The provocative title aside, I think it speaks of how many people enjoyed the series when this announcement causes a lot of people to sing its praises. When this series was still getting new games, there was a level of discontent of its existence, like how Mario and Sonic are in a crossover about Olympics of all things, or that there was a feeling that there were too many Olympic video games about Mario & Sonic. It could very well be partly from how the current Olympics video games have less effort put into it that makes the older approach felt better by comparison, but as someone who personally likes the existence of this series, it feels satisfying to see (even though it had to come to the equivalent of an eulogy to get to this point).
When
the first game on the Wii was announced on IGN (and I imagine several other sites), I can't help but feel very elated that there is going to be a real video game that allows Mario and Sonic to interact. It totally felt unreal that I had to hope that it's not a joke, since this news broke out on the 28th of March (which could be construed as an early April's Fool joke), but when it's clear that this game is real, it felt like a dream, coming from someone who loves Mario and likes Sonic. I need to point out that I'm sure not everyone was happy, and might have wanted something better than being an Olympics crossover event, so it's not perfect.
One achievement with this series is how, collectively, this sold a lot more compared to every other Mario Sports series. Yes, Mario & Sonic series outsold the, let's see... Mario Tennis series, Mario Golf series, and certainly the Mario Strikers series. The Mario sports label is listed as about 50+ million on Wikipedia, and a huge percentage of this amount comes from this series. Not only does it speak of how popular this series is, it also speaks of how relatively unpopular the other Mario sports titles were, even though they generally have a better review average compared to this one. On Sonic's side, it's probably his most successful series given how Sonic's games aren't as strong of a seller as Mario's. One can infer that Sonic really benefitted from having Mario to boost the game's popularity, even though Mario's nature meant that it has to be a Nintendo exclusive. One does not underestimate the power of a crossover between two iconic video game characters, in other words.
We certainly can't rule out the end of Mario and Sonic's crossovers, since while the Olympics have decided not to have them involving Mario and Sonic, there might be a new avenue for them to crossover each other. The type of game might not necessarily be a platformer like some would expect from two series known for their platformers, but the strong love for the characters would surely carry whatever crossover they will tackle next.
Thank you for reading.
(I know I sounded unnecessarily positive here, which might probably make me a target of being made fun of)
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www.eurogamer.net
