How a Mario and Sonic Crossover Game Would Work

We know that Mario and Sonic are both platformers and they became kings of the gaming industry. They became rivals and friends, and they competed with each other in the Olympics. But what is really missing is a mainline crossover platforming game between Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog. But will it work? Let's jump right in for the answer.

There has been some requests for a crossover game between the two distinct decades long video game boyos, Nintendo's heroic red plumber, Super Mario and SEGA's anthropomorphic spiky blue mammal of speed, Sonic. Both of these guys have been mascots of their company for decades, being kings of their own consoles of their time in their 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th generation era games. However, as soon as the Dreamcast was released, things took a turn for SEGA. The SEGA Dreamcast turned out to be a commercial failure, so they had to discontinue production of the Dreamcast and shift to being a third-party company to publish their games on multiple consoles.

Now, for those of you who would argue, yes, I know, we already had a crossover game, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. But I'm talking about a full-fledged mainline platforming crossover game that everybody, including me, wants. However, this is gonna be only on the Nintendo line of consoles since Mario is gonna be involved.

First off, when making a crossover game, you must find common denominators for the two franchises you're crossing over. A good denominator is useful when making crossover games and it's a fancy saying for what is similar between the two franchises. Let's get right into the specifics for common denominators between Mario and Sonic.

Mario and Sonic are both platformers that have things to protect them from damage, like Mario's powerups and Sonic's rings. They can defeat most enemies with a single attack and have bosses at the end of each world and the final boss involves defeating their main antagonists. They both have goals to beat levels. They can gain an extra life when they collected 100 collectibles or collectibles that gain an extra life.

So that's it. These are the common denominators between Mario and Sonic. They are both 2D and 3D platformers that involve getting from A to B and finishing at C and collectibles that help your score at the end. In terms of frustration, players would experience what caused them to not control their anger. The way that both of these games give you that amount of dopamine is also different.

Mario's dopamine rush happens when you reach the end of the level. You do an angry outburst and swear at the game because of its challenges and obstacles when it comes to getting a Mushroom to protect Mario from death. If Mario gets hit while he is small, he dies. But when you get to the end, you cheer and do a happy outburst because you finally overcame that challenge and it gives you that big sack of that severe dopamine rush.

Sonic on the other hand, has that mild dopamine rush and there are less obstacles and have less challenging moments. When Sonic collects a ring he loses from getting hit, that mild dopamine rush is slowly spread throughout the level. If Sonic gets hit while he has no rings, he dies and he must have at least one ring for protection. And when you get that checkpoint and experienced less obstacles in a Sonic game, you get the mild effects of dopamine.

So Sonic gives you a nice rush, small traces and the mild effects of dopamine throughout the level while Mario gives you one big lumpsum and the severe effects of dopamine. The flip of a coin gives you an understanding to this.

If you die in Mario, that lumpsum of happiness is converted into a lumpsum of anger. You know, like when I experienced while watching 1smash18's SSF2 Let's Play videos during the Team Frenzy scene and the time I threw a tantrum over losing. But I felt relaxed now and will never return to that state. The level when playing Super Mario 3D World involved a severe dopamine rush, thanks to its influx of obstacles and its linear levels Crash Bandicoot uses. To make a long story short, Super Mario 3D World gives you that severe rush of dopamine like Crash did, so it is a Mario game with a Crash mindset.

But if you die in Sonic, the frustration became mild and that level when playing Sonic Frontiers remained pretty much the same when you die in that game. If you played Sonic Frontiers, you'll know that it is basically half Spyro: Year of the Dragon in terms of saving friends and Sage cautioning Sonic to leave the Starfall Islands until the later stages, and half Spyro: A Hero's Tail in terms of open exploration, combos and enemies that are defeated with multiple attacks, but with Sonic. In short, Sonic Frontiers gives you a nice mild rush of dopamine like Spyro did because of its lengthy open exploration on islands. It's likely that they put in a Spyro mindset on a Sonic game on base worlds, not actual levels.

Making a crossover game is easy, but a good crossover game must have on par core aspects. It's basically balancing both games' DNA, so if SEGA owns Mario, he would be jacked and his rival would be Silhouette rather than Wario and his games would be published outside the Nintendo line of consoles. And if Nintendo owns Sonic, he can get his regular games, Paper Sonic, Sonic Kart and Sonic Party and his rival would be Wonic rather than Shadow and his game would be published inside Nintendo's line.

Dorkly has a couple of videos that star both Mario and Sonic. They involve switching places, sidekicks, villains, publishers and rivals. It's funny on how Mario was battling Dr. Robotnik while Sonic was battling King Koopa. This is entertainment right there. It's a reference to the Super Mario Blue: Robotnik's Rampage and Sonic Red: The Koopa Konspiracy joke. I came up with that joke after I heard of Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage and Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy.

There are a lot of never before seen things and original ways. Imagine if Sonic gets a Fire Flower to become Fire Sonic to gain a fire elemental like Mario does and in Episode 8 of Super Mario Bros. Z, The Great Doomship Offensive. Maybe Mario can use the power of the Wisps from Sonic's arsenal to give him special powers. Like if he gets some sort of ghost powerup, he can float and go through walls like the Boos.

Plus, there is an influx of original ideas that could be incorporated into this dream crossover game. If I was to develop a good crossover game between Mario and Sonic, I'll highlight the aspects on how a crossover between two decades long mascots works below.

There would be seven home worlds that both Mario and Sonic can explore. There would be specifically Mario levels that have coins, blocks, powerups, Goombas, Koopas and more common enemies from the Mario universe, as well as new powers from Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and Sonic levels that have rings, Badniks, containers and power ups, as well as new powers from Sonic Superstars. In total, there would be seven levels on each home world; three for Sonic, three for Mario and one boss level. Some sections is Mario while other sections is Sonic. This can be done because they are both platformers.

Each home world has two sides, so World 1 would have three Mario levels on the Mushroom Kingdom side, three Sonic levels on the Green Hill Zone side and a boss battle between two sides that takes place in both the Mushroom Kingdom and Green Hill Zone. World 2 would have three Mario levels on the Good Egg Galaxy side, three Sonic levels on the Planet Wisp side and a boss level between the Good Egg Galaxy and Planet Wisp.

At the start, when you enter a world, there would be two active levels, a Sonic one and a Mario one. Example, if you beaten a Sonic level, the next Sonic level would unlock. And if you beaten a Mario level, the next Mario level would unlock. If all three Mario levels and all three Sonic levels are beaten, the boss level would be unlocked and they are where Mario and Sonic tag team together to defeat the bosses and it has sections for Mario and sections for Sonic. Think of it as Rush Hour in Crash Bandicoot 4 where you can switch between Tawna and Dingodile partway of the level.

If Mario has to defeat a Koopaling in a boss level and defeat Bowser in World 7, then Sonic would defeat a robot in a boss level and defeat Eggman in World 7. Once a boss level is beaten, you would have to move on to the next home world.

Now for the collectibles. Mario would get his collectibles if he clears a level without dying, collects 100 coins and collects all five red coins in a level. Sonic would get his collectibles if he clears a level without dying, collects 100 rings and collects all five red star rings in a level. Get all three collectibles on each level and that would unlock a skin for Mario or Sonic; whereas, getting all three collectibles in a Mario level unlocks a skin for Mario while getting all three collectibles in a Sonic level unlocks a skin for Sonic.

But what about Chaos Emeralds? People loved to collect them and they are gonna get thrown away, right? No, of course not! Chaos Emeralds and Crystal Stars would contribute to unlocking the true final boss of the game. They are in special stages that Mario and Sonic must explore to get the Crystal Stars and Chaos Emeralds. Each Crystal Star and Chaos Emerald are in any level in one world, so if Sonic must have at least 50 rings to enter the giant ring that leads to a special stage that hides the Chaos Emerald, then Mario would finish his level with at least 50 coins without dying to enter a special stage that hides the Crystal Star. Get all seven of them and the true final boss would unlock.

This is just an idea of how my dream crossover game would work. It might feel like one half of a Mario game is being stitched with one half of a Sonic game, but this crossover game I dreamt of will be similar to Sonic Generations and Sonic Forces to have three Mario levels on one side of the home world, three Sonic levels on the other side of the home world and a boss level between both sides of the home world. But I suppose it can be called uh... Mario and Sonic Generations? That was just for a platforming genre. What would also work is taking them both out of a platforming genre to a new genre.

We know Super Smash Bros. has two of the mascots, and we have the Olympic Games series that stars Mario and Sonic, but it has to be two different genres for the racing game and 2v2 fighting game genres.

First off, the racing game genre. We have the Mario Kart franchise and multiple Sonic kart racing games, so I think it's time that we get a crossover kart racing game where it has an even roster of Mario and Sonic characters, Mario tracks that have coins, Sonic tracks that have rings and two teams of six racers. Each character has a character-specific ultimate ability that can turn the race in their favor, like in Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing where they get an All-Star Move from an item box while they are in 5th place or worse. No, ultimate abilities would use a gauge that fills up when collecting coins and rings and using powerups and weapons.

Now for the 2v2 fighting game genre. We got Street Fighter X Tekken and it handled an even split of Street Fighter and Tekken characters. I believe that we get a crossover 2v2 fighting game where it has an even split of Mario and Sonic characters, an even roster of Mario and Sonic stages, a super gauge that goes up to three levels, 2XKO-style cinematic supers that burn all three levels of your super gauge and online lobbies and sessions that hold up to four players.

This year's Summer Game Fest is almost here. It's gonna fill out the gap created by E3's death and it's gonna be like this going forward. Sure, I know we want E3 back because it was the best expo of video games. But Summer of Gaming will have a ton of new game announcements like E3 did. What I like to see is a crossover Mario and Sonic game I suggested, as well as a ton of new games.

So, this concludes my post on how a Mario and Sonic crossover game would work. I made this post about wanting a dream crossover game between two main boys of the video game industry. I might make a future post on how a Super Mario game with linear levels and a Sonic the Hedgehog game with open levels would work.