Mario Producer: Sonic's Same Week Release Is "An Interesting Coincidence"

Gentlemen, may the better game with elephants win.

Does every AAA game have the same colour palette now?

History's funny, ain't it?

"Mario and Otherwise" lol. But's rather inconsequential at this point. Theres nothing particularly significant about them releasing the same week IMO.

Mario & Sonic Haven't really been in the same ballpark since the early 90s. They won't be battling each other for the top of the charts that week. Spiderman 2 would be the biggest competing game for Super Mario Bros Wonder.

I'm not expecting much from Sonic. It will come out, get a bunch of 6.5s to 8.5s, fans will be upset and try to relitigate Mario's quality, and we will shrug and keep playing Mario.

I may pick up Sonic sometime down the line maybe but Mario Wonder is a must for me.

I wonder (ha) if Sonic Superstars will win in the end, because it's a multiplatform game?

There's no way it was done on purpose, definitely a coincidence. Nintendo would not have chosen to release the same week to hurt the sales of Sonic. That's not how they do business, they just release their first party games when they feel they are ready, and only pay attention to the staggered timing of their own first party games, not rivaling others.

For Nintendo, there is no animosity or rivalry between the brands anymore. Much as its weird to say, Sonic is almost a 2nd party brand for Nintendo these days. He makes them a lot of money, and compliments their brand. For consoles, Nintendo is Sonics natural home and his inclusion in Nintendo games like Smash and sports titles is welcomed not tolerated, and retro Sega IPs are officially welcomed and co-opted, Genesis on NSO, official NSO controllers etc.

As for Sega, back in the 90s, the release date would have been a potential consideration, to get a PR one up if they outsell Mario, or even take from his sales... but not today. There is maybe still a tiny lingering friendly rivalry but they mostly see Nintendo as partners and they are realistic that Mario is the far bigger game franchise nowadays and its foolish to try and compete, instead, just try and beat the sales of the last Sonic game, and get better reviews and fan reactions than the missteps of the past.

Sonic wont hurt Mario's sales in any way. But Mario could hurt Sonic's sales, for people that either can't afford both games, or just don't want 2 side scrolling platformers in short succession. I'm sure that most people, if forced to pick one, will go with Mario. I hope this isn't the case, as I really want this game to succeed and show Sega there is a future in high quality 2d platformers. It's my favourite genre, and Sonic is my favourite franchise.

Of course, Sonic is available on all systems. I'm sure the PC sales will be stellar. But PlayStation and Xbox are a tiny fraction of Sonic's console sales, it's usually like 80% Nintendo. I really feel that these two games launching at once could hurt the initial sales for Sonic and that makes me sad.

I'm really excited for Mario Wonder. I think it looks excellent. Im sure it will garner 10/10 scores all round and be hailed an instant classic. I love 2d Mario games and have been wanting a new one with new ideas for what seems like forever. Im 100% sure i will love it. But I honestly feel like I don't want to buy it on launch. Its hard for me to get hyped because all my hype is aimed at Sonic right now. A new, quality Sonic game is a far rarer prospect, and much, much more is at risk for the company and brand. It needs to succeed. Mario just will succeed, there is no question there.

SEGA does what Nintendoes.

Sonic looks like the better game, although likely to be shorter. I don’t believe Mario is going to be a goty… it’s a 2d mario…

Kind of wonder why there was never a Mario platforming metroidvania with character progression/abilities.

@PinderSchloss To be honest, it’s quite refreshing that AAA games even have colours now, after a painfully long stretch where the default AAA colour palette seemed be ‘grey, brown, and (if you’re lucky) a dusty shade of olive green’.

The fact that two of October’s biggest AAA titles are 2D platformers seems pretty novel in itself!

@sanderev There is literally no way in hell Sonic beats out Mario.

I will get both, if Sonic also ends up being good (which it thankfully looks to be based on previews). But I believe Wonder will be the better game of the two, as I prefer the Mario formula, even though I grew up with the early Mega Drive games. It also looks more creative than the Sonic game.

@Alckemy I am guessing because Nintendo makes Metroid.
There've been some great 2D Marios, and some pretty good 2D Sonic games. Maybe Mania crosses over into greatness at points, but it's still Sonic.

@Alckemy

It could be my game of the year and that's all that matters to me.

To use your logic TotK is just another openworld 3D game. There are enough of them about these days.

To expand a little on the above post which briefly mentioned me possibly not buying Mario... (sorry, I know I post long speils but some people seem to like them!)

To be clear: I will buy Mario. I'm very excited to play it. Just not right away on launch day.

I'm buying multiple copies of Sonic Superstars (Switch+Steam for now), both because I want options to play it everywhere, but also to help out in what way I can. Im voting with my wallet to tell Sega to keep going and make more games like it.

I want time to fully immerse myself in the experience of a new 2d Sonic title and spend weeks or even months savouring it. I will do the same with Mario, for certain. I always do! But I think I can wait til around Christmas to enjoy it. Sonic & Sega need my sales more than Mario & Nintendo do.

I know I sound like a rabid fanboy, to an extent. But I'm realistic. While Mario is all but guaranteed to be a 10/10, Sonic will likely be a 7 or 8 for most reviewers. Usually, that would still make it a must buy for platform fans. But the inevitable comparisons to Mario will hurt it. I really hope professional reviewers realise this and take it on its own merits and have realistic expectations, rather than spending most of the review comparing it to Mario and dunking on Sonic because it used to be fashionable to do so. That's so played out and barely valid anymore, it's just clickbaiting nowadays.

Recently a lot of Mortal Kombat 1 reviews have marked the game down because the reviewer prefers Street Fighter 6. That's unfair because the two are very different experiences with different fanbases who have different wants and expectations. I see a parallel with Mario and Sonic, two very different takes on a broad genre. Some people like chocolate, some like cheese, some lucky people enjoy both. But comparing them is pointless, and might put other people off of trying something new, or make them feel bad for liking the "wrong" one.

I will totally buy them both as part of a two-in-one pack that costs half the price of either game alone! Now that I put it on the internet it MUST happen, right???

Not everyone has a Switch, Sonic is also releasing in 5 other platforms, no?

@Maxz Your post made me smile. That Ps3/360 period where everything went brown and grey and colours were ultra desaturated just zapped any enthusiasm I had for gaming at the time. I bought a Wii but the motion controls and weak hardware both grated on me over time. For about 5 years I thought I'd grown out of caring about modern games and I just went full into collecting retro stuff and figured I'd become one of those "old men who thinks new stuff is bad and the kids have no taste".

It was buying a Wii U for my kids that finally reignited my interest in games. Playing Mario Kart, Sonic Transformed, & Disney Infinity 3 with the kids i actually had a great time and got enthused with "modern" gaming again. With the eShop I started to try out modern retro style indie games like Shovel Knight and Shantae and the Pirates Curse, and modern remakes of classics like Duck Tales, and I was fully hooked again and reinspired. Sonic Mania being announced felt like a homecoming.

I still have little interest in "serious" triple A games, they just don't appeal to me. But I'm beyond grateful that fun, imaginative, colourful games are thriving, and companies like Nintendo and Sega are keeping the old styles fresh, modern and relevant. Not to mention talented indies making cool unique experiences and retro-style games.

The fact that there is a market for that kind of experience is what inspired me to finally get back into designing and programing games - something I loved doing as a kid and teen but gave up doing professionally when the market turned to only funding the types of game I didn't like working on. I can thank both Sega (especially the Sonic Mania team) and Nintendo for that inspiration. Having my own games available on a Nintendo system alongside Mario and Sonic is something that I'd have dreamed of as a kid and quite a huge turnaround for someone who in recent memory felt he'd outgrown gaming.

I get the feeling that the period after the honeymoon phase for Wonder will be brutal.

It will be interesting to see how each game performs in terms of both sales and reviews. Of course, it's a multi-plat vs a single-plat, but I don't think that will be too damaging for Mario. We can all just imagine what it would sell if it was on many other systems too though.

@LikelySatan A phrase I found recently is that “bees dont spend time convincing flys that honey is better than poop”.

@SalvorHardin Wonder has legs. I got an advance copy and have been playing it for almost 28 months daily. It's so consistently addictive.

@Tokiwa Yes! 🥰 But sadly the Switch is usually by far the biggest console market for Sonic as the fanbases and tastes for colourful, family friendly experiences, and retro brands converge on it far more than PS/Xbox. So in the short term launch period, Mario releasing will for sure dent the sales of Sonics biggest console market, to some extent. Its really bad luck that Sega released the game at the same time as Wonder. It must be quite frustrating to turn what should have been huge news and a guaranteed seller into a 2nd place consideration. 😟

I hope 2d platform game fans buy both. Realistically we've not had it so good for decades and having both a new Mario and new Sonic to look forward to is extremely exciting 😀

@Ironcore That's quite good! Although in that metaphor, I like both honey and poop. And I'm not sure I like the implication that either Sonic or Mario is poop. 😂 It's a clever phrase though and does work well. I think my "chocolate vs cheese" analogy was a little less gross 😅

@Maxz Good point! It was also more an observation than a real complaint.
We do need more colourful games, like Sea of Stars. Those palettes were insanely good.

@Ironcore you right.

@samuelvictor I still think Sonic will sell pretty well, some people make it sound like it'll sell horrible or something.

@Tokiwa Oh, it absolutely will! Sonic games always sell well, even the poorly received ones. And I'm confident this will be good (probably not perfect, but definitely one of the better games). There's a large dedicated fanbase that buys everything Sonic. Myself included. That audience is really growing too, the movies, recent shows, IDW comics, recent merch have all been far outperforming expectations and just out and about in town and supermarkets etc I see loads of little kids with Sonic tshirts, plushies and toys, so it's gaining the love of a new generation, not just surviving off retrogamer fumes.

But the announcement of this particular game was a big deal for even "non-sonic-fans". I saw many people who hadn't played a Sonic game since the Genesis days, or even people who've never played a Sonic game but knows they were once popular getting hyped for it. The audience reaction at Gamescom was incredible, and doubly when you consider most of that audience was there for AAA Sony/Xbox/PC stuff, as no Ni te do reveals.were expected. There was palpable excitement from casuals. But that was before they knew a new 2d Mario was also coming.

I'm sure that Superstars will be a very big seller for Sega. Likely to outsell Origins, perhaps even Mania. But just not quite the mainstream homerun breakthrough that perhaps they were expecting, had it had no obvious competition for a similar audience and genre.

@HaileySheridon That's lovely to hear and yes I certainly see parents who grew up in the early to mid 90s doing exactly that. I raised my own kids playing every new Sonic and Mario release when they came out, and showing them the old classics too of course 🥰 I think lots of other parents in the same time period (dc/ps2/gc/xbox) did too, and this is why I see loads of passionate Sonic fans who grew up with Adventure, Heroes, Unleashed and the Mega Collections. It's great to see young millennials who loved the Gamecube now having kids and sharing Mario and Sonic with them too!

It warmed my heart visiting the cinema for both Sonic movies and the Mario movie and seeing whole families turning up where the parents were obviously fans and sharing the excitement and love for the characters with their children. I definitely think that kids that like Sonic will also.like Mario, and vice versa. They won't think of it as a rivalry, and many will think of them as friends from the team up games that feature them both. As you say, I think many kids will get both games for Christmas, and that's the way it should be! What a time to be a kid 😁

@SBandy1 open world games haven’t been around since 85, and objectively offer a lot more gameplay variety than a Mario 2d platformer. I also never said I think totk should be goty…

But if we went that direction totk had several moments that were incredible (wind temple entrance comes to mind).

Imma just get both. Need to support the couch co ops as much as I can.

@Alckemy Elite came out in 1984 😉 but obviously I know what you mean.

Btw, your description of "Mario platforming metroidvania with character progression/abilities" is a pretty good summary of what my forthcoming Switch game "The Timeless Adentures of Hazel Witch" is. Perhaps the designs of the outside landscapes are more Sonic-esque, but the inside areas like vast castles etc are very Mario. Hazel is the little witch girl in my pfp.

I don't say this to plug, more that I'm surprised there aren't more cute, colourful character lead cartoon metroidvanias. Vast, joined open worlds full of unique characters, enemies, objects and scenery really lend themselves to colourful and fun designs. I'd love a Metroidvania Sonic or Mario. Fantastic Dizzy was an early example of something close to that potential... I can't really think of anything else like it.

@Alckemy

First 2D Mario in near a decade, countless 3D open world games relased in the interim period.

All I'm saying is the style of game does not dictate its overall quality.

I predict mario wonder to sell over 10 million and Sonic about 5 million. Nintendo and Sega know full well alot of their audience is 40-50 year old who grew up with the franchise so that's an easy million or two who will buy them

@Alckemy You mean like Wario Land?

Anyway, I hope Superstars reviews decently so Arzest no longer have to be known as the 'Balan WonderWorld people'

I’m more excited for sonic. Mario seems a bit more kiddie than it normally is but to be fair we haven’t seen that much of the game. I hope it’s challenging and bowser’s castle areas are cool

@HaileySheridon I had Pokemon Blue and Kirby's Dreamland on release too! Yes it seems a lot of properties from the 80s and 90s are evergreen. Ninja Turtles, Transformers etc getting re-imagined every few years. New reboots of shows i thought were long dead. New games in almost every successful franchise. Chart music remixing, covering or sampling stuff from our childhood. It's cool to see it happening even if some remakes/reboots aren't great.

My own kids are now grown up and left home. A day or two after watching the second Sonic movie in the cinema I was helping my mum in the supermarket and I saw a family with three young kids, one with a Sonic plushie, one Tails, and one Knuckles. They were running up and down the aisles playing with them like they were racing and teaming up. It made me quite emotional to see. 😭❤

I've always struggled with 2D platformers as opposed to 3D but Sonic in 2D is the odd exception. Something about the momentum of Sonic just feels more natural to me so I'll be playing Superstars for sure.

I'm absolutely terrible at 2D Mario so I'm probably not even going to try Wonder. I've tried multiple times to get into 2D Mario but it just doesn't click. I just can't get down the timing nor the controls with the weird "worm thumb" technique as my friend likes to call it required to play.

Both should be great games in their own right though for their audiences. Happy to see the devs don't feed into the fanboy wars that some people are still fighting since the 90s. 😄

Read "interesting coincidence" as "f*****g moronic."

Why publishers repeat the same madness each year of releasing their biggest games within days of each other and never bother to take the time to understand why some of them disappoint is beyond me. Elden Ring released in March last year with little/no competition. Zelda this year in May, same story. Gamers don't have unlimited resources and there are plenty of bare spots in the year. There's loads of massive games coming out over the next two weeks, but frankly I've only got the time to play one of them. If I bought two or more, the others would be £50-£70 bookends for the weeks/months it took me to get around to them while I finished the game I was playing now. Good times for all the wealthy unemployed gamers though.

If they're anything like previous releases, Sonic will be interesting, but short and buggy, and Mario will be solid, but boring and bland.

Both games are just what I like, so this is a great week. Hopefully Sonic will continue in that direction and stay happy and colourful.

@Tokiwa Being a multiplatform game doesn't automatically mean a game is going to sell more. Some of the highest selling games of all time are on one platform. Like some Mario games for example.

Seeing Spiderman 2 is out the same day implies October 20th is probably the exact sweet spot to release for maximum Seasonal sales.

Both companies now have the technology to render the characters how they used to look in their eye-catching promotion art.

But they don't.

Instead of making Mario look like bright comic print, and sonic look like a 90s airbrushed poster, they made the games look all washed out candy fuzzy, and decide to make the promotion art also look like that.

@samuelvictor Thanks for the comment!

I’m glad we’ve got to a point where disparate games like Dark Souls, Resident Evil, Mario and Sonic are all celebrated for their own merits. It feels like a much healthier gaming landscape.

If you don’t mind answering, do you have any recommendations for a newbie thinking of dipping their toes in game programming waters? (e.g. software/tutorials/etc.)

I had a lot of fun playing around with Game Maker Garage, but I imagine it’s quite different to real meat-and-potatoes game making!

@BTB20 I never said it was going to sell more than Wonder though, but it will certainly sell pretty well unlike some people claim.

@Pod I think the gameplay of both Superstars and Wonder look really great. Personally I would have loved highly animated and characterful pixel art, or cartoon quality hand drawn and painted art, but the styles they went with fit the current modern aesthetics and are done very well and with nice use of colour, good eye for detail and are well animated. I'm very happy with how they look.

However I completely agree on box art. The 2d hand drawn/painted Mario and Sonic box art is some of my favourites and I have framed prints of some of them on my wall.

While some are better than others, there's never been official CG renders of Mario or Sonic that I would consider worth framing as art that I enjoy or find inspiring.

Sonic in the modern day still has loads of great 2d art. The old style pictures for Mania and Origins are really nice, and the 2d animated stuff and IDW comics are all extremely beautiful and the best Sonic and pals have looked since the 90s. I wish they would make a game in that style, or at least use it for box art... maybe reversible covers if they really want the primary version to be a sterile cg render.

Mario on the other hand, there's no hope for. I don't remember seeing official 2d Mario art for decades, outside of the spinoff rpgs. The cover of the new Mario Vs Donkey Kong remaster looks awfully bland and sterile (imo) especially compared to the cover of the GBA original, or DK 94. The 2d official hand drawn art for NES, Gameboy and SNES Mario games are absolutely beautiful. Nothing since then has particularly inspired me, and many look plain, boring and lazy in my opinion.

It feels like they think box art doesn't matter. I think perhaps the actual explanation in modern times is that highly detailed 2d art can often look bad or don't really read when shrunk down to tiny thumbnails on a low res Switch/Phone/Tablet.

@JohnnyMind There's no official confirmation of that yet as far as I know but imo it's an absolute given - though probably not on day 1. All recent Sonic and Sega retro games (Monkey Ball, Samba De Amigo) have the digital deluxe bonuses later available as dlc or included in the "plus" dlcs. The box of Superstars specifically specifies digital purchases so it's even more likely. The only exception I can think of is a single outfit for Frontiers that so far is locked to DD, the brown boots/gloves.

I'll be buying both at launch and given Batman is delayed until December, I'll be also playing Sonic at launch unless Nintendo decides to release MK8 Deluxe DLC wave 6 in the next 2 weeks (which I doubt).

2D Sonic games are usually short with focus on replayability so I'd imagine I'll have finished it by the time SMB Wonder releases.

@Maxz No problem, and I agree that the more variety and things to suit every taste the better 😀

As for getting into making games, my stock answer is if you want to make 3d games (or realtime movie stuff), learn Unreal Engine, but if you want to make 2d games, go with Game Maker (as in Game Maker Studio Pro from YoYo games.)

I love using Unreal for realtime VFX & virtual set work and of course its capable of making full triple A 3d games. But it's not exactly beginner friendly especially if you've not learned any programing languages before... unless you just want to buy premade stock assets and Game frameworks and put your own story on them etc. It's also waaay overkill and pointlessly fiddly for 2d projects imo.

With Game Maker, it's now 100% free to learn and use, but you'll only be able to export the games you make to play in the Opera GX gaming browser.

The games you make can actually play on almost anything - PC/Mac/Linux, Andoid/IOS, Switch, Xbox 1/S/X, PS4/5. Once you are ready to start exporting, the PC/Mac/Linux exporting is only $5 a month, $10 if you want mobiles as well, $60 for consoles.

What I'd recomend is try the free version, do some tutorials, see if you like it. If you do, pay the $5 a month whilst developing so you can test and easily send builds to family/friends or put in early access etc, then if you want to make mobile or console versions, just upgrade for a single month then go back to the cheapest version.

There are 2 main reasons I recommend GameMaker: 1) it's been around for decades, there's countless fantastic tutorials for free, both official and just on YouTube (Shaun Spalding has incredible indepth series on making fully featured platformers, rpgs etc) and there are very active forums and Reddit where people answer your questions almost immediately.... and 2) importantly, they do not take a single penny of anything you make. Ever. What you create is yours. No percentage of profits or install fees or anything silly. You made it, it's yours. That $5 a month could save you millions if a game you make ever takes off.

Only one word of caution: don't be tempted to mess with the drag and drop nature of gamemaker, take the plunge right away and start learning GML, its proper programming language. It's extremely intuitive and easy to pick up, similar to BASIC back in the day, but very fast and object oriented, so it has the benefits of C++ but is far more beginner friendly and faster to make projects. The drag and drop stuff is quickly limiting and makes you lazy but the language is infinitely powerful. I've used many languages over the decades but I now can't imagine ever wanting to use anything else.

Only other possible alternative to Unreal or GameMaker I'd recomend is GoDot, which can do both 2d and 3d games. I really want to love that as its entirely open source which is fantastic. I 100% approve and am watching it closely. However I hesitate to recomend it for a full beginner or for a professional project as it's a very new language, and therefore the user base, technical support, tutorials, etc aren't fully there yet and you end up having to make educated guesses, difficult to do if you dont have a programming background... plus it's developing so fast you may run into project breaking bugs, or find that a new update kills your project. But for playing as a hobby and watching it grow, it may be the future, if it picks up enough steam.

@LikelySatan I hate to agree with the devil, but, my money is only going towards Mario this week. Sonic will be on sale someday…

@DonkeyKongBigBoy I'd disagree NSMBU Deluxe did 16million on Switch and thats just a port. I can't see Wonder doing any less than 20million.

Never played a Sonic game but this one looks like a good buy. Its a shame its coming out same time as Wonder because theres now way I’m buying to pricey games like that so close to each other.

@DonkeyKongBigBoy Wonder is going to sell significantly more than 10 million.

@Hero-of-WiiU If you're in the UK (or Europe?), Hit is selling physical copies of Superstars for £39 for all consoles 😀 https://www.hit.co.uk/fsearch.htm?search=Sonic+Superstars

I think there is one big down side to both of these games and that is they are not proper 2d games would have lover games that looked more like sonic 3 and Mario World
I think Nintendo and Sega have missed the mark quit a bit 🤔

But if had to pick the better one with what I have seen then sonic should be the winner🥇😊
But it will probably be Mario that would win at the end 😅 😉
just hope it won't be as bad as all the new super Mario games man they were not good😢

@samuelvictor cool thank for the heads up 👍

@samuelvictor Thank you so, so much. I couldn’t ask for a more thoughtful, detailed response. This an absolute goldmine. I’ll definitely give GameMaker a try!

Really, thank you.

m(_ _)m

@Alckemy I wonder why they never did a Zelda dating sim? You know to appeal to all those people that don't even like Zelda in the first place?

@Mirage-5x5 No worries!

@Maxz Aww 🥰 it's no problem, I'm really glad you found it helpful! I promise I'm in no way affiliated with GameMaker/YoYo/Opera. It's just that I've been programming since the mid 80s and GML is by far the nicest language I've ever used, super quick to make things with, but I've not hit any limitations or found anything it can't do. It's perfect, really, as long as you don't want 3d. And the fact they don't take any percentage of your sales puts it miles ahead of Unity, Unreal etc.

Only other thing I should mention is that in recent memory, it wasn't subscription based and you could buy a permanent license. These permanent licenses were even occasionally in humble bundles, Steam sales etc. So if you look on the grey market, you may find you can buy a steam code for permanent pro license (which is what I have) so you won't even need to pay the $5 a month. YoYo will honour all old licenses forever. Make sure you are getting Studio Pro 2 though, not 1.4, if you want to get free updates and run on current consoles/mobiles

@RainbowGazelle Sad, but true. Mania was a high, that I thought Sonic Team would see and continue from there. But then we had Frontiers, and Origins...Sigh.

After reading the development of Sonic Superstars, I don't have high hopes. If it can atleast hit middling reviews it will just be continuation of Sonic's ever mixed reception.

I know it ridiculous, but I like to think that SEGA heard Nintendo was releasing a Mario game while they were in the middle of making a Sonic game. They knew no one would buy Sonic if Mario was out so they decided to rush the release. The soonest the could schedule it was just days before.

Yeah, I know it's just a funny coincidence.

Otherwise the Hedgehog, my favorite game!

I won´t buy Mario Wonder, only Sonic Superstars (for steam, of course)!

@HammerKirby I'd like a Metroid farming simulator please. And an F-Zero themed match 3 puzzler.

@Rykdrew I'm sorry for your loss XD

I wonder 😉 what SEGA thinks of this.

@Dr_Lugae I did not understand.

I don´t like Mario Bros adventure games. Too easy and boring game for my taste.

I prefer Rayman Legends.

But I don´t buy a new Sonic game in years...I´ll go with Sonic this time.

Honestly very surprised that Sega didn't try harder to avoid this. They have ran into this problem with Mario release dates before, Sonic Forces and Mario Odyssey immediately coming to mind. Mario does not care that Sonic is releasing at the same time, but Sonic will lose some initial sales because of Mario, and make back a good chunk of those through sales and parents picking the game up for kids.

@HammerKirby Mario has been in almost every single genre of games. Zelda has been in very few by comparison. Not a good analogy

@SBandy1 Super Mario maker 2 doesn’t count?

I could understand the re releases of the Older games but if anything Smm2 was a HELL of a game in comparison to what we’re getting

@martynstuff I don’t really feel like wario land was a metroidvania. It had less linear design and backtracking sure but I’m talking more of… idk put the Mario bros in bowsers castle and explore the entirety of that. Then end off by him escaping to an airship and having a final battle in space or on a star. It’d be sick.

@Alckemy

Nope, it was deliberately limited by a set of creative tools that do not match the hand crafted style of classic Nintendo made 2D Mario titles.

@Alckemy yes but you definitely expect a certain type of game when you buy a mainline 2d Mario game. Casuals would be so offput by a metroidvania in that situation for one.

@SBandy1 that’s where we’ll disagree, but that’s ok. The level design behind creators covered a huge spectrum of challenge, creativity and skill. Sure. The screen isn’t transforming in a trippy way but the Mario charm was there and then some considering the added assets.

@HammerKirby to be clear, a 2d Mario is totally fine. By no means am I saying replace a 2d side scroller with an open world- Im just expressing that because 2d Mario has been so similar over the course of like, 40 years now, and having played every single one up to this point, I find it difficult for it to wow me as a game of the year contender…

At least with Zelda the experiences feel like completely different vibes and moments.

Compare the couples quest of majoras mask to visiting sunken by rule for the first time in wind waker to climbing the typhoon in tears of the kingdom.

Innovation in Zelda has been wayyyyyyyyy beyond Mario.

I just rejoice that we have both! I'm going with Sonic first and saving Mario for Christmas.

I've pre-ordered Sonic

Sonic is better

@nocdaes yes good idea getting Sonic first

@samuelvictor
I'm sure you're right about the CG box art and promos being a matter of practicalities for Nintendo.
They want the characters and the gameplay portrayed as you can expect them to look, and they want it legible at all sizes.
Though I'm not sure I agree that the legibility is good to begin with anymore. If we compare the Japanese covers of Mario World and Mario Bros. 3 to that of Wonder, they're both easier to read, and much more popping and fun. But both were retooled for the west for some reason, with many elements removed for extra clarity and character emphasis. And one more time for various rereleases. It's work and consideration every time. However, each game had a visual identity. And now, we all just get weird CG slurry. :-/

As you say, it looks like it just isn't important to them, outside of setting reasonable expectations for the audience. And of course it is true that the box doesn't make the game. But it does set the expectations for it. And 20 years later the cover for Metroid Prime still rubs me the wrong way.

You're right that with Sonic, they still seems to make an effort with the promo art. But I do feel that the in-game graphics have suffered many times over the years. And while the Superstars box art isn't the worst we've seen for the series by a long shot, it just also doesn't look like it mattered to them for the game stand out on its own.

@Maxz Just to add to this, I'm no dev but I've a bit of experience learning programming, and THE most important skizzle to have as a programmer is googling. Literally, programmers live and die by their google-fu. Programmers and especially gamedevs often often run into unique problems that noone has solved before and all you've got is your noggin and a search engine. That's why they pay programmers the big bucks - often they have to be google buckaneers, striking out alone without a map. Yahar.

The first thing to do is pick a language/engine. Godot is a bit more powerful/versatile than gamemaker, and has been making a buzz since Unity started setting themselves on fire. So this might be a good pick. It's ON THE UP. Also It's completely open source which means completely free.

The next step is to use your google fu searching for beginner resources. This is your first big google of many. Usually there are a few specialised guides for different types of programming, and a few general guides for absolute beginners. Start off searching forums for recs with search terms like "Best godot books for begginners reddit". Try to triangulate by looking at what people are saying, whats getting the most upvotes and what titles that are coming up again and again in different threads. After that, if you don't want to commit to buying, you can usually try before you buy using libgen (google it!). I doubt the authors would mind if you have the intention of buying later.

The next step, once you've got everying installed, and used your beginner guide get to grips with the very basics, is to piddle around with a really simple project. Something on a 2D grid with a small number of assets and a simple but fun gameloop. Could be anything but KEEP IT SIMPLE and try to make it FUN.

Then bit by bit try you just learn by doing, googling as you go, and watching online tutorials, building up your skizzles and your google fu. Eventually you'll get better and better at googling; and when you know what to google the sky is the limit.

Blessings.

Thank you! I feel blessed indeed to have received such thoughtful and thorough advice from the both of you!

@Maxz Absolutely agree with everything @MonsignorBapadopolis just said. Even though I feel very experienced in many languages I still pretty much have to google stuff constantly. Having a good base knowledge and understanding of the language, and programing in general, makes it easier to google for precisely what you are trying to achieve, and also means that while you may not find the exact answer you need, you'll find 2 different answers which give you a new idea of how you may tackle the problem, that you wouldn't have reached without reading that experience of others tryign to do something similar.

The reason I recomended GameMaker over GoDot is siomply because as an absolute beginner, there is excellent documentation, decades of people making in depth tutorials, and the official forums and Reddit are so active that if you get stuck, someone will help you almost right away. However, I definitely agree that GoDot is a fantastic project, and growing every day. For a 3d indie project it would be my first recomendation withoput a doubt. For 2d, I'm not convinced it can do anything gamemaker can't do easier, and almost as fast performance wise... but thats just from my experimenting with it - its growing all the time and as I said before I genuinely hope that it grows into an/(the?) industry standard. The fact its open source and therefore 100% free to use forever is amazing and I aplud everyone involved. If you learned GML and got familiar with how programing works, I think it would be easy enough to graduate over to GoDot later once you wanted to work in 3d or just go completely independent of paying any corporate overlords to make your art! Once you understand the genearl cadence of how programing languages work, its comparitively simple to learn more, especially as both GoDot and GML are object-oriented.

@Pod Yeah I agree with all of that. Its a really shame, but I am biased as I tend to lean towards prefering 2d to "3d" CG art. I trained in traditional animation for 2 years with Don Bluth and some other ex Disney legends and to me, well crafted hand drawn work (obviously nowadays included digitally painted 2d) is just so much nicer than anything "3d"... but of course 3d stuff CAN absolutetly be beautiful art too... its just that a lot of stuff leads towards a more bland corporate look where everything is sterile and evenly lit and they re-use the same models and assets over and over...

As for Sonic's ingame graphics, for the 3d games, yeah thats a problem. The YouTube channel Splash Dash (the Sonic themed 2nd channel of animation channel LS Mark) has recently pointed out how the Sonic models are getting actually worse with each game, and that the cutscenes in particular nowadays actually look worse than games from 10+ years ago. Frontiers is a pretty good game and I liked the writing and voice acting for the new cutscenes for the 3rd update, but they were really poorly staged, animated and lit. Theres reasons for it (for example, having a day to night cycle and the cutscenes being able to start at any time means you can't dynamically light them) but the final result not good.

On the happier side, while I personally would have prefered a new pixel art or hand-drawn style for Superstars, I think the style they went with looks really, really nice. I wouldn't be mad if all future side scrolling games were in that style.

@samuelvictor Ohhh jajaja, the only reason I'm repping godot is that, all else equal, it's better to pick the package with more transferable learning opportunities. Godot makes it somewhat easier to jump into 3D and seems to be the new hotness so might look better on a CV down the line? Though it looks like both are good for learning C++/C#. I've not used either so I gots nooo horse in this race. I'm sure either are fresh. Good luck out there. @maxz y/w when youre the next Toby Fox get me a new riggggg.

Blessings chirdren

@MonsignorBapadopolis Yes both languages are comparitively similar to C++ in code and by being object oriented. Once you are proficient in either one of them it would be quite quick to move accross... though only a sadist would attempt to code their own 3d engine in C rather than use one of the existing solutions 😂

GML is more accessible for absolute beginners, whilst absolutely being good enough to make commercial games - many big titles have been made with it (Hotline Miami, Hyperlight Drifter, Undertale etc)

But GoDot is definitely one to watch and hopefully can expand and improve into a true competitor to the bigger established engines. My personal politics lead me to always want to support open source software where possible.