billythekidmonster : As a means to be fair to all posters of this thread, I feel that it would be unjust of me not to address your insightful reply as well. Though I was indeed looking at porn, I would like to remind you that I have said it in an infinitely more classy manner making it perfectly acceptable. As Kyraiki has previously stated, I do not wish to be banned for I would need to find a new means of keeping myself occupied at night and I have already seen every episode of My Little Pony though I do find that to be far more entertaining than reading the many single digit word unimaginative responses that seem populate this board. Therefore I will be sure that the remaining post contains the appropriate level of respect necessary and attempt to refrain from making hasty personal judgments. I am sure after being reassured at least three times that tRIUNE apparently works hard for this site to keep the retro game room running as efficiently as it does and I hope that will suffice as a sincere enough "apology" for your personal satisfaction. I was relieved to see that your original post has been revised as many of us would surely have been greatly offended by your crude profanity in this highly professional environment. I'll also have you know that I have a team of trained monkeys writing out these posts so it can be assured that thought does go into them as to meet the vizzed posting standard. I feel that through the few posts written here on this thread throughout the few days it has existed, we have developed an unbreakable friendly bond between us that I'm sure will last for the future posting discussions that will held between us. Also I regret to inform tRIUNE that as of the time this post has been written, I have yet to find any site that will allow me to play the Game Boy Advance version Yoshi's Island online but I will continue to attempt to fulfill his respectful request respectfully.
-Kind regards
Insane Cultist

Kyriaki : Sorry teach but it would appear that I am once again late for the Vizzed Board posting etiquette course as I have simply been too busy looking up provocative images on the Internet and found that to be a much better use of my time. As I do not wish to fail this course, especially after acing the vizzed posting etiquette quiz with a perfect score, I will comply with the teachers request and therefore tone down the sarcasm and be a little less rude in the post to follow. I need the A in this class otherwise I will be met with the full vengeance of my old man's belt. You are however right, if I were a staff member, I too wouldn't gather up the motivation to repair a technical problem for the sake of my fellow board members. Why once when I was assigned to a group project and was designated to design the layout of the project. When I proceeded to instead spend the week watching TV while the rest of the group struggled to haphazardly slap together a model of the solar system, instead of the teacher saying "you were essential to keeping the group running smoothly" as I had hoped, I instead ended up failing the project and ended up having to do a few extra assignments to make up the grade.
rcarter2 : While I did not directly state he was incompetent at site maintenance, you should note the use of the word "potential" before the listing of the word "incompetent" and that particular statement was solely in regards to his gaming ability which I have yet to witness for myself to confirm. I was suggesting that testing out the problem for himself would not have taken long and would have quickly allowed him to diagnose the problem. In the midst of writing my original post, I managed to not only find the specific version LuigiFan2012 was having problems with thanks to his name being listed in the chat log for that version and his complaint of "It crashed when I reach Shy Guy on Stilts",  I also able to test out the game for myself and I too had my game crashed when it reached stage 1-6. It should also be noted that my original post can in no way be interpreted as rude as I have included to sign the post with kind regards at the footer of my post.
tRIUNE : I would like to take this moment to kindly remind you that while the link you have posted when you mentioned that there was a second Yoshi's Island title for the Game Boy Advance is not the one the original poster was having problems with, however it would appear that according to the chat log for that particular game you will find that people are also having problems with that one as it would seem that most people can't even seem to get that version to load up. I would also like to politely inquire as to why there two listings for the exact same title, I am fairly certain that both versions already include Mario Brothers, and I have checked to confirm this, so there is no reason to include a second listing for a title that is broken anyway.  I am however relieved to hear that the problem will eventually be fixed despite the fact that this issue really wouldn't concern me anyway as I already own a copy on both my Super Nintendo and my Game Boy Advanced. You will be glad to know that if I do happen to come across a place where I can play that game online, I will be sure to send it your way as a per your humble request.
With all that stated I hope this recent post helped to clear up any confusion that may have been left by my previous post and meets your level of politeness expected from a poster on the vizzed message boards.
-Kind regards
Insane Cultist

Toad 004 : While I'm not sure exactly sure how many Viz I managed to get for that 10,000 character post, I am however either impressed that you managed to read through the entire post or depressed by the fact that someone out there would just as I am by the fact that you actually managed to piece together a Mario chronology.
Sadly since I haven't played Super Mario Galaxy in about 4 years given the fact that my Wii was been in disrepair due to having a drill pieced through it thus rendering it unplayable, so my memory of that particular title is a bit hazy. I can however say that having bought a brand new Wii I did get a chance to play Super Mario Galaxy 2 and plan to do another run of Super Mario Galaxy 1 soon afterwards, probably after I successfully navigated through the "Overthere" in Super Paper Mario. In Super Mario Galaxy 2 I am unsure how Bowser managed to get his hands on a "Galaxy Generator" but I doubt he managed to build one himself and probably required the assistance of a certain professor to build one, though even if that were true, it doesn't prove in any way that Galaxy would take place after Sunshine as E. Gadd is defiantly old enough to live through both plots. All and all, you provide convincing argument as to the placement of Super Mario Sunshine in the Mario chronology. Speaking of Bowser, I miss his old voice actor in Super Mario Sunshine, it was a pretty manly voice. I am also unsure how Bowser managed to birth eight children as a potential parent is never mentioned anywhere in the series, but I bet it must be do to his incredible girth, which is rated in Super Paper Mario to be 11100/100 points.
While you are right that an actual time line is never specified by the game creators outside GSC, the existence of the Shinoh Gym leaders making guest appearances in the DS remakes of Heart Gold and Soul Silver would prove that there couldn't be any more than a five year gap between Generation two and Generation four, as Maylene didn't appear to age much between her guest appearance in generation two in Celedon City and her appearance as a Gym Leader in Veilstone City. This will also suggest that there could not be too big of a distance gap between Johto and Sinnoh as she apparently has no problem being able to make weekly trips. It is also inconceivable that Crasher Wake would make a thousand mile trip across the ocean just to give a random kid accessories to be used in a Pokémon contest without any reward. It can be noted that Heart Gold and Soul Silver replace the events of the original Gold and Silver since they are remakes much like Fire Red and Leaf Green replace Red and Blue.

https://www.vizzed.com/playonlinegames/game.php?id=10976&system=gba&name=Super-Mario-Advance-3-Yoshis-Island
As I'm pretty sure there was only one "Yoshi's Island" game on the Game boy Advance that includes the level "Shy Guys on Stilts" (Which happens to be the name of stage 1-6, if you were at all familiar with the game) and that would be Super Mario Advance 3. Not to be confused with the Super Nintendo original of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island as that was on the Super Nintendo and clearly not on the Game boy Advance. I just looked through all the listings in the Retro Game Room and only found the one entry for Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island so it must be that one and the total time to perform this search and come to this conclusion was probably less than the time it took you to write out that post. If you wanted to test the ROM for yourself I believe it should only take about 10 minutes, not taking in account your potential incompetence at a fairly easy game.

-Kind regards
Insane Cultist

Alright, I just finished with the rough draft and I believe I am now ready to begin on the final version of my introduction to you. Included for your convenience is a table of contents which should aid in your navigation through my brief yet informational post below.

I.This Post and you.
II. Insane Cultist and why you would want to know him
III. Introduction to the sections ahead
IV. Earthbound
V. Trauma Center
VI. Music
VII. Speech 101
VIII. Professah Layton
IX. Bomberman
X. Odd habits and placing blame
XI. Welcome to the board
XII. First impression
XIII. Final thoughts and comments

I. This Post and you.
In this section I will be explaining the purpose of this post and what this post can do to aid in your future. The primary goal of this post will be  to introduce myself to you, the original poster, and eventually welcome you to the vizzed forum and retro gaming community. I will also be addressing the many great points you probably brought up and offering my own detailed opinions on them as that is what I believe to be both the necessary and expected course of action for me to take and should help us to be better acquainted.

II. Insane Cultist and why you would want to know him
So enough about the basic details, let's get to know me as this is a subject I could talk about to great length, and much to your satisfaction, I will be. My story begins in a hospital somewhere in the United States where I was gently given a congratulatory pat on the behind for my successful emergence into this world. As a child I spent a good deal of time in front of a TV or other electronic devices as a means to ward off the much unwatned boredness and to generally avoid social contact of any kind. Over time the TV and I had become very close aquitences and soon found ourselves visiting each others houses to play one of many video games. Like many great relationships, this one sadly had to come to end as at the age of about 12, my parents decided to go out and buy a new TV, much bigger and more advanced than the previous, and eventually, the other TV was soon forgotten. In the years to follow I continues to play these video games in the honor of my old acquaintance  and have become familiar with many of the popular franchises at the time and still continue to play them to this day. Nowadays I spend most of my precious time in my basement playing video games and engaging other other mindlessly repetitive activities, often ending up with a great sense of satisfaction afterward. I am a collector of video games and my collection consists of over 350 titles that I own hard copies of excluding a few games I am embarrassed to say that I own. I often find myself replaying the same games over and over again while neglecting to finish one's I haven't beaten solely based on the fact that I find certain games to be better than the others and have found myself speaking of such games to with great length. These games usually end up being older titles from the 90's that I grew up on as a child as I still find them generally enjoyable to play. If I had to choose, I believe my genre of choice would be role playing games followed by platformers then various beat em up games. I also take great pride in the fact that I have beaten Battletoads without the five toad code or the use of any continues. Like many other people, I too take a newspaper with me to the bathroom to read the funnies, I find it to be the place where I get most of my thinking done. Now that we have my introduction out of the way, we can continue to the second part of this section, why you want to know me. The answer to this one is quite simple in fact, it is because I am so great, and one's life would be incomplete without me in it. What I provide for you is short but hopefully wise insight to various topics that might come to my attention that would be relevant to both of us in the form of a message board post. I hope this has been useful as a means for you to get to know me as the basis for any online association is mutual understanding of each others personalities and many acomplishments in life. Much like the previous posters I am allowing you the unique honor to  "Private message" me should you feel so inclined but strongly urge you not to abuse the privledge.

III. Introduction to the sections ahead
This section simply exists as a means to inform you of what you should expect in the following sections ahead. The following sections will be covering you initial post and the many interesting topics it has risen. As such I will be addressing every line individually and be providing my opinions as well as a summary of the topic and information that you may have missed in your initial post. I believe that in discussing your various interests that may get to know each other a little better while providing some information to other members of this board who may not have partaken in your particular interests but may wish to learn a bit more about them.

IV. Earthbound
Much like you, Earthbound is coincidentally my favorite game as well and I am a huge fan of the Mother series. I happen to own my own cartridge of the game and have played it all the way through at least twelve times. On that note, I have also played through the entirety of Mother 1 and Mother 3 with the latter being played through by myself another five times but the subject at hand is Earthbound so I will be focusing on that. Earthbound released in America in April of 1995 developed by APE and HAL is a humorous role playing game released on the Super Nintendo which didn't sell well originally but due to the boost in the main character's popularity in the Super Smash Brothers series, has since become a cult classic. The game featured a boy of undisclosed age, but is estimated to be somewhere between 12 and 13, named Ness who sent on a quest to prevent the enviable destruction of the world by an entity of pure evil by the name of Giygas within 10 years. What made this RPG unique for the genre was it's refreshing sense of humor that was rarely found in other video game titles at the time. It featured many obscure monsters you could beat up including piles of puke and cranky women to domesticate with your signature weapon of a baseball bat but enough about the facts, it's time to move on to the part I'm sure you are all waiting for, my opinions and why I love this game so much. Well to put it simply I love the game because it's so obscure and random. How often do you get to beat up hippies just for the fun of it? It's also one of the first RPGs to take place in a modern setting rather than a medieval or futuristic one. There were also a few game mechanics I like that were never present in any other RPG, namely the rolling HP bar. You now have a chance to keep yourself alive while you are dieing but before your HP actually hits zero. The thing about Earthbound that really loved was the fact that it didn't take itself too seriously, games were meant to be fun and this one is. If I had to pick a favorite mother character, it would have to be between Flint and Teddy, out of their sheer manliness.

V. Trauma Center
Like a handful of other gamers out there, I too have played two installments of the Trauma Center Franchise, those being the two Under the Knife titles released on the Nintendo DS. Trauma Center is a game about a surgeon named Derek Styles who expected to cure patients afflicted with a virus or various other medical conditions through the use of his unique ability. Being that the games were developed by Atlus, one can expect these games to pretty challenging when compared to most recent games on the market today. This is an understatement as at certain points of the game one will require absurdly fast reflexes if they are to expect to clear certain cases. It is still however refreshing to see an actual level of difficulty in a modern video game. While I am on the topic and I'm sure I will be addressing this is more in a later section but I have noticed you have gone with the user name "Kyriaki", which happens to a strain of GUILT in Trauma Center, one that was particularly annoying when having to deal with a chain of 5 of these patients in a row.

VI. Music
Although I am not particularly familiar with the song you have mentioned I believe this is a fine opportunity for me talk about what kind of music I enjoy listening to. While I find death metal to be fairly relaxing I rarely ever listen to it, instead my interest in music is usually more jazzy. I am more fond the of the beat and the rhythm of music than the words so I often find myself looking for songs that have no lyrics. This is why I mostly listen to video game sound tracks over whatever mainstream music exists on the market these days as ninety percent of them happen to feature some guy screaming into a microphone and charging ten dollars for it.

VII. Speech 101
I too am fairly shy in real life, this might have something to do with the lack of a terminal in fornt of me and the fact I rarely ever see another human being to communicate to outside various pictures on the internet. I guess it's less of a problem of being shy and more of I can't be bothered to talk to them as often the only topic they can provide is whining about their various relationship issues or the number of times they lie about engaging in provocative activities. At that point I usually find discussing the various actions that occured during their previous bowel movement to be in much better taste.

VIII. Professah Layton
As I do not wish to let the good professor down, I will be addressing the master of puzzles next. I have played and own the first titles in the Professor Layton franchise and found them to pleasant exercise for the mind. This topic has reminded me of another puzzle, one which involves two dogs and a tin can, maybe I will tell it later, it's a long one. Hershel Layton is a professor of Archeology who enjoys a good puzzle and a nice cup of tea. He and his assistant Luke Triton often find themselves deep within a great mystery they work to solve through critical thinking. As the game progresses the player will be given multiple puzzles in the form of riddles, word problems, sliding blocks or whatever type of puzzle one can think to solve in order to proceed deeper into the game's intricate story.

IX. Bomberman
I remember when I was younger growing up in the first Nintendo 64 Bomberman title. Something about the logic of placing bombs and blowing things up sounded appealing to me and, for some reason, still does as I found myself playing through Bomberman Hero recently. I remember one time at a bowling alley spending about twenty dollars in quarters trying to complete one of the bomberman arcade machines with my brother about decade back. The series is strangely cute for games about exploding everything in sight.

X. Odd habits and placing blame
It would seem that the rest of your initial post can covered in a single section. The method of streaming one's consciousness is a good way to get your thoughts down without any restrictions hindering your thought process. This is the very method used by Shigesato Itoi used while developing in the Mother series. He would dictate whatever came to mind for another guy at a computer to write down. He would then go back and revise whatever needed to be fixed after he was finished. Whoever could possibly be blamed for whatever change you may have had to your personality should be credited with highest honors and I have no idea who this person who has yet to play cave story is but I'm sure they must be a very interesting person. It's entirely possible that they could just be waiting for a future re release as a means of owning a hard copy of the game. I also find myself relying on the great Google as a source for infinite wisdom, and we should be preparing to worship our future Google overlords. I'm sure Ninten had good reason to ban psychokinetic fire from his parties, probably due to many disastrous results in the past.

XI. Welcome to the board
I would first like to take this opportunity to personally welcome you the vizzed message board and remind you to enjoy your time here. We here believe that enjoying your visit is a vital experience to the vizzed message boards for it gives you an excuse to post more messages as a means to make the site seem more popular in exchange for virtual currency to rent more virtual games and buy virtual items. We would also like to remind you that according to several of the Frequently Asked Questions and the vizzed newbie introductory posting etiquette
quiz that dispite popular belief, spam is apparently not tolerated here in the message board, however uninspired 5 word posts are welcomed with open arms. We would like to remind you of the free and totally not pirated virtual video games we have posted in retro game room and old cartoons that are posted in the retro toon room for your personal enjoyment, we just ask that you return them in a timely fashion so that we may continue to avoid legal issues through exploiting vague loopholes. Although the vizzed newbie introductory posting etiquette quiz may suggest otherwise, the staff are more than willing to address any issues you may have, so please feel free to contact them should you have any technical problems with the site or feel a need to disclose all your personal issues you may have at home.

XII. First Impression
Although I have only just met you, I feel that through our introductory posts that we have developed a bond on a personal and emotional level as it is both convenient and   that we both share many of the same interests in games and I believe that to be a strong basis for any internet friendship. I particularly liked the way you felt the need to explain the mushroom badge joke immediately after telling it as that Is the only way to successfully complete a humorous statement. While it may be difficult to tell, but I too am a fan of using sarcasm to convey my thoughts, it would appear that we would have another thing in common once against strengthening the already strong bond I am sensing between us. I look forward to the many posting shenanigans we will be engaging in over the course of our vizzed posting career.

XIII. Final thoughts and comments
While there was much more I wished to say, I believe the condensed version I have posted above should cover most of the important topics and I may write a follow up post as a means the cover the rest whatever details I may have missed. If you have any comments or questions about my reply, please feel free to post them in this forum and I may get around to addressing them.

   If this is a question as to who would win in an all out brawl between these four characters then it will require a deep analysis of the character's abilities gained through out their many adventures. On a matter of opinion there is no "better" character and the question should otherwise be amended to "which character do you like the most out of the following choices", with that out of the way I will continue with what I myself believe to an accurate prediction of the outcome of such a fight should it occur based on my own opinions when playing their respective series and may not necessarily reflect the actual outcome of the potential bout. It must be noted immediately that whatever abilities they posses in Super Smash Brothers are not necessarily canon therefore it cannot be used as a reference of their abilities. Instead I will be using whatever titles exist in the main canon chronology of each character's series (including every branch of whatever split time lines could exist in said chronologies as long as they remain canon to the series) as a logical reference to their abilities. Consider this post an expansion to the one made by "Toad 004."
 I will be starting with the beloved plumber who is currently Nintendo's Mascot and long running icon of the gaming industry. It's difficult to place Mario's actual canon as he splits off into many series each with their own chronology as is the case with the many Mario RPG's. Mario sports titles are clearly out as the logic of "Go Karting with Bowser" (See TV tropes) would consider these games to be silly spinoff titles not to be taken seriously within the series canon. Most gamers would usually consider the canon chronology to be that of the main platformer series including Super Mario Bros. 1, 3, Lost Levels, World 1 - 2 (Although Yoshi's Island could raise some conflictions), 64, Sunshine, New Super Mario Bros. Galaxy 1 and 2 and probably the upcoming Super Mario 3D land. However Luigi's Mansion is the only title to be ruled out as a gaiden chapter by word of god therefore making it difficult to truly rule out any of the RPG time lines as very few conflictions exist between these and the platformer chronology as the platformers story line is intentionally vague. Therefore Mario's abilities can be drawn from the any of the Mario platformer titles and the RPG Mario titles. Generally Mario's talents include an amazing jump height (slightly lower than Luigi's in most Mario titles), the ability to draw powers from certain items and incredible physical strength as he is capable of picking up Bowser (who's weight is never outright stated but is generally estimated to be anywhere between 500 pounds and 2 tons) and swinging him by the tail. He also has an average speed (fastest of all the playable Mario characters according to Super Paper Mario but often slower than Luigi in many of the platformers). Among his item abilities include a Super Mushroom (causing Mario to grow to twice his normal height and improves is strength by a considerable amount), a Fire Flower (which enables him to shoot fire balls from his palm), a Super Leaf (which practically allows him to improve his aerial hang time and giving him a tail attack), a Tanooki suit (Which allows Mario to turn into a statue on top of the abilities provided by the super leaf), a hammer suit (granting him a seemingly endless supply of hammer which are fired lobbing out in front of him as projectiles), and the P-wing (Which allows Mario endless flight capabilities until he takes a hit) to name a few. This system of power ups does grant Mario some powerful abilities but has two critical drawbacks, he can only carry one on him at a time and they are lost the moment he takes a hit greatly reducing him combat ability to simple jumps (however also granted a short ranged hammer in the Mario RPGs).  This would leave Mario extremely vulnerable to ranged attacks (still boosting adequate dodging abilities with his jumps and "timed guards")  but being able to hold his own in a fist fight without any real issues (let it be noted he did win a strength championship in TTYD mostly without the use of said power ups).
   Moving on to our holder of Triforce of Courage and Hero of Time, Link of the land of Hyrule. The Chronology of Zelda is fiercely debated between a split and a linear time line usually originate at Ocarina of Time (Or the upcoming Skyward Sword which is directly stated by word of god to be a prequel to the series) but most of the series (outside Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland) fits into the canon of both chronologies and therefore can be drawn from as a logical assessment of Link's abilities. Generally Link's talents also include incredible physical strength (being able to lift a giant stone pillar and throw it halfway across a room is pretty impressive), a considerable amount of physical endurance (being rammed into by a Goron 40 times would ware anyone out) and an analytical mindset to solve many simple puzzles he may come across. Link usually carries with him the Master Sword (with the power to reflect evil) a large metal shield and an array of tools, many of which can double as a weapon including a hookshot (can used as a long ranged weapon extending to about twice to three times the height of Link's Body often stunning his target for about 2-3 seconds), an assortment of bombs (which are powerful enough to destroy a section of a weakened wall) And the large Megaton (or sometimes "Magic") Hammer. While Link's assortment of tools could be considered vast, they are limited by a single condition, each Link is a separate Link and thus he would only carry whatever tools any specific Link would have and what this topic fails to do is mention specifically which Link is being judged. For example If this were to be Ocarina of Time Link he would be carrying Fire and Ice arrows but would not have the Magic Cape (Which granted Link the ability to turn invisible for a set period of time draining his magic) the a Link to the Past Link had for that Link was a different Link and was born a considerable amount of time after the Ocarina of Time Link was. Every Link was always limited by a weak jump height (but more than made up for in agility with them fancy flips). It should also be noted that the Fierce Deity only exists in the parallel dimension of Termina.
   With that we move onto Sega's current mascot, the blue blur and the overall cool, Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic's Chronology is an extremely linear one starting at the first Sonic the Hedgehog title on the genesis and moving right onto the latest Sonic Titles Sonic Colors and Sonic the hedgehog 4 (as well as the upcoming Sonic Generations) leaving out only a few spin off titles here and there including Sonic the Fighters and Sonic R (another example of "Go Karting with Bowser"). Generally Sonic's abilities including the ability to run really fast (which happens to be his iconic ability, noted to be one of the fastest characters in any video game also mention to be around the speed of sound), the ability to instantaneously curl into a ball while maintaining his velocity (which can serve as a potent attack) and a means of staying invulnerable as long as he carries rings (though he drops them when touched). Sonic also has the ability to transform into the powered up form of "Super Sonic" when he gathers all 7 of the Chaos Emeralds, which grants him complete invulnerability, even faster speed and agility (as well as an awesome theme song in Sonic 2). He also has a spin dash (which allows him to rev up and quickly shoot forward in ball form as an attack, this is also seen to break through solid metal boxes), a bouncing and mid air homing attacks. However, unlike all of the other mention characters, Sonic is limited by a small attack pool and he has no means of attacking from a range (outside the limited range of the homing attack, which can still leave Sonic himself vulnerable).
   Onto the adorable mascot of Pokemon but you would not want to get on it's bad side, the shocking electric mouse Pikachu. The Pokemon chronology is a straightforward one including all of the flagship titles in a linear fashion, Pikachu's abilities would best be drawn from the latest generation, Black/White as this would allow us the full assortment of moves Pikachu could perform. Pikachu's general talents include a high speed (though not as fast as sonic, certainly faster than Mario and Link), mastery over electrical attacks, and great agility (also potentially including the ability to double it's agility at will). Pikachu has a choice of executing from a move pool of over 200 unique attacks, able to hold an item that would double it's damage output and is able to use a high level electric ramming ball attack (volt tackle) unique to it's species and a nature ability which has a good chance of paralyzing anything that makes physical contact making it a force to be reckoned with. However, while Pikachu's attack choices may seem vast, it is also limited to only being able to know four of them at a time and has limited uses of each attack before it's "power" reserves run dry so a move set would have to be carefully decided (and again one was not decided within the parameters of the topic's question).
   Now that the general analysis of the characters is out of the way, we can answer the question at hand, who would win in a fight between these four characters? Well given the strengths and weaknesses of each character, when broken up into pairs, the characters form an advantage triangle. Mario would beat Sonic (due to the limited range Sonic to exploit Mario's ranged vulnerability), Sonic would beat Link (As link would be unable use any of his tools on a character moving at that speed maybe outside Dins fire or other limited use spells), Link would beat Pikachu (Link can outlast it, depleting it's power reserves and forcing it to struggle) and Pikachu would beat Mario (due to a having a great ranged attack pool). On that note, Pikachu would beat Sonic (Sonic can't touch him due to Static unless he were in Super Sonic form) but Mario against Link would be a fairly even match up as both have very similar skill sets. However when taken out of the pairing environment and into a 4 man brawl, it's difficult to place a winner due to varying conditions.
   Now when it comes to my personal opinion as to which character is my favorite, I would probably have to say Mario out of being the kinda guy who grew up on Mario as a kid, granted I did play all these series since I was young, I believe Super Mario World was my first game.

   A Link to the Past, as I have played it to death, memorizing the game down to the location of all of the power ups and heart pieces. In fact just this week I have done a 100% run and continued to guide a friend through the game. To my dissatisfaction despite my generous aid, he still manages to find a way to die every few seconds making the run take far longer than it rightfully should even with 3 fairies and red potion on him at all times. Needless to say this disappoints me greatly as I usually get through the game in about 4 hours for a 100% run without any deaths or fairies or potions. I always believed that the fairies in the Legend of Zelda titles made the game too easy and thus less enjoyable to a person seeking a slightly challenging game like myself. While a Link to the Past was never the easiest of Zelda titles, it's defiantly not the hardest therefore there should be no need for such shenanigans.
   I would like to take a moment to explain in great detail as to why a Link to the Past is and forever will be my favorite Legend of Zelda franchise. But I believe before I can do that I must touch on the evolution of the series between the first Legend of Zelda title and the third installment in the series. While the game still kept the top-down perspective of the first Zelda title, the art style was changed to create the illusion of a 3D stage design by adding multiple floors to a single room. Link could not jump to reach the upper level of these raised floors but there would usually exist a way for up to drop down to the lower level, a mechanic which was not included in the first game as the entire game existed in a single plane. Also The existence of health upgrades has existed in Zelda since the first installment, LttP was the first to force the player to collect 4 heart upgrades to add one single unit of life energy to their life bar and also increased to total life bar from 16 to 20 hearts for the rest of the series to follow. Another welcome addition is the built in map feature that was much needed in the first game to find your way around the vast lands of Hyrule. However, the thing that set LttP truly apart from the first title and also set a trend for future titles was the inclusion of a mirror world, adopting the general terrain of the original world but also gave it a whole new and darker feel to it known as the "Dark World" which was what became of the Golden Land after Gannon managed to dominate it. Many future Zelda titles followed this trend whether it be the future Hyrule in Ocarina of Time or the Twilight Realm in Twilight Princess andwhile you didn't get a chance to fully explore it, the lands under the waves in the Wind Waker certainly do count. The first Installment did have an alternate world as it's "second quest", it did not impact the plot of the game, it was really more of an expansion or bonus level rather than a new world.
   With all that covered I can finally get to the topic at hand, my opinions on a Link to the Past and why it is, in fact, my favorite Legend of Zelda title. The game featured a reasonable challenge level greater than that of Ocarina of Time but not quite as difficult as the first installment. The game also featured some tricky puzzles that a first time player might have some difficulty solving but not often to a point where they must use a guide to progress. There was also an adequate array of dungeons each with their own theme and unique dungeon item often needed to solve the puzzles within that dungeon. The bosses were challenging and the Dark World bosses required some thought as to how break their "shield" so you couldproceed to attack them often requiring use of that dungeon item. The equipment concepts were interesting at the time that are still fun to play with to this day, and many of them found their way onto future titles like the hookshot and bottles to hold certain items. The main reason I like this game over the other titles however is the pacing of the game. If you know what your doing and where you need to go, the game moves along quickly greatly increasing it's replay value. Sure you had to stop occasionally for exposition but not quite as often as future titles. While it did have a couple tedious side quest like the shovel mini game, none were quite as boring as the fishing pond in OoT which had to be done twice to complete a 100% run, but while the game moves quickly for those experienced enough with the game, it still lasted long enough to give a general feeling of satisfaction for people playing for the first time.
   Surely this thread calls for a explanation as to why your selected Legend of Zelda title is your favorite in the series, so then why would you say Ocarina of Time is your favorite? While it is true that the game was generally rated very well by critics and the transition into a 3D environment had helped Link thrive in the gaming industry, I still wish to hear your opinions on the game. This question also applies to the young gentleman/lady who responded with Majora's Mask being his/her favorite Zelda title, I also wish to hear your opinions on the game and why you think it's the best. I always found the 3 day time cycle system was an interesting mechanic and would always find myself planning out a route to best use the 3 days to get as much done as possible without having to use the Song of Time, but that's just
me.