I’m currently playing through Sonic X Shadow Generations and having a great time. I’m tackling the remastered Sonic segments before I hop over to the all-new Shadow campaign, and I dig its fusion of old-school and new-school Sonic. It can be easy to forget that 2D and 3D Sonic play so differently, but pairing them up in this way highlights the distinctions. 2D Sonic plays better; 3D Sonic has cooler environments. 3D Sonic can do homing attacks and ground pounds; 2D Sonic can’t. 3D Sonic can turn into an orange spaceship; 2D Sonic can turn into a pink circular saw.
Okay, that last one is just for one pretty weird level.
Getting The 2D Jelly In The 3D Peanut Butter
Playing as both eras of Sonic back-to-spiny-back makes you appreciate the things that each does better and worse than the other. As I make my way through Generations, I keep thinking about how much I would like to see this combo meal approach for other franchises. For most series that have run long enough, there’s a before and an after. You have 2D and 3D versions of Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Worms, Duke Nukem, Pac-Man, Mega Man, Castlevania, Mario Kart, Harvest Moon, Pokemon, and many, many others. Despite how common it is, it’s rare to see one game attempting to bring together the past and present of a series like Generations.
There are games that do it briefly, like Super Mario Odyssey, which included short sections where you could hop into a wall and play as 2D Mario. Developers sometimes pay homage to their earlier work, like Naughty Dog including a Crash Bandicoot level in Uncharted 4. Mario is also still putting out 2D entries on the regular, which could make combining styles all the more interesting if done right.
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There are also games that play with varied perspectives but aren’t throwing back to the series’ origins or the developers’ past. In The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Link could turn into a painting and walk along walls, but that wasn’t really referencing the series’ sidescrolling experiments in games like Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link and Link’s Awakening. That game is in conversation with A Link to the Past, but its perspective play isn’t part of the homage.
Last year’s The Plucky Squire was a cool example of perspective switching with 2D and 3D segments depending on whether your character was within the world of a book or in the real world.
Mario Generations Could Have A Lot Of Potential
But Mario has enough history on both sides of the dimensional dividing line that Nintendo could explore in a 2D-3D hybrid game. Though Mario Odyssey played with it briefly, it’s an idea that’s big and juicy enough to build an entire game around. In Sonic Generations, each level has two stages. You can play them in any order but Act 1 is always a sidescrolling level starring short, pudgy Sonic, and Act 2 is always a 3D level (usually with 2D segments) starring tall, skinny Sonic. The environmental theme remains the same, but Sonic interacts with it in very different ways.
Mario could easily lead a game like this (or several). He has a richer catalog to mine than Sonic, too. Despite being limited to a 2D perspective, Super Mario Maker 2 offered multiple palettes and mechanics from throughout the series’ history, and a Mario Generations game could, similarly, have levels based on OG Super Mario, Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, New Super Mario Bros., and Super Mario 3D World.
The 3D side of the equation would offer a ton to play with, too, as Super Mario Sunshine, Galaxy, and Odyssey all have wildly different core mechanics. Imagine a stage that mashed up Galaxy’s planet-hopping with 3’s Tanooki Suit, allowing you to fly between planets. Ponder the implications of the Cat Suit from 3D World, which lets Mario climb walls, appearing in a 2-inspired highly vertical level. Let me wield F.L.U.D.D. and Cappy at the same time and turn into a T-Rex with a water jetpack! The Mario Maker games began to bring the different eras of 2D Mario together, but I want everything in one pot. Come on Nintendo, let’s get a gumbo going.
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