For anyone who has played more than a singular Super Mario video game, there is no easy answer to the question of which game might be your favorite or even “best.” The standard of quality is so damn high, that basically any answer is a correct one.*
* Anything other than “The Lost Levels,” anyway.
This should not be news to anyone, of course. Nintendo’s No. 1 mascot achieved his status for a reason, and that reason was absolutely his impecably designed games. I feel reasonably confident in saying that people were NOT clamoring for a fat plumber in overalls with an appetite for magical mushrooms to serve as their own personal hero/savior.
It was the game play that inspired the devotion, and finding holes in that game play in any particular iteration of Mario’s adventures is a pretty silly endeavor.
Yes, none of these games is perfect. But the sum of positives is so much larger than the negatives, it’s fairly pointless to dwell on the latter.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Genre: Side-scrolling platformer
Released: 1988
Platform: NES
Nintendo Power’s Top NES Games: No. 8