Here’s the link to my BRAND NEW t-shirt! I designed it myself, so I hope you like it :)
https://www.thomasmerchdocs.com/listing/tgd-16-bit

My dad knew Super Mario World like the back of his hand. As I played it, he would point out all the secrets and clues hidden throughout the game. It really shows how much of an impact these games had on his generation, they were a massive part of many people's childhoods, and I'm lucky they were also part of mine

That beginning question immediately made me think of "How many Super Mario games are there?" by jan Misali

This order makes sense to anyone approaching these games today but back in the NES days after only playing the first game, Super Mario Bros 2 was incredible. Just the fact you had multiple characters, could go in doors and pick things up, levels that scrolled vertically as well as horizontally, the fact it was less linear, the mystery of it all. Everything felt like an expansion on the first game...of course as soon as I played SMB3 it took it to another level but still after all these years I cannot consider SMB2 anything less than a classic. The Lost Levels was more like SMB1 DLC and personally I loved that too.

Y'know, I think another reason Super Mario Run is extremely low (asides from being a mobile game that many people probably glossed over) is that the full game is only available for people who paid to unlock the other 6 worlds and extra features not available right from the get-go. I feel a lot of people react negatively to having to pay microtransactions in a free-to-download game with it dangling the rest of the content in front of you, but are fine with paying for the app upfront if it means getting the full experience

Just a perspective of someone who was around in the 80s when the US Super Mario 2 came out. No one really felt like something was off with it. It was just as common for a sequel to have completely different game feel (look at Zelda 2 for example) as it was for a sequel to be a quick level pack/asset flip. So, no it just felt normal really.

Hearing you say NSMB2 was your first Mario game hit me like a brick

Mario 2 didn't feel off until we had Mario 3. We just thought each sequel was going to be quite different from the last. But then Mario 3 and then Super Mario World all had a bit of a unified aesthetic.

"Should've stayed lost."

In my opinion, that is a diabolical response 💀

It’s a testament to the series that even the lowest ranked games on this list are still pretty fun

As a person who was in the 80s I can tell you nobody thought there was something off about SMB2 because there was no established Mario feel. There had only been one game. And SMB 1 had been pretty different from the other Mario appearances to that point, such as NES Tennis, Wrecking Crew, or Donkey Kong.

SMW was my childhood, but I've found Galaxy absolutely inspiring

Sunshine is so underrated it hurts.

The best part of SMO for me is the movement. It's so complex it's actually crazy, with all these different jumps, wall-jumps and cap-jumps that can let you get to crazy places in crazy ways. It just feels amazing to have all these options you can string together as opposed to mostly just a run button and a jump or two.

Must have been a fairly young audience responding to the survey as I'm certain people in my age group would have ranked these games very differently.  Also, that is a sin how poorly Super Mario 2 scored.

Super Mario Galaxy and New Super Mario Bros Wii were literally my childhood. I played those for countless hours on end.

“Should’ve stayed lost” best description for lost levels

It would be interesting to see the age range of the participants and what if any effect age had on ranking of the games.

Would have liked to seen a year born added to your survey. This way we can see a possible age demographic in correlation with their favourite games

I like how looking at the results of the test can tell you about who took the quiz. It was probably people in their early to mid twenties, seeing as the highest voted games are from the wii era and the most recent game.