don't click here

Mario and Sonic at the 2020 Olympics announced

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Dark Sonic, Mar 30, 2019.

  1. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

    no reverse gear Wiki Sysop
    8,543
    2,465
    93
    Northumberland, UK
    steamboat wiki
    I can say with confidence that both Super Mario Bros. and Pokémon Red/Blue/Green/Yellow are the most recognisable of their respective series (especially the latter). Every 8x8 tile in Super Mario Bros. is a celebrity these days.
     
  2. SuperSnoopy

    SuperSnoopy

    I like Sonic Advance Member
    1,778
    740
    93
    Lyon, France
    Slice of life visual novel, coming soon...?
    I was talking about nostalgia more than brand recognition really. Of course the Mario 1 sprites and the Gen 1 starters are super recognizable, they're everywhere. You can't see a single Pokemon product/Official artwork without the 3 of them somewhere, and the classic Mario sprite managed to found its way into pretty much every recent Mario game. Everybody know these, even the people that never touched the games in question.

    But let's say that theoretically, people were allowed to chose which sprites will be used to represent the retro events. I'd be pretty interested to see what the results would be.
     
  3. Powpuck

    Powpuck

    Member
    350
    65
    28
    Apples and oranges, I think. The Gameboy was a worldwide hit even before pokemon rolled along, so of course pokemania spread like a venereal disease faster than a voltorb from the first outbreak. The NES/Famicom was a particularly NA/Japanese phenomenon. Genuine affection for gen 1 pokemon logically would be far and wide.

    I do have a deep and genuine nostalgia for SMB1, because I was a baby when I first played it (my folks never picked up SMB3 or SMW, but I played them at my cousins' via SMAS+W, so 16 bit SMB3 has that bigger effect on me).
     
  4. Did you mean Mario Bros.
     
  5. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

    Member
    14,631
    1,610
    93
    Working on my art!
    I dont think original mario bros sprites are as remembered by others as the smb sprites.
     
  6. The first Super Mario Bros game is definitely the most nostalgic game in the series, basically every NES came with SMB. It was the Wii Sports of its day. Same with Sonic, in North America Sonic 1 was a pack-in game for the Genesis. So it stands to reason that most people, especially non-fans, would recognize those the most.

    For Pokemon, Gen 1 is the most recognizable because of the popularity spike between 1998 and 2000. Pokemon was an unavoidable phenomenon during that period, to the point where people who didnt play video games were familiar with the characters. The popularity cooled after that period, basically every non-gamer moved on from the Pokemon craze. Nintendo shilling Gen 1 constantly is their attempt to bring those people back in by tapping into their nostalgia.
     
  7. Powpuck

    Powpuck

    Member
    350
    65
    28
    Hah, speaking of non-Super Mario Bros. (Its official name seems to have become Mario Bros. Classic), my first experience with it was Mario Bros. VGA in my middle school's art class, which was run by a gamer hippy. He had a Virtual Boy(!) there in addition to 2 or 3 IBMs filled with a bunch of titles I was new to, such as Arkanoid. With MBVGA, I thought it was some crass bootleg--which is true--that sort of just cherry picked Mario elements and affixed them to Joust's framework--which wasn't true, but in a sense authentic to a bona fide Mario game. (SMB3's multiplayer stage was unkown to me.)

    What got me in spite of its inauthenticity was how comparatively more elaborate the character (particularly the shellcreepers' walk cycle) animations were in comparsion to the authentic games.

    To pull focus away from a boring person's meaningless anecdote, I doubt MBC was ever mainstream until it was compiled with every single GBA Mario game... where it looked and handled exactly like SMAS SMB2. Man, what a checkered history for Luigi's debut.
     
  8. I believe you're correct @Powpuck . Short of those who were familiar with Mario Bros. by having a machine in a local arcade or happened to have the NES port, most people were introduced to it through the Advanced titles. I even recall overhearing someone refer to it as a full version of the SMB3 minigame way back in middle school.
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2019
  9. Gestalt

    Gestalt

    Sphinx in Chains Member
    The Mario Bros. games were too difficult for me, but I loved SMW 1 and 2. Being able to play them on the go felt very good (and paved the way for Virtual Console).

    Nintendo and their classics, will there ever be a happy ending?
     
  10. Turbohog

    Turbohog

    Member
    923
    117
    43
    I'm surprised this has spawned so much discussion. I was just bothered that that Sonic had 16-bit sprites and Mario's were 8-bit. But I guess if I had it my way, Sonic would have his S3&k sprites too. :P
     
  11. Powpuck

    Powpuck

    Member
    350
    65
    28
    Yeah, the fact Nintendo had the audacity to just through SMAS and an SNES emulator on a Wii disc and charge 50$+, never sat well with me. Mario is mega-huge surely they could hire someone like Taxman and Stealth to reverse engineer and remaster the first five games. But people will eat up anything Mario, so there's no incentive to ever bother.

    Also, it just occured to me both Mario and Sonic had LCD games, if there was an opportunity to target retro appeal but not limit it to overly familiar and incongruous sprites, it'd have been to emulate those. Everyone has nostalgia for LCDs, whether they were Tiger, McDonald's, or Game & Watch (Gallery).
     
  12. sonictopfan

    sonictopfan

    Banned
    35
    3
    8
    I can agree on SMB but Pokemon? I dunno, maybe because I never cared for the franchise even as a kid but in my area (middle east) people only recognize Pokemon as a classic anime not so much the games, that’s why Pokemon Go did so well, Nintendo finally understood that to the casuals (outside Pokemania) people only recognize the anime, think AOSTH for the casuals.
     
  13. Beltway

    Beltway

    The most grateful Sonic fan of all time this week Member
    1,662
    182
    43
    Sega of Darkest Peru
    Artwork and classes
    Don't mean to change the subject, but how does anyone feel this is going to do in sales? I’m personally leaning towards this not doing much better than the most recent installments / recent Sonic games at best; although there are various factors at play here.

    The 3DS/Wii U installments (London ‘12 3DS, the Wii U-exclusive Sochi ‘14, and Rio ‘16) were clear-cut flops; and even the more successful Wii/DS entries (Beijing ‘08, Vancouver ‘10, London ‘12 Wii) were showing a visible decline over time; with the two sequels making roughly half of their immediate predecessors (‘08 - 11m, ‘10 - 6m, ‘12 - 3m).

    There are some advantages in Tokyo 2020’s favor, such being developed exclusively for the Switch (development for only one platform, and a very successful one at that) and Sega sitting out Pyeongchang ‘18 (series getting a small breather period). It also doesn’t have much holiday competition in regards to casual/party games beyond Just Dance (and Pokémon to a lesser extent). But I don’t think it will be enough to rejuvenate the series proper overall.
     
  14. Sid Starkiller

    Sid Starkiller

    Member
    1,457
    358
    63
    Virginia, USA
    Paying off student loans
    Agreed. I think the first one sold better on sheer novelty alone. I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason this was brought back was because it's in Tokyo.
     
  15. Overlord

    Overlord

    Now playable in Smash Bros Ultimate Moderator
    19,218
    965
    93
    Long-term happiness
    Mario's an official mascot, there may be some extra pimping as a result. Between that and this not being lumbered with the WiiU any more, plus the gap since 2016, I think it should do decently.
     
  16. SuperSnoopy

    SuperSnoopy

    I like Sonic Advance Member
    1,778
    740
    93
    Lyon, France
    Slice of life visual novel, coming soon...?
     
  17. Dream racing looks rather fun.
     
  18. TheManchildMine

    TheManchildMine

    A Casual Snoc Fan Member
    I think one of the reasons that these games started to go downhill was how long the freaking names were getting after the first two when they had to add the year AND location to their titles. The later titles are literally longer than some full sentences. Of course, this isn't the only factor.
     
  19. Naean

    Naean

    Naean H.F. (Nez Man) Member
    821
    190
    43
    United Kingdom
    2D. Sonic Fan Game
    I think this long-winded title issue can at least be partially countered by simply calling each game Mario & Sonic #### Olympics for short. (Where #### would be the year of the Olympics for that specific title.) This format should work because, as far as I am aware, there is always a different location for each Olympic Games year, and no single year is shared across different locations. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this.

    It's a bit like the full title Sonic The Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles. Yes, it is a long-winded name, but it can be shortened and still be understood by the majority of people in the fan base, in forms such as Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Sonic 3K, or even just S3K. :)
     
  20. The mobile version of the game, Sonic at the Olympic Games is actually looking surprisingly good for a mobile title. Looks almost on par with the console version, graphics-wise.