Haha, you and I can co-exist in peace. I am not going to freak out on you because of something like that. ^^ And nope, I have never beaten a single Mario game, but that is going to change. I am going to start playing his games. My best friend has it, so I am going to borrow it from her.
And the Sonic games? I remember coming out of school at the end of my 2nd grade year and my great-grandfather had bought me a Sega Genesis with Sonic 3. I grew up on Sonic, no doubt. And I have played pretty much all of his games. All of the good games stopped at the end of Sonic Adventure 2. Sonic Adventure 2 was the final good Sonic game... Where Shadow debuted. I loved Shadow because his whole purpose was to get revenge for his dead love, Maria, and he does everything in her name during the whole game, finally sacrificing himself in the end. The last thing on his mind was Maria, and he spoke to her before he died. That made him shoot up to one of my most favorite video game character of all time. But when Sonic Heroes came out..... Ugh. The games started ****ing up BAD. And they brought Shadow back, when I wanted him to stay dead. They ruined his personality BAD. In SA2, all he could worry about was Maria. It was his whole purpose. Suddenly, in Sonic 2006, he doesn't mention Maria ONCE. It pissed me off.
That's my view on the Sonic universe. I am not holding much hope for it after they brought Shadow back. They ruined my favorite character, and I am not very happy about that.