13
Kotaku Asks: What’s The Best Mario Game?
(kotaku.com)
Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.
3rd International Volunteer Brigade (Hexbear gaming discord)
Rules
Probably Super Mario World. It's the best 2D Mario, which is what you you think of as quintessential Mario gameplay. There's a reason there's so many romhacks for that one specifically. I played all the 2d marios except for the newest (Wonder).
For 3D Marios I don't have an opinion because I've only played Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy 2. Wonky Camera aside, I liked Mario 64 better because the movement feels really fun, even though Galaxy 2 has better levels.
Finally, someone that doesn't say Super Mario Galaxy or whatever.
They nailed the movement with SM64 and it's never felt quite as good since. Feels like you're not allowed to build up as much momentum.
Has to be SMW just for the sheer amount of fan works it spawned.
I'm not even a massive mainline-mario fan, but you have to be absolutely in awe of the massive amount of content on smwcentral. I can't think of any modding community that's as deep as that.