So basically since my mom used to play SMB1 when she was a kid, my dad decided to give her a 3DS with Super Mario 3D Land. Then she had enough of it, she gave it to me as a kid and also bought Cars 2 for 3DS. I only played Cars 2 because I somehow did not like Mario. Then at one of my birthday as a kid. My parents bought a Wii with 3 games (the Wii and games were used so they weren't ludicrously expensive): Mario Galaxy, Nitro (a racing game), and Toy Story 3. Originally, I wanted a Sonic game instead of Nitro due to me watching the Sonic Boom cartoon (I think it was Sonic & The Secret Rings but I'm not sure) but they refused to the age rating being one year older than I was (they did not how age rating worked at that time). I exclusively played Toy Story 3 because I did not like the other two.
Two years later, my mom told that she'd like to see play the other game I had and not waste them. I refused at first but ultimatley agreed. Played Nitro, didn't think much of it. Played Mario Galaxy and I loved it. Then I also was really hyped to have Galaxy 2 when I saw a video of it on Youtube.
Also, I played the Sonic 1, 2 & CD remakes on my phone as well as Sonic 3 and Knuckles (it did not have a save feature so I had to get all the emeralds and beat the game in one go with a keyboard. I used to attempt it everybody but fail at Death Egg Zone until I beat it once and jumped of joy, I realy wanted to play Doomsday Zone), Sonic ROM hacks and the Sonic Advance games on online emulators to make up for the lack of Sonic games I had as a kid.
Mario and Sonic also got me into coding as I'd always play with my toys imagining it was a Mario 64 Rom Hack made by me. (I have daydreamt and plannified on paper so many full fan games and rom hacks with their stages and gimmicks I probably remember less than a quarter of the them)