Sonic is in my view better than Mario games

[Splash the Otter]

22 minutes ago, Flame Lance said:

I can see Mario games are well-designed and all, but I've just never had any fun with them. I don't like the environments, the characters, nor the gameplay. I just can't find myself invested in what's going on in any of the games barring spin-offs like Mario Kart, and even then I find those pretty boring rather quickly. I don't really care if the Sonic games have flaws. I rarely find myself bored with the games because I'm still invested in the characters, the worlds, the art, the stories, the sense of speed and action, and I truly believe the majority of Sonic games have great gameplay as well, though admittedly far from perfect in some cases. Without investment, I just cannot bring myself to have any fun with nor care whatsoever about Mario. I pick franchises and games based on the entire scope of what it offers, and Sonic just appeals to me in so many ways where Mario does not. 

This is basically what I was trying to say. I have a hard time caring about Mario or his universe because let's be honest, most of the time there isn't much to care about. This rarely if ever happens with Sonic, and that's why I think he has more than enough potential to be better than Mario, even if it hasn't been reached yet.

[StaticMania]

Sonic games offer da creative world, yes? Presented in a story where the players would "want" to care about it and the characters, but doesn't deliver the goods...it's just that the idea of a fully fleshed out Sonic World is so tempting.

[Razule]

I guess it comes down to what you value more in a video game. Worldbuilding or gameplay.

[StaticMania]

Each Mario game has its own fair share of world building, but no game is connected too tightly...but no Sonic game is connected that much either, especially recently.

[Diogenes]

11 minutes ago, Razule said:

I guess it comes down to what you value more in a video game. Worldbuilding or gameplay.

Sonic's worldbuilding is really bad, though.

[Legendary Emerald]

3 hours ago, knuckles20 said:

I'd honestly prefer the variety from Sonic to the stagnation from Mario. Even if Mario games are high quality, it doesn't change the feeling that I'm playing the same game multiple times. Hell they pretty much released the same game multiple times: New Super Mario Bros., New Super Mario Bros. 2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, New Super Mario Bros U, New Super Luigi U. The only reason I got Super Mario 3D World was because Peach was an actual playable character as opposed to being the damsel in destress for the 1000th time.

Why even have new games for Sonic if all they're gonna do is ripoff the classic era to the point that they might as well do nothing except rerelease Sonic 1 every year.

Like I said, the New Super Mario Bros series is Mario at its arguably worst. But even in the time period since New Super Mario Bros 1 to now, we've also had two Mario Galaxy games, two different Mario RPGs franchises with multiple releases, the fantastic 3D Land and 3D World, Mario Maker, Mario + Rabbids, and freaking Mario Odyssey... so if you're like me and the New Super Mario Bros series isn't your cup of tea, its not exactly like you've been left out in the cold.

[Sean]

Seeing people claim that Mario has no personality legitimately triggers me

He's simple, modest-minded, fun-loving and friendly. It's not a very complex personality, but a character doesn't have to be complex to be good, or even just plain likable. If that's your definition of a blank slate that warrants zero attachment whatsoever while claiming Sonic is an example of a good, fleshed-out personality, then I worry what you think would take to make Mario a good character.

Have any of you never just simply liked a character for their simple appeal or overall charm? Is Totoro not likable in your eyes? How about the Big Daddies from BioShock, which in-game are tragic figures but are widely known as the mascot mooks of the series? What about the cast in a lighthearted comedy like Azumanga Daioh? Do you also not care about any classic western cartoon character like Donald, Goofy, Bugs, or Daffy? This notion that Mario is not a good character because he's not complex enough or whatever needs to go away, and saying that Mario is personality-less is doing a pretty huge disservice toward a lot of other characters that people like and others don't question why they do.

[superman43]

58 minutes ago, Sean said:

Seeing people claim that Mario has no personality legitimately triggers me

He's simple, modest-minded, fun-loving and friendly. It's not a very complex personality, but a character doesn't have to be complex to be good, or even just plain likable. If that's your definition of a blank slate that warrants zero attachment whatsoever while claiming Sonic is an example of a good, fleshed-out personality, then I worry what you think would take to make Mario a good character.

Have any of you never just simply liked a character for their simple appeal or overall charm? Is Totoro not likable in your eyes? How about the Big Daddies from BioShock, which in-game are tragic figures but are widely known as the mascot mooks of the series? What about the cast in a lighthearted comedy like Azumanga Daioh? Do you also not care about any classic western cartoon character like Donald, Goofy, Bugs, or Daffy? This notion that Mario is not a good character because he's not complex enough or whatever needs to go away, and saying that Mario is personality-less is doing a pretty huge disservice toward a lot of other characters that people like and others don't question why they do.

Honestly it's down to whether you hate or love Mario. I personally don't hate Mario games, but I know I will be bored even when playing Odyssey.

Other thing: overabundance of 2D Mario, while Sonic ended with 2D at his best, which is why Mania was well received. And let's say more or less that 2D Sonic game is a bit more attractive than 2D Mario game.

[Razule]

2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

Sonic's worldbuilding is really bad, though.

Didn't say it had to be quality. Like StaticMania said, it's more the idea of it, I guess.

[Fire-N-Space]

Mario characters feel more funnier then Sonic characters where as Amy is what keeps me coming back to Sonic games.

[StaticMania]

54 minutes ago, superman43 said:

Other thing: overabundance of 2D Mario, while Sonic ended with 2D at his best...

Uh...what? There are more 2D Sonic games than 2D Mario games. People only started complaining about the frequency of NSMB when 2 and U were released too close together. It's been nearly 6 years since then.

Mania was well received specifically because it did the Classic formula and did it well.

[superman43]

2 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Uh...what? There are more 2D Sonic games than 2D Mario games. People only started complaining about the frequency of NSMB when 2 and U were released too close together. It's been nearly 6 years since then.

Yeah you can compare Modern Sonic featuring 2D games to NSMB. But there were 4 classic games and they are simply more fun than Mario from that period. 

[StaticMania]

Them being less fun isn't what you were saying. You were talking about the overabundance of 2D games in comparison.

[molul]

If NSMB is Mario at its worst, then Mario is way better than Sonic. NSMB is a long awesome and fun game to play. I would gladly have one every year if possible, as much as I'd love a Sonic game made by the Mania Team every year.

[superman43]

Okay. Sorry for saying the thing about the overabundance. Yes, I know that 3/4 od each recent Sonic game (excl. LW) are 2D. 

Still the Mario vs. Sonic is about tastes. I admit that Mario games have better gameplay, but Mario simply does not excite me. That I believe is the reason people like Sonic more. 

Apart from that, still, first 5 classic games are at least at par with the best Mario games, (from the same period, in 2D) if not better. Still, for some.

[Salamander]

7 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Sonic games offer da creative world, yes? Presented in a story where the players would "want" to care about it and the characters, but doesn't deliver the goods...it's just that the idea of a fully fleshed out Sonic World is so tempting.

I think this is pretty much the key.  A feature of Sonic for some years was its emphasis on continuity and a shared universe, and it's continued to make gestures towards that interconnection despite having effectively abandoned the practice for years.  While Mario games are generally either story-light or continuity-light and make no effort to disguise this fact, the Sonic franchise has successfully convinced fans that it's still an ongoing adventure with characters who develop, grow, and inherit their history from one game to another.  It's really quite an impressive trick.

[Austroid]

I love both series for their own identities.

Playing a Mario game is kind of like getting lost in a fairy tale; while playing a Sonic game tends to lean toward a more adrenaline-filled ride. Though admittedly I miss a time when Sonic games also had a more whimsical atmosphere that didn't rely on melodrama.

[Jar Jar Analysis 1138]

13 hours ago, superman43 said:

Honestly it's down to whether you hate or love Mario. I personally don't hate Mario games, but I know I will be bored even when playing Odyssey.

Other thing: overabundance of 2D Mario, while Sonic ended with 2D at his best, which is why Mania was well received. And let's say more or less that 2D Sonic game is a bit more attractive than 2D Mario game.

Going to have to agree with you. Odyssey is Mario at his most balanced in quality yet I do not feel that spark of mass amounts of creativity in the first 3 3D Mario games. Just seems like a bigger version of 3D land. 64, Galaxy And Sunshine, flaws and all will always be more fun Forbes was.

[molul]

I find Odissey more appealing than Sunshine, tbh.

[Almar]

Honestly, Sonic has long failed to have a more interesting world than Mario does when ignoring Expanded Universe. A less interesting one at that.

For example, the Mario games have introduced non-villainous versions of enemies like goombas. While it took until Sonic Forces for there to be any actually villainous (so no Rouge or Shadow) active (so no Pachamac) actual anthros (no Metal Sonic or Mephiles)  in a main Sonic game (instead of humans or giant monsters). The side games aren't much better since there's who, Fang and that Dark Legion Wannabe (also from a Western company by the way)?

Doubly so since Nintendo doesn't have some odd policy about simutaneously insisting on treating their games as being more or less stand-alone without any actual continuity and doing acts like including in their upcoming title villains like their version of Chaos, making their version of Shadow look like a villain, both of which depend on the audience being familiar enough with past games (Sonic Adventure 2 and/or Shadow the Hedgehog, maybe also Sonic X), and bringing back a horde of the cast to be the resistance against Bowser. And also declaring declarations that overly limit what they can do with the brand (Two Worlds, Classic Sonic being from another dimension). 

A lot of the talk here about Sonic being more interesting as a character or whatever comes off as confusing his Western interpretations with how Sega of Japan and Sonic Team established him. He's more talkative, but he's close to or just as shallow in backstory, motivations, you name it.

[Splash the Otter]

12 minutes ago, Almar said:

Honestly, Sonic has long failed to have a more interesting world than Mario does when ignoring Expanded Universe. A less interesting one at that.

For example, the Mario games have introduced non-villainous versions of enemies like goombas. While it took until Sonic Forces for there to be any actually villainous (so no Rouge or Shadow) actual anthros (no Metal Sonic or Mephiles) in a main Sonic game. The side games aren't much better since there's who, Fang and that Dark Legion Wannabe (also from a Western company by the way)?

Doubly so since Nintendo doesn't have some odd policy about simutaneously insisting on treating their games as being more or less stand-alone without any actual continuity and doing acts like including in their upcoming title villains like their version of Chaos, making their version of Shadow look like a villain, both of which depend on the audience being familiar enough with past games (Sonic Adventure 2 and/or Shadow the Hedgehog, maybe also Sonic X), and bringing back a horde of the cast to be the resistance against Bowser. And also declaring declarations that overly limit what they can do with the brand (Two Worlds, Classic Sonic being from another dimension). 

A lot of the talk here about Sonic being more interesting as a character or whatever comes off as confusing his Western interpretations with how Sega of Japan and Sonic Team established him. He's more talkative, but he's close to or just as shallow in backstory, motivations, you name it.

None of this is the fault of the series itself, but the people in charge of it.

[HylianBran]

Mario is just the same thing over and over, and Sonic isn't.  This makes Sonic better in my opinion.

[Diogenes]

3 hours ago, Splash the Otter said:

None of this is the fault of the series itself, but the people in charge of it.

Jesus christ. You don't get to judge the series based on what it could've been and ignore what it actually is.

[Sean]

34 minutes ago, HylianBran said:

Mario is just the same thing over and over, and Sonic isn't.  This makes Sonic better in my opinion.

Out of curiosity, have you played more than one Mario game in your life that's not NSMB? If so, perhaps you can act like you have?

Also,

This statement hasn't been even the least bit applicable since 2011. And that's ignoring Sonic 4 or the fact that Sonic frequently reuses and dresses up familiar area tropes like Green Hill or Death Egg. Sonic isn't any less a stranger to reused ideas time after time again than Mario is.

[molul]

28 minutes ago, HylianBran said:

Mario is just the same thing over and over, and Sonic isn't.  This makes Sonic better in my opinion.

Is Super Mario Galaxy the same as NSMB? And Yoshi's Island (I know, technically not a Mario game, but it was) the same as Mario 64? And Odissey like Super Mario Bros 3? And Sunshine like 3D World? 

Okay, Sonic isn't the same ALWAYS (the same applies to Mario, actually), but when it hasn't been the same thing over and over:

-Sonic Boom.

-Sonic Lost World (not bad for a cheap copy of Super Mario Galaxy, but not very good).

-Unleashed (the werehog).

-The Secret Rings.

-And the Black Knight.

I don't think making different things has worked well for the franchise. And those games could have been much better in the right hands or with the right time, but they are what they are.

But if you're saying "Mario is always the same because he gets coins and saves the princess", well, someone who hasn't played Sonic much could say "Sonic is just about running and getting rings and chaos emeralds".

It's easy to see that the more you know something, the more differences you're able to perceive compared to someone who barely knows the same thing.

Just in case: no, Mario is not the same thing over and over, like Sonic isn't as well.