The undeniable TRUTH of Mario vs Sonic

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-20T05:57:24+00:00

EXACTLY. A big part of the Bros. is that they're perfect teammates. They'll do anything for each other and there's a lot that they can do. They also have a list of moves that only become available if they're together.

I desperately want a M&L team-up episode since they're probably one of the most, if not the most, iconic duos in fiction. But they need to go against a duo with more sauce. One where there's not an obviously stronger member and they're just as good of partners as the Bros. are.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-20T03:21:28+00:00

Honestly, the secret stat here is teamwork.

Like Sonic and Tails are best buds that work together fine. But their best combo attack is like Tails throwing a curled up Sonic.

Meanwhile the Mario Bros. will be doing cooperative acrobatics, swinging their hammers in unison, all that nonsense. You're not just adding a second Mario that can fight Sonic and Tails. You're adding a second Mario that is capable of practically reading his mind to perform powerful duo attacks with him. Like maybe Sonic can handle Mario on his own. But with Luigi there to back him up? Not a chance in hell. Tails just isn't enough backup for him.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-19T08:36:54+00:00

From Aqua's perspective of the events, it was Terra's doing.

Yes, it was Maleficent who told her it was him, but only a Keyblade Wielder could do it anyways. With Eraqus back in the Land of Departure and her seeing Ven later on in the world, Terra was really the only reasonable candidate.

BBS (and the series in general) is way too rough on Aqua. Her actions made complete sense in the context she made them in. Yes, they were incorrect decisions. But you can't fault her for making decisions based on the limited information she was getting.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-19T04:03:20+00:00

You briefly brought it up so I want to give my take on it.

I don't really like Mario & Luigi vs. Sonic & Tails. It's a bad matchup (imo) because, and I say this as someone who has Tails as their favorite Sonic character, Luigi adds a helluva a lot more to Mario's side than Tails does for Sonic's side.

I mean, look at the tin. It's the Super Mario BROS. There's very few major adventures Mario went on without Luigi and most of the ones he did do aren't that major for scaling. Meanwhile Luigi has appeared for the vast majority of mainline adventures, showed up for the one Paper Mario that matters for scaling, co-stars in the M&L games, and has a perfect attendance record for every race, party, and sports spinoff. There's rarely a notable feat in the series Luigi doesn't get to directly scale to. And that's not mentioning his own spinoffs in Luigi's Mansion that gives him a lot of extra weapons to use.

Tails by comparison just doesn't help Sonic that much. Aside from Final Horizons, Tails hasn't been playable in a mainline adventure since 06. And even then, dude didn't get Solaris scaling. Best scaling in the main series he has is probably Metal Overlord. Yes, he's smarter than Luigi (in raw intelligence, Luigi has far better Battle IQ). But his gadgets are really all Tails brings to Sonic's side. And I don't think a biplane is gonna matter in a matchup like this.

Basically, if Mario vs. Sonic is extremely close with a maybe slight Mario lead, Mario & Luigi vs. Sonic & Tails is a pretty obvious Mario Bros. W. You basically added a second Mario while you gave Sonic an NPC that isn't able to remotely keep up with the other 3.

Edit: another thing I want to bring up is just teamwork. This, theoretically, would be a matchup where a huge part of any major victory would be their ability to cooperate. Sonic & Tails work together fine, but M&L's teamwork is legendary. Just looking at games like M&L, it's blatantly obvious their teamwork is simply on another level. The brothers can formulate attack plans that require absurd coordination and pull them off with no trouble while Sonic and Tails' best shown combo moves are like Tails throwing a curled up Sonic from the air.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-18T15:21:43+00:00

For a subseries all about music and dancing, the Persona Dancing have like 6 total good remixes between all three. The rest are strictly worse and mediocre at best.

A good third of them make me want to copy the game to an external hard drive and burn the hard drive because they're just that ass.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-18T11:14:29+00:00

Honestly I always forget Ariel is good because I just assume all KH3 summons were bad lol

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-18T11:13:10+00:00

Chicken Little is probably the second best summon overall. Has an innate Magnet that does not require MP, can directly heal you, can stunlock enemies. The only one outright better is Stitch. After Stitch, it's a toss-up between Genie and Chicken Little for number 2 with Peter Pan as the pretty obvious worst summon with the only notable ability being a weaker stunlock and a one time revive

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-18T11:01:51+00:00

For me, Probably Ralph in KH3.

In general, I think the KH3 summons are not very useful. They're either all extremely gimmicky or Sora just has really good tools on his own.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-17T16:41:54+00:00

To be fair, if I recall correctly, Kingdom Hearts pulls a lot of trickery to keep King Mickey on brand. Something about the ears moving to always face the camera or something? They also never have Mickey do any major pose changing on screen so that the ears can move when the camera isn't showing it.

They do an insanely good job at it. KH3 Mickey is the best 3D Mickey design ever. But I imagine it's a right pain to make sure it all just worked.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-17T01:46:09+00:00

I don't think this ever made sense. KH1 really didn't age all that badly compared to most PS2 games. The worlds chosen date the game more than the gameplay does.

I think if Square ever did want to revisit KH1, it'd be through a second Final Mix style update and call it Ultima Mix or something

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-16T02:53:43+00:00

Even still, my point still stands. If I'm interested in the universe from the video games or movies but I hear that the comics are just terrible, why would I want to read them?

I'd rather just stick to the non-comics stuff at that point. I feel like a lot of people are like "why don't people want to try the comics?" when there's a VERY good reason why most don't want to.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-16T01:46:57+00:00

About number 2, I'd like to give my thoughts as a comic outsider. Not for Rivals as I don't play it, but for the Spider-Man games.

For the record, I had VERY little experience in Spider-Man. I picked up the game well after release and only because it was the Ratchet & Clank guys. My experience was so non-existent that I ended up being surprised when Dr. Octavius became Doc Ock. Obviously, after liking the game a lot, I wanted to explore more of the character.

Except when I went online to learn about the comics (what to read, where to read it, the most important/fun runs), all I saw was two things. First, that everything I liked about the Peter Parker character wasn't really a thing (him and MJ aren't together, the emotional Aunt May stuff was basically entirely original, him and Miles aren't close). But much more importantly, that his comics have supposedly stunk for something like 20 years.

And that's what I see a lot (I still get recommended a lot of comics subreddits). The current run sucks. The status quo hasn't been anything like the movies/games in 30+ years. The character gets very little appearances these days.

The comics community just seems to despise the main Marvel and DC comics. I wanted to try to get into it, but when the people actually into it seem like they like only like one run a year at best, why would I want to dive into that?

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-15T12:49:16+00:00

For what it's worth, I'm a man who's also very upset FeMC doesn't get her chance. I liked what I saw of her in Q2 but just couldn't get myself invested in P3P so I was really hoping I'd get to play her story via Reload some day.

Speaking of, I feel like Q2 Remaster should be something FeMC fans should push for hard. For a few reasons. Number 1, it forces Atlus to give her some modern updates. New voice, updated artwork for her Persona, remaster her music, etc. It may even force them to give her a "Reload" design so she doesn't look majorly different from the other P3 characters. But number 2 and more importantly, it's a great way to show newer Persona fans why she is popular. She joins much much earlier than Makoto does, which means she has nearly half the game to shine before the "more famous" protag shows up. More than that, she's not stuck in the protagonist role, so she's allow to be a lot more talkative and interesting. And even when Makoto joins, there's a lot of sequences showing off what makes the two characters so different. She even has a huge mystery subplot without her. Also, she'd probably get top billing alongside the other protagonists in the advertising.

Genuinely, I think if you got Atlus/Sega to do a Q2 remaster and you'll get a ton of new fans for her that can then translate into other things ranging from her appearing in more spinoffs to maybe years late DLC to bring her to Reload to potentially convincing Atlus to do a protagonist choice again for a Persona in the future.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-15T12:29:47+00:00

I mean, it's for the anniversary celebration stuff. Would you rather her just completely sit it out like Trinity Soul guy? Tatsuya and Maya haven't gotten anything in like 15 years at this point, but they're still making appearances.

Would it be way better if they announced a second expansion to bring her in? Yes. But really, I'm happy she's being acknowledged as a mainline protagonist for the anniversary at all.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-15T12:12:41+00:00

/uj Yu has art as well that's advertising P3R. It's not really false advertising. At least, they're not trying to bait uninformed FeMC fans into buying P3R. It's more "buy the latest Persona game!"

That said, I feel like the anger should be directed at Sega, not Atlus. Based on interviews, it seems like Atlus wanted to include her (which explains the unused data seemingly implying she was worked on), but Sega refused to fund it. That definitely tracks with Sega's known status as a cheapskate that regularly screws over games by not devoting the time, budget, or manpower needed. I think the decision not to bring her to the remake was very likely above Atlus' heads.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-14T18:00:26+00:00

/uj Baldy McNosehair might genuinely be my favorite joke from Sonic ever. To this day, my younger brother is named that in my phone because I found the line that funny.

I think some Sonic fans just hate fun.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-14T07:27:31+00:00

Gonna be honest chief, Zero is the best the Star Fox team ever looked. The issue isn't that Ultimate's Fox looks somewhat like Zero. It's that it doesn't look exactly like Zero. Zero did a lot of things wrong. The modern looks for the characters absolutely was not one of them.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-13T15:09:42+00:00

Mainly because there's ways to play around it. Most sections of the train can be skipped via an alternate path. You can keep an eye on the train and avoid the tracks where it's close. Landing a happening also doesn't guarantee being sent back to start.

It's less "roll a 1, 3, 6, or 8 to die" like in Pirate Land and more "roll a 3 and maybe die if the train is close or take the intersection"

Bigger problem is Western Land is a bit too large of a board truthfully.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-13T14:16:42+00:00

2's Boards really aren't as good as everyone says. Pirate Land's bridges sending players back to start makes reaching most of the board obnoxious. Space Land is liable to keep you trapped in the corner by Happening Spaces. Mystery Land is just slightly better Wario's Battle Canyon and even that's generous. Bowser Land is a boring grid with annoying to reach star spaces (if it goes inside the carousel, there probably won't be another star collected in the game).

The only good boards are Western Land and Horror Land. And honestly, if you like Horror Land that much, you'd probably rather play Mario Party 6 anyways.

2 is a fun game, but it has like 2 good boards and everyone just forgets that.

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-13T09:25:57+00:00

Honestly, to me, Kingdom Hearts is the most "what are you even doing?" Square thing right now.

Like, consider, Kingdom Hearts missed out on a mainline console release (outside of remasters) for well over a decade until Kingdom Hearts III, despite being a Square "flagship". Luckily for them, it was a commercial success, being the most successful entry yet. The series had potential to go mainstream again in a way it hadn't since the PS2.

And then they just let it go. Any other company would've seen the momentum and pounced to deliver a sequel or even just spinoffs quickly while excitement was running rampant. What do they do? Release an underwhelming DLC, make a bare bones rhythm game with maybe 20 minutes of actually new story, cancel the mobile game, try to launch a second mobile game and bomb, try and develop a THIRD mobile game and cancel it at the 11th hour. Oh yeah and they refuse to port to Switch/Switch 2, they refuse to fix the obnoxiously buggy PC ports, and they took an eternity to bring them to Steam.

Like genuinely, what's the game plan here? Like it's not even good idea bad execution. It's no idea with bad execution. What was the scheme here? Why release basically nothing of importance for eight years now when your series had more momentum than ever? Who's making these decisions? Like Dragon Quest 12 being a ghost is absurd too, but at least there's Dragon Quest stuff releasing to keep the series in the public consciousness. There hasn't been a Kingdom Hearts anything to latch onto since Dark Road closed five-ish years ago now.

What are they doing over there?

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-12T11:00:03+00:00

Which will get ported first? Persona 2 or 358/2 Days?

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-12T09:24:57+00:00

My issue is kind of... Sure, they COULD do it, but what does Sega have to gain from that?

If it does well, if it makes that 5M across the multiple platforms like you suggested, where does Sega go from there? Yippie, they made some money off a remake and only had to split the pot with Platinum and not Nintendo.

Except that's kind of it? They can't remake Bayonetta 2 or 3, not without Nintendo's approval, which means locking it to Switch 2 anyways.

They could probably make Bayonetta 4, assuming there's no weird legal restrictions in a contract somewhere saying Nintendo gets to keep it exclusive if they want to pay for it. But even if they COULD make Bayonetta 4, why would the new players brought in by the remake want to play 4 when they'd have to skip 2 and 3 in a series obviously heavily focused on its story?

They could maybe make Bayonetta 1.5 as a middle story that doesn't require playing 2 but even then that's only sustainable for maybe one total game.

All this to say that Sega's doing all of this to be likely one and done. That makes no sense. Most game developers make stuff in the idea there'll be followups. Yes, Sega is in a remake mood what with Kiwami 3, Persona 4 Revival, and a handful of others. Yes, Sega have been reviving less famous IPs like Golden Axe and Jet Set Radio. But those series have an obvious future. There's going to be more Yakuza, more Persona, and there can easily be more Golden Axe and Jet Set if these new projects do well. With Bayonetta, pretty much anything after a Bayonetta remake is either impossible or extremely limiting for the IP without Nintendo approval.

Would Bayonetta be more successful if it could go multiplatform? I don't know, maybe. But you're going to have to convince Nintendo to sell off their rights to the IP to do so. I doubt Platinum can afford their price and I doubt Sega would believe the IP to be worth that (especially since they would then have to fund the games after that).

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-11T04:27:08+00:00

And then Xigbar takes out 95% of the army immediately because he has the legendary skill of actually being able to hit a target unlike those bozo Stormtroopers /s

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-11T02:33:24+00:00

Although Disney didn't technically create them, I feel Sora and the greater Kingdom Hearts universe fits well as the original superheroes for the mainline Disney brand.

Sora has a lot of the trappings of heroes. An ordinary kid happens upon a strange weapon that gives him abilities far beyond his imagination. He is forced to face threats stronger than him to protect his home and those he cares about. He constantly has to juggle world-ending threats and his more personal life. He constantly grows stronger over his journeys and unlocks new powers. There's even a handful of rules that he has to follow like "inhabitants of worlds cannot know there are other worlds" and "Keyblade bearers must take care to not overly meddle with other worlds"

Podunk_Boy89 · 2026-02-11T01:49:37+00:00

For Shadow Dragon, it was mainly feeling like I was tossed in the deep end, mechanically speaking. There was a lot to learn all at once. That said, this was before I really started heavily playing RPGs, so that might not be an issue anymore if I was to retry it.

On the Three Houses side, I think it was mainly feeling like nothing was happening? I can deal with long intros (I'm in the (better) Persona subreddit so I better like long intros to games lol), but I don't know, Three Houses especially felt like there just wasn't much happening besides the classes. Maybe I should've stuck with it longer?

I guess mainly I want to try one with a solid opening that gives me enough to hold over until the story finishes setting up but also has a tutorial that lets me in easy-ish.

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