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Okay goons, it's time to settle this age old debate once and for all: Who is better, Mario   or Sonic?  You can vote based on the character alone, the quality of their games (Mario wins lol) or simply their cultural influence over the past thirty years. Discuss the merits of each, post videos, but don't get into petty slapfights please. We all did that as kids and it was lame then. I was always a Sega kid so I'm going with my homeboy Sonic T. Hedgehog. I remember playing the first Sonic on a friend's Mega Drive and being blown away by the sheer speed of it. Sonic 3 & Knuckles is quite possibly my favourite game of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j350HVcB2dA Also, as Sega's mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog was just so drat cool in the 90s. Mario may have had his own big budget, live action movie, but he wasn't as cool as Sonic, and Nintendo knew it. Just let's not mention Sonic The Hedgehog  okay, it didn't happen.
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Oct 20, 2019 07:21
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AtGames hasn't touched Mario yet, but Philips did, so that's a draw. The Genesis games are all pretty fun, and I liked Sonic Adventure DX and SA2: Battle more than they really warrant. But Mario was my childhood and if I had to toss one series or the other into the sun it'd be Sonic. I think it really comes down to Milli Vanilli vs. A Mountain of Handkerchiefs.
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Oct 20, 2019 08:24
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Dell_Zincht posted:the quality of their games (Mario wins lol) That's pretty much it for me. Mario's more or less maintained its standard of quality over the years. Sonic has made a lot of bad games and their gimmicks haven't piqued my interest the way Mario Galaxy or Odyssey did.
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Oct 20, 2019 09:12
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Sonic's multimedia output has been way better than Mario's- by sheer weight of content alone. And can Mario ever say he had TWO shows at once? And be played by icon of cool Urkel...? Wait...
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Oct 20, 2019 09:40
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It's Mario in a landslide and I would be highly dubious of anyone who said otherwise. Mario has better average games, higher peaks, and the worst Mario game (hotel Mario?) Is leagues better than the worst Sonic game. Sonic wins in terms of comics and TV shows though. And I guess Mario will probably win in terms of movies because the new Sonic movie looks ghastly
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Oct 20, 2019 15:19
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If I had to choose only one Mario or Sonic game to play for the rest of my life, and I couldn't pick Mario 64, it'd be Sonic 2, so Sonic wins.
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Oct 20, 2019 15:55
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I can't get enough of are Dan
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Dell_Zincht posted:Sonic 3 & Knuckles is quite possibly my favourite game of all time: Three chaos emeralds in the first two acts? 
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Oct 20, 2019 16:13
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Timby posted:Three chaos emeralds in the first two acts? IIRC I used to be able to transform into Super Sonic before Marble Zone. There are LOADS of giant rings in Sonic 3.
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Oct 20, 2019 16:17
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Mario wins by far. My decision for this is based on quality of games. Like yeah, Nintendo has made some bad Mario off shoots, but the main series has been rock solid since day one. Sonic will always be tainted with some truly god awful games (Sonic 2006).
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Oct 20, 2019 16:44
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayfic62fDrA
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Oct 20, 2019 17:50
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i played quite a lot of both as a kid. I SMB3 was my jam though, so i had to give it to mario. also why wasn't GOKU the 3rd choice?
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Oct 21, 2019 00:29
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Mario never did a fakeout where he was framed for murdering his girlfriend who was revealed later to not be dead at all so Sonic wins Join me in my archie comics shitpit
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Oct 21, 2019 00:34
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Aishlinn posted:i played quite a lot of both as a kid. I SMB3 was my jam though, so i had to give it to mario. also why wasn't GOKU the 3rd choice? Because I hate that meme.
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Oct 21, 2019 08:42
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Sega shot itself on the foot multiple times so this is pretty unfair. But yeah I get that the mascot debate is always going to exist. I think Mario and Sonic games, as far as platformers go, are too different to be placed on the same category. Sonic 1 is slightly closer to Mario games, but 2D Mario Games are somewhat linear precision platformers where you more or less learn a dance with plenty of heads up to figure out the puzzle, and a very tight level design, while Sonic is a somewhat unique experiment and each game varies a lot. Even S1/S2/S3 have significant design philosophies that look like they're iterated on each other but they play very differently. So I'd vote: Best Overall game quality: Mario (this isn't even fair) Best 2D game: I'm with the OP in that my personal favorite is S3K, probably my favorite non-RPG 2D game. Depending on which kind of level design you favor S2 might be better and to some people, SCD. But to my personal preferences the replay value of S2/S3K is vastly higher than Mario's 2D games, where I'm kinda satisfied with playing once. Best 3D game: Even if I'm one of the deranged people who like S2A Knuckles Stages I'm still a sucker for Mario 64 and it doesn't surprise me that years later, people born long after M64's release are still speedrunning it, which brings me to: Best game for watching/Speedrunning: Ironically Mario 64 and even watching people exploit 2D Mario games is still more fun and interesting than watching walls scroll endlessly in Sonic. Best Artwork: S3K has such insane levels of pixel art that I don't think I've ever seen any other 2D game come close. You don't even need to touch Sonic Mania's "we'll animate everything as detailed as possible" - just take a look at the parallax work at the original Hydrocity. I had to work with parallaxes recently and I kept going back to it and thinking "How? How?!" Best Soundtrack: Never cared much for Mario no matter how iconic it is. S1/S2/S3K hold some of my favorite soundtracks and it really shows how many composers/producers/famous names they put into them. Masato Nakamura was basically "here take our money" and somehow it feels like they upped the ante on S3K. As far as minimalistic tracks go Mario wins but they're not my favorite in the style, if I were trapped in one-track chiptune hell I'd rather listen to Megaman. Best Level Design: I think they're too different games to compare both in 2D and 3D. With that said I think that even if I prefer Sonic's style, Mario is much more tighter within what it proposes than Sonic ever was, and Sega should have iterated on it over the past decades. Best Cross-Media: Sonic wins. The fact that Nintendo is way tighter with selling rights and what not makes Sonic win by default. And for a very controversial vote: Favorite Racing Game: I bought Sonic Racing Transformed thinking "oh well this is the closest I'll ever get to Mario Kart on PC so let's see what this ripoff can offer" and I ended up liking it more than any Mario game which of course means it never got a proper sequel and instead Sega decided to reinvent the wheel again for its next racing game so even if I like that game better the best Racing series is still won by loving Mario. Best Series: Mario wins by default. Nintendo iterated on top of winning formulas instead of reinventing the wheel from scratch and the result is a solid series that you absolutely can't go wrong with while Sonic is a garbled mess that's been managed as poorly as it possibly could have been. Elentor fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Oct 21, 2019 |
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Oct 21, 2019 14:56
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Fantastic post, Elentor.
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Oct 21, 2019 18:14
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The Genesis Sonic games (and Sonic Mania for that matter) are better than any 2D Mario game. Also Sonic is cooler and only goobers liked Mario more.
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Oct 22, 2019 01:54
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I watched that episode of the Simpsons about Poochy and realized that he and Sonic were the same character. Never could take anything in it seriously. Also if your game requires you to have functionally infinite hits it's probably bad design.
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Oct 22, 2019 03:19
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Did all that 90s Cool Xtreme Attitude Sonic stuff carry over for the Japanese market (at least in the pre-Sonic Adventure days) or was that mostly a western marketing thing? Because the box art for Sonic games in Japan seem more like he's just this cute cartoon character that rolls into a ball.
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Oct 23, 2019 04:33
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Even if we ignore all the poo poo Sonic series had, I could never get into the games. I don't really like how levels are so big that you can't really explore them, and speed mostly fucks you up. Oop, there's a spike, gently caress you. Maybe it's better in the sequels, but considering I never really liked the controls, it doesn't really matter. I liked Generations until I realized that most of the game consisted of challenges. I might pick up Sonic Mania and actually try to get over the controls some day, though Mario is a flawless 24 year old boy
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Oct 23, 2019 08:15
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Sonic 1 kinda blows but if you didn't like, say, Sonic 2, then I don't think any Sonic will change your mind. It's a different game from other platformers, like I said, and if you don't like it then you don't like it. I highly doubt Sonic Mania will be the game to change your mind.
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Oct 23, 2019 08:43
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Elentor posted:Sonic 1 kinda blows but if you didn't like, say, Sonic 2, then I don't think any Sonic will change your mind. It's a different game from other platformers, like I said, and if you don't like it then you don't like it. I highly doubt Sonic Mania will be the game to change your mind. Yeah I mostly tried Sonic 1, and I noticed that most levels really don't suit the game. I just remembered that Sonic 2 is probably on Steam, so I'll check it out
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Oct 23, 2019 08:47
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the only good sonic games are 2, 3&k, generations and mania, whereas all the mario games are good, so it's a pretty easy callVookatos posted:Yeah I mostly tried Sonic 1, and I noticed that most levels really don't suit the game. I just remembered that Sonic 2 is probably on Steam, so I'll check it out every once in a while i get the urge to play sonic 1 and i have a blast in green hill zone, then i get to marble zone and remember that it is a total slog basically from that point onward (starlight's fun enough but otherwise, eugh) and just stop there. it is flat-out not a good game entirely due to it's awful, awful level design.
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Oct 23, 2019 09:00
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also the correct answer to this poll is bonk
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Oct 23, 2019 09:05
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Vookatos posted:Yeah I mostly tried Sonic 1, and I noticed that most levels really don't suit the game. I just remembered that Sonic 2 is probably on Steam, so I'll check it out I mention this in the Sega Ages thread, but I find the Mega Play version of Sonic 1 that's on the Sega Ages Sonic 1 release is more fun than the Genesis version. It's basically a stripped down version of the Genesis game as it doesn't have Special Stages, the time limits on each stage are way more restrictive (as low as one minute in earlier stages and as high as four minutes in the later ones), and there are no 1-Ups (they're still in the game but they don't actually increase your life total). However, it also removes the Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone, so the stage progression is Green Hill - Spring Yard - Star Light - Scrap Brain - Final. I find it makes a pretty good arcade platformer in that format.
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Oct 23, 2019 14:09
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Mercury Crusader posted:I mention this in the Sega Ages thread, but I find the Mega Play version of Sonic 1 that's on the Sega Ages Sonic 1 release is more fun than the Genesis version. It's basically a stripped down version of the Genesis game as it doesn't have Special Stages, the time limits on each stage are way more restrictive (as low as one minute in earlier stages and as high as four minutes in the later ones), and there are no 1-Ups (they're still in the game but they don't actually increase your life total). However, it also removes the Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone, so the stage progression is Green Hill - Spring Yard - Star Light - Scrap Brain - Final. I find it makes a pretty good arcade platformer in that format. woah, that's good to know.
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Oct 23, 2019 14:31
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DEEP STATE PLOT posted:the only good sonic games are 2, 3&k, generations and mania, whereas all the mario games are good, so it's a pretty easy call Let's go and add Sonic CD, Sonic Spinball, Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure for the NGPC and as a fun comparison, the SMS/GG versions of Sonic (these are much closer to Mario gameplay than the others.) Now you have a good list.
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Oct 23, 2019 19:08
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Kazvall posted:Let's go and add Sonic CD, Sonic Spinball, Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure for the NGPC and as a fun comparison, the SMS/GG versions of Sonic (these are much closer to Mario gameplay than the others.) sonic cd is complete loving trash. wacky workbench is flat-out the worst level i have ever played in a 2d platformer and the rest of the game isn't much better, and the only interesting thing about sonic cd was implemented so loving badly that they had to put in dedicated sections in some levels just to let you utilize the main gimmick of the game. please do not defend this worthless pile of dog poo poo. it is a very, very bad game, substantially worse than sonic 1 and on par with sonic 4. and unlike the rest of the series, i played sonic cd years after it had come out, and this game's total shittiness made me start to believe that maybe people were right when they said that sonic was in fact never good. gently caress sonic cd.
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Oct 23, 2019 19:14
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I finally played Sonic CD a couple years ago and was astounded because the level design looked like the results of me as a child with the Sonic 2 level creator cheat.
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Oct 23, 2019 19:18
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Phantasium posted:I finally played Sonic CD a couple years ago and was astounded because the level design looked like the results of me as a child with the Sonic 2 level creator cheat. it is really, really bad. sonic cd is a game i wanted to like, the time travel idea fuckin rules, but the levels are just unbelievable. in a different universe with the same mechanics and gimmick but with a level design team that isn't hell-bent on designing the most irritating levels possible, sonic cd is probably a really great game.
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Oct 23, 2019 19:23
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DEEP STATE PLOT posted:sonic cd is complete loving trash. wacky workbench is flat-out the worst level i have ever played in a 2d platformer and the rest of the game isn't much better, and the only interesting thing about sonic cd was implemented so loving badly that they had to put in dedicated sections in some levels just to let you utilize the main gimmick of the game. poo poo man, do I have nostalgia glasses on? In my mind I tried to defend Sonic CD and gave up, lol. All the rest of the games I can easily defend, however. The NGPC sonic rules!
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Oct 23, 2019 19:24
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Kazvall posted:poo poo man, do I have nostalgia glasses on? In my mind I tried to defend Sonic CD and gave up, lol. All the rest of the games I can easily defend, however. The NGPC sonic rules! you probably do. it took me a good while to come to terms with the fact that sonic 1 was a bad game since i played it so much as a kid, but i mean, both games are games with potential, and with good mechanics. it's really just down to poor level design that they are both let down so much. and hell, don't let it ruin the game for you either, i mean i still like sonic adventure despite realizing pretty much within a month of it coming out that it's really pretty poo poo. i've not played the rest of those games, as i mostly only ever played the 'main' sonic games. i'm also always a bit suspect of sonic game recommendations, since for a good long while people talked about how sonic cd was the secret greatest sonic game ever and then i was so thoroughly repulsed by it when i finally tried it out. i will probably give the ngpc one a try though since that console has been pretty high on my priority list for a bit and i might as well get some games for it.
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Oct 23, 2019 19:31
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I think what really tips Mario over for me is the spin off games. You had Yoshi games, Mario Kart, Party, Golf, baseball, strikers, and a few other forgettable ones. Sonic had... racing, pinball, and... mean bean machine (which was just puyo puyo anyway)?
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Oct 23, 2019 19:36
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Outside of the obligatory green intro levels, I always felt that the first three games (haven't played the others) punished you for doing the only thing the games brought to the table - going fast. Exploring didn't turn up anything interesting, the platforming was weak, and you spent too much time waiting for janky elevators. Mean Bean Machine was good.
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Oct 23, 2019 20:23
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Orcs and Ostriches posted:Mean Bean Machine was good. I preferred Kirby's Avalanche / Ghost Trap. Edit: solely on the music because the game functionally is the same. seiferguy fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Oct 23, 2019 |
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Oct 23, 2019 20:40
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DEEP STATE PLOT posted:i've not played the rest of those games, as i mostly only ever played the 'main' sonic games. i'm also always a bit suspect of sonic game recommendations, since for a good long while people talked about how sonic cd was the secret greatest sonic game ever and then i was so thoroughly repulsed by it when i finally tried it out. i will probably give the ngpc one a try though since that console has been pretty high on my priority list for a bit and i might as well get some games for it. I honestly don't get how people like Sonic CD either. I beat it once and... yeah I just go live and let live on this one. I also played it after the originals and it made me second guess myself, but I enjoyed the 2D parts of Sonic Generations and Sonic Mania just fine, while Sonic CD is downright unplayable. Sonic CD stages feel so incoherent to me, "it looks like something I'd have made with cheat codes on" is an apt description of how I felt about every single stage in that game. It was fairly easy for me to see Sonic 1 was a bad game, I just had to play it again on PC once, feel the misery of Marble Zone, and think "yeah this is superseded". I still feel joy anytime I plug in S3K and either play from start to finish or just drop in any stage in it. Except maybe for Launch Base for me, the rest of the game is just fun.
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Oct 23, 2019 21:04
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Go play Sonic Pocket Adventure. From the wiki: Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure[a] is a platform game developed and published by SNK and released for the Neo Geo Pocket Color in 1999. The game is based on Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992) for the Sega Genesis, borrowing much of the stage themes and gameplay elements, but featuring unique stage layouts, elements from other Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog games, and extra game modes. Sega's Yuji Naka and the rest of Sonic Team supervised over production.
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Oct 23, 2019 22:06
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Big sprite platformers are bad. Mario rules because he's either a square or a rectangle. Sonic's sprite is too messy to make for a good clear hitbox.
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Oct 23, 2019 23:55
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Vookatos posted:Even if we ignore all the poo poo Sonic series had, I could never get into the games. I don't really like how levels are so big that you can't really explore them, and speed mostly fucks you up. Oop, there's a spike, gently caress you. Maybe it's better in the sequels, but considering I never really liked the controls, it doesn't really matter. Sonic was designed to be one of the 5 games you actually owned as a kid and be played over and over and over until you've got the physics and the layout completely down. In many ways, they're more akin to something like Tony Hawks than Mario. The whole inspiration for the game came from people realising there was a certain kind of fun that came from flying through W1-1 for the 50,000th time. Of course, it's not 1992 and I own more games on my telephone than I owned for my Mega Drive, it's completely reasonable to not want to slam your head against the weird physics until they start to feel good. Mario had an ageless design to it (especially Mario 3), but Sonic is very much a game of its time.
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Oct 24, 2019 00:22
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Mario is a precision platform. It's essentially ageless and also what every other game before and after did. Sonic is an insane attempt at doing crazy physics on a pixel game. For all the bugs and quirks it has, the code of Sonic's engine is incredible and staring at it makes you wonder who is crazy enough to design and code that. I wouldn't say Sonic is a product of its time as much as it is a perfect storm. It has a design that is very, very encouraged by modern engines. Right now we live in a world where most engines push you to use as much of its built-in physics as it possibly can and 2D games are encouraged to make use of that. In my last job working at Outworlder I saw a code that moved as far away from that as humanly possible because it's crazy to trust on Unity and even then the engine still did everything in its power to automate the job. The lead programmer did an amazing job at mitigating that but it's very annoying how much Unreal and Unity want to get in the way. Sonic is very hard to recreate even though the entire game code has been torn apart and we know exactly how the physics work to a T. And even then, merely being able to recreate it is enough to land you a job at Sega - there's no shortage of people who try their best at simply porting what's been extensively documented to existing engines and failing, or encountering bugs that are hard to explain. It's in a way a perfect storm, because even tiny changes in the values will make the game feel like complete garbage. As far as 2D Platformers go, the original 16-bit Sonic games have by far the most impressive coding and design I've ever seen, and it's a downright miracle that the occasional "Robotnik's speed trap" is the worst you'd get on a normal playthrough. And yeah, the nature of the game is basically expecting you to invest time and energy into it that most people looking for a platform game in 2019 will not. It's very similar to Mario 64 in that once you get the gist of it, the game becomes an incredible parkour simulator with an unprecedented degree of freedom. Touching the game with little investment however is just a terrible experience of you walking forward, falling to the lower route, and repeatedly hitting off-screen spikes and monsters. Elentor fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Oct 24, 2019 |
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Oct 24, 2019 00:44
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gently caress off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LD9Yekzajk Fun fact: The Christian Whitehead iOS/Android port replaced this trap with an entrance to the remade Hidden Palace stage. Pretty cool.
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Oct 24, 2019 07:38
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