Sonic the Hedgehog’s rivalry with Mario is most likely the pinnacle of video game feuds. This is not a story of mere competitiveness. This is a tale that embodies the ’90s-era struggle between Sega and Nintendo. While the characters in the games were clashing, the creators themselves were in competition. Mario’s world was enchanting, and it seemed to have no match. By the late 1980s, that had utterly paid off, and competitive rivals in the gaming industry were eyeing Nintendo’s success with grown-up envy. Sonic was the result of an attempt to couch a rival in the lap of Nintendo’s world of magic and memories.
The classic Super Mario Bros. was my very first experience with the wonderful world of Mario. It was one of the first two games I ever played. I was possibly four when I first played it. Recently, I really got to thinking: what makes that game so special? I think there are a lot of factors at play.
Next on the scene was Sonic. The Genesis (or Mega Drive, as most people outside America know it) was launched by Sega, and they needed a flagship personality to compete with Mario of the Super Nintendo system. Sonic the Hedgehog was the edgy, cool-looking personality they chose to represent their system. Whereas the game differs from most traditional platformers in that it does not immediately fall into a basic left-to-right scroll, Sonic is all about speed and pulling off impressive maneuvers. It is primarily his personality that has made him a video game icon. Sonic appearing as he does is instant recognition, whereas pulling off the stunt of appearing as Sonic compared to another character would just appear silly.
Sonic and Mario’s rivalry was about much more than the characters. If anything, it was about a clash of philosophies. “Nintendo crafts meticulous experiences that thrive on completely original gameplay ideas—a quality that you might associate with the art-house cinema,” says Parrish, the author of the recent book Super Mario. The path of quality and innovation in software and controls has always been Nintendo’s way.” In contrast, Dom agrees, “Sonic was always fast.
I recall quite clearly the debates my friends and I used to have on the playground. We’d fight over whose game was superior: the one with the insanely great level design and power-ups so wacky you’d never forget them (Mario), or the one with the white-knuckle speed and exhilarating roller-coaster type of design (Sonic). The discussions would get heated, sometimes intense. But looking back, I see that beyond the tipping points of the debate over why Mario had a better design than Sonic (or vice versa), an argument over a set of shared values kept the conversation going.
The console competition of the early 1990s took the Sonic and Mario rivalry to the next level. The battleground was your living room, and you—as a human being who was to be situated in front of one console and one console only for the next few years—stood as the hotly contested territory. That’s right: the marketing office at Sega dared to make the first move and initiate an all-out console war with a now-famous TV ad campaign that interacted directly with cooler-than-cool teenagers who were looking for any reason to jettison Nintendo’s family-friendly image.
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) struck back with a bevy of games that highlighted the console’s improved technology and defined it as a true 16-bit machine. Looking at Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Super Metroid, you could see that the games looked better than their counterparts on the 8-bit systems. Appealing visuals, clever level design, and deep gameplay mechanics defined the games on the SNES. The combination of those ingredients led to some lovely and addictive games that still have, appeal.
In response, Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which took everything good from the original game and amplified it. The team added Tails, a two-tailed fox, as Sonic’s new sidekick. This let the game have a cooperative mode for the first time. They also introduced a special new move, the “spin dash,” which gave Sonic an on-the-move attack (and, of course, let him move faster). These vibrant graphics, the kind of fast-paced action that fueled the better games on the original NES, the simultaneous two-player mode (as well as Tails’s inexplicable ability to fly), and the catchy music that appeared in almost every part of the game guaranteed Genesis fans would snap up this title.
Innovative advertising also emerged from the console wars. Some of the most memorable campaigns included Nintendo’s Power Glove and the Sega Channel. Although the Power Glove was an often-mocked piece of high-tech hardware, it nevertheless represented what Nintendo was willing to envision for the future of video games. One has to commend the kind of forward-thinking that resulted in advertisements featuring a video game peripheral, ostensibly to show those who might think otherwise that video games were more than what they might have been previously , a sign that both companies took very seriously Rupert Murdoch’s printed declaration in The Sun that their most popular game, Sonic the Hedgehog, was not just for children.
Timeless classics feature both Mario and Sonic. Games like Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World have such strong followings that they’re almost immune to criticism. Both games are rightfully venerated for their smart level design, imaginative power-ups, and the sheer number of memorable moments they contain. You could play either game 100 times and still discover new things about them on the 101st playthrough. Super Mario Bros. 3 was revolutionary in both its structure and its look, while Super Mario World may have had the longest-lasting impact on the platform genre of any game to date.
The Sonic the Hedgehog games, particularly Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic CD, were revolutionary. The high-speed, fluid gameplay was just so damn fun. Whizzing through levels, especially with the newly introduced Spin Dash that could be powered up until Sonic became a little blue wrecking ball, was a thrill. And Sega could rightfully boast of blast processing, because no one else’s hardware could keep up with the Hedgehog engine.
On top of all that, Sonic’s games had phenomenal soundtracks. Masato Nakamura’s tunes for Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2 were just so right; and then when CD rolled around, they got the late and lamented Spencer Nilsen to do most of the tracks.
The competition also affected related games and franchises. Mario Kart and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing turned the famous mascots into kart-racing adversaries, with each game seeming to best the previous one in terms of delivering the kind of memorable moments you could initiate on impressionable first-time players. For nearly three decades, racing games have paired Mario and Sonic with groups of their friends and enemies in a large variety of colorful, themed courses—the sort of thing that makes for party-game brilliance. Both series have evolved in notable ways since their respective launches, but the first few entries endure as classic go-to options for fun entertainment.
The games were more than sheer amusement; they were my generation’s essential electromagnetic mediums for making cultural imprints. They birthed a vast and sophisticated world of side franchises, in which first gaming itself, and then a sort of gaming-by-gaming-by-playacting could take place. The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, and the Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons that house a small army of Freudian slips, did that. These false-adaptation adventures my Saturday morning ego would suck up, were a big part of my not-so-Big-Boyhood.
The rivalry gained new fire when SEGA, unfortunately, found poor success with the SEGA Saturn and transitioned to the SEGA Dreamcast, which, while popular, was never able to gain as much commercial success as the Saturn. On the other hand, Nintendo had a monumental success with the Nintendo 64. During these times, the Saturn and the Dreamcast, SEGA made Sonic the Hedgehog 3D. The beloved character who was once the pinball in a 2D level, doing loop-de-loops and jumping off ramps and the height of the flagpole at the end of a level, wasn’t transitioning well as a 3D character. Sonic was no longer the high-speed thriller in the 3D form as the blue hedgehog once was in 2D form.
The rivalry between Sonic and Mario is one that is forever etched into the gaming industry. The two characters are, without a doubt, the most iconic mascots of any gaming franchises, and for good reason: during their time on 16-bit consoles, they starred in some of the most memorable games one can imagine, with Sonic, of course, being the speedy one in the bunch, running through progressions that ranged from straight shots ahead to back-and-forth shifts filled with the step-like loops that Sega’s original mascot is known for.
The global triumph of Mario underscored for Nintendo the significance of creating games around lead characters who draw the emotional involvement of players. On top of that, the gameplay itself has to be really good, too. For decades now, through the eras of the NES, the Super NES, and various portable and console platforms that have come since, the Big N has understood that clearly and with a downright maniacal emphasis.
In contrast, Sega had a tough journey. After the discontinuation of the Dreamcast, Sega transitioned to software development and stopped developing consoles. The legacy of Sonic the Hedgehog lived on, of course. Titles like “Sonic Generations” and “Sonic Mania” came out with the essence of previous games intact, albeit with a few new twists and turns. Despite a series of unfortunate – and sometimes downright bizarre – events, Sonic remains a very popular character. Games that feature him continue to sell like hotcakes and have a massive following.
The gaming industry has also realized the importance of community and fandom, and the Mario vs. Sonic debate is a shining example of that. Both sides obviously care quite a lot about their preferred mascot and express that in several ways. DeviantArt is filled with fan creations, and Tumblr and Wattpad house troves of fanfiction. Both fandoms have clans of speedrunners and have taken on many serious modding projects on both the Genesis and Super Mario World. During the 10 years of my life in which I obsessively watched Games Done Quick, I always gave a few extra claps for the Sonic speedrunners because of the obvious bias and respect I had for the Blue Blur that you might see if you stick around for the other two-thirds of this piece.
Sonic and Mario influence the games industry outside of their exclusive domain. They have established franchises that are known for their engaging and innovative design. Crash Bandicoot, Rayman, and Spyro the Dragon were developed in their image and have shaken up the platformer genre, presenting fresh ideas and leaving an impact. Their long-time rivalry has also expanded our notion of just what a platformer can be. For all of these good reasons, Sonic and Mario are video game gods for me.
Contemplating the Sonic vs. Mario rivalry brings longings for days gone by, when games were young and so was I. And yet, even when they were young, games were hardly dumb. The rivalry between these two iconic characters was filled with shining moments that defined a whole generation of not just young boys but a relatively equal number of girls, too. Both genders got to experience mind-altering gaming gleam that, for its time, was staggering in interactivity. And, for me, both characters—and the games they starred in—held a galaxy of revelations, discoveries, and plain old fun. Those memories remain pure, uncorrupted by the realities of what came after.
The Sonic-Mario competition is far from a simple historical footnote in the annals of video game history. Rather, I think it stands out as a shining example of the awesome power of “creative competitiveness.” This was the driving force in the 1990s, when console gaming was really taking off, that led to the creation of some of the most popular and artistically significant titles of that time-memorable games that are a big part of people’s lives. That era when Sonic and Mario were locked in a sort of cold war of absurdly fun games was a magical time for the medium, and that’s something that I, for one, don’t want to forget.
