A lot of this comes down to taste.  According to my taste the Sonic games are the best platformers of the 16-bit generation (especially if you take out the combat platformers like Castlevania).  Super Mario World is a good game, but it felt like a disappointment after Super Mario Bros 3.  I enjoy the gameplay of the 16-bit Sonic games more than Super Mario World.  Donkey Kong Country has the best visuals and music of the three series, but when it comes to gameplay I think it's average.  

Of course, it all comes down to taste.  Something I am seeing from these early 90's threads is that Sonic has a lot of critics.  But then again, that kind of fits the early 90's.  Some people liked the type of games on the Genesis more and some liked the games on the SNES more.  I think I like the platformers more on the Genesis and the RPGs more on the SNES, so I ended up liking both systems.  (And of course the SNES platformers are still fun too, and the Genesis RPGs are still good as well.)

Taste too, but in discussions like this people tend to forget, that gamers gravitate to where the games are they want to play. No doubt Sonic was largely the reason for Megadrive's success, but also because there was no serious competition. If you wanted to play platformers in 1992, 1993 or 1994, MD was your only realistic option. This did change during 1994, though.  I do agree that SMW was disappointing after SMB3, but still they rival for being the best platformer ever made.

I remember after the DKC hype vanished and you played SMW for the first time after a long break, you noticed SMW was the better game after all.

You are right overall in that whoever was making the best platformer that year ended up being the leading console.  First Mario at the SNES launch, then Sonic for the next couple of years, and then DKC after that.  I actually think Nintendo dropped the ball not making more Mario games on the SNES (and no Yoshi's Island doesn't count).  However, Rare came along and saved their bacon with DKC.

Nobody would question it if somebody declared they liked Sonic. But calling a game that's solidly mediocre 'probably the best 3D platformer' deserves scrutiny. 

To each their own. I wouldn't know about how good it is on a replay because I had no desire to ever play Generations again once I'd beaten it. 

Voting is now closed on 1991.  There were some real historic games in 1991.  I knew the winning game would be popular, but I was surprised how the runner up managed to come out significantly ahead of some of the other greats in this poll.

In the end the winner ended up being A Link to the Past.  The runner up was Final Fantasy IV.

Easily Sonic

The only version of FF4 that I played was The Complete Collection on PSP, and I loved it to bits. Gave the SNES version a pity vote over A Link to the Past which I more or less liked just as much.

FF4 had a gripping story and introduced the godlike ATB system. The series' 3rd best game after 6 and 7 imo.

THE most amazing thing about a link to the past? They fit all that gorgeousness in 1 friggin megabyte

The mostly reused all of the assets between the light world and dark world.  That is brilliant design IMO.

Frontier: Elite II fit on one 720 KB floppy. Most of the data nowadays goes to textures, voices and music tracks. Older games all have midi music which takes up very little space, it's basically sheet music. TotK still re-uses a lot of assets, the Depths is a lot like Link to the Past's dark world. The whole game is 18.2 GB, compare that to Modern Warfare which launched at 175GB and is well over 200GB now!