Mario has always been the fore-runner in seeing what platformers can do. Super Mario World (And to another extent Super Mario Bros. 3) have been pinnacles to what the 2-D Mario games can do. True you have New Super Mario Bros but if I had to be bluntly honest it hardly compares to the original 2D games because it didn't heavily innovate what the 2D games could do aside from adding a few minor elements from the 3D games, and it wore out very quickly to the point where there isn't much re-playability. Hands down Super Mario World in my honest opinion will be the Mario game of all 2-D Mario Games because it focused on exploration in ways that most of the 2D mario games haven't really done at all, and that's not just because of all the secret exits you could find, take a look at the over-world and all the areas you could open up and go to. Nothing felt more real then seeing a path open up after finding an exit.
Then you have the 3D mario games. Mario 64 was a massive change for the Mario series because it focused more on being able to accomplish a set of goals through exploring a level in depth. This wasn't a 2-D Mario game where you had to get to the goal post in a set amount of time. It was an entirely new concept with power-ups that weren't a norm to the mario series (Metal, Wing, and Invisibility caps instead of Flowers, Shrooms, and Stars). This was actually pretty cool at it's time and even the remake does a good job at innovating every factor. However Super Mario 64 wasn't as good as it was made out to be because no one really knew how to really approach a video game in 3d at this time and this kind of led to mixed reactions. That's why I can't really put SM64 ahead of SMW.
Honestly though the only game that could actually beat both of them is probably Super Mario 3D World, I could go on and on about the reasons regarding that but I think the gist of it is that it took everything good from each Mario game for the past 30 years the Mario franchise has been out as a whole and put it into one game, it felt like an actual sequel instead of something that was a sequel just for the sake of being a sequel with more content.
Then you have the 3D mario games. Mario 64 was a massive change for the Mario series because it focused more on being able to accomplish a set of goals through exploring a level in depth. This wasn't a 2-D Mario game where you had to get to the goal post in a set amount of time. It was an entirely new concept with power-ups that weren't a norm to the mario series (Metal, Wing, and Invisibility caps instead of Flowers, Shrooms, and Stars). This was actually pretty cool at it's time and even the remake does a good job at innovating every factor. However Super Mario 64 wasn't as good as it was made out to be because no one really knew how to really approach a video game in 3d at this time and this kind of led to mixed reactions. That's why I can't really put SM64 ahead of SMW.
Honestly though the only game that could actually beat both of them is probably Super Mario 3D World, I could go on and on about the reasons regarding that but I think the gist of it is that it took everything good from each Mario game for the past 30 years the Mario franchise has been out as a whole and put it into one game, it felt like an actual sequel instead of something that was a sequel just for the sake of being a sequel with more content.