So everyone generally knows about Sonic, it's kind of hard not to at this point in time. He's been around for three decades with various generation of gamers growing up with him. And I feel like that while everyone disagrees with each other over the details (We'll get to that shortly), there is a general understanding within the fanbase of the general design ethos about this series. I think we can look at Sonic 3, Sonic Adventure 2, and Sonic Generations as what many consider "definitive" experiences for Sonic of each "era" so to speak. When I say design ethos, I'm generally referring to the Arcade-styled design baked into each of these games; "short" experiences that are designed to be played multiple times in order to really understand and master the mechanics. And before someone says "Sonic games aren't short!!!", look at the average time to complete each of the games I listed and then keep in mind the average AAA games takes over 20+ hours to beat. Sonic Games aren't long, at all, and they're not supposed to be. They're meant to be short and to the point where the value of the game comes from multiple playthroughs where the player better understands the mechanics. And yes, if this reminds you of @Josh video on replay value, then that's exactly what I'm referring to. By comparison, Mario games are designed to be much more accessible on average. That's not saying they're easy because that's blatantly false, but they do a much better job at easing players into the game than Sonic games generally do. I don't think its really a coincidence that almost every platformer takes more cues from Mario than they do from Sonic, with exceptions like Freedom Planet or Sparks the Electric Jester. The accessibility of platform games makes them perfect family-friendly games; games that parents will get their kids and they can just pick up and play. While Mario and Sonic both have high skill ceilings, the floor of entry is much higher for Sonic than it is for Mario. And on that note, this leads perfectly into the next point. If you couldn't figure it out, this is the point of the topic; the family-friendly nature of Sonic is a bit at odds with how much the games demand from the player. Sonic games generally follow trial and error game design, which is perfect for the Arcade style of the 90's they came up in...but doesn't really fit the modern environment of gaming as a whole. As Josh's video pointed out, video games are much more mainstream nowadays and as such, its hard for the average person to pour that much time into mastering them. They're more than likely going to play for a few days before moving onto to something else. This is especially true for video game reviewers who likely have multiple reviews they need to submit and will only have time for one playthrough, let alone mastering them. As I mentioned that's not how Sonic games are designed or how they work and some of them get a bit of a bad reputation as a result. Rest assured, a lot of Sonic's bad rep is definitely earned but I also feel like many people simply just do not understand the nuances of Sonic's central gameplay and the fact that the series is designed in a family-friendly manner kind of reveals the conceit; if you go into Sonic games expecting to just breeze through the levels, you are going to get your ass kicked and when that happens many people will accuse of them being poorly designed. (A lot of them are, but not for the reasons people think ) And I think Sega understood that to an extent, hence them throwing in nonsensical shit like Shooting, Fishing, Beat'em ups, in an attempt at pleasing people who may not quite be into Sonic's brand of platforming and I think Iizuka confirmed that to be the case if you look at some of his interviews. Even nowadays this shit is happening with Frontiers very blatantly designing itself like Breath of the Wild. Sonic games, mainly later ones, tend to be unfocused because they're trying to be accessible for the family while still having the depth that they were originally known for within the fanbase...leading to very mixed results needless to say. So Sonic has been at a crossroads of sorts for the last two or so decades, struggling to decide what they want to be and often disappointing everyone in the process. They kind of need to decide on a focus of sorts; do they want to be accessible family friendly games like Mario, or do they want to follow through on that Arcade Trial and Error type of mastery of old. Sonic gets a lot of comparisons to character-action games like Devil May Cry or Metal Gear Rising and it's honestly easy to see why, because the latter tend to follow a similar outline; very in-depth mechanics that demand a lot from the player to master at a low level. The main difference however is that Devil May Cry and Metal Gear Rising are not family-friendly games...like at all. They're camp and dumb as all hell but they're not really something a parent is going to look at and think "Yea, this is good for my child". It's both a strength and weakness for Sonic ironically enough, particularly the Modern games. The Classic games are definitely designed with trial and error in mind, and Mania follows suite, but something I've noticed is that a lot of Modern Sonic fans simply don't care for the Classic titles and I think that might be why. In my 20 something year experience with Modern Sonic fans, most of the love is for the lore and characters as opposed to the gameplay. The gameplay is simply a means of experiencing the lore I've noticed; a modern fan can tell me everything they love about their favorite Sonic character, but if I asked them to describe the gameplay, they'll just give simple and vague descriptions like they're "fun" and really, there's nothing inherently wrong with that and it goes hand in hand with the family-friendly nature of the series. If anyone wanted to know where I got this topic idea from it was after reading this Escapist article, which is yet another "Everything about Sonic sucks and it would be so much better if it was like this other series" article and it kind of bugged me out how often I've seen this opinion pop up over the years. Often times I feel like people that aren't fans of Sonic's games only criticize them for not being like everything else and for "daring to go against the mainstream" and articles like this just reinforce that to me. It's not even just non-fans, often times I see actual Sonic fans think Sonic games need to be like other franchises rather than just embracing what it is. And that really bums me out honestly, because this franchise has so much to offer that simply goes underappreciated for various reasons; sure a lot of Sonic's misfortunate is deserved, but you can't help but feel sometimes that the public at large just doesn't understand and misrepresents him. And that probably speaks to the appeal about the character and franchise as a whole and why it's lasted three decades of gaming when other icons came and went. He's an outcast, somebody that doesn't "fit in" with the standard mold of what many people think a platformer should be (i.e. like Mario) and tends to be punished for it. But he still soldiers on because that's just the type of franchise this is, always moving forward no matter how many missteps it makes and there's something really inspiring and beautiful about that to me. Hope people take something from this topic and come out with a better understanding of why this series means so much to them.
Yes. The good old comparison. Sonic games aren't just about honing your skills or mastering the level layouts. They're also about mastering the D-pad and the physics engine. And that's in my opinion where the main difference lies. Mario games don't challenge players on a technical level most of the time, but instead pull off some proper dick moves on them that they need to overcome in order to see the credits. Sonic games offer a good grounded challenge in the scope of what video games can do, Mario games tend to actually mock the players. That's the impression that I got when I played Mario 1, SMW and a bunch of Mega Drive games.
I really don't get the "Mario has a lower skill floor than Sonic" take. It's complete BS in my experience. Classic Mario games are hard, and that starts from the very first stage. Novice players would likely take way more time and effort to beat a classic Mario title than any of the classic Sonics. Complaints like "why am I punished for going fast" often come alongside comparisons to Mario, which completely ignore the fact that Sonic is significantly more forgiving of a player's mistakes.
I can only speak for myself, but I never really felt like Mario games were all that hard outside of the endgame stages...which are supposed to be hard.
I think a factor to consider in the Mario vs Sonic debate is which franchise a person has played first. As someone who grew up with Sonic and didn't get into Mario games until his teens, those games did feel harder because I approached it like a Sonic game. Friends of mine who grew up with Mario had a much harder time with Sonic because they approached it like Mario. Frankly, I think the Mario vs Sonic comparison is a lot like the Star Trek vs Star Wars comparison. They're both of the same general genre but the approach is completely different and aren't really comparable much beyond that. If you're going to make any conclusions I'd approach it from the perspective of someone who's never played either before. I'd also be wary of generalizing Classic and Modern fans on why they like either. I'm a fan of both because of both the gameplay and lore (maybe even the artstyle).
This is a reflection of something much bigger: Mario and Sonic put out competing syntaxes for platformers. Mario won, but not because it was necessarily better. It's not that Mario has a lower skill floor -- it's just more readable because any given game out there is Mario. It "teaches" players like Mario does, progresses like Mario does and punishes you like Mario does. Sonic looks a lot more chaotic and "unfair", but only because the syntax on which Sonic is based hasn't influenced thehistory of gaming as much. In Sonic, throwing yourself at danger and at the unknown is mostly a virtue. You might get hit or even die, but -- like you said -- classic Sonic games are often very lenient towards these setbacks. Collectibles are part of the life system, so you have life points literally floating around you at all times. Complaints about "getting punished for going fast even though the game tells you to go fast" look very dumb to us because we've been dissecting Sonic's formula for decades now. But such complaints exist in a world in which the standards for what makes a game "fair" were set by games that aren't Sonic. SEGA as a whole lost the "syntax war", if you will, but again: it's not like it means the games were worse, or harder, or less accessible in any way. It's just that many older SEGA games look sort of weird to us today because games evolved in a completely different direction than the one they proposed.
This seems right. While I played a fair amount of Genesis Sonic games and NES Mario games as a child, I definitely played Sonic first (as a toddler; I genuinely don't remember my first time playing Sonic 1 or 2). And to boot, I continued to play those Genesis Sonic games into adolescence and adulthood fairly consistently, while only sporadically playing said Mario games. I've beaten Sonic 1, 2, CD, and 3K. But the only "classic" Mario game I've finished is Super Mario World. And I think that's indeed due in large part to how much more forgiving Sonic games are. Two hits in Mario and you're dead. The only classic Mario game I've finished is also the most forgiving of the bunch, with a built-in save system, and the ability to replay any stage (including the stage in Donut Plains that lets you collect tons of coins). This is also extremely true. When I play classic Mario games, I'm always holding that run button down, and I often suffer for it. You'll take damage in either of these games, really in any platformer, if you're recklessly charging forward into danger. Sonic simply gives you more band-aids. Yeah, I'm not so sure about this. For starters, it's hardly unusual for a game to require you to learn its mechanics by practice. This is true of Chess, or Tennis, or Magic: The Gathering, to name a few. Needing to put time into a game to become better at it isn't something that was invented in 90's Arcades, nor was it invented by video games. As for modern gaming, I feel like "Soulslike" becoming an entire genre unto its own over the last decade (and with Elden Ring being the most anticipated game of 2022 at the Game Awards last year), and the revival of fighting games, should dispel the notion that trial-and-error gaming is out of style. Games that are able to be simply picked up and played are definitely popular, there's no denying that, but I think things are pretty diverse and full of options that cater to different styles of play, which are all pretty popular in their own right, these days. As for the topic title itself, I don't think there's any contradiction to be had between "takes time to play well" and "family friendly". Kids ostensibly have more time on their hands anyway, so making games for them that require more time to beat would seem appropriate, if anything.
I think this is quite right, but not enough, as many platformers are so generic they don't imitate either, they're just closer to mario because that's what you get with boilerplate platformers; Mario is en evolution of the standard, while Sonic indeed defied the standard even back then, and it's almost like that famous song from The Clash: "I fought the law, and the law won". Just look at the 8-bit games: they lack a lot of features of the 16-bit series, yet they still feel quite different from standard platformers even on the blockier levels. Yet... What it's true about this statement goes beyond that, because, more important that if it is Sonic's case, is that, in every long-lasting franchise, what stays on people's mind is the imagery and concepts. Everything changes, not just Sonic. You can't just expect Sonic to remain the same forever, nor can you from anything or anyone else. The only thing that can remain consistent is the big picture without the details, and they've kept it even if the character feels different for fans that stayed long enough, as, let's face it, it's not just that Sonic is for kids, it's also that adults move on so the target demographics aren't those who stay around, but those who arein an age to try anything random their parents bought based on generic reasoning and enjoy it the same as if they got something else with cute cartoons and catchy music. Handling Sonic on its surface level is terrible for us long-lasting fans, but it's not for the average parent who will see it on a surface level when buying birthday or christmas presents. And there enters the lore, because it's easier to read about the lore of the older games for free if you're interested, or to let your imagination fly away with fanfics and whatnot if you want more and want it now. The real paradox here is what made Sonic so important in the 90s was tied to the technology they could offer back then, so there was no way Sonic would thrive unless its games reinvented the formula with each generation of consoles, and they did. That's why their biggest fault is in the execution and not necessarily in their vision, but that's a different debate. The good thing is making old-fashioned games along with the up-to-date titles now is an option thanks to all this retro trend and the recognition of videogames as an art with different styles. The paradox is Sega with what they do more than Sonic with what he is, if you ask me.
I'm reminded of this thread every time: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/i-dont-understand-how-youre-supposed-to-play-sonic-games.1419688/
That thread hurts me. Just...get to the end of the levels and pat yourself on the back. I knew that when I was 4!
Right? It's just... just play it. There's not a one way you're supposed to play it. Get a game over, try again. No one's gonna judge you for it.
This was literally the reason I made this topic. It feels like some type of joke that people literally have no idea how to play Sonic games.
I'm not entirely sure about posting this here if it's relevant to the topic but going through that thread made me just remember another thread from ResetEra titled "Sonic Jumps Wrong": https://www.resetera.com/threads/sonic-jumps-wrong.71000/ In it there was a post someone made where they basically, in their own words, "remove sonics angle from the jump direction calculation. this also prevents sonics current vertical movement from being added into the jump so running up/down slopes and jumping doesn't make you jump higher/lower" https://www.resetera.com/threads/sonic-jumps-wrong.71000/page-4#post-13174597 They provide a link to an .ips patch to put in a Sonic 1 ROM. They also provided a video in there channel to demonstrate how it looks like: I have personally tried it and it does feel very off.
