Paid Members Kaz Hayashi Posted October 18, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 18, 2017 I was trying to work this out earlier. I know that certain games are exclusive to each machine and tend to get funded and PR'd to the hills. However as far as I can tell, neither Sony nor Microsoft have specific mascots do they. I mean Lara Croft and Master Chief are probably the two that I'd class as the closest to being sonic and Mario, but not quite and they don't 'feel' exclusives as such compared to M&S. Adding on to that, I wonder if that's another reason why Sonic has lapsed in our eyes compared to Mario. He has nintendo behind him, can be part of a bundle, had exclusive skins and joy pads with the special edition versions etc etc. Sonics don't have a console brand behind him. Sega aren't what they were early 90's and aren't going to convince Sony or MS to knock out a ltd console edition etc. Obviously on top of the fact that the games are now shite in comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sphinx Posted October 18, 2017 Share Posted October 18, 2017 I never got into Sonic for the reasons Pat said - you whizz forward with no real plan. Maybe it's the some reason some people do like it, but you can gauge what's going on in Mario and put your idea into effect. And I prefer Mario music and characters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Kaz Hayashi Posted October 19, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 19, 2017 (edited) Saying all of the above that we've discussed, it took me a few goes to get in to Mario the very first time I played it (Mario 1 from all stars on snes). I remember thinking it was going to be good and my friends all thought it was amazing. I on the other hand has just opened the mega drive with the sonic packaging that Christmas that came with a poster. I plugged it in and sonic 1 at that moment in time was the best thing in the world. Even though I like sonic 3 overall and even though Mario wins for longevity, sonic 1 arguably has some of the best looking/vibe levels. Green Hill feels like home, lush greenery and pretty gentle. You move from there on to Marble Zone which feels like something pretty bad has happened to green hill and you're in a world of fire and lava. It bloody scared me as a kid when I first saw it. Then on to Spring Yard which I didn't fully appreciate as a kid, but it's a quality zone donning an 80's electro vibe with an amazing hook in the song, that initial 'brass' secretion "ba baaa, ba ba baaa ba". Then on to my most feared levels in any platform game, fucking Labyrinth Zone. The concept of drowning and the 10 second count down whilst looking for an air bubble is shockingly harsh and put the fear in to me. Then on to probably my favourite ever Sonic level, Starlight Zone. I remember the first time I made it that far. Labyrinth usually had my life, did me in and beat me down until I turned it off. But once completed I was so excited for whatever was next, anything but water, dry land. Maybe something a bit like green hill with sand??... but no, you're in space and the most relaxing lovely music ever is playing, such a great, great level. Then on to Scrap Brian zone, that's right, Brian, where all the Brians go to die. It was a bit of an anti climax in fairness. Anyway yeah, sonic 1 was great for level variation, nearly all of which were really good designs. Edited October 19, 2017 by Kaz Hayashi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FailedPromoter Posted October 19, 2017 Share Posted October 19, 2017 Aye, add me to those who were utterly bricking it at the prospect of drowning on Labyrinth Zone. Worst one is when you hear the music getting faster and you're waiting for one of those frigging bubbles to pop up and it's a second too late! Sonic Mania has really done a great job of capturing that vibe like. The reworking of the classic levels is great and then the new levels hold up quite well with them. Though I still hate the bonus stages. Rage inducing bastards that they are! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 19, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 19, 2017 16 hours ago, Onyx2 said: A well-argued, coherent post but this is too much of a simplification. You might as well say every wrestling match is good v bad which just doesn't apply in every circumstance. What problem are you solving in Everybody's Gone To The Rapture? Mario Party? Singstar? These and the Sonic example are far more about dopamine satisfaction than working towards a goal. True, it's gross simplification, but by design, and I think it's one that works in most cases - even in Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, it's still problem-solving, though in a different sense. You're trying to get to the bottom of what happened, and make sense of the story from the information made available to you. Mario Party is a series of mini-games, all of which would fit that simplification, as far as I can remember. It would be a stretch to make Singstar fit, though, admittedly. There's an interesting book - "Theory of Fun for Game Design" by Ralph Koster - that talks about how games (not just video games) are effectively designed to teach us something, even if that's not immediately apparent, and how most people struggle to look past the window dressing of a game and see the actual structure. It's from Koster that I've nicked a lot of the ideas about games as problem-solving. He uses the example of moral panics around GTA, and how most of the players find it ridiculous because, while to the outsider it's "oh my God, it's all about killing innocent people", to the player, those "innocent people" are just the means by which to score points and advance in the game, they're no more an "innocent person" than the ghosts in Pac-Man. Definitely get the point about dopamine satisfaction, though.  And, for all that it might sound like I've been criticising Sonic, I want to make it clear that I bloody love it. I was always a Sega fanboy as a kid, and aside from the Game Boy, I didn't actually own a Nintendo console before the Gamecube. I played the hell out of Sonic, Sonic 3, and Sonic & Knuckles, read Sonic The Comic, and the Green Hill Zone music is one of the most happily nostalgic things I could ever hear. 14 hours ago, Kaz Hayashi said: I was trying to work this out earlier. I know that certain games are exclusive to each machine and tend to get funded and PR'd to the hills. However as far as I can tell, neither Sony nor Microsoft have specific mascots do they. I mean Lara Croft and Master Chief are probably the two that I'd class as the closest to being sonic and Mario, but not quite and they don't 'feel' exclusives as such compared to M&S. Adding on to that, I wonder if that's another reason why Sonic has lapsed in our eyes compared to Mario. He has nintendo behind him, can be part of a bundle, had exclusive skins and joy pads with the special edition versions etc etc. Sonics don't have a console brand behind him. Sega aren't what they were early 90's and aren't going to convince Sony or MS to knock out a ltd console edition etc. Obviously on top of the fact that the games are now shite in comparison. When the Playstation came out, I remember finding it crazy that they didn't have a Mario or Sonic. I figured it must surely be a matter of time before they ended up with their own cutesy platform mascot, because that was just how gaming worked, you needed your mascot to shift units. I guess Crash Bandicoot got close, but he was never presented as intrinsically representing the brand. But, actually, that was probably one of the defining features that ended up selling the Playstation - it didn't have some cutesy cartoon character, it wasn't for kids, it was grown up, and it was just an appliance that you needed in your home. Not having a mascot probably made as much of a difference in marketing the console as grown-up and a must-have as all their active marketing did. These days even Lara Croft isn't in the running for a mascot, as there have been Xbox Tomb Raider games, no?  I think that's definitely true with Sonic - he just doesn't have the weight behind him that Mario does, Sega aren't in the position of using Sonic to launch new consoles or concepts, so it's just the occasional new game being churned out without much hype behind it, or any reason for hype behind it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Kaz Hayashi Posted October 19, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 19, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, FailedPromoter said: Aye, add me to those who were utterly bricking it at the prospect of drowning on Labyrinth Zone. Worst one is when you hear the music getting faster and you're waiting for one of those frigging bubbles to pop up and it's a second too late! Though I still hate the bonus stages. Rage inducing bastards that they are! Really was the stuff of nightmares. In terms of bonus stage, the half pipe/tunnel ring dash on sonic 2 kicked the shit out of sonic 1's rotating walls you can't touch or you spin in to a psychedelic death. @BomberPat - you're right about Crash, it just ultimately didn't work in the end due to the machine being for a more teen oriented audience. Hence why Lara took the mantle for lead 'Sony character' ps1. As you say though, she was multi platform. The first being for PS1 and the on its last legs Saturn. TR 2 & 3 were exclusive to PS though (other than PC/mac). I didn't realise that 4 & 5 were also out on dreamcast. No.6 and 7 were game boy colour exclusives. No.8 was a ps2 exclusive and no.9 (Legend) was pretty much every console going including GameCube and XBox and I'm pretty sure bar the odd game boy release they have been multi console. (Numbers are based on chronological release date, not necessarily the title name). I knew about 1,2 & 3 but didn't have a clue about when it became multi platform. Saying that it's not really surprising as it has lost any charm for me by the end of number 3. And I've just realised I've been jabbering on about 'retro games' in the what you play thread, soz. Edited October 19, 2017 by Kaz Hayashi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 19, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 19, 2017 Just remembered the same mate who said he didn't like Sonic 3 because "you have to go left too often", said that he's convinced the last sound you hear before you die is the drowning music from the Labyrinth Zone. Â On bonus stages, IÂ think the half-pipe thing in Sonic 2 was great, but the "collect the blue spheres" levels from 3/& Knuckles/Mania were probably the best constructed - even though I absolutely suck at them. I've got a soft spot for mad psychedelic rotating walls with oddly relaxing music, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Kaz Hayashi Posted October 19, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 19, 2017 (edited) 3 minutes ago, BomberPat said: I've got a soft spot for mad psychedelic rotating walls with oddly relaxing music, though. My younger brother made up some lyrics for that music. He simply sang "you and me yes you and me, you and me a cup of tea" to the rhythm of the song. That's all I'll ever take from that bonus stage. Edited October 19, 2017 by Kaz Hayashi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gmoney Posted October 19, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 19, 2017 12 hours ago, Sphinx said: I never got into Sonic for the reasons Pat said - you whizz forward with no real plan. Maybe it's the some reason some people do like it, but you can gauge what's going on in Mario and put your idea into effect. And I prefer Mario music and characters. That's a way of playing it because the mechanics for sprinting ahead are there, but there's nothing to stop you slowing down and playing it more like a regular platformer. Can't disagree about the characters though. Everyone in Sonic is a prick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 19, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 19, 2017 That's something I can't make my mind up about Sonic Mania - the levels feel massive, to the extent that I know I must be missing huge swathes of it, but you either pelt through them at speed and miss half of it, or try and explore every nook and cranny and run out of time. I guess the idea is that you replay it multiple times, taking different routes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Jazzy G Posted October 19, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 19, 2017 19 hours ago, Kaz Hayashi said: Interestingly (not really) I actually find Sonic 3 and Mario 3 to be the best from each franchise. They are both perfect versions of what I want from each one. Sonic 3 & Knuckles is phenomemal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Chest Rockwell Posted October 19, 2017 Moderators Share Posted October 19, 2017 I always liked the balance of 2 player head to head in sonic; speed was ones of the criteria you could win on, but there were many, so you had to know what you were shooting for and not finish too quickly and give your opponent the chance to clear up on the other categories. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members PunkStep Posted October 19, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 19, 2017 1 hour ago, Kaz Hayashi said: My younger brother made up some lyrics for that music. He simply sang "you and me yes you and me, you and me a cup of tea" to the rhythm of the song. That's all I'll ever take from that bonus stage. Ha I used to do stupid shit like that all the time! I think I made up lyrics for loads of Mario, Sonic and Street Figher music as I played the games. All of it complete nonsense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 19, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 19, 2017 A weird posh mate once really excitedly told me he'd come up with lyrics for the Labyrinth Zone music, and then sang them to me for an inordinately long time before I had to tell him that I had no idea what he was on about as that sounded nothing like the Labyrinth Zone music. Apparently it was the Game Gear version. Lyrics were a rubbish knock-off of "Satisfaction", if memory serves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westlondonmist Posted October 19, 2017 Share Posted October 19, 2017 I was a nintendo kid and loved Mario, Super Mario World being my favourite. I played Sonic later in life and find it okay, I find the advantage of it is that you can play it quickly and not really care about finishing it. But the disadvantage is that it was so easy to forget that you even owned it. With Mario you wanted to finish the game, beating the bosses seemed like a big achievement. Despite being a challeneg it remained fun which I find many games struggle to do. The Mario characters was far more fun also. They came across as smiley, fun but silly. Did Sonic even really have any characterisations? They had the Sonic Boom cartoon a few years back, a few weeks ago a guy working in Game was telling me about how much he hated it but I never saw it. Mario was able to sell various other games like Mario Kart, Smash brothers and various other games like Paint. There is also the Olympics games and they could get Sonic's name out of it and they would still sell. I am not sure I will get any of the Mario or Sonic games on Switch (4 in total) this year (I have got Kart 8 deluxe) but I may do. If a side scrolling Mario came out I would probably get it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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