Upon reading ‘The Beauty and Mystery of Super Mario Bros’, I was transported to another land. Simple levels, left to right movements that evaded the desire to go back on ones self and mushrooms that were not followed by initial nausea and a grinding come-down. But I am not going back to a time when I had never known the love of a good woman, nor am I going back to pre-internet days. My enjoyment of Super Mario Bros has been a somewhat revisionist affair. I played it as an older gent, in my late teens and twenties on emulators on friend’s PCs (I could never get emulators to work) and more often, on the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console. Mario is a trip down nostalgic avenues and highways of what may of been.
History has thrown up many great rivalries. Ali vs Frasier, Coe and Ovette, Federer Nadal all bring up memories and emotions in all of us of titanic tussles, heart stopping matches and televisual poetry. Computer gaming is no different. There is the eternal Street Fighter vs Mortal Kombat, Zelda vs Final Fantasy battles, and the more recent but ultimately more corporate and less fulfilling Pro Evo vs Fifa. But the mother of all battles was Sega vs Nintendo, a battle for the very heart and soul of anyone born in the 1980s but was truely a child of the 1990s.
Battle lines were drawn and you had to be one or the other, anyone who had both or didn’t care was either a bourgeois elitist or wasn’t worth talking to.
I may be wrong but looking back on it, the Sega was the underdog. A plucky competitor that dared to try and knock out the undisputed champ. It slowly became a powerhouse, but its feel of being a pet project that had somehow became a global icon never left me. The Sega vs Nintendo battle, for all the millions of dollars, trillions of Yen and hours of debate can be boiled down to one simple rivalry. Mario vs Sonic.
Where as many people went down the pipe and took on Bowser, my childhood was spent in a different place, with different foes and an altogether different ally.
I played Sonic The Hedgehog.
Nowadays, in our post 9/11 world, Mario and Sonic can be seen at the Olympics together, at the Winter Olympics together in a cross-platform circle jerk that serves only to make anyone watching sick and pray for the days of Streets of Rage 2. But back in the day, the battle lines were drawn and you’d think you would see a black president before you would see Mario and Sonic in a two-man bob-sled together.
Now, the case and point for Mario has been put forward already. And a mighty fine point was made indeed. So, now it is the time for the blue guys case to be made.
I will make a point of not trying to pick apart the pondering of Mario and any points of comparison are not meant to be derisory toward The Moustache.
Firstly, there is a lovely intro to Sonic. The dulcet tones of some guy saying “Sega” (Say-Gah) will never leave me and must be as recognisable as “I have a dream” and, not to be irreverent, are personally more comforting to me. (Not that I have a problem with Civil Rights, I’m all for them, I just love that sound). Then came the music, a rousing mix of high tempo beats with a lovely melody that signified that the player was in for a fun time, but an intense and challenging one. This contrasts heavily with the stark, almost fascist opening to Super Mario Bros. It was during the opening music to Sonic that one could enter in a code to enter the cheats, but I will come back to this.
The levels were also named, and had three stages in each. This was shortened to two stages in Sonic 2, but each level in that game was lengthened. Also, in the second game, the final levels all had three stages which added a ghoulish surprise when you thought you were getting somewhere. The levels stared with Green Hill Zone, a lush, green world which can be easily completed if you rush but takes a long time to master if you are trying to unlock its rings and extra lives. Next comes the stupidly difficult Marble Zone. I still remember being demoralised by this level when I was a boy. When you had never played a computer game before and you were faced with this monster it was truly evil. The levels then went Spring Yard Zone, Labyrinth Zone, Starlight Zone, Scrap Brain Zone and Final Zone. Naming the levels showed an attention to detail and forward planning that just wasn’t shown in Mario.
Each zone, ended at the end of the 3rd Act (ACT – what a great word, it gives Sonic an almost Shakespearian quality) when you fought Robotnik in one of his various inventions, designed to take out Sonic. These were much harder bosses to get past than in Mario, which while requiring skill were obvious and didn’t hold the same daunting qualities as Robotnik. Even the mental music ramped up the tension and meant you had to battle your nerves as well as the Big Ginger Bastard.
Each level was beautifully rendered with new and challenging traps, tricks and enemies to get past. The music in Spring Yard and Starlight Zones deserve a special mention. The music in each level (those in particular) was pitched so perfectly, and so much more intricate than the music on the Nintendo so as to render the other machine almost obsolete to my young ears and eyes that didn’t even know what the word obsolete meant.
The mechanical, catchy and funky tones of Spring Yard Zone and only beaten by the beautiful, melodic and all out genius of the Starlight Zone music.
The game play was epic. It valued a mix of speed, with Sonic getting up to almost ridiculous speeds with his special shoes which were devastating when mixed with the invincibility, and all out skill. Many times and in lots of the levels you were indoors and had to use timing and patience to get by some lava or a falling spike. The game may not have had as many levels as Mario but, in my opinion, is a bigger challenge. In Mario you can skip ahead using warps, reducing the game to a farce at times. People who went through every level of Mario were either too stupid to know the warps were there or dedicated to pedantry to an extent that even I can’t understand. Sonic did not have any of these short-cuts. You could get a continue, but this did not make completing the game a certainty, even for the experienced Hedgehog. These were achieved by obtaining 50 rings in the completely mental special stages, which were in turn accessed by finishing a level with 50+ rings and jumping through a giant spinning ring. This may seem simple, but try and finish Labyrinth Zone Act 2 with 50+ rings and you’ll see its no cake-walk.
The special stages themselves were amazingly well thought out and tricky, levels within themselves that tested all your skill and required a little bit of luck. What is so good about them is their seemingly futile nature, but in fact they are the gateway to getting the mystical chaos emeralds.
The emeralds were hidden in each of the special stages, there were 6 to collect. They, and not completing the levels, were the true object of the game. Only by completing all the levels, and beating the final Robotnik and collecting all 6 emeralds could you complete the game and get the ‘good’ ending. It is this hidden meaning in the game, this depth that gives it its true genius. It is not by the amount of levels, the maniacal timing and learning by repetition that Mario requires that this game is conquered. It is by all round skill, speed, know-how, skill and temperament that the game can be truly conquered.
There were two main cheats for Sonic, these were a level select and a de-bug mode which allowed you to take the form of any item in the game. These were accessed through the opening screen by putting in a sequence of hits on the d-pad. (up-down-left-right A and start together and up-C down-C left-C right-C A and start together) These made up such a part of my childhood its almost embarrassing, I doubt they will ever leave my brain.
The subsequent Sonic sequels I met with varying success and interest. Sonic 2 which added to Sonic’s repertoire of movement as well as giving him a sidekick and Sonic 3 which was more of the same, were ok, but nothing can come close to the genius of the first one. The world changed the day that this game came out, my life got richer and I still remember running down my stairs when I finished it for the first time. My lack of success at these games (I’ve never completed either) probably says a lot about my lack of enthusiasm for them. My friend Campbell completely bosses all the games and loves them all, probably favouring Sonic 2. So, there is plenty there to get excited about.
Mario may have the bigger following and the bigger legacy but Sonic should never be forgotten. It was his rivalry and his genius that pushed the moustache to bigger and better things.
Say-Gah
written by robert best.