SNES

During the 1990s, video game megastars Mario and Sonic, the mascots of the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis respectively, duked it out for supremacy of our wallets.

Mario premiered with Super Mario World, and Sonic with Sonic the Hedgehog.

The two video game characters generated their own merchandise and several TV shows, one of which was voiced by Family Matters’ Steve Urkel himself, Jaleel White. Children from everywhere craved and bought Sonic and Mario related merchandise.

In 2002, the same year the Gamecube was released, the Dreamcast was discontinued, thus ending Sonic the Hedgehog’s independent success.

Mario and Sonic went in completely different directions and their original rivalry died down when Nintendo eventually pulled ahead of Sega. Mario went on to best-selling games on the Nintendo 64, Gamecube and Wii, while Sonic’s fortunes would carry on unsuccessfully to the Sega Saturn and eventually die at the hands of the Sega Dreamcast.

Mario is doing quite well for himself - he made the Wii close to impossible to find in retail stores, produced many more successes such as Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy, that stay at or near the top of retail sales. An entire new generation has embraced him, just as he saved video gaming in 1984 with the release of Super Mario Bros.

Not just restricted to one console now, Sonic has shown up in places unimaginable to the classic fans - on the Gamecube and Wii. Not to mention, he created a cult following of people who wear costumes of himself during anime conventions, better known to us as “furries.”

Many of the classic fans have said that Sonic has gone nowhere but downhill. A series of releases on the PlayStation 2, Gamecube and XBox have been criticized by gaming publications. What has especially doomed Sonic was his seventh-generation debut, Sonic The Hedgehog (2006) on the Play Station 3.

Mario and Sonic, once bitter rivals, have seen a reconciliation in recent years with the Wii’s release of Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, where characters from both franchises duke it out in Olympic events. This is largely at the cost of Sonic, because Mario has been sitting pretty at the top for two and a half decades.

The most important question is what they are today: Mario may be the eternal icon of videogames, but Sonic was once part of our childhood as well, and should not be forgotten, despite our blue hedgehog’s recent struggles.