is my favourite game franchise ever besides Smash.
The Sonic franchise has it's ups and downs, but when it has ups, I easily think it's one of the best examples of good game design. IMO, while
has more consistency, it's only in part because of it rarely trying anything incredibly new (Galaxy and Sunshine were exceptions, and Sunshine isn't a very good game anyway IMO).
's highs are far beyond anything the Mario franchise does, and the games have always been much more innovative than Mario (Galaxy being an exception that rivals the innovative quality of most Sonic games), especially in the technical aspect - Sonic 1 was far more colourful and had much nicer graphics than Super Mario World despite the inferior hardware, Sonic Adventure was the first console game ever to have DLC, Sonic Unleashed was the first console game to utilise global illumination in it's public release (or at least one of the first).
The character himself is one of my favourite fictional characters ever, probably my third longest running favourite game character (the first and second being Spyro the Dragon and Rayman). Like the franchise, he has some poor portrayals, but for the most part, SEGA Sonic at least has remained likable.
Kid Icarus: Uprising is one of my two favourite handheld games of all time (the other being Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy), and the cast of characters is pretty lovable. Not a fan of how Smash handled
, who was actually a character I really wanted in the game, but I enjoy the character in Uprising (even though I enjoy others like Hades and Viridi more). And Uprising was just phenomenal in general. I really would like to see the franchise continue. My friend and I also discussed ideas for a film series, and the ideas we came up with were really cool.
and
are historically my favourite Nintendo franchises. Always were a part of my life and played them a lot when I was younger, and I still tend to love most games in the franchises. And I love the characters from them too. Hyrule Warriors is like a Zelda drug for me.
Star Fox is a franchise I always was curious to try out, but never had the opportunity to growing up. However, due to Smash, I finally took it upon myself to start getting into it lately, and honestly it's up there with
,
, and even
. It's basically Gundam (my favourite anime franchise) in terms of the drama, action, and characterisation, with Sonic-like characters by design. And the gameplay is often really fun and addictive, and it uses space a lot, which is one of my favourite video game tropes. What's not to love? I'm glad I'm getting into this series. Assault is my favourite game in the series, and I'm looking forward to Zero. In fact, I've gotten to love this series so much in so little time, not only have I discussed film ideas like with Kid Icarus, but I've also made up a Zelda-esque timeline, just last week:
And last but not least,
is worth mentioning. While I only particularly like/love a few games in the main series, Super Mario Bros was the first game I ever played, so I was destined to come back to Mario. And I love a lot of the spin offs, like Luigi's Mansion games and Super Paper Mario. And while Mario himself isn't much of a character who I can care about, I like a lot of the characters, most notably
, who is my favourite Nintendo character and female fictional character of all time, and definitely in that SSS tier of my favourite fictional characters. She also represents my favourite aspects of the Mario franchise (the Galaxy games and 3D World, the few times Mario actually tries something interesting and deep with it's characters, lore, and setting, some of my favourite Mario tunes like her theme song/the Comet Observatory theme, Luma's theme, Gusty Garden Galaxy and Good Egg Galaxy, giving characters actual agency and TONS of it in her case, etc). And I seriously think she deserves her own franchise like what
and
got. I mean, with
, there is a genuinely a big reason to do it, while Wario and Yoshi just kind of got it for easy 90's marketing reasons. Rosalina is a character who is loved for how deep she is and how she could potentially become even deeper, and there is just so much justification for it, from how much people love her to how she's literally this immortal character who has lived for centuries upon centuries already, meaning there is a lot they could elaborate on.
