The early Nintendo home consoles were never that popular in Europe; neither I nor any of my friends owned any of them up until the N64 (and that was rare - my first Nintendo home console was the Wii for example). I didn't even know Mario platformers existed until I saw someone playing what must have been Super Mario Bros. Deluxe on a GBC during a school trip.

I'm not proud to say that few of us that had Amiga or Atari ST were not so kind to our friends who were gaming on PC back in 80s. Solid part of it was due to sound.

Played all alternatives except Shinobi and Nethack. Enjoyed all i played except Zelda 2.
But for me this is a very easy year to pick. Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! a game I get the urge to play now and then even after so many years.

Same in the Netherlands where I grew up. Nintendo didn't really get that popular until the N64. My nephews had a SNES, no one else I knew back then had one. C64 and MSX were more popular. Systems where you only needed a dual tape deck to copy games from friends!

One of my close friends had C64 and Amgia 500. I spend a lot of time there. Before Soundblaster and VGA PC was not all that pretty. By the 90s PC got better and sadly Amiga 500 lost steam. It's successors never gained much traction. My friend switched to PC in the 90s. I remember taking a suitcase full of 3.5" disks over to this place to copy hundreds of games to get him started.

And yep, great sound on Amiga. He also had a Gameshark thingie for the Amiga (dunno what it was called back then) so you could easily track a couple parameters in memory (health, armor, ammo, lives) and alter them while playing. No need to download 'trainers' as on PC or hex edit savegames to cheat.

I voted Contra but I agree with your point entirely. MT’s Punch Out!! Is the most playable still today. I prefer it over other boxing games. Easy for passing the controller between friends as well. 

Maniac Mansion or Sid Meier's Pirates!

As much as I do love this Mario 2, I have to give it to Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! Far better than the arcade games and supremely playable, its deceptively deep game play is another fine example of how far ahead Nintendo was at the time.

Phantasy Star would be third for me that year; one of the few games on the Master System that could take me away from my NES.  Fantastic game and my favorite role-playing series of the '80s.

The "Other" category ended up with enough votes for a runoff.  The final results of the runoff will be decided tonight, Thursday, Sept 21 at 11:59 PM EST.

Here is the new list of choices.  We are keeping these candidates:

Contra
Final Fantasy
Maniac Mansion
Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!
SMB2/Doki Doki Panic

We are adding the following based on "Other" votes from the comments:
Mega Man
Phantasy Star
Sid Meier's Pirates
Ys

I'll update the OP shortly.

Wow! I knew the early Nintendo systems didn't catch on in Europe, but it still surprises me that one wouldn't have played any version of it before in 2023. I mean the Wii had it on its Virtual Console, there was a Super Mario Bros. All-Stars re-release on the Wii, and there are streaming versions of both games on the Switch's online service now and all. Well I guess when there's no tradition there to begin with, perhaps it sparks less curiosity.

Anyway, the hook of Super Mario Bros. 2 that distinguishes it from other entries in the mainline Super Mario titles is its emphasis on vertical scrolling: climbing uphill toward or into the sky, digging deep underground, this sort of thing, in addition to the usual side-scrolling. You pick up and toss vegetables and many enemy characters and have four selectable protagonists to choose from (Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Princess Toadstood (as she was still called back then)), each with their own distinctive skill sets. There was no two-player mode though, or a save feature in the original version. It was an especially unique entry in the franchise owing mostly to the fact that it was actually just a version of another, rather unique game (Doki Doki Panic) that had been altered to use the Mario cast.

Very happy to have this runoff and especially Phantasy Star's early lead! Let's bring it home, Sega