For comtemporary games, the only platform game that I found superior to Mario was Alex Kidd.
His first game on the master system, Alex Kidd in Miracle World, imo, was much more fun than Super Mario Bros on the nes.
But soon after, sega killed the franchise with awful games (Well, sega kills every single one of its franchises, but thats a subject for another thread!)... then after Mario 3, no other platform could touch it, for me. Not sonic, not crash, not R&C... noone!