I really liked Mario 3 and World, I first played them about the same time, I thought 3 was the stronger game between the two. It wasn't until later that I really became a Nintendo fan. The Zelda games were alright too.
Donkey Kong Country was really much more instrumental in making me mostly a Nintendo fan than anything. I did play Nintendo stuff before, but it seemed to be around Donkey Kong Country that there was a short burst of games from companies developing for Nintendo that were extremely high quality. Even to this day they make up a large portion of my favourite games. Of course, back then I was still importing most things. That was one big problem Nintendo had until the Wii, they never released enough games in Europe. Then again, on the N64 and Gamecube, there were just never enough games period.
While I was always a strong Nintendo fan due to their handhelds, Wii Sports made me a Nintendo home console fan again. Or at least really caught my attention for the platform. While there were some interesting Nintendo games on N64, they were few and far between, and the Gamecube pretty much had nothing of interest, except a few things that were available and better on other systems anyway. There was a good 7-8 years where Nintendo home consoles might as well have not existed.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
