Super Mario Brothers 3 vs. Super Mario World

[MajesticSiN]

Having played both on release I'm partial to Super Mario World. It's still my go to this day when I want to play a Mario game.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Super Mario All-Star + World and it's a win/win.

 

[pauringu]

this is tough! the power ups in 3 are so charming! but the ost and overall sound design in world is magical! i think if i had to choose, probably world.

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

I’m sad to say that Sonic the Hedgehog erased all my memories of Mario.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

This is the “content VS polish” debate. Both of these games are goated, but I think World is a bit more refined. I keep thinking, when going back, that Mario 3 could have been even better if it was more focused on speed using the P system.

 

[Dyne]

I'll go ahead and say World, but its very close.
They're both Legends in my book

 

[RetroCasual]

Just as always, it's a personal choice and I respect anyone's choice, but I have my own reasons to have a clear winner here. And for me that's an easy pick... Super Mario Bros 3 was the real best among them two.
I find it comprehensive to new retro-players to go to SMW, but I started playing videogames with a NES instead of a SNES. Think about the slight quality differences between SMB3 and SMW and now do the same with SMB3 and SMB2 USA or SMB The Lost Levels... SMB3 was the real mind-blowing game at its time, so mind-blowing that SMW did not really surprised anyone that played SMB3 before. It's something similar to Zelda BOTW and Zelda TOTK... TOTK expanded and polished it all from BOTW, but BOTW is considered the real best Zelda game of all time.
Big questions apart, I hate Mario's desing from SMW when the cap turns up when jumping, almost falling from his head (exactly the same with Super Mario Wonder). Please Nintendo, fix Mario's cap for the sake of god...
Besides that, when talking about levels designed in Super Mario Maker 2 with the SMB3 engine, I find them much prettier than the ones done with the SMW engine.
And of course there is one of the best remakes of all time in the contest, which is Super Mario All Stars. The amazing re-work done with this quadrilogy is a piece of history of the pixel art. I'd still pick SMB3 from All Stars over SMW.
Maximum respect to SMW (A.K.A. Super Mario Bros 4 in Japan), 4th place in my list of best 2D Mario retro-games, but that's my humble opinion.

 

[DrunkGecko]

for the base game: mario 3
for the rom hacks: mario world

 

[Duke_11037]

Mario world, it's birthed some of the best romhacks ever made. The vanilla game itself is fun and challenging.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Honestly if a mad lad could actually mix the best of both:

SMB3 but you can go back to the previous levels if you want to, having all powerups from both games, having the possibility to have a Luigi with his own control style (like SMB2 The Lost Levels), enhanced graphics (because SMW, being an early title, was simpler compared to the more complex late NES SMB3), Yoshi included and many other QoL improvements from both.