Poll: Favorite Super Mario Game

[nielse16]

Piggybacking on Anayo's thread (I like Super Mario 3 more than Super Mario 2.)

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... &sk=t&sd=a

[Flake]

Wow, no love for the Super Mario Land series? I'll have to abstain: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins will always be my favorite.

[yomomma1]

Super mario bros 2.

in fact it is the only 2d mario game I've beaten. (I did beat yoshi's island...)

[swiftzx]

I voted for Super Mario 64 because of the nostalgic factor and beating it on the N64 and DS, although Super Mario World will always have a special place in my heart.

[ZeroAX]

Wow, no love for the Super Mario Land series? I'll have to abstain: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins will always be my favorite.

I second that

[saturnfan]

As cliche as it is, I had to vote for Super Mario World since it is simply the best in my opinion. However, I was considering voting for Super Mario 2 (Japan/lost levels) since it is so awesomely demonic. It took me well over a month to beat those infuriating levels. Now that was a real game.

[dsheinem]

I voted for Super Mario Brothers. The first one.

It's easily still one of the most influential and important games ever made, and generally simpler than the sequels. It's not the best of the series per se, but it is my favorite and my go to when I just need a few minutes of Mario platforming.

No love for the original Mario Bros.?

[nielse16]

Argh! I forgot Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island!

Also, someone should make a separate thread for the handhelds.

[KillemallCFH]

I voted for SMB3, but it's pretty close. The vastness of 3, as well as the multitude of fun abilities, great levels, and the near-perfect not-too-hard-but-not-too-easy difficulty make it stand out as the best Mario game to me.

Second place is the first SMB. I recently played through it on the NES for the first time in a loooooooong time, and even to this day am amazed at what a good game it is. It's obviously much simpler than 3, but its beauty lies in its simplicity, and to this day there are still moderately few games with controls as tight as it (aside from the other 2D Mario games, of course). The difficulty is also just right, and it took me a few days of trying to beat it (we're of course not talking about the All-Stars version, which restarts you at the beginning of a world if you die). And this is without even mentioning its enormous impact on the industry.

Third place (even though it's not on the poll) goes to SMW2: Yoshi's Island. It gave a very unique spin on the series, adding a lot more versatility than "jump on baddies; collect power-ups to kill baddies". I like the storybook, "hand draw" art style, and, being near the end of the SNES's life cycle, the graphics were overall very impressive. It also features my favorite soundtrack from a Mario game. This one isn't even based on nostalgia at all - I didn't play though it until about a year ago, and was blown away by how great it was. My only complaint was that it's a bit too easy.

Fourth place is SMW. I definitely have the most nostalgia for this one, growing up in the SNES era. The world is vast and well-crafted. The levels are fun. The power-ups, while considerably fewer in number than SMB3, are still good, and I'd probably rank Cape as my favorite Mario power-up. And all this from an SNES launch title. My only complaint is, again, this game is not quite challenging enough. Some of the extra Star Road levels are a bit hard, and a few of the secrets (like getting to Salt Lake) are challenging, but overall the game is a breeze. (And if it looks like I'm not giving SMW enough credit, I rank all 4 of these games very highly. I consider all 4 of them to be some of the best platformers ever made, and the difference between them is very small. For instance, if SMW was just a bit harder, it could very well be my favorite Mario game.)

After that is all the others. SMB2(J) was good, but forgettable, as it was really just the same as the first one but with harder levels and poison mushrooms. SMB2(U) did a lot of things well, and I liked a lot of the aspects of the game, but overall the level and boss design just annoyed me. Still a good game though. Mario 64 didn't appeal to me at all, nor did any of the subsequent 3D Marios. In my mind, Mario was never meant to be anything but a 2D platformer.

[swiftzx]

Argh! I forgot Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island!

Also, someone should make a separate thread for the handhelds.

Get rid of Galaxy 2 and put Yoshi's island instead.