But it made me start to think about both franchises as a whole and the overall quality between each installment. To be fair, both games look to be solid multiplayer experiences that I will be forcing my friends and loved ones to play with me. With that dual release happening, it’s time to admit that while Mario games are better, Sonic games are generally more fun.
Wonder and Sonic Superstars, two 2D side-scrolling games, are releasing mere days apart from each other, from two franchises that used to be bitter rivals. That is abundantly true right now, as that iconic gaming rivalry has been revived. The inverse is rarely true, as Mario is usually the standard bearer and innovator of the genre, but comparisons will still be made regardless of whether it makes sense. When a new Sonic game comes out, comparisons to Mario are inevitable, like when people saw Sonic Lost World and immediately called it a clone of Super Mario Galaxy.
Emblematic of the console wars between Nintendo’s SNES and the Sega Genesis, that rivalry has transcended that era of gaming and has embodied each franchise to a certain extent. Of all of the rivalries to ever grace gaming, the battle between Mario and Sonic is arguably the most iconic.