Zelda Vs. Mario

[ArcherPanda]

In a Zelda forum? lol.
Zelda by far. Mario games are fun, but it's miles behind the LoZ series.

 

[KirbyBBQ]

For the general public, Mario will always be the poster child of Nintendo gaming.
But I think as you start playing more and more games, it's inevitable that Zelda will win over your heart.
Because Zelda simply has more depth to it.

Mario is perfect for what it is, fun.
And Zelda is perfect for what it is, fun as well as deep.
Of course, this is all just in my opinion.

 

[Frosticles]

In a zelda forum I think the obvious answer would be zelda

 

[Migeme10]

Zelda, hands down. Nothing can beat it's creative, puzzleing, innovative gameplay. Nothing. Mario's only the icon because everybody likes him.

 

[A Link In Time]

As I mentioned before in an earlier post, both franchise are full of win but honestly Mario is better. That's because the franchise isn't afraid of innovation.

Super Mario Land-Ditches the conventions of Mario completely. Vehicles?! Oh yes, you can dive in a submarine and fly in an airplane. The fire power up even shoots bouncy balls instead!
Super Mario World-Yoshi, enough said. Yoshi may now be standard in Mario games but Nintendo was taking a risk by adding him into 1991's Super Mario World. Luckily, the green dinosaur was well-received and continues to return time and time again.
Super Mario 64-If the transition to 3D wasn't enough, Super Mario 64 championed the bold move to analog control. Players could now move Mario in a variety of directions. The analog feature was especially well used in Bowser boss battles.
Super Mario Sunshine-Having Mario clean up an area was bizarre. Very bizarre. But it worked and to this day, fans hail this as one of the most unique installments in the venerated franchise.
Super Mario Galaxy-The move to this game's complex physics was a huge selling point. Players navigated a ton of spherical planets and the game was praised by critics far and wide. A truly modern Super Mario 64!

 

[nonoitall]

There are probably more reasons that I like Zelda than that I like Mario, and I pretty much universally like every Zelda game that I play, while the same can't be said for Mario. But both series have a special spot on my gaming shelf. SMG was a beautifully well done game - well ahead of Twilight Princess relative to its series IMO.

 

[guapo2003]

It really just all depends, but I would go with Mario just because he has MUCH more games and hey who can go wrong with a plumber as a hero.

 

[Teron]

The Legend of Zelda is a way deeper franchise, making it's games very challenging and practically impossible to beat for small kids. Mario games, on the other hand, are easy as heaven, and perfectly fit for regular non-gamers who just want to hang out on their sofa and have some fun.

 

[Links Ocarina 7]

lets look
story-Zelda
vilon- Zelda
Gameplay- Mario
popularity- Mario
It's a tie XD

 

[TrueChaos]

for me it would be Zelda. though i've not played a Mario game since Mario 64 (which i didn't think was that great) I keep going back to Zelda and i love the series more than any other

 

[YoshiFlame]

It is almost a dead tie for me, but I have to go with Mario because it is the series I grew up with, and has the single biggest impact of any series I've ever played.

 

[Demonheadge]

Imo Zelda because Zelda is more of a gameplay than mario. Mario only really has Mario Party and stuff like that. it never really has a story that you can play though. They made Mario Sunshine which imo is really good but appearntly it wasn't :l

 

[Ordonary Guy]

This question is the reason Smash Brothers was invented.

 

[D-Lo G]

Zelda, by far. I love Mario, but Zelda is just better. It's so much more complicated.

 

[Majora's Cat]

This question is the reason Smash Brothers was invented.

You are my new idol.

All joking aside, both franchises have left a tremendous impact on the industry. No, that's an understatement. Mario and Zelda MADE the gaming industry. How is it possible to compare two titans that are still standing strong after over 25 years of being buffeted by other franchises throughout history?

It's clearly that critics tend to side with Zelda a bit, as Zelda games generally have higher scores on both GameRankings and Metacritic. I've also been around the forums here for awhile and have seen other forums, and gamers usually come to the consensus that head-to-head, Mario is better than Zelda. However, when the title of "The Greatest Franchise" comes to mind, Mario is oftentimes omitted completely or is topped by Zelda and several other series.

Mario has been better represented this generation, as Super Mario Galaxy and its sequel have both been called the greatest platformers ever. In comparison, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, though spectacular games, haven't quite received praise on the same level in general. The tiebreaker is usually the fact that the Zelda series has Ocarina of Time under its belt and the fact that Mario is plagued with hundreds of crappy spin-offs that both publicize the mustached plumber and tarnish his name.

Zelda games are labors of love, and unlike in Mario games, the dungeons are strung together by a feasible story and an overworld. I prefer this over the level-to-level approach that Mario takes. IGN called Skyward Sword the greatest Wii game to date, and both SMG and SMG2 have received that honor. That is only one critic's opinion, but it's difficult to ignore that Zelda games like Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, the Wind Waker and A Link to the Past have been more warmly received than the 3D Mario games (overall). MM has been voted Game of the Decade, and OoT the greatest of all time. It's pretty clear that gamers believe Zelda is "the greatest" franchise.

In short, this:

However, although Zelda has only around 15 games, it has sold over 52 million copies worldwide; while Mario has around 200 games and has sold 200 million copies. This basically says that every Mario games sells around a million copies each while each Zelda game has sold more than that. This makes what VanitasXII said about Mario always trumping Zelda sales false, as it is evidently the opposite in most cases. It may seem that Mario has way more sales than Zelda at first, but with a closer look you can discern that this is not necessarily true. In addition to this Mario games come and go at a rapid pace while Zelda games are carefully constructed, which puts Zelda ahead in the quality department as well as in dedication.

Zelda games are few, but their overall quality trumps Mario. Zelda wins by a hair for me.