Easy contender for best game ever made; a standout reason as to why gaming as a whole is so impactful, special, and important in the grand scheme of things. The level of creativity! The colours! That music! It's all engrossing and immediately sucks you in, and then you see a map to the world with different paths and realize that not one playthrough of this is going to be the same. You are going to explore and find other stuff, and while it's nowhere near the level of other Mario games due to hardware limitations this is still where it started.

Incredibly well designed from every angle too. This was NES? Even back then Miyamoto and the folks at Nintendo must have been wizards. And the sheer amount of powerups here allows for a bunch of experimentation and makes you wanna keep coming back for more. It's just delightful and while there are probably "better" Mario games, this is my absolute favourite and will always hold a special place in my heart.