Super mario world. In my opinion, it's the best mario game ever (that i've played, anyways). It kept me entertained for a long while, so far i think i've beaten it about 3 times over.

As one who has beaten both SMB3 and SMW a gazillion million times; this is a really tough one.

I guess if you disregard any "external" factors, like when it was made, for what system, technical limitations etc, SMW is the better game. But, SMB3 revolutionized the platforming genre, SMW just finetuned the best of what SMB3 did.

An SMB 3 where you could save AND replay the levels at _any_ time would have made it perfect.

It just sucks when you got that craving for that "get all the coins from the ice blocks that melt when you shoot a fireball"-level in World 6, and you have to run through a couple dozen other levels just to get there. And if you finish it, but accidentally missed a coin so you didnt get the white Mushroom-house, you would have to reboot the fucking system to try again. That is my only gripe with the game.

Mario World. I just prefer it, more memories with it.

Mario RPG is my personal favorite in the franchise though.

along with smg v sm64 as the 3d king these 2 are easily my fav 2d marios. might have to go with world just because of the extra exitement of playing it on a brand new console.

world > 3 > nsmb > 1 > 2

sm64 > smg > sms

Super Mario Bros. 3

I loved both. But I prefer SM3. The game gave me more of a challenge and more reason to replay. While I loved the addition of cape and yoshi, they are powerups that essentially gave you another hit and the ability to fly over areas you'd rather not face. Sure with racoon power you could fly, but the timing was limited and several of the levels locked you inside forcing you to find paths/fight. Additionally, in SMW you could always go back to another world and grab leaf power instead of SM3 speed run trying to beat a board with no power-ups. That said I own both on All-stars and I was compelled to download both for the Wii.

I killed myself, was easier than rebooting...

I widely prefer Super Mario World. Better music, better level design, loved that you could replay the levels without restarting the game, loved the secret exits, the world map, Yoshi, and the fact that it was not extremely hard.

SMW was my favorite Mario for about a year (Galaxy replaced it) and is still my favorite 2D Mario. SMB3 is around...my fifth favorite Mario I think.