a.l.e.x59 on 18 May 2007
Mario: Nintendo's mascot
Sonic: Sega's mascot
Crash: Sony's mascot
Which one is your favorite, and why?
In 1985, Super Mario Bros., one of Miyamoto's masterpieces, refined video games to this very day. It was a wonderful work of art, and rapidly fueled the success of the Nintendo.
Other games soon followed: Super Mario Bros. 2, which wasn't as good as Super Mario Bros., but still a masterpiece, Super Mario Bros. 3, which may be the best of the NES classics, Super Mario World, which ignited the triumph of the Super Nintendo, Super Mario Allstars, which made the three, original NES classics, even better, Super Mario 64, which refined 3D platformers, and Super Mario Sunshine, which perfected the concept of Super Mario 64.
On the Gameboy, Super Mario Land, and Super Mario Land 2, although not as good as the games on the Nintendo consoles, are still mighty impressive. There was nothing but ports of the NES, SNES, and N64 Mario games on the Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, and the beginning of the Nintendo DS. But finally, after many years have gone by, New Super Mario Bros. became the next insallment in Mario's portable Universe.
Mario was under attack only twice. The first time he was attacked, was in 1991.
After the debut of Super Mario World, Sonic the Hedgehog, for the Sega Genesis, was Mario's stiffest competition ever. The game instantly brought Sega to fame, and other games, such as Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, made their debut. The games were also on the Sega Master System, and Sega Gamegear, but they weren't nearly as famous as the ones on the Sega Genesis. Sonic was never a true success on the Sega Saturn, or Sega 32X, but Sonic CD on the Sega CD is sometimes classified as the best Sonic game. Then, on the Sega Dreamcast, Sonic Adventure, one of the best games ever, truely brought Sonic into the world of 3D. Sonic Adventure 2 came out, and although some professional reviews stated it as inferior to Sonic Adventure, due to the fact that you only get to play Sonic in less than 1/6th of the game, it still got pretty good reviews. However, after Sonic left the Sega Hardware, he was never the same.
Crash Bandicoot. Mario's last thread. Althought it was never as big of a thread as Sonic was, back in 1991, it was Mario's second biggest, and last thread... Ever... In 1996, Crash Bandicoot made its debut on the Playstation. His first game was very good, but it wasn't until the second, and third game, that may have made Crash Bandicoot the best platformer a Playstation has ever had. In fact, Crash Bandicoot Wapred (the third installment) has been considered to be one of the best platformers of all time. In fact, some people state that Crash was more of an equal to Sonic, than Sonic was to Mario. This is because the best selling Crash Bandicoot game has sold more copies than the best selling Sonic game, but in general, the Sonic games were a little bit better than the Crash Bandicoot games. However, Naughty Dog left Crash Bandicoot, for another franchise, "Jak and Daxter," which the entire series got very good reviews, but was never as successful, especially in sales, as Crash Bandicoot was. Crash Bandicoot was taken over by third party developers, and thus, he, like Sonic, was never the same.
Mario was always the king, all of these years. Sonic was in definite second place, until Crash Bandicoot took second place in the Playstation years, pushing Sonic in third place, when Sonic wasn't as impressive on the Saturn. However, Sonic made a come back on the Dreamcast, thus brought his status back to second, and push Crash back in third place. After Crash and Sonic made their multi-platform debuts, they were stripped down of their magic, got spanked several times a day, thrown in the mud, got their faces slapped (both cheeks), and finally, thrown in prison for life sentence, while Mario watched, and laughed, as he was lying down in bed, being served grapes by beautfil woman. Well... It was never that bad, but in general, Sonic and Crash, although not truely bad, just never captured the magic of their predecessors of earlier times.
Mario's best years were in fact, all of his years.
Sonic's best years were in the Genesis. His Dreamcast years were very good too, but not as good as his Genesis years.
Crash's best years were on the Playstation. That was all.
Microsoft came out with a mascot too (no, not Master Cheif. He isn't a mascot) named Blinx: The Time Sweeper. The franchise was about as good as Sonic and Crash, after both franchises lost their magic.
I consider a good game to get reviews of 80%-100%. None of the Crash Bandicoot, or Sonic games, got reviews this high after they made their muli platform debuts. You can check out the reviews at www.gamerankings.com, www.neoseeker.com, or www.gamespot.com, where averages of multiple reviews can be shown, displaying more of a fact of the quality of the games, rather than a one person, opinion.
Anyways, there are people out there that claim Sonic to have been Mario's equal, or even superior to Mario. Others, while not as much to those who favored Sonic more, have also claimed Crash to have been Mario's equal, or even superior to Mario. Review-wise, Mario is in first, followed by Sonic, and then Crash. Recently, Sonic has gone down so fast, he might have lost his status of second place, which would put the bandicoot back in second. Sonic the Hedgehog for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 was almost as bad as Crash Boom Bang for Nintendo DS, and that's telling you something.
I personally like Mario the best, followed by Sonic, then Crash. What about you?
