Why Mario 64 is better than Sonic Adventure

Turn speed whilst moving.

If you’re stationary in either game, you turn to any direction instantly and once you accelerate to a certain velocity, the turn speed quickly drops to allow for precision movement.

However, in Sonic Adventure that limited turn speed is not limited enough. The game designers obviously expected it to be a fun mechanic to move 4 feet to the left, then 4 feet to the right roughly seven times per meter per second they are insane.

Mario on the other hand, despite not being as much a physics based platformer, turns much more slowly, making the collecting of coins fell quite natural and satisfying. Sonic on the other hand is blazing along at 100 miles an hour and you are expected to make minute adjustments to your trajectory in order to get the tiny ring hit boxes when just tapping the stick send him careering almost st a right angle. Oh and your area is ten feet wide. No here’s some really confusing platforms and bottomless pit, enjoy!

Then you have the story, yeah I get it, everyone wants the gems.

The spin dash is still useless but Sega managed to create a game where collecting gems/rings and making minor direction adjustments nigh on impossible.

Mario 64 is simply a better made physics game with levels that don’t drag on and controls that facilitate accurate level traversal and with a superior camera.

Sonic team still haven’t figured out that if you are moving fast, minor changes in direction result in major changes in your course.

So they keep trying to make a slalom game but putting crap stages in with bottomless pits and jerky controls.

This is the reason they invented the homing attack. Rather than fix Sonic’s control and camera issues, they just made it like Afterburner but less easy to lock on. This goes for stages where you control robots, now they can hardly move, despite being a super speed woodland creature.

This is why the franchise faded and why Mario games are far more popular than 3d Sonic games these days.

EDIT: If all the games were like this (1:40:40). They would all be good games. That is, if you could control them.

It's not, not even close.

I’d go with Mario 64 myself. I loved Sonic Adventure 2, so...

@jackamomo:

I agree that speed ruined Sonic Adventure's gameplay but I'm not sure if I agree with everything else.

1. Spin dash comes in extremely handy when you're trying to clear a level in record breaking time. It also makes you invulnerable temporarily and you can run over enemies while doing so.

2. Homing attacks not only have great accuracy but they can save you from a nasty fall more often than not.

3. The controls only felt jerky because of Sonic's speed mechanic. But this did create clipping glitches in Sonic Adventure 1 and Sonic 2006.

4. Sonic Adventure actually HAS a story. Unlike Mario 64. It's a very crappy story but a story nonetheless. You can't give Mario 64 credit on what they didn't attempt.

Overall, Super Mario 64 did age better than Sonic Adventure. But that's not to say that it was a perfect game in all regards. It didn't take much to outdo Sonic Adventure.

@nepu7supastar7: I agree that speed ruined Sonic Adventure's gameplay

Not speed Nepu, TURN speed. I'm pretty sure the whole point of a Sonic game is to go fast, no? You just also want to be able to collect rings at speed. Something which is impossible in every 3d Sonic game.

1. Spin dash comes in extremely handy when you're trying to clear a level in record breaking time.

I've said about the spin dash before, it only slows you down. Speed boosts on the floor and pinball bumpers and maybe flippers are the only way Sonic should gain speed apart from a run up. Otherwise you designed the level wrong.

2. Homing attacks not only have great accuracy but they can save you from a nasty fall more often than not.

And homing in isn't as easy as Afterburner because you have either no reticle or a laser that flies wildly about.

4. Sonic Adventure actually HAS a story. Unlike Mario 64. It's a very crappy story but a story nonetheless. You can't give Mario 64 credit on what they didn't attempt.

I give Nintendo credit for not putting a story in when the game genre doesn't really benefit from one. At least not an in depth one with long cut scenes.

The irony is, to fix it, they just need to change a few lines of program code the get him moving more slowly the faster he goes, otherwise, the faster you go, the greater your distance translates into when turning as you are moving faster, you cover more distance, so turn speed needs to be reduced to account for that.

So it's too difficult to platform or maneuver at speed accurately.

Was that ever up for debate?

I don't particularly think either are great 3D Platformers, but I respect SM64 at least for being a guideline for future/ superior games.

I liked Sonic Adventure but was not the fan of the hub world. Should have been more straightforward.

@jackamomo:

"I've said about the spin dash before, it only slows you down. Speed boosts on the floor and pinball bumpers and maybe flippers are the only way Sonic should gain speed apart from a run up. Otherwise you designed the level wrong."

The speed dash doesn't slow you down, it speeds you up! If it slows you down in Sonic Adventure then you're clearly using it wrong. Just hold down B (Dreamcast) and press B again after it releases and Sonic is launched running in high speed. I used this trick alot in Sonic Adventure to clear levels faster. Lands me with an S ranking and everything.

Even if your talking about the Lightspeed Dash, even that's useful. It lets you take shortcuts and take hordes of enemies in one go. It's really all a matter of how you use it.

Also the Homing Attack only got worse when they added a target symbol in later games. I've never had a mishap with homing attacks in Sonic Adventure. But I had alot of them in Unleashed and Generations.

As for Sonic's speed, the locomotion travel was already implemented in Sonic Unleashed and Generations. He controls fine now.

Turning is significantly slower in high speed and forces you to drift to make better turns.

While there have been the odd Sonic game that I’ve enjoyed I’ve always preferred pretty much every Mario game over any Sonic game.

For me there is no better platforms video game than Super Mario 64. Maybe it's because I played a bunch of hours when I was a little kid, but I really enjoyed like crazy.

I prefer Sonic Adventure over Mario 64 being that I never played Mario 64 as I didn't have a N64 growing up.

Anything being better than Sonic is faint praise.

in my opinion twice are best games i like ''Mario 64 and ''Sonic Adventure

@Random_Matt: actully. He's right. We is a dated mess. M64 game play syst is still being used and improved on today. It was tje forst game to get 3d right. All 3d game to day use its concept.

@nepu7supastar7: are you trying to us a sonic game story as a pro

.....

What? Sorry but having a story do3s not make it better. Even more so that the story is bad.

@dreman999:

I wasn't using story as a pro, I said that it's worth mentioning because Sonic Adventure actually had one. Which Mario 64 didn't. You can't praise a game for not attempting something since it takes no effort to do so.

@nepu7supastar7: except. If the story is not needed. Not all games need stories and their times the stories just makes things worse.

@dreman999:

But even so, it doesn't take any effort to not add it. So it's not worth praising.

I can agree that Sonic Adventure would probably have been better without the story. But at the same time, it didn't ruin the flow of the overall game. You still have plenty of levels to replay and there's plenty of content past that.

@nepu7supastar7: sorry but adding the story do not get point for effort. You to know when to add it and when not to add it. Story mode later added on to everything toxic to 3d sonic now.

@dreman999:

I didn't say it deserves credit in a good way. Just that it doesn't hurt or improve the quality of the game.

Because TC mentioned that Story should be a factor in the argument of which game is better. I was saying it shouldn't because only Sonic Adventure had one.

@nepu7supastar7: sometimes restraint is more difficult than a lot of effort put in where it is not really needed.

I don’t know if other 3d Mario games have stories but those N64 carts didn’t have much spare space in them...

At the end of the day if you can skip the scenes then it’s fine. But if you have been subjected to modern annoying Sonic then that irritation will linger for a bit.

So bad story is less desirable than no story in my eyes.

Yeah yeah we get it Sonic, you want the gems, jeez.

It looks like they fixed the twitchy controls for Sonic Adventure 2 Battle for the GameCube which was released the very same day?! Would have thought it might be a good idea to keep it DC exclusive but they’d shelved the DC by that point I suppose.

The opening on GC looks far more easy to control. Sadly you still have to listen to “follow me yeah! Got to follow my rainbow etc” *blech*

Too little too late though. Everyone had already seen how the first game played and appreciated the graphics but it’s clearly impossible to collect rings so your left with a fairly unplayable game or fun roller coaster light show.

Perceptions of 3d Sonic had already been made and the series has never recovered.

EDIT: GC SA2B actually has a hidden boost on the first ring in a trail which, if you hit will boost you along the line of rings which is a bit cheaty. I think the controls are improved a bit though.

Mario 64 was a stepping stone for 3D game in general. It is a great platformer just like previous Mario game. The game is satisfying,

Sonic always been abysmal in 3D. It just doesn't work. Sonic goes stupid fast but you have to not go as fast because there is too much shit in the way and there is too much shit going on that just doesn't fit anything. The latest Sonic proves it, it works wonderful in 2D.

Mario is for little children. You can't compare Sonic that actually can be developed to further levels of actually engaging into something more meaningful. Besides only manboys nowadays play Nintendo games such as Nintendo Switch, so its not like i respect nintendo so much nowadays. After the wii i sort of lost respect when Switch came. But before that i was ok with them, Wii was pretty unique for the time. But after it, no more.

Sonic Adventure is pretty great, IMO - although Adventure 2 cuts through a lot of the BS and might be the apex of any 3D Sonic.

My main issue with Adventure is the Saturday morning cartoon plot bullshit that has only gone downhill with the series since. Sonic and team must not talk. Should never talk again. When they talk, babies die.

But the game is a blast and handles well

Sonic went downhill after Sonic 1.

They failed to recognise it's a physics game first and foremost which goes with the theme of going fast and just made it the game that had to have EVERYTHING IN IT!!!!! LOOOOK!!!!! SONIC IS THE BEEEESSTTT!!! He's snowboarding! In a street?!?! :0

But the only game that uses the main feature (physics) properly is Sonic 1 with angled platforms that affect your jump trajectory and therefore progression through the level, with few places you you have to stop and wait.

Most people consider Mario 64 over Sonic Adventure. I've never actually heard someone say SA was better than SM64.

Answer: because it's not Sonic Adventure

@glitch-: I've never actually heard someone say SA was better than SM64.

Yeah but I'm probably the first person to actually define the reason in four words as per the first four words in this topic.

Move speed whilst moving. Sega just couldn't get the platforming move physics quite right.

Add the that that only Sonic 1 understood that a Sonic game should play quickly if you were good or slowly if you were crap but give the that option.

All subsequent Sonic games instroduced sh*t like flying around a tube which is in no way entertaining.

If Sega could have just had him turn a bit more slowly, then Sonic Adventure and all subsequent Sonic 3d games would have been better than all the 3d Mario games.

Cringingly bad stories notwithstanding.

You have to understand, I had to really swallow my pride to type that topic heading. You're talking to a person who wrote the Sega logo on his end of primary school commemorative tea towel (where every kid in the top 2 years draws their self portrait as a memento) which if I can find a picture, is hilarity itself. I would add my picture is probably the best and the SEGA logo is rendered perfectly on my track suit's left breast/peck (I'm not a girl). The second best picture, was by Helen Janiscweski who incidentally lived almost on the same street but she went on to become a midwife and I write on forum's about dead companies.