I think this is a call for
the Madden ambulance. I don't know why, I just thought waambulance = Madden ambulance for some reason.
I'll humor the guy anyway.
Fun Fact 1#:I Have ALWAYS been a Mario Fan. Fun Fact 2#:I have NEVER been a Sonic Fan.
People would always tell me that SONIC IS SO COOL, MAN! While all I saw was a childish classic cartoon animal running around. I would later watch a Youtube Video entailing the end of the first Sonic game, to see him save little rabbits and squirrels. But I'll get to that later.
I thought the coolness of Sonic was supposed to be about his speed and his attitude of wagging his finger. It's not much, but it made an impression. And kids like fast things. Maybe kids also liked going through worlds that didn't have eyes on everything in the scenery. Me, I didn't care for Sonic simply because I chose a Nintendo first and kept getting fed the story that Sega was evil, without having played any of its games for myself.
Fun Fact 3#: I have never bought a Sonic game in my entire life.
Sadly, I wouldn't dare to. I can just imagine one of my buddies coming over to see I've bought "Sonic the Hedgehog". They would laugh, some of them never even having heard of Sonic. "Hedgehogs? Hedgehogs? Wa ha ha ha!" Then I play it, and watch as a silly looking rodent runs around.
Wouldn't people also laugh at seeing Yoshi's Island? That's a test if ever I saw one, for someone who isn't a Yoshi fan or doesn't know who Yoshi is. Don't knock it until you play it. There's also that phenomenon where you don't really understand what all the fuss is until you play it. If you watch it, it looks odd. Some review of Spore Creature Creator said that your opinion of the game instantly changes once you're creating -your- creature. In any case it's more fun when you play it. Usually. I say that because when I played Silent Hill 1 on a PS2, it was painful moving the character around with the D-pad.
1. At least Mario is DECENT ENOUGH to wear clothes. Some characters in the Mario Universe do not, but not EVERY SINGLE ONE refuses to wear clothes.
Mario's a human, he has to wear clothes. Animals don't have to wear clothes. Some do (but I'd imagine it'd creep out some people to be playing an animal-human hybrid. I don't get that when we've seen animal-human hybrids on TV and games for years). Also, animals can wear shirts but don't necessarily have to wear pants. Somehow we're just fine with that. If the animal takes off its shirt, again, no problem with that. I think it's just people being way too sensitive. We might also be sensitive about some games or TV shows making animals anatomically correct, when they're like that in real life. The animated film "Plague Dogs" pretty much doesn't shy away from anything, anatomically correct dogs there, but it's nothing to flip out about. You don't even notice it after a while.
2. Mario is not trying to be cooler then Sonic. Sonic comes out, advertising how "Cool!" he is. If anything, Mario is cooler then Sonic.
That's the one thing I agree with. "It's cool to not try to be cool," along with its many variants. Let a character speak for itself on whether it's cool or not. Cool is subjective anyway, just seems to be a synonym for "awesome".
3. Sickening cross-species romance that does not let go, at least the Mario games do not continually announce Bowser's issues the entire game.
Maybe we never expect the romance to go beyond "really good friends." Or maybe it's a hint that with these characters acting like humans (animal qualities don't seem to come out much), it doesn't matter if it's even a kangaroo and pygmy shrew getting together, species are just a convenient way to portray the characters and point out certain traits. If the species did matter, I doubt they'd fall in love.
Regarding Bowser, we never do think about it because he's some villain capturing a princess. He could probably do whatever he wants and we'd think it normal of his twisted mind to do so, like order Peach to bake him a cake. As far as I know, the furthest he's ever gotten is wanting to marry Peach.
Now when I ask Sonic Fanboys why Sonic is "So Cool" this is the top 3 Responses:
1. Shut your mouth, Mario sux!
2. djkafjakfj(Simple letters that apparantly say something I can't understand)
3. Sonic has a attitude.
I'd say you're listening to the wrong people. I've definitely heard people like that, but they can't give a meaningful answer. By the same token, same as fanboys (using your definition) for any other franchise.
Finally! A reasonable answer! Wait...he does? Oh wow. wow. This definetely makes Sonic way cooler then Mario. He has the attitude to not wear clothes. That's not cool. That's sick.
No, his attitude is for wagging his finger, and his "I'm waiiiiting!" catchphrase in the TV show. Maybe his back spikes too. Maybe attitude's equated with trying to look cool, so that he's cool because he has an attitude of looking cool. In the same sense that Viewtiful Joe might be viewed as having attitude. But to say he has attitude because he doesn't wear clothes... well, Glorb's better at summing up how ridiculous that sounds.
My final words: If Sonic and Sega are so much better then Nintendo, why did Sega fail? Why do the Sonic games sell terribly?
Look at reviews. Sonic started its decline when it went to 3D, and no one I know is honestly expecting the franchise's 3D iterations to rebound anytime soon (the upcoming Sonic game looks like it's mostly 2D, but with a 3D look - that's different. I'm talking 3D where you can explore). Sonic could have no attitude and still be successful if the games were fun to play.
As for why Sega failed... I'm not sure exactly. Maybe Nintendo had better games or a more reputable brand name or better hardware. But it happened, and it's not due to attitude.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was the first Sonic game I came across, and I was interested in it just because of Tails. I watched the TV show, again just because of Tails. As soon as Sega dropped out of the console race and a Sonic game appeared on the GameCube, I thought "Great, the Nintendo vs. Sega wars are finally over. I owe it to myself to try a Sonic game to see what I've been missing." Sonic Mega Collection came out, I snatched it up... and loved it. Okay, so I loved it primarily for Sonic 2 and the great presentation. There's no reason the 2D Sonic games should be condemned, just like there's no reason the 2D Mario games (Super Mario Bros. 2 might be debatable) should be condemned.
(Edit: "Warning - while you were typing 7 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.") Nah.