easily allows for multiplayer scenarios so more friends and family can join in on the fun without having a high cost of entry.

Additionally, the concept seems to work in that the two teams, Mario and Sonic, are representatives from different companies. Meanwhile, the real Olympics feature many contestants from different countries competing together, so the setup is actually rather fitting; and because they’re meeting in the real-world location of Beijing, there doesn’t have to be any fret over the location (is it in Sonic’s world? Mario’s? Nope, just Beijing).

Finally, at the end of the day, it’s got Mario and Sonic’s faces on it, and it’s an officially licensed game that promotes the most important and popular series of sports events on the planet. Even for those who aren’t as initiated as a hardcore gamer, they can still recognize Mario and Sonic on that Wii game thing in their living room, and they can play as them in that trending sports event!  And the best part? It’s based off of the sports mini-game model, so all they need to do is take what already exists and just make it better. That’s a rather huge load off of a game designers mind, now isn’t it? And it doesn’t stop there; let’s talk revenue: the Olympic games (alternating between Summer and Winter variations) are bi-yearly, so this guarantees a regular churning out of these crossovers, the likes of which Mario and Sonic’s corporate shilling mugs will at least guarantee a million or two sold copies for each go.

Combine the two? 

It’s simple math. It’s the golden goose. This is guaranteed gangbusters, and it’ll be a great game without them even trying!

The problem is… it doesn’t look like they did.

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Where it Failed
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Oops.

What happened?! On paper, it all looked so good… in theory. But it did not execute well, or at least it didn’t execute as well as it should have. The setup proved to be far too ‘sterile’ than fans wanted. There was no character interaction, so it seems they were too cautious to take advantage of the inherent novelty of these famous characters being together for the first time. The lone exception, of course, being their viral marketing campaign, the likes of which it’s silly antics make no appearance in the game itself, which is a real shame. 

 

We wanted this. We didn't get this.

There are too few instances of crossover fanservice. While it was expected to take place in Beijing, there was minimal, if any, appearances of famous locales from these game series. No Mushroom Kingdom, no Green Hill Zone. No Delfino Island, no City Escape. No Good Egg Galaxy, no Casino Park. Nada. Outside of some half-hearted mini-games, the fanservice is pretty-much nonexistent. Worse still, no music from the games (outside of a separate “gallery” mode).

All of that could be excused of them trying to be ‘safe,’ which can be understandable. These are huge characters, and while it may be tempting to go big or go home, sometimes it’s a good idea to reel it in a little just to prevent it from becoming too ambitious. But it seems like they reeled it in too far back. Now, I say it could be excused, were it not for the unfortunate reality that the gameplay itself is… well. It’s no better than any generic third-party shovel-ware game. It’s that uninspiring.

The controls did not properly display what the Wii was capable of. And it doesn’t stop there; even if the controls were polished, the way they’re implemented seem… un-intuitive. Mini-game events like ping-pong, the hammer toss and javelin are easy enough to grasp, but the controls for events such as the trampoline and swimming are a little too incongruous. Certainly it’s not easy to have everything work perfectly, but it would seem that the developers bit off a little more than they could chew. 

In short, it didn’t take advantage of the crossover of these beloved characters, and the simple task of making a motion-control mini-game sports gallery seemed to be too much even for the combined efforts of SEGA and Nintendo, as it lacked the polish it needed. Altogether, it lacked both SEGA’s dazzling presentation and Nintendo’s tight gameplay, bringing none of the best of both worlds to the table, and that’s just downright disappointing. At best, the game was harmless and average, at worst it was huge missed potential that turned off a lot of consumers from enjoying what should have been a match made in heaven.

Who’s fault is it: did SEGA muck it up? Was Nintendo not paying attention?

Who knows, but what’s done is done.

 

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Future Iterations
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It was enough of a hit to get a few sequels, at least!

Despite a lackluster effort, the game still indeed bring in enough green for them to consider continuing the series. It would seem that the two character’s brand identity are still rather profitable. Future games added much needed variety by making distinction between Winter and Summer Olympics for bi-yearly releases, giving every other game a different feel. “Dream Events,” mini-games that actually involve locations and mechanics from Mario and Sonic’s games, receive bigger expansions, although they still aren’t the primary modes. More characters are added, however, including special rival characters, and the games started adding remixed tracks from Mario and Sonic’s series, which added a nice touch of fanservice. The handheld versions added story modes with RPG-like elements. While not quite being the epic adventure that fans wanted, it’s still nice to finally see all of those characters interact with one another in some form or another.

As technology moved forward to the Wii U and 3DS, the visual quality increased as well. Unfortunately, the controls never quite improved as much as fans had hoped, though the Wii U made some unique usage of its gamepad, as well as the Wii Fit Balance Board for more variety (though the Balance Board may have only just resulted in stronger abs for those who opted to use it, so that’s a plus I suppose?)

While the series has improved bit by bit by adding more characters, locations, remixes, better visuals and even touching up the controls a little with each iteration, it’s sad to say that the initial concept has seem to have worn out, as it failed to make the great first impression that it needed. The promise of our favorite characters interacting never quite took the shape that it needed to, and the Olympics concept, while strategic for its time and context, is now at the expense of what could have been a series of other genres for crossover opportunity, and with each passing entry, it unfortunately fails to bring in as much money as the previous ones, especially due to the lower install-base of the Wii U.

Here's to next time.

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In Conclusion
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Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games wasn’t inherently a bad concept or even an uninteresting one, but it failed to deliver on its potential, and it’s far too late for it to make an impact as a perpetual money machine. It’s continued existence is at worst harmless, but at best average. Other potential crossover ideas could reinvigorate interest (such as a platformer, kart-racer, RPG or something more action and story-driven), but it wouldn’t have as big of an install base as the Olympics series had in its first iteration. It would best appease the more hardcore players, which certainly isn’t bad. But on the Wii U, it may not even be worth it due to the low install-base. It may be worth dipping once again for the next generation of Nintendo consoles, especially with the code-named “NX” lurking around the corner next year.

But either way, Mario and Sonic are still fantastic characters that can (and most likely will) still seek partnership in future games.

 

And, well, at the very least, Sonic is in Smash Bros.

That’s cool.

 

Well, what do you guys think? Should the Olympic torch continue to stay lit? Could it co-exist with another more action and story-heavy series? If so, what kind of game would you like them to cross over in? A Mario and Sonic platformer? Mario and Sonic RPG? Kart racing adventure? Fighting game? Chess? Speak your mind!

[Tara]

Interesting and thoughtful analysis on the matter.

While from a marketing standpoint, there's really nothing objectively wrong with an Olympic-based game, I personally just find sports games to be... well, extremely boring. (Though Wii Sports can be entertaining at times)  Even though it is nice to see that later installments in the series improve the games considerably, they still never enticed me enough to purchase them for any reason other than completionism and even at that, it's pretty much always second hand at a huge fraction of the price.  So basically, I wouldn't mind if the Olympic Games series were retired altogether.

I've wanted a Mario and Sonic crossover since I was very little, as I was always fascinated by both series, having grown up with both of them, and while I understand that it's a risky move, I'd love to see their take on a platformer.  It would be really interesting to see what they could do with it, provided the development was left in the right hands.  Of course, I've seen some detractors of this idea, who ask what would even be the point since Mario and Sonic no longer have similar gameplay styles.  Short answer:  Just for fun.  It doesn't have to have a meaning.  It would just be really cool to see.

Of course, Mario and Sonic don't have to have a dedicated crossover to be seen in the same game every now and then, either.  I know it's a pipe dream, but I'd like to see more Sonic characters playable in Smash and some more stages dedicated to Sonic's history.  With Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing becoming a widely successful series in its own right, I also wouldn't mind seeing some Mario characters make their way into that series.

There's so many fun things you could do with the characters, even if it's not a platformer.  I don't see why they have to limit themselves to one genre.

[Diogenes]

The title kinda sums up my perspective, I guess. I just don't care about the olympics or olympic event themed minigames, and putting characters I like/recognize into it doesn't change anything. Even if they had added all the fanservice they could, it would still offer me nothing I was interested in in terms of gameplay, so I couldn't see myself spending a cent on them (at most I'd just watch someone else's playthrough or something).

It's a shame that these games and Smash are all they've done together. I mean, I've said before that I don't see how a Mario and Sonic platformer could work, but there's still been part of me hoping they'd at least try to prove me wrong. Even given Sonic's issues and the platformer genre's overall fall from the spotlight, this should've been something big and exciting, but it ends up feeling kinda cheap.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

If it's mainly their to rake in the bucks, I say it should continue out of sheer pragmatism. I'm of course not going to buy them, but that shouldn't really stop others who will eat it up because it stars the two mascots, and this inoffensive thing would actually help things out financially - at least until it gets old and stops selling as much as they desire.

Quite frankly, I never really saw much potential in them. Not the concept of Sonic and Mario in a crossover game, but just the Olympic games specifically. The moment they were announced as olympic games, it was clear from the get go that they would just be fanservice-y mini-games staring Mario and Sonic characters, so I guess you could say I saw it coming from there.

[StaticMania]

I'm not understanding the reasoning of the Olympic theme. Probably because it's the only thing Nintendo's not already doing themselves as a series of games. The Dream events are the highlights of these games over obviously.

 

A genre of games that fits the special feeling of a long awaited crossover like a fighting game or an RPG. The two easiest genres to make crossovers for when their origin styles wouldn't mesh well together. Fanservice material is ripe for fighting games and no complicated story is necessary for a crossover RPG that has Mario in it, just a fun adventure with every chance taken for character interactions.

[Multikaris]

With Mario and Sonic alone, it's only 50% complete. To maximize it, add Mega Man and Pac-Man. That's what Smash gets right. Crash, Bomberman, Rayman, and Shantae are just gravy. A very good gravy.  These four could easily go on a fun four-player adventure ala The Simpsons Game, going into one another's universes if not yet more ones. This series has basically gone on for too long, and Mario and Sonic's novelty quickly erodes away with this approach.

 

There are some other crossovers that would work well, however...

[Hyp3hat]

On 6/2/2016 at 0:06 AM, StaticMania said:

I'm not understanding the reasoning of the Olympic theme. Probably because it's the only thing Nintendo's not already doing themselves as a series of games. The Dream events are the highlights of these games over obviously.

Purely business - they used to make Olympics video games in the same way they make Mario & Sonic titles, but they never sold particularly well, and especially poorly compared to the flagship sports titles like FIFA or Madden . Slapping Mario & Sonic on it is a way to market Olympic video games to people who otherwise wouldn't pick up a vanilla Rio 2016 game. 

[AngelSlayerN64]

I've always been a huge supporter of the on-going Olympic series. It's certainly more entertaining than the typical RPG/Platform crossover that others want for Mario and Sonic, IMO. I don't see how something like that could work well. With the Olympics, it's so much better. Having two video game rivals compete against each other in the Olympics is something I never expected to happen. I enjoyed the first game a lot. I liked the fact that each character was divided into four different categories. This gave the player more possibilities as to who would be the best in a certain event.

By the time 2010 came around, things were starting to get intense. We had 4 new characters, rival battles being introduced, a story mode (DS), and costumes for your Mii (Wii). That's pretty dope. Later on in 2012, we managed to get amazing remixes for rival themes. I didn't care much for the character restrictions in the 3DS version, because I felt like Nintendo and SEGA were trying to make their characters fit in well with events that make the most sense for them. What we got during 2014 wasn't anything new or jaw-dropping. It was pretty okay, but not terrible. I wanted more characters and new rivals back then. Rio 2016 is looking pretty good so far, and I'm hoping that it's going to be the best title of the Olympic series.

I'm eagerly waiting for Mario and Sonic at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games to happen later on in the future. After that, Nintendo and SEGA can stop.

[Agie]

I've never bought these games, but they've gotten by without my support; I won't buy the next one, but I don't see my continued lack of support changing anything.