mario controls like ryu from ninja gaiden
sonic controls like chris from resident evil
seriously though mario is an agile little fucker, and it's pretty easy to get him to do what you want him to do. sonic just doesn't control well. he takes too long to get going, and his jumping feels not good for the amount of platforming they have you do.
im not calling the sonic games bad, i just can't get how people get past those (in my opinion) major flaws.
as for super mario bros 3. game got pretty damn challenging later on, id always get half way through world 8 before it killed me. ill beat contra 10 times before i can beat smb 3 once...and speaking of contra, talk about a nes game with perfect controls.