Analysis Battle #1: Sonic vs. Mario

If you’re caught in a war with no end in sight, you might as well pick the side with actual characters.

CONTENT WARNING!

This post contains sensitive material that may not be suitable for all readers. The material in question includes:

- Bad language
- Violence
- Frightening visuals

The Ultimate Game of Either-Or
Today's Contestants
Round One: The Plot
Round Two: The Characters
Round Three: The Gameplay
Final Round: The Soundtrack
End Results

The Ultimate Game of Either-Or

Believe it or not, I’d spent quite some time considering which kinds of topics would be discussed on this blog. Granted, one trend I noticed rather quickly was a slew of critical comparisons between two or more related or semi-related topics. For this reason, I decided that I would take a long-since-abandoned idea called “Analysis Battles”, a series that was intended to be produced in video form for my YouTube channel, and vomit up posts dedicated to this very brand of comparisons whenever I feel like it (albeit with a pattern of some sort applied to the order of release). So, in brief, if you’ve ever wanted to see me explain ad nauseam why a Killers music video kicks Kirsten Dunst’s admittedly gorgeous behind all the way over Mount Fuji, this is the series for you! Fortunately, though, absurdly niche topics like that will be saved for another day, as we’ll be sticking with an Analysis Battle between two simpler and more predictable topics for now, namely two iconic platformer game franchises. I can guarantee that it will still be highly divisive, however, but you should come into this blog with that expectation anyhow. Please take a few seconds to watch this series’s rather… ahem… explosive intro video, which is in no way evidence that I’ve been running out of ideas since my lost media and beta content posts.

Today’s Contestants

Since this is our first foray into the same brand of comparisons made on this blog a thousand dozen times by now, I’ll introduce our first two contestants with zero sarcastic hints at the predetermined winner and loser. Thanks to the immeasurable success of one franchise and the movies that made about five percent more of the human population aware of the other, the platformer video game characters of Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog have transcended their artistic mediums and risen to fame as pop culture icons. Both played a key role in shaping their subgenre, with Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System (you can forget all about the earlier one just called Mario Bros.) having been one of the first iconic properties among platformer games while Sonic the Hedgehog for the SEGA Genesis advanced the subgenre with unforeseeably creative and innovative mechanics that everyone’s decided to stop admiring for some reason. Despite the stereotypes surrounding platformer games that the majority of examples have only served to validate… well… you know, come to think of it, these two series have also served to validate them, but one less so during a specific period in time than the other.

In this enticing first episode—a taste test, if you will—we pit them against each other, but not in a battle of brawn. It’s a battle of the brain. Or at least whoever’s brain has the willingness and capacity to compare two decades-old video game franchises.

Round One: The Plot

On the surface, it may seem like even tackling the subject of storylines in the realm of platformer games is futile, as fans of the subgenre stopped expecting solid storylines decades ago. Beneath the surface, however? Well, actually, the same applies, but Mario and Sonic have still told stories in dramatically different ways during their lifespans. Now, the subgenre has long since become synonymous with family entertainment, so I’m not here to claim that either franchise has (or should have) a hard M rating. Yes, both series are based around fantastical paradise lands of strange, cartoony life forms and geography, but only one has a history of incorporating any real thematic elements or attempting a uniquely dark tone (although Mario did decide to get mildly edgy in a stylistic sense with the Strikers games for some reason I’ve yet to discern). Neither series should be pushed too far with their mature content, but claiming that Mario would be right at home as a Disney property would be pretty generous, given Disney properties usually have clear themes and even hard-hitting emotional components. While it is true that Mario games have had real storylines with plot twists and emotional moments (well, that’s iffy) in the whole works—just take Super Mario Sunshine, Galaxy, and Odyssey, only one of which I ever had much love or appreciation for—they’re always lacking in any character development or a sense of starkness to their more unexpected plot points.

Both Mario Sunshine and Sonic Adventure 2 contain the same twist early on, that being when the main character gets arrested for a crime he didn’t commit and discovers that the real perpetrator is a dark, ominous “shadow” of himself. I’m sure Mario Sunshine doing this just a year after Sonic Adventure 2 was just a happy coincidence, but the tone and execution of their reveals are what sets them apart. Sunshine later unmasks Shadow Mario (who’s made of a blue, water-like sludge unlike any Sonic villain introduced a few years before) as Bowser’s son in disguise, but this is accompanied by lots of corny blanket exposition and peppy comedy music, neither of which are helped by the lack of surprise or any expression period in Mario and Peach’s reactions, as we’ll delve into later.

Not only does Shadow’s reveal in both the hero and dark stories of Sonic Adventure 2 carry a legitimately foreboding atmosphere, but he’s revealed to be a deeply self-reflective anomaly until the last story clarifies much of his backstory. Like most of the story, his arc and eventual self-sacrifice are both handled with a straight face and a bittersweet tone, whereas F.L.U.D.D.—a partially sentient water pump—appears to “die” before being repaired by the Toads ten seconds later. Yes, Shadow technically came back in Heroes, but he was never confirmed to be the same Shadow who presumably died until a rare Eggman line in Shadow the Hedgehog shattered that mystery (check the trivia section on the Sonic Retro page here in case you’re confused, and honestly, you most likely are.) I mean, in Sunshine‘s case, the potential was there to establish some form of fractured father-son relationship between Bowser and Bowser Jr. during the conclusion, given Jr. had basically been living the lie that Peach was his mother, but that’s asking a lot from this universe, because Jr. instantly forgives him.

You know what? Call it fifteen years too late, but I think I’m entering an existential crisis centered around why the hell I’m even talking about all this.

Round Two: The Characters

This is where we get into the really juicy stuff, as the storylines of Sonic games inversely became too complex in the mid-2000s when compared to those of Mario games, not to mention neither series really had much story during their classic 2D eras (check out my Sonic post here for more info on that topic.) My stance should’ve been summed up pretty accurately in the subheading of this post, but way more deserves to be elaborated on when it comes to the subject of characters. In Mario‘s case, it certainly succeeds at making characters physically and even vocally recognizable—their designs are no doubt unique and, more often than not, adorable, hence why Yoshi (or Doshi, as he calls him) has been my dad’s MVP in Mario Superstar Baseball, Super Mario Strikers, Mario Kart Wii, and other Mario sports games since I was six. Yet, Mario has never ceased its trend of… let’s call them Darth Maul characters. Or Boba Fett characters. Actually, what say we call them “Boba-Mauls”? Yeah, I like it. Basically, Boba-Mauls are characters who are awesome in their physical appearances because they lack any remotely interesting personalities—they aren’t characters built for longevity, hence why Darth Maul and Boba Fett were better off dying early on like they were supposed to. For the most part, Mario is a franchise populated by nothing but Boba-Mauls, and that does include those adorable Yoshis. Many fans believe that the Mario Galaxy games brought some emotional depth to the character of Rosalina, but to this day, only one cast member has held up character-wise from my perspective.

See, he still exists in some capacity, but during my childhood, Petey Piranha was essentially a Nintendo icon, and good lord, was that justified. I’ll never go as far as to call him a great character—even my Definitive Childhood Sonic Trilogy (Sonic Adventure DX, Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, and Sonic Heroes) doesn’t contain any of my favorite characters in general—but since his debut in Mario Sunshine, he’s been my favorite Mario character and continues to be for feeling right out of a Zucker Brothers comedy. It’s hilarious to me that the boss of an indiscriminate man-eating plant species is this flamboyant, flower-headed klutz in a spotted diaper, the irony of which is best highlighted when he accidentally cracks open the roof of the windmill beneath him during his introduction, in the middle of which he nervously looks up at Mario with a look that says, “I just dropped the ball, didn’t I?” I’m not sure what it says about Bowser Jr. that he uses a magic paintbrush—which he claims can bring all of his wishes to life—to conjure up an effeminate flower monster, but I speak earnestly when I call Petey (or Petty, which my family was unable to convince me was not how his name was pronounced for the longest time when I was little) unspeakably bizarre and charming enough to be crowned as the LGBTQ+ icon of the century. It’s such a tragedy that Waluigi had to steal the spotlight for making silly noises alone, hence why Nigel Thornberry will forever dwarf him in memeability by embodying an old British archetype with legitimate real-world grounding.

I feel the need to segue into the problems with Sonic characters as to avoid dumping on Mario too aggressively, considering Sonic Heroes began a downward dip in characterization that only dipped much, much further down afterwards… but I already got into that subject on my Sonic games post, so let’s just move onto why they’re better than Mario characters. Generally speaking, the characters from my Definitive Childhood Trilogy benefit from emoting accordingly as the story progresses, as well as having well-defined relationships with clear reasoning behind them. In fact, come to think of it, Sonic has trumped Mario in general when it comes to these aspects, although I get the feeling that most franchises have more expressive characters than Mario… well, during the story, I should clarify. In this case, most Mario characters are limited to what I like to call the “not-so-deep gaze”, which is a trope I’ve come to hate in anime because it aims to accomplish nothing other than capturing the disturbing alien quality… I mean, the unreal beauty of its characters. It’s just lots of wide eyes and hanging jaws, which usually requires some additional variation or physical gestures to come off as even remotely expressive.

Granted, there’s no worse offender in this series than Peach, as her blank stares and lifeless tone are clearly related to her ditzy damsel-in-distress identity. As I expressed more in-depth in my Sonic post, on the other hand, Amy Rose went from the damsel-in-distress of Sonic CD to an assertive and physically capable heroine in the Adventure series, no longer turning a blind eye to Sonic’s dismissive attitude and even taking on a leadership role in Heroes. Considering the world of gaming is one where the reveal of an intergalactic bounty hunter as a human woman instead of a robot or an armored man (yes, Samus Aran herself) was enough to stir players everywhere into a frenzy, that’s some decent gender subversion for a platformer game.

And that’s just the female lead! The male leads see an equal number of discrepancies, notably the main male leads. People love to play up how annoying Sonic supposedly sounds, a trend that definitely started with the infamous “you’re too slow!” line from Smash Bros. Brawl. By the way, if the people who find him annoying because of that voice line can hear me, I’m on your side—I find Jason Griffith’s Sonic annoying as all hell, too. Yes, the majority of people holding this belief do so thanks to certain voice actors when others, like Ryan Drummond, have such a purity and naturalism to how they play the character.

Mario, on the other hand, has been played by one man since 1994, and I don’t mean to sound cynical or judgmental when I say that people’s tolerance for the character’s voice continues to baffle me—with all due respect to Charles Martinet, God rest his soul, the character’s voice is unceasingly obnoxious. I say “unceasingly” because, during gameplay, he NEVER. STOPS. TALKING. Sorry, let me modify my wordage. He never stops SHOUTING. Every jump, every attack, and every instance of damage taken is accompanied by a “WOO!” or a “WOO-HOO!” or a “YAH-HEE!” or a “MAMA!” or a “HOO HA HOO HA HOO HA HOO HA HOO!” Compare that to Ryan Drummond’s Sonic letting out a mild grunt mid-attack or a quick “Ouch!” when he gets hurt, and the answer to the question of which one’s annoying and which one isn’t starts to feel like an objective truth. It’s not like Mario has a distinct personality that his chipper proclamations serve to emphasize, as his personality essentially boils down to “happy” and “Italian”. Give Sonic some credit—neither him or his fellow characters are defined entirely by ethnic stereotypes. I mean, I’m assuming they cast Chris Pratt as Mario in the Illumination movie because he was on Parks and Rec with Ben Schwartz, who was cast as Sonic in his own movies, but it’s a damn shame that Dom DeLuise never lived to play Mario, because his comedic persona might’ve been able to capture Mario’s more wholesome and jovial nature… well, aside from, you know, actually being Italian?

I am in the same boat as others when it comes to Luigi being a better protagonist, however, considering he has some actual charm and personality. The same can be said with Daisy in opposition to Peach, as she carries a nice touch of a snarky tomboy attitude despite her occasional portrayal as just another damsel-in-distress. Even then, though, Luigi lags behind Tails for never having any real growth or even a strong bond with the main protagonist, as I’m convinced that his alliance with Mario amounts to nothing more than nepotism. Hey, at least we’ll always have Luigi’s Mansion, a game I stopped playing after three minutes when I was five because literally everything scared me back then.

Round Three: The Gameplay

Like the previous topics, I’m not going to pretend like Sonic has always maintained its superiority in this area throughout the entire lifespan of the series, but unlike those topics, I feel it deserves far more credit than it’s received. As the contestant introduction stated, Sonic took the groundwork for the platformer subgenre that Mario helped lay out and did something totally fresh and unexpected with it, but while I can’t make the generalization that Mario is too simplistic in its gameplay formula—games like Sunshine and Galaxy certainly bring inventive spins to the formula—I do believe Sonic‘s to (a) be far more innovative in concept and (b) make far more sense in synergy with his species. The strange thing is, one protagonist is a hedgehog and the other is a plumber, but only one of those descriptions is relevant to their gameplay. Yes, Mario games feature pipes that are used to warp between areas, but Mario’s gameplay is so simplistic and boiler-plate within the subgenre that his profession as a plumber seems entirely random. If a mechanic was added where he took out a wrench to repair the pipes so they could be used, à la Fix-It Felix from Wreck-It Ralph, then not only would his profession have been cleverly incorporated into his gameplay, but it would’ve made his gameplay more creative overall. In Sonic’s case, his species wasn’t picked out of a hat—much like armadillos, hedgehogs curl into tight balls for self-defense, and most of Sonic’s cornerstone abilities like the spin dash and homing attack involve exactly that. Therefore, his species is a crucial aspect of his gameplay formula and what makes it stand out among those of his rival platformer protagonists.

Of course, foxes like Tails aren’t supposed to fly and echidnas like Knuckles aren’t supposed to glide (although Tails does seem to be heavily inspired by Disney’s Dumbo in concept, so using his tails to fly does make sense in the context of his backstory and character development), but the species of other Sonic characters are relevant to their abilities. Aside from a bat like Rouge obviously being able to fly, Espio is a prime example of this as a stoic ninja with an expertise in covert ops (the name “Espio” derives from “espionage”) because chameleons use camouflage to blend into their environments, which he can actually do in Sonic Heroes using his Leaf Swirl attack to aid in the stealth missions for Frog Forest and Egg Fleet.

Final Round: The Soundtrack

Like most topics I bring up on this blog, my cynicism shines through on the topic of Mario, but I’ll never deny that playing games like Sunshine and Mario Kart Wii were staples of my childhood that I’d admittedly formed tight-knit emotional connections with. Hell, I formed similar bonds with every game I enjoyed at the time, as I’ll get into when I look back on the weirdest examples in an upcoming post. Therefore, before railing hard against these games, I need to give their soundtracks some much-needed praise. After all, Sunshine in particular is ironically outshined by more popular and influential platformer titles like Mario 64 and Galaxy, but given it’s the only major platformer title in the series that I’ve ever really enjoyed, I feel personally obligated to do it justice. Its soundtrack ranks high among my favorite video game soundtracks of all time, even to the point of competing with those of my Definitive Childhood Sonic Trilogy, and it has as much to do with the tropical vibes of the songs as it does with the tropical locations they’re associated with. I recall first stepping foot on Delfino Airstrip, with the upbeat piano and low horn tracks eliciting a balance of coastal comfort and impending doom, both of which would be witnessed and experienced firsthand as I progressed. Of course, once I was given my community service instructions by a police officer pianta who sounds suspiciously like Homer Simpson, the ominous vibes faded until I was left with the same caliber of cheerful Mediterranean warmth as those of Delfino Plaza itself. The same relaxing cultural flair was carried over between levels with plenty of variation, including but not limited to the more industrial, trumpet-assisted theme of Ricco Harbor; the mellow xylophone track guiding me past the cataquacks of Gelato Beach; the low droning and soft percussions that made the tangerine sunset of Sirena Beach all the more… well… serene; and the deep jungle bliss of Pianta Village.

Granted, the grotesque designs of enemies like the Bloopers, those angry-sounding noises the Goobles made before they attacked, the struggle of completing special courses without the assistance of F.L.U.D.D. (not to mention their deliberately nebulous mission titles like “The Secret of the Dirty Lake” and “The Sand Castle Secret”), and other strange qualities like the off-putting design of King Boo compared to later appearances did make the experience a little frightening at times. Plus, along with Mario attacking Petey during his slumber, refusing to let him fly away to safety, and crushing his outie belly button until he dies—not to mention flattening the giant wiggler on Gelato Beach for the crime of being angry, even when it’s causing zero environmental damage—I’m disturbed now more than ever by his choice to dismember the Gooper Blooper one tentacle at a time, which he does in a vicious way that leaves me theorizing on whether every Shadow Mario chase is just an instance of him confronting his repressed inner sadist. As Max Payne once said, “It was like one of those nightmares where you keep running and running, only to discover you’re chasing yourself.”

Of course, based on my Sonic post, you’ve probably deduced that the soundtracks of my Definitive Childhood Trilogy far surpass those of even the Mario games I grew up loving, even if the Twinkle Circuit, Kart Racing, and Heroes trolley race themes are right on par with certain Mario Kart themes (Coconut Mall, Peach Beach, and Delfino Square are among my favorites to this day, although I still love the atmosphere of race tracks like Maple Treeway and Moonview Highway despite their relatively forgettable themes.) I know the painfully embarrassing… I mean, endlessly beloved DK Rap is associated with Donkey Kong, but that series is linked directly to Mario, so the point made in my Sonic post about Knuckles’s rap music exemplifying kids media rap music done right still deserves to be reiterated. Hell, as legendary as Mario Sunshine‘s soundtrack is, it lacks the same edge as the soundtracks of most Sonic games. Though, then again, Sonic in general has more of an edge and mature touch than Mario, which makes it impossible for me to accept the common notion that Sonic can’t be appreciated by anyone over the age of seven—I mean, clearly, the squeaky clean world of Mario makes for a real man’s game, am I right? In fact, when it comes to vocal tracks, you can tell that those written and recorded for my Definitive Childhood Sonic Trilogy had enough actual talent going into them that they pretty much transcend the realm of children’s music, almost to the point of going mainstream more than even beloved Mario vocal themes like “Jump Up, Super Star!”. However, more than anything, I was motivated to write this post by a past experience that left me questioning the logic behind popular viewpoints on the music from either series.

See, back in high school, I shared a music analysis assignment in the form of a PowerPoint presentation that was designed to bring attention to lesser-known musical talents, and it was during this presentation that I made a direct comparison between two video game songs: the boss fight theme for E-101 Mk. II from Sonic Adventure (titled “Crazy Robo” on the soundtrack) and the boss fight theme from Mario 64. I’ve embedded a similar comparison between these songs down below, but the point this is supposed to make is that “Crazy Robo” is more inventive, complex, and atmospheric in its blend of somber and chaotic-sounding elements, notably its clever pairing of electronic synth tracks and traditional jazz tracks. It’s a song that instantly draws you in regardless of which point you come in at, whereas the Mario 64 boss theme follows a generic, slow-paced marching rhythm composed solely for the events it’s associated with. While I’m not left thinking about it 24/7, I was genuinely surprised when everyone else in the room said they preferred the Mario 64 theme, and that the Sonic Adventure theme was “catchy, and that’s it”. After explaining this experience to my dad a few months ago, I had a good laugh after playing both themes back-to-back and challenging him to listen to the Mario 64 theme for thirty minutes, a notion that he visibly shivered just thinking about.

End Results

In the first case of what will apply to every entry in this series, the answer couldn’t be made more obvious. Indeed, Sonic the Hedgehog has dashed all the way to the top while Super Mario has limped… I mean, leaped and shouted like a derogatory cartoon goombah to the finish line. The reasons? Well, those would be all of the reasons I’ve already offered. Doy, stupid. Granted, I had already been given enough of a reason before starting this post, namely when I skimmed through a video compilation of brotherly Mario and Luigi moments to make sure there wasn’t anything meaningful that I might’ve missed. What I got instead was sorta-kinda cute Mario moments that Luigi happened to be present for, and even though a key example was Mario giving Luigi a literal black eye in the Mario Power Tennis blooper reel (yes, it was accidental, but the shot cuts away before any real moment between them can happen), commenters certainly didn’t hold back with treating them like they’re goddamn Lenny and George from Of Mice and Men. Meanwhile, Sonic and Tails are shipped by fanfiction writers more often than their relationship is appreciated as it is, and Jesus Christ, I think I’m going to need another break from gaming-related posts after this.

In spite of prior evidence, however, this is not an attempt to win over comrades for my side of the unwinnable Sonic vs. Mario debate—in the end, the best is whoever’s games you enjoyed the most growing up. Much like the comparison between Sonic and the Star Wars saga I made in my Sonic post, these two franchises are best compared to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Entertainment Universe. Mario is much like Marvel in that, while oftentimes overly formulaic and predictable, it maintains a consistently high level of quality (well, at least it used to in Marvel’s case). On the contrary, Sonic benefits from its variety of ideas and concepts like DC, but it also falters from more sporadic levels of quality as a result. Oh, and there’s also the fact that comic book fans tend to prefer the characters from DC, much like me with Sonic characters (and DC characters, ironically), but then again, in the world of comics, both publishers are constantly jumping ahead of and lagging behind one another in competition—it’s a radically different industry from Hollywood. Regardless, feel free to let me know why you prefer Mario so I can let you know why you’re factually incorrect.

Thanks for tuning into episode one, folks!