...You Got Sonic in My Mario

Mario visited Mobius in Somari, so it seems only fair that Sonic repay the favor by visiting the Mushroom Kingdom in Sonic Jam 6. (Pirates love continuing the numbering sequence of legit games. Super Mario Bros. 17 is Mario hacked into Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers.)

Knuckles?

Sonic Jam 6 is just Sonic dropped into the 16-bit Super Mario Bros. from Mario All-Stars ported to the Genesis, complete with all the, oh let's call them quirks, you expect from a pirate game. Quirk number 1: instead of starting as a smaller version of himself, Sonic starts the game red and turns blue after eating a mushroom. OK, that's a little weird, but harmless.

The game also lacks any of the secondary animation. Sonic doesn't transform when he gets a power-up or lower into a pipe. He's just instantly a new color or in a new place. The only animation of him running is the full-speed, cartoon legs-in-a-circle, no matter how slow he's going, so it always looks like he's having trouble getting traction. And the Sonic sprite itself looks bad. The edges are jagged and black. Again, these are fairly minor things that don't affect gameplay.

Watchayoo doin' in-a my game?

Now we get to the fun stuff. Sonic can only jump 1 of 2 preprogrammed distances: too far or not far enough. Try a mid-air course correction and he goes careening into the nearest bottomless pit of death. All of the controls feel loose and sloppy, a feeling heightened by the "out-of-traction" look of the animation. And the collision detection is overly sensitive. If anything comes anywhere near you, you will die or power down.

So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna play Mario if I wanna play Mario and I'm gonna play Sonic if I wanna play Sonic. Good. That's settled then. Actually though, I kinda feel like playing Alex Kidd...