MultiVersus is Exactly the Gem the Smash Community Loves

Hello, guys, KnockDownJoe here and man, this post is gonna be a doozy for you to read. If you have been living in a WB watertower like the Animaniacs, we can subscribe to Max and watch any TV show or movie. Anyway, you all know that Smash started in 1999 on the Nintendo 64 and ended the franchise with Smash Ultimate on the Switch. Then more Smash clones with iconic characters have come in. Starting with PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale on the PS3 and PSVita to Brawlout, Fraymakers and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl.

Then there is another Smash clone with iconic characters that I want to point out to on this post; the one that has Warner Bros. characters, MultiVersus. This game is known for its iconic cast of WB characters such as Bugs Bunny, Batman, Shaggy and a ton others. The roster was then cranked up to get more distinctiveness when LeBron James, Rick, Morty and more made their debut.

This year, the player base has skyrocketed when MultiVersus returned for launch with Banana Guard from Adventure Time, Joker, Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th and Agent Smith from the Matrix, as well as the shift to Unreal Engine 5 to produce better lighting. Though these characters have a cult distinctiveness, they became a solid pass. And with MultiVersus' excellent cast of characters, people came forward screaming that they want more characters with the same style.

Then the hype was cranked up to a severe level when Samurai Jack and Bettlejuice were announced for Season 2. Since its inception on the characters department, there has been some requests for Harry Potter, Gandalf, Johnny Cage, Scorpion, Pinky, Brain, Daffy Duck, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Static Shock, Godzilla, King Kong, Johnny Bravo, Barbie, Furiosa, and well, probably the ones that are the loudest of them all, the Powerpuff Girls and Dee Dee from Dexter's Laboratory.

These are great characters, but I am here to make a strong yet creative opinion. I've been talking about this on my previous MultiVersus livestream that didn't turn out well because playing it as long as I want overheated my PS5 to turn it off on me, on social media and on the past post once. But it's time I put my excitement on how I feel about wanting a character to be in MultiVersus. After watching an explanation on how a Crash and Spyro crossover game would work, I am going to do the same.

I have been inspired on how Xena would be freaking dope in MultiVersus and how will she play. I wanted to do this on social media, but it's easier to tell you all in this concrete post for better transparency without using the old Super Mario Blue: Robotnik's Rampage and Sonic Red: The Koopa Konspiracy joke than on social media. Now before I begin with this small pitch, for those of you who are naysayers, yes, I know, Xena: Warrior Princess isn't even by WB. But Warner Bros. Discovery must own the rights of the show first. Also, this is simply my idea, but at least read this as I give you a pitch on what Xena would bring to the table in MultiVersus and how she would be dope.

First off, when you're doing a character pitch, you must announce their class first, so because her arsenal is accompanied with her sword, daggers and chakram, Xena would be an Assassin fighter. Her side special would allow her to throw her chakram while all of her basic attacks would involve wielding her sword like others that wield a sword.

There are a lot of character-specific voicelines she would have, so for example, if Xena teams up with LeBron James, she would be a masochist on his basketball skills. And let's just pretend that it's NOT weird. A warrior princess would be a masochist to an NBA player's basketball skills. Okay, I know this seems artsy fartsy that an NBA player and a warrior princess wouldn't mix, but this is just for dialogue purposes. What would really mix is that a samurai and a warrior princess, so Samurai Jack and Xena would be a perfect duo to have voice lines to each other. Sure, I can hear what about a duo between Xena and Arya Stark. Well, sure, another perfect duo. And if Furiosa makes it into the game, well a perfect duo between Xena and Furiosa would also be established, because they would both be Assassin fighters, right? Sure, if you like Muggshot. No, not the villain on Sly Cooper. But rather, taking a picture. It's MultiVersus. Priorities.

And if she is released on the first week of a Season, you woud have to purchase the premium track of the Battle Pass for 950 Gleamium to unlock her until next season when she is available to purchase in the Fighter Shop for 1,000 Gleamium and 3,000 Fighter Currency.

But what about a Xena: Warrior Princess stage? Is it gonna be left behind? What? Of course not! Ancient Greece would be a perfect stage to not have any pirates invading the structure and that is not as common of the situation today as largely applied to what I experienced on Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. But can have hazards and be playable on all formats. Townsville handled the part where we defeat Mojo Jojo in game, so Ancient Greece would have the villain we have to defeat.

There is one TV series that starred a female pirate and is an anime TV series. That is Fena: Pirate Princess, which was actually owned by Warner Bros. Discovery since Cartoon Network and Adult Swim are both under the Warner Bros. umbrella. That's why Rick and Morty made their debut. The only two popular TV shows that have female protagonists are Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess. There is literally one show Warner Bros. Discovery should own the rights of to give them a chance to be in MultiVersus.

So this is my small pitch on how Xena would play in MultiVersus if Warner Bros. Discovery owns the show and all of its entirety to stream it on Max with either a TV-PG-V rating or a TV-14-V rating and pave the way for an HD and 4K remake. Since we got PS1 emulation on the PS Plus Premium tier, I took the liberty of adding the PS1 adaptation of Xena: Warrior Princess to my wish list, so if it gets released on the catalog, I will purchase it rather than subscribing to the Premium tier and showcase on how a warrior princess would play in MultiVersus and submit my moveset to Player First Games.

Warner Bros. to own Xena needs to happen soon so that she can make her debut to MultiVersus and it's not common today. And it's largely applied to PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale with their entry of Spike from Ape Escape, which is already on the catalog, along with the second game, which is the European version. Ape Escape 3 might have a likelihood of being released to the catalog. Ape Escape and Xena: Warrior Princess being two great platformers is a coincidence. Which means that Spike and Xena can team up with each other as they have to save Jake and Gabrielle.

Furiosa, though hit closer to becoming the highest priority for her to be in MultiVersus as Dee Dee and the Powerpuff Girls after her movie's excellent Rotten Tomatoes score piggybacked off the bombing of her movie's box office that put the brakes on future Mad Max movies despite her movie's positive reviews, would also be dope as Xena would be. And I know chances are that there is a high probability for her to be in it. You have to remember that Furiosa would be an Assassin fighter like Xena would be.

MultiVersus and all of its forms have been a product of hype and I am already excited for Beetlejuice's arrival. So let's give him some beetle juice (no pun intended) and some Rice Krispies Treats to celebrate his debut from the afterlife. I am putting my Gleamium on hold for him in a process of owning every single fighter permanently before a future season releases, like I did to own every single Hero and Power on Crash Team Rumble before Season 4, which was scrapped. The reason why it was scrapped is because Toys for Bob has spun off to be an independent studio from Activision. What this means is that future Crash and Spyro games will not be under the Activision umbrella going forward.

In terms of characters, MultiVersus' cast of characters became so distinctive and iconic like Smash and Nick All-Star Brawl, becoming a supreme gem for the Smash community. The difference is that the roster in MultiVersus will grow endlessly like Brawlhalla, so we get 2-3 characters each Season, which lasts eight weeks over the course at launch. And there are Rifts for when you are not ready for PvP matches. The upcoming free to play fighting game coming out next year is 2XKO and we don't know if the roster is gonna grow endlessly post launch.

You could be a part of this massive community like I am. People seem to care much about this game as much as I do. I have never been this emotional. What I'm trying to say is that MultiVersus will change you. Again, looking forward for Beetlejuice's arrival and I am hyped to see what Season 3 has in store for me. Let's all look into the future of MultiVersus together as friends and family.

Joe's Monologues - 8/6/24

It's that time again for the next Joe's Monologues and the first one of August. We are four months away from 2025 and time sure flies. Not only that because I have turned 30 over three weeks ago and boy, I am out of my 20s. Anyway, let's get started with the latest scoop on this post.

Visions of Mana:

The demo version of the upcoming new Mana game came out not too long ago and I am already excited for Visions of Mana. But there is something about this upcoming Mana game I'm excited for. But why would I be excited for something I don't know anything about? Well, there is one thing we do know one thing's for sure. One that is completely factual is that this is the first Mana game of the franchise to have an original story. If you played Trials of Mana, then Visions of Mana is where it's at.

So why am I excited for Visions of Mana, you ask? It's actually not the fact that this is the first Mana game in its originality in 18 years. But it's the aspects. First off, the demo version gets you straight to the part of the story where you have two Elemental Vessels and Val, Careena and Morley on your party and that progress you see in the demo version will also be in the full game. You need to be aware that Palamena and Julei are not featured in the demo version and you'll see them in the full game.

That's when I'm gonna use the Palamena: Water Princess and Morley: Renegade Moon jokes. I know this seems weird and all, but the jokes I'll be using will not be dark. If Xena: Warrior Princess, Fena: Pirate Princess and Xavier: Renegade Angel are a thing, then Palamena: Water Princess and Morley: Renegade Moon would be a thing. Again, these are jokes, not real TV shows.

I can hear them say what about Careena: Wind Princess. And well, that's another good joke, but doesn't ring a bell as much as Palamena: Water Princess. I believe this joke, along with the Morley: Renegade Moon joke, is gonna be funny and not dark. The I can't breathe joke Mike Z made four years ago? Nope! That's dark and it's NOT funny.

Square Enix has teamed up with One Tree Planted to plant 25,000 trees globally. In order for them to do that, they must tune in to any Twitch channel streaming the demo version of Visions of Mana for 60,000 hours. Once the goal 60,000 hours have been reached, 25,000 trees will be planted globally to fight deforestation in a process of reforestation. I agree with the process because trees are made to produce oxygen and Mana, so if we get more trees, we'll have more oxygen in Earth. In fact, if they planted a Tree of Mana in real life, that's gonna be a miracle. I always wanted to meet the Goddess of Mana in real life.

In case you don't know, there are common denominators between Trials of Mana and Visions of Mana, so let's take a look. Trials of Mana and Visions of Mana are both action RPGs. They involve combo attacks and defeating all monsters in any area to earn EXP, Lucre and items and bonus values occur when defeating all enemies within a certain amount of seconds, finishing battles without taking damage and defeating a enemy with a Class Strike. They both have Class Strikes. They have a star on the map to represent your destination. They have a border you can run against to escape from battle, but certain battles can't be escaped when the border is red. So that's it. These are the common denominators between Trials of Mana and Visions of Mana.

Both are action RPGs. But both games have a different mindset. The Trials of Mana mindset involves characters each having their own Class Strike gauge, switching their classes up to three times at the altar in the Goddess of Mana's humble abode and choosing three out of six characters to go on an adventure. Then you have the Visions of Mana mindset that involves only one Class Strike gauge for the player that controls any character to use, putting three characters in the battlefield and two outside of the battlefield, Elemental Vessels that vary by class and hearing the map BGM play its beats during combat like in the original .hack games in the PS2 era.

I am loving the game's demo version so far. Once the full game comes out, it will be a phenomenal experience since Xena: Warrior Princess and Ape Escape for the PS1. Even in the case of Fallow Steppe and Rime Falls, traversing through these areas literally made me think of the one trail that Xena and Gabrielle walked through at the beginning of the game, and Frozen Mammoth from Ape Escape. I can't wait for the full game of Visions of Mana to come out. I am planning to purchase the game digitally, but I'm gonna rent it first. There might be some Johnny Test vibes too.

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics:

Over to the compilation we have dreamed of being a reality for an update. It was showcased during EVO 2024, but three games were available to play there. There has been some exciting stories about Marvel vs. Capcom we already heard. UMvC3 was last year's throwback game. Capcom has finally made our dream into a reality and I am excited for the compilation.

What makes me excited for the collection? Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection offering every game of the franchise is actually not why I am excited. But better yet, it's one of the games in the compilation that a lot of people in the FGC want freed. That is Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes. So why is this exciting? Good question.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is known for its 3v3 battles to have two assist buttons and four attack buttons and its huge roster. This is the game that people, including me, in the FGC want freed from jail, so what am I talking about? Sure, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 became phenomenal with its large roster of 56 characters. Capcom did something amazing.

During the development of Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Capcom's genius team came with making original characters on the Capcom side. This is when Ruby Heart, Son Son and Amingo were born. These are the characters that never starred in a single Capcom franchise. That's why these characters were original. When the developers put in original characters on the Capcom side, they also put in characters on the Marvel side we don't know much about, Marrow, Blackheart and Silver Samurai, because these Marvel characters are low in popularity and didn't get that much attention.

It doesn't take a professional developer to understand the release of MvC2, because it first came out on 6th generation consoles, then released on 7th generation with all content unlocked by default and will be available to play in Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection along with others on 8th generation consoles. So MvC2 came out and it became such a phenomenal vs. Capcom game, right? Sure, it can be, if you like Spider-Man web swinging and walking on the walls on a building in the city.

The date as to when we can pre order it is unknown. We do know that it's coming out this year. But sadly, Xbox has had an omission from the collection for some reason. Regardless, I am excited for the collection we've been waiting for years since Marvel vs. Capcom Origins. Again, no release date just yet. If Capcom plans to make a new Marvel vs. Capcom game, I'll be ready for that, if they knock the netcode out of the park and make it the best game it can be, unlike UMvC3 where we are restricted to playing on Bonne Wonderland and MvCI where we are restricted to playing on the training stage like on Street Fighter V. It's annoying.

The Meme on My Career:

An update on my Wrapper Offline career is obvious. I shifted to the 3.0.0 build and it has a huge selection of assets to update my characters. But that is not relevant. What is really relevant is a meme I came up with that involved having things that they are not allowed to have, which is the Sierra Mist.

One of the British YouTubers made that meme about the characters not being allowed to eat Walkers Crisps because they can make them sick. It's just for fun and entertaining purposes. They don't really make them sick in real life. I came up with the Sierra Mist meme. In real life, Sierra Mist was rebranded into Starry, but not in my videos. I had to make that entertaining because one of the defunct companies that published the Crash and Spyro games in Universal Interactive's stead has "Sierra" in the name. It's to pay homage to the company.

Broken Saw:

And speaking of Sierra, it's time to talk about and go into detail on one of the YouTube channels that did a great job covering logos from media, which is Broken Saw. Broken Saw did a great job covering logos from media. I'm basically into the ones from video games because of how logos flow. It's common for all generations. But I preferred the ones that are outside the game and also silent, like the one that is from Dragon Ball Z: Budokai showing the old FUNimation logo and the one that is from the 6th generation WWE games. The one from Budokai 2 is ten seconds shorter than Budokai 1. The logos from Budokai 3 haven't been covered yet. While they are known for covering logos, they also covered copyright screens with logos on it.

Broken Saw's way of covering video game logos from the back in the year hit me with nostalgia. It's among those games I played from back in the day. Especially the Ape Escape 3 one when the two kids read "Sony Computer Entertainment America". It's a game that I want to revisit and now that PS2 emulation has reopened, it's likely to happen if Sony released Ape Escape 3 on the catalog, and also re-released Ape Escape 2 and other older PS2 games on the catalog to have both NTSC and PAL versions, quick saves, rewinds (PS5 only), up rendering and video filters.

The logos from Crash Bandicoot games, though became a starting point to cherishing old logos mostly from video games. The remasters have also been covered, though they said that they can't make any promises that they are gonna cover the remasters. Especially the original games. 

July's additions on the classics department was revealed and they turned out to be an utter disappointment. I never played any of those classic games before. And there wasn't a single PS1 game on the previous month. It had none of the games Broken Saw has covered and that's why I am a bit disappointed in that. But let's hope August's additions won't be so disappointing as July's and has at least one retro game I played before Broken Saw has covered like June's additions did to have at least one retro game I played before. Well, two because Days of Play has offered us new PS2 games.

Conclusion:

So this wraps up today's Joe's Monologues. The end of 2024 is almost upon us. I hope you all have a fantastic day. And now that I'm settled after the long haul, I'll be able to work on posting future posts.

Joe's Monologues - 7/3/24

What's up, guys? KnockDownJoe here and I haven't done a Joe's Monologues for a while. The reason for that is because I've been ranting about getting penalized for a low content post, rambling on being excited for classic games and on how would a Mario and Sonic crossover game work and taking measures to prevent loopholes. I was out of time and was in my old stomping grounds for the experience. And now that I'm back in town and all of my essentials were put back, I can now get on to the post and get back to doing more content.

Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus:

During Days of Play, we got new PS2 games finally coming. There is Tomb Raider: Legend, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and one of the games I started livestreaming, Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus. Let's talk about it.

I started my next PlayStation Rewind livestream with this classic that came out on the PS Plus Premium catalog during Days of Play. It became a great throwback game of mine since I started livestreaming this. In previous livestreams, I left off with beating Tide of Terror, Sunset Snake Eyes, Vicious Voodoo, and A Fire in the Sky and opened every single vault except for one that can't be opened until I defeat the final member of the Fiendish Five, Clockwerk, and it's something I will do. Once I do, then I can open the final vault, thus unlocking the true ending. All of that is gonna be on stream for the story finale of this throwback game. It has been a long road for this nostalgic game, man.

We finally are getting new PS2 games released on the catalog. The first Sly Cooper is in my wish list. If sequels get released on the catalog, I will livestream them, but it's gonna be progressing through the story because sequels are open world and clues are scattered across home worlds.

It's a starting point in revisiting new PS2 games, so I'll be expecting Wrath of Cortex, Enter the Dragonfly, The Simpsons: Hit and Run, 3D era Mortal Kombat games and many more of my cherished PS2 games to get released now that Sony has a brand new PS2 emulator that runs PS2 games smoothly. If they release the original release of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, I'll revisit that too, though I have the HD remaster that I got to finish before playing the sequel.

Same with the original Crash and Spyro trilogies on the PS1 and this is something we can expect because there is no charm without their games on the catalog. Their numbers are good and they need to be released on the catalog. Even Wrath of Cortex because it had more sales than the original trilogy across three platforms since it returned to its roots of a platformer game after Crash Team Racing and Crash Bash. That's how it received a Greatest Hits/Platinum Hits accolade.

I am already excited for PlayStation's 30th Anniversary. Why? Because PS Plus Premium is the hero that revived retro gaming and that should hopefully light the way for more classic titles than usual to be released on the catalog to celebrate that.

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection:

That's right. The legendary crossover is back as the compilation was finally announced during their latest Nintendo Direct. Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection is a compilation of all Marvel vs. Capcom games, including the beat em up classic, the Punisher. I've been wanting a Marvel vs. Capcom collection for years since Marvel vs. Capcom Origins. And now it's finally happening.

If you remember the PS3, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was ported on the PS3 to have online features and all characters unlocked by default. On that year, the PS3 port was removed from the store. Then Marvel vs. Capcom Origins was released to have two games, Marvel Super Heroes and Marvel vs. Capcom 1. However, it was also removed. For years, we were hoping for a Marvel vs. Capcom collection to be announced for modern consoles. The Nintendo Direct show has finally announced it and it's coming to PC, PS4 and Switch. But Xbox was omitted for whatever reason.

The collection is gonna have online multiplayer and art never before seen. There is an option to listen to the games' music, like the Cave Stage theme in Marvel vs. Capcom 2. That theme is the best. A lot of fans want MvC2 to be free. And now, it's finally free and Max's campaign has been fulfilled. This compilation has changed everything for the better. The crossover we know and love is back. As a result, I have removed Marvel vs. Capcom 2 from my wish list of retro games I want released on the PS Plus Premium catalog. But Capcom vs. SNK 2 will remain on the list. That is until a Capcom vs. SNK Fighting Collection is announced.

This might pave the way for a new Marvel vs. Capcom game to use Unreal Engine 5, true rollback netcode, 3v3 battles and bursts.

EVO 2024:

The biggest thrill ride of the summer is going strong so far. The final standings for the number of entrants have been revealed. Street Fighter 6 has the most signups once again like last year. In total, there has been over 10,000 entrants for this year and this is an all time record broken. Previous EVOs never broken 10,000 entrants, but this year's did and this year's EVO is set to be a blockbuster.

This is the first year to take place at the new venue, the West Hall of the Convention Center in Las Vegas. It is deemed to be bigger than the Mandalay Bay era. That means no long lines and probably no confines of broadcasting. But the streaming schedule remains unknown, so we don't know if the Capcom Fighters' Twitch channel is gonna livestream all of Street Fighter 6 until Top 6 or not. But we do know that the Top 6 Finals will take place at the arena on Saturday and Sunday. The new venue they are moving to is a huge improvement over Mandalay Bay that Top 6 is gonna take place at the arena, there is no long lines and it makes more room for more stations.

The biggest event is around the corner. The broadcast information has yet to be revealed, but we can hope that it has flexibility since EVO 2024 is taking place at the West Hall of the Convention Center at Las Vegas.

Conclusion:

So this wraps up this episode of Joe's Monologues. Now that I'm back in town, I can now get back to do some more content.

PlayStation Plus Premium Revived the PlayStation Legacy

For the record, I think PlayStation Plus Premium revived the PlayStation Legacy. And I'm dead serious. I know that there are a bunch of naysayers that would say that full backwards compatibility would've been better, but I know that PS Plus Premium is the hero. Sure, we get three classic games monthly and some additions can be disappointing, but it became an obvious solution to revive the PlayStation Legacy with emulation of older titles released on older PlayStation consoles on PS4 or PS5. I'm gonna explain on how PS Plus Premium became the hero of reviving retro gaming, so let's talk about it.

Retro gaming became the golden age of gaming since the 3rd generation era of gaming when Nintendo and SEGA created their consoles and made all time classics like Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog. And I know that you don't want to think about the past and focus on the future. Well, it is great, but retro gaming is the golden standard of gaming and it's something people want to do. Mainly the ones who were born in the 90s. Now, before we get to the point, I'm gonna go back to the very beginning.

The PlayStation brand was established in December 3, 1994 when Sony's first console came out first in Japan. The PS1 era is the community's most favorite era. It's believed to have a lot of charm. What makes it so are the polygon models, original Crash and Spyro trilogies and more. Sony had brought on Exact and Ultra and were impressed by their first PS1 game, Jumping Flash!. It's the first 3D platformer where you control Robbit and stop Baron Aloha's evil plans. It was showcased in 1994 to showcase the PS1's peripherals.

Sony was impressed by the production of the PS3, which marks the start of PSN, wireless controllers, internal storage and patches to games. Certain models are backwards compatible to PS1 games, while some are backwards compatible to PS2 games. The PS1 and PS2 titles are also available on the PS3's storefront. The slim model comes out, the backwards compatibility feature was lost, but retro titles are still available on the storefront. And sadly, there is one thing that given fans no hope of revisiting retro titles as it has landed in a very sensitive spot.

After the PS4 came out, all classic titles we know and love were gone, so they had to develop a separate service called PlayStation Now, which pretty much flopped because of its limited selection of PS2 games and the lack of a PS1 catalog. The specs for the PS4 show that it uses a Jaguar component incapable of emulating PS3 games. It's because the PS3's architecture is hard to develop for. That's why the PS5 couldn't achieve full backwards compatibility while the PS4 lacked the feature and people need to understand that. The celebration of PlayStation's 20th and 25th Anniversaries couldn't be bigger for the same reason, until a calvary has came to please retro game fans.

Bloomberg reported that Sony was actually developing a new service codenamed "Spartacus" to have three tiers and compete with Xbox Game Pass. The first tier offers all benefits original PS Plus offers, like online multiplayer on paid games, monthly free games and discounts. The second tier offers access to a catalog of PS4 and PS5 games. The third tier offers game trials, streaming and a library of PS1, PS2, PSP and PS3 games. The third tier is believed to be the hero to revive retro gaming.

When the developers intend to keep the Plus branding, they confirmed that PS Plus and PS Now have merged together to establish PS Plus 2.0. It uses two additional tiers Extra and Premium. These tiers offer catalogs of both modern and classic games on both modern consoles and they add them monthly. This is when PS Plus Premium revived the PlayStation Legacy as they require the Premium tier to play the retro titles. It offered a catalog of classic games and new ones get released every month.

But there is a conflict to this. The separate library of PS3 games is on there, but they are only available to stream due to the PS3's structure that is hard to develop for. And it's gonna be like this forever. If you really want to download PS3 games, you'll have to dust off your PS3 and hook it up. And you'll have to play remasters and ports of PS3 games, like the upcoming Sonic X Shadow Generations. But it's fine. PS3 games are not that important to me anyway. But there are a couple of exceptions, so I'll get to that later.

The fact of the matter to this is that the Xbox 360 version of games that were also released on the PS3 are playable through backwards compatibility on the Xbox. If you want to know how Microsoft was able to achieve full Xbox backwards compatibility to become the winner, the Xbox 360's structure is very easy to develop for unlike the PS3's.

As for the PS1, PS2 and PSP games, they are available to both download and for cloud streaming. These systems are easy to emulate unlike the PS3. Each of them have rewinds, saves, up rendering and video filters. As stated before, the PS4's Jaguar component is incapable of emulating PS3 games, but it is capable of emulating PS1, PS2 and PSP games. You don't have to dust off your PS1, PS2 and PSP. The games of these systems are available to download and they can also be purchased so that you can play them 24/7 without a PS Plus membership in the Premium tier.

And the only thing about this is that we can play PSP games on the big screen. But if Sony has confirmed a new handheld console, it can apply to the upgrade PS Plus has gotten and we can play PS1 and PS2 games on the go.

I livestreamed one of the decent PS1 games, being Ape Escape 1 as the first PlayStation Rewind. It is a great throwback game of mine. I was able to unlock the true ending by capturing every single monkey and have caught Specter. I got all of that on stream for the finale. The second game of the franchise released on the PS2 is currently on the catalog, but that's the European version as I can tell from the logo and it's on the PS Now era.

Since the launch of the new PS Plus, the process of releasing new classics monthly is turning out to come along smoothly. The original MediEvil is on the catalog. But there wasn't a single new PS2 game yet and we are still seeing new PS1 and PSP games added monthly and it turned out smooth. The PS2 games have been a recurring demand since the revamp of PS Plus. The ones in the catalog now are in the outdated PS Now era where PS2 games only have up-rendering on PS4. They were supposed to add a PS2 game last year, but instead, they added a PSP version of the game. But Sony now has a brand new PS2 emulator to run PS2 games smoothly and have emulation features PS1 and PSP games have. It was leaked that Star Wars: The Clone Wars became the first new PS2 game that came out June 11.

Days of Play has returned bigger and better than ever, thanks to PS Plus Premium and other things that made the celebration even bigger. The article about it shown that Star Wars: The Clone Wars wasn't the only PS2 game. Favorites, like Tomb Raider: Legends and Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus were also confirmed and are now available on the catalog. However, outdated PS2 games like Fantavision and Ape Escape 2 remained on the PS Now era despite PS Plus Premium being present, so I added them to my wish list of PS2 games with two asterisks next to them to represent that an outdated PS2 game is on the PS Now era, wondering if it's gonna be possible for Sony to shift their outdated PS2 games from the PS Now era to the PS Plus Premium era where PS2 games have up-rendering, rewinds, save states and video filters like the PS1 and PSP games do on both PS4 and PS5.

But that was only the beginning. The regular lineup announcement for June is also announced and we got more of them. They are Ghosthunter, originally released on the PS2 exclusively, the PSP version of LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, and one of the games I played back in the day, Daxter, originally released on the PSP exclusively.

As a treat, I started my next PlayStation rewind livestream to cover Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus yesterday. It became a decent PS2 game to livestream. I remember playing that game from back in the day when I was younger, but couldn't have the time to beat it because I rented it in my old stomping grounds. In the previous episode, I left off with Tide of Terror, got all of the treasure keys and clues and defeated Sir Raleigh, so I'm gonna go on to the next heist that takes place in Mesa City in Utah to kick Muggshot's butt. I wanted to livestream the whole thing, but I would get burned out if I do, so I'm gonna livestream one heist to avoid burnout.

I revisited Sly Cooper to celebrate the life of the franchise that brought joy to fans and has died with no hopes of Sucker Punch reviving the franchise or Sanzaru not doing future titles of the franchises. The master thief will always be in our hearts. Not only that. This is the starting point of revisiting more of my cherished PS2 games. More PS2 games are on their way, including sequels to the original Sly Cooper to complete the trilogy.

I forgot to mention that besides Star Wars, video game adaptations of other media are not as common of retro gaming today in terms of licensing as largely dominated by THQ with their entry of their child-friendly video game adaptations of Nickelodeon cartoons. In fact, if I recall correctly, there is only one video game adaptation of a TV show in my wish list of PS1 games that is never listed on the storefronts of older Sony consoles that offer PS1 games, involves rescuing their best friend like Ape Escape where Spike rescues Jake from Specter's mind control and is not a Warner Bros. title or a first-party title published by Universal Interactive, and that is Xena: Warrior Princess, which is based on the TV show with the same name that became an overwhelming success, but never aired on a channel or available to stream on a single streaming service and never greenlit a reboot from NBC.

But if Warner Bros. Discovery owned Xena: Warrior Princess and all of its entirety, that can change everything to stream it on Max, formerly HBO Max and air it on TBS with a TV-14-V rating, pave the way for the reboot and put Xena into MultiVersus as an Assassin character. Who knows? If she actually does make it in, she could be acquired by purchasing the premium track of the Battle Pass. Maybe her neutral special would allow Xena to throw her beloved chakram. Maybe there could be a dialogue between her and Wonder Woman because they are based on Greek Mythology. Think of Spike from Ape Escape with his debut to PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale.

I have Xena: Warrior Princess on my wish list of PS1 games, so if it's released on the catalog, I will download it and showcase on how Xena would play and how she would make a perfect heroic Assassin fighter in MultiVersus, like I did to do a showcase on how Ty would play in Crash Team Rumble, which unexpectedly ceased active development, and submit my moveset idea to Player First Games.

So I believe that Xena is gonna be freaking dope in MultiVersus if Warner Bros. owned the show and all of its entirety. In fact, if I remember, that Warner Bros. Interactive Elements logo from 2000 made me think of why Warner Bros. Discovery should own Xena: Warrior Princess. I experienced it when I booted up Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Great game. And in this point of time, I experienced it again on one of Broken Saw's videos. It is only on 6th generation-era of gaming. If we do get a single PS2 game published by WB, that would be amazing, right?

It doesn't take a genius to understand that developers went through tough times during the development of retro titles based on movies and TV shows because if I am correct, the catalog currently has several retro titles based on movies by Disney, and they are Toy Story and UP. So picture this. Imagine starting a script when developing a video game based on a TV show or movie. I can hear them asking what about Star Wars. Sure, Star Wars games count. We got a lot of them on the catalog, and the Clone Wars is the latest retro Star Wars game released on the catalog.

The only video game adaptations of TV shows in the 6th generation-era that interest me are the ones based on the Simpsons, Hit and Run and Road Rage. Both of them institute driving. However, things have took a turn for the companies. When Road Rage came out, SEGA came along to sue companies that developed and published Road Rage. The lawsuit shows that Road Rage has gameplay similar to Crazy Taxi and it shows that Road Rage became a carbon copy of Crazy Taxi.

Video game adaptations of manga and anime are also not as common of retro gaming today, that the rights are owned by Bandai Namco with their entry of Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, Sword Art Online and Digimon. So far, there has been one anime fighting game that was released this year, and that is Naruto X Boruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections. The only anime game coming out this year is Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO. So if a retro anime game is released on the catalog, we can revisit them.

Now, video game adaptations of other media may not be as common of retro gaming, but what is as common of retro gaming is the Sony Computer Entertainment America/Europe presents screen. It appears on every single PlayStation exclusive retro title until the point of time when the PS3 comes out to have the Sony Computer Entertainment presents screens on each first party PlayStation game until 2016 when the Sony Interactive Entertainment screens started appearing on each first party game. You have to remember that 2016 is when Sony Computer Entertainment was renamed to Sony Interactive Entertainment.

I am amazed and intrigued at Sony taking their job very seriously on bringing back their beloved classics. The first party games have the old Sony Computer Entertainment America/Europe presents line. But so far, there have not been a single game of the two franchises, Crash and Spyro. These franchises have fueled the charm in the PS1 era. Without the Crash and Spyro games on the Classics Catalog, there is no charm. And now that PS2 emulation is here, the PS2-era Crash and Spyro games may be released one day. If they do, that will double the charm. And I don't care if we got remasters because they use Unreal Engine to kill the charm with modern visuals.

In fact, I don't care about the graphics. The gameplay is the same as the original and remakes and remasters only puts them in a business of making money when fans paid $60 for games they already played years ago, not caring about fans. We just want to revisit the original games because I miss the old school charm in these games. But there is a pro about remakes and remasters. They prevent companies from going bankrupt.

I am going to explain why the games in the original Crash and Spyro trilogies should be released on the catalog anytime soon even though the remastered trilogies are available.

Here is a look at the average scores and sales of original Crash and Spyro trilogies. The fonts you see on the numbers screen are used in their remastered trilogies. Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy uses the Yikes font while Spyro: Reignited Trilogy uses the Xaltier font. Both of these fonts are free to download on the internet.

Anyway, these franchises I believe fuel the charm and they are distinct as those of Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog, being kings of the PS1 in their original trilogies, although there are multiple antagonists in the original Spyro trilogy. But both original trilogies have the same purpose. They have companions that follow them around to protect them from damage, involve defeating most enemies with a single attack and have bosses at the end of each hub world. But what's the difference between them? Crash Bandicoot is known for linear levels, an arcade style of platforming. Spyro the Dragon is known for open levels.

So you tell me. Why aren't the Crash and Spyro games in the original trilogies released on the catalog yet? The original trilogies have reigned supreme in terms of both sales and review scores on one console and that's why they deserved to be remastered to call attention back to the two franchises. It's a charming deal. There's no reason to not release these games on the catalog anytime soon, even though we got remasters. Why wouldn't they release these games on the catalog while the original trilogies' numbers are excellent? It's a charming deal. You get companions that follow them around to protect them from damage. You get most enemies that are defeated with a single attack. And you get bosses at the end of each world. It's a charming deal. There's no purpose to this. The games in the original trilogies should be released on the catalog anytime soon.

And notice this? Once Universal passed them along to different studios to continue the franchises after Naughty Dog and Insomniac parted ways, they started releasing these games in multiple consoles with the exception of Crash Bash, which was not developed by Naughty Dog, and the racing games. But things have flopped with the Wrath of Cortex, except that it received a much larger audience than the original trilogy to piggyback off the success of the original trilogy as it returned to its roots of a platformer. That's how it received an accolade. And Enter the Dragonfly, which is the only third-party game has the most sales, but didn't come close to the sales of the original trilogy. That game's production was nothing but Looney Tunes and Scooby-Doo. That's why Elora was not in the game. But here's hoping Spyro 4 remedies that.

However, none of the games that came out after the original trilogies haven't come close to good performance, but Wrath of Cortex will get a pass. All of these games after the original trilogies have averaged on a score of 6.5. Twinsanity and Eternal Night didn't break one million units and they seen better days. But there is one obvious thing I like about Twinsanity besides it had to be open world. It's its charming environment Wrath of Cortex and Enter the Dragonfly have. Revisiting these games is something I wanted to do, and with the presence of the PS Plus Premium tier and with a brand new PS2 emulator Sony is using, it's likely to happen. I am aware Enter the Dragonfly's production was nothing but Looney Tunes and Twinsanity had cut content due to Universal not figuring out to be a publisher, but I want to revisit these games.

Excisting companies that have developed retro games also developed modern games. And then, the common thing among retro titles is the defunct video game companies. There has been some stories that companies behind the retro games went through an amount of stress during the development of their retro titles that are currently in the catalog because if you boot up the games that are by the companies that no longer exist, Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare was published by Infogrames and developed by Darkworks. Star Wars: Demolition was developed by Luxoflux. And the latest, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was developed by Pandemic Studios. I am not counting Lucasarts because the company was rebranded into Lucasfilm Games.

We don't see existing third-party companies that worked on retro titles as a whole, like Activision, EA Games, SEGA, Capcom, Bandai Namco and Square Enix. We got several retro titles that use the Namco logo. That logo is no longer being used after the company merged with Bandai to establish Bandai Namco, so it's obvious that Namco counts as a defunct video game company, and so do Squaresoft and Enix. Both companies were defunct when they established Square Enix.

EA Games, though around longer and became a terrible company, had the Challenge Everything slogan on games in 2002 released on the 6th generation era of gaming and there is a good chance that we are gonna see a retro EA title with the Challenge Everything slogan we loved. And there was one big company whose death saddened fans across the nation.

After they faced a series of money losses, financial struggles and debt, THQ filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the intention of auctioning off their franchises to other companies. Judge Mary F. Walrath pretty much ultimately denied the auction, but the creditors approved it instead. The Warhammer franchise was sold to SEGA, the South Park games were sold to Ubisoft, the WWE game franchise was sold to Take Two Interactive and the UFC game franchise was sold to EA Sports.

THQ had remaining franchises, such as Darkstalkers, Red Faction, Saints Row, MX vs. ATV and Destroy All Humans! left over in a court approved bankruptcy auction. This is when Nordic Games acquired the remaining franchises. So Nordic Games intended to claim the remaining franchises and they were not a fan of their name. When the publishers purchased the THQ trademark as a way to publish THQ's remaining franchises in THQ's stead, two years later, they decided to rename themselves to a better name, THQ Nordic. That name makes more sense and it reflects the company using the THQ trademark.

But THQ wasn't the first big company to go bankrupt. If I am correct, there has been one big company that was founded way before THQ was and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and that is Midway Games. They filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February 2009 before THQ does and sold most of their assets to Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment. It became known for arcade and console gaming, ranging from pinball machines to video games and for the Mortal Kombat series, until the point of time when the series shifted to being published by WB Games and developed by NetherRealm Studios. I am fine with Midway filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, though I want to revisit their games since we got emulation of retro titles on PS4 and PS5. But THQ filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, though? Nope! They should've kept going after making that money with their Humble Bundle.

Not only the defunct video game companies are common of retro gaming. Another thing that is also common of retro gaming is the use of Sofdec and ADX, basically used on third-party 6th generation-era games and they are under the CRI Middleware technology. The wiki said that ADX is used on Dreamcast, GameCube, PS2 and Wii games. The middleware is also used on original Xbox games like Jet Set Radio Future. 2006 is when the CRIWARE brand was introduced. That's when games start to use the CRIWARE logo.

And the Dolby Pro Logic II and Dolby Surround Pro Logic II logos. We've seen them on games released on the PS2, GameCube and Wii. That is a main and common degree to gaming today, and it's currently with Jak X: Combat Racing. Think about this. If they plan to release a game that uses the Dolby logo, would we see the logo again? Absolutely. But at present, we no longer see the current Dolby logo appearing on games.

Now let's talk about the couple of exceptions on the PS3 department. First off, ModNation Racers. So what makes this an exception on the PS3 department? Well, there are three reasons.

The first one is the ingame music. The game's ingame music is catchy to hear. The composers did a great job composing the music in game and it has multiple soundtracks and uses dynamic music. The music becomes clear when you are in 1st place, but when you're in 2nd place or worse, the music's clarity decreases. And the jingle specific to the current music playing is heard when a racer is hit with a weapon. The music in the game became so catchy as heck, if you like MoonScoop. However, there is a catch, the music changes every new race.

Secondly, creating your own character and their kart and the race track. ModNation Racers gave you the option to create any character and their kart and the race track. It doesn't have to be just your original creation. It can be from any works you like or dislike. To make Batman, his Batmobile and Gotham City is a creative idea. It's only a taste that San Diego Studio would publish their critically acclaimed racing game with user generated content. That applies to creating your own character, their kart and race tracks.

And thirdly, the best thing that made ModNation Racers so exciting to play is the ingame crew chief. You usually hear him in the one player exhibition race and in the Story Mode. In a one player exhibition race, you hear the crew chief's voice lines. He also had the best fun to hear voice lines when it comes to staying in 4th place or worse, getting passed, going the wrong way and driving off course. Especially the stopping for takeout and the pulling in for a snack lines. Hearing that made me hungry. These voice lines are fun to hear. Again, that's in a one player exhibition race.

So these are the three things on how ModNation Racers became an exception in the PS3 department. And this will be the only game I want released on the catalog, even though it will be only available to stream. If the PS3 hadn't gotten a structure that is hard to develop for, then the PS3 would've been easy to emulate and full PlayStation backwards compatibility would've been a reality.

You know about the Gran Turismo movie? I watched it at my local movie theater. It was a great movie based on one of PlayStation's racing game franchise since Johnny Test. So some fans wanted a ModNation Racers movie. Now, I strongly agree on wanting a video game film adaptation of ModNation Racers that would be CGI animated and rated PG for mild action and violence to involve racers using weapons and crashes against other racers. It can match some aspects in the Story Mode, with Espresso as the main villain of the movie. Sony Interactive Entertainment's Studio Business Group is led by Herman Hulst and his leadership can give us more film adaptations based on PlayStation games. We got Uncharted, Gran Turismo and a third movie to come to theaters.

Kart racing games have been common of the genre in the 7th generation era of gaming. The only fun kart racing games in the generation are ModNation Racers and Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing. There is literally an extravagant racing game the 7th generation era has. There is a PSP version of ModNation Racers, but there is no ingame crew chief in the version and it may likely be released on the catalog because the PSP is easy to emulate.

And now let's go on to another exception. That is Mortal Kombat. But what makes Mortal Kombat also an exception as ModNation Racers? I'm glad you asked. I have a couple of reasons for that, so let's take a look.

The first reason is the return to its roots of a traditional 2D fighting game. The 2011 reboot of Mortal Kombat piggybacked off the success of the first three Mortal Kombat games under the Midway umbrella as this was the comeback to the 2D fighting game genre after the 3D-era games and Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, the final game under the Midway umbrella before their liquidation and the series' shift to being published by WB Games and developed by NetherRealm Studios. It became the 9th mainline title and that's why they called it Mortal Kombat 9 to distinguish things. If we see a Mortal Kombat character being put into MultiVersus, they won't have Fatalities, so they will be in line with Injustice games.

Secondly, my most favorite part of the story mode, which is when Raiden killed his champions over the battle against Outworld villain, Shao Kahn. What makes it so is that part of the story in Mortal Kombat became very insane. A padding to the story is that when Raiden killed his champions, they became revenants to serve Quan Chi and Shinnok in Mortal Kombat X. They've been together back in Mortal Kombat 4 and in Mortal Kombat X, so it's really canon.

Now, if you keep track of the incidents regarding killing champions, Shao Kahn snapped Kung Lao's neck, Liu Kang tried to defeat Shao Kahn, but Raiden stood in his way to kill him. And those are incidents I can remember when playing through the story mode. I know there are a lot more champions that became revenants.

These are two reasons why Mortal Kombat became the exception on the PS3 department with ModNation Racers. While PS3 games are only available to stream, Mortal Kombat is also available on Xbox 360 and the version can be played on the Xbox through backwards compatibility.

A padding we had with NetherRealm Studios is that their games have been released on years with odd numbers. 2011 was the reboot of Mortal Kombat, 2013 was Injustice: Gods Among Us, 2015 was Mortal Kombat X, 2017 was Injustice 2, 2019 was Mortal Kombat 11 and 2023 was Mortal Kombat 1, the newest game that took place in the new era crafted by Fire God Liu Kang. You have to remember that the 2011 reboot of Mortal Kombat returned the series to its roots of a 2D fighting game and is the first game published by WB Games and developed by NRS. 2021 didn't see an NRS game, so the producers had to put in an R-rated 2021 Mortal Kombat movie reboot as a buffer. Production on the 2021 reboot's sequel has wrapped up, but the trailer is not up yet.

There is another padding, which is listening to the stage's music in a Mortal Kombat game under the NetherRealm umbrella while thinking about Spyro's two best goddesses, Elora the Faun and Bianca the Rabbit. It's the fact that you don't mix child-friendly games with dark games nor allow an underage person to play Mature rated games albeit they have no sex in them. If I have a child, I will not allow them to play M-rated games. Not a single one until they are 17 years old and up and that is the age when you are allowed to play M-rated games.

The 3D-era MK games by Midway involve switching between three styles and I know we loved those. The original Xbox versions of these games are playable through backwards compatibility on the Xbox. But with the PS Plus Premium tier offering emulation of titles and PS2 emulation reopening, it is only a matter of time before they get released on the catalog because I miss switching between three styles in game. We did see Mortal Kombat X using three styles on each character, but they can only stick to one style in game.

If you rewind back to the point when PS Now was released, it was a standalone streaming service that was known for offering PS4, PS3 and PS2 games. The PS4 and PS2 games became available to download. Its reception became poor because of the lack of the PS1 catalog and a weak selection of PS2 games. With all that easier said as done, I have one main point to make.

So many people at Sony tried to keep their classics alive. However, none of the later consoles achived full backwards compatibility because of the PS3's structure. But PlayStation Plus Premium has solved this enigma. It is getting a lot of games monthly, including the ones I played back in the day, so Sony had the blueprints for a service to compete with Xbox Game Pass, meaning if and when the PS6 goes into production, they can be able to keep the revamped PS Plus and carry over to there and keep their progress.

In conclusion, because of the reasons alone, despite PS3 games being only available to stream as you have to hook up your PS3 to download the games and play current and future remasters and ports of games originally released on the PS3, PS Plus Premium is literally the hero to revive retro gaming. And I better not hear any of you naysayers to tell me otherwise. PS Plus Premium has literally revived the PlayStation Legacy, and I'm dead serious. It's the only way to revisit retro titles from back in the day and it has the "why can be one thing when you can be anything?" tagline. Your PS1, PS2 and PS3 game discs will not work on the PS4 or PS5 and more of them get added monthly. It's something we've been wanting for years since the PS4 came out and our desire has been fulfilled by the inception of PlayStation Plus Premium.

I can't wait to see what July's and later months' additions have in store for me in the classics department. If they plan to pick up the pace, they must release six to nine new classics, sporting two to three PS1 games, two to three PS2 games and two to three PSP games monthly going forward. It's to follow Nintendo's footsteps. I will be expecting the ones in my wish list to get released, including the Crash and Spyro games.

PlayStation's 30th Anniversary is coming. You know why am I so excited for the celebration? Because PS Plus Premium is the hero that literally revived retro gaming unlike PS Now. Astro Bot is coming this year and this game is gonna have the ultimate PlayStation experience. Here's to later months' lineup of classic games.

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.