Mario Vs. Donkey Kong brings the puzzle-platformer spin-off back to its roots, with clever improvements and a beautifully toyetic facelift.
By Steve Watts on February 14, 2024 at 5:00AM PST
The original Mario Vs. Donkey Kong on Game Boy Advance was a victim of its own success. A successor to the stellar and underrated Game Boy version of Donkey Kong, it brought back many of the same puzzle-platforming mechanics with adorable mini-Mario toys serving as stage collectibles and story MacGuffins. But the minis ultimately became the stars of the sub-series and took over its identity. We’ve received a steady stream of Lemmings-like spin-offs since then, centered mostly around guiding minis through trap-filled stages. While those games were charming enough, they never quite recaptured the magic of Donkey Kong on Game Boy or Mario Vs. Donkey Kong on GBA. Thanks to a combination of quality-of-life improvements and visual flair that showcase what made those older games special, this Switch remake gives that original design ethos a new lease on life.
The minis are the impetus for the story, though, which begins when Donkey Kong spots the little clockwork toys and gets an insatiable appetite for them. He invades the Mario toy factory and steals all he can get his mitts on, and Mario–apparently concerned about his licensed merch–chases after the ape to recover them. Donkey Kong isn’t the villain, per se, but more like a childlike, not-too-bright antagonist in an old cereal commercial.
The stages of puzzle-platforming involve Mario navigating through a sequence of domino-like challenges and foes as he aims to locate a mini-Mario encapsulated within a vending machine. Each stage encompasses a collection of colored parcels cleverly hidden in challenging areas that function as bonuses. Completion of six stages within a similar theme will require recovery of the minis, passing through a trail-of-the-leader phase where guidance to the target is given, avoiding potential loss. Alphabet blocks gathered along the way serve to spell out the word “TOY”. Each successful mapping of these stages provides a platform to take on Donkey Kong— the number of victorious mini-guiding ultimately determines the health for upcoming battles. This well-thought loop allows for the individual goals of each stage to seamlessly intertwine.
Familiar and instinctive, Mario’s agile moves take little time to become second nature. While not as fluid as a traditional Mario platformer due to its complex puzzles facilitating the movement of platforming elements or enemies, it strikes an effective balance. Swift platforming precision often holds the key to the puzzle’s solution— like when a key needs to be dropped, activating a timer that will eventually render it invisible, followed by crossing the entire stage to access it again. For the most part, the solution is straightforward and does not require quick reflexes. Visual similarities can sometimes be deceptive— as I found out the hard way that stomping on a cannonball, unlike in Mario 3, is not a possibility.
An odd feature is the archaic incorporation of lives. Despite being a Mario staple, its purpose is minimal in this context. Running out of lives merely leads to the activation of the Restart button and continuation from the point left off. Passing through a gate leaves you with an extra life, thus saving a marginal amount of time reaching the checkpoint. However, some stages lack checkpoint gates altogether. With minimal penalties, there is hardly any distinction between using a life and employing a continue. The relic seems to exist mainly for prize allocation during extra life bonus stages. Once the purpose was evident, I abstained from engaging in bonus stages.
This edition of Mario Vs. Donkey Kong broadens the original with the introduction of two unique worlds, elevating the total to eight standard ones. Named Merry Mini-Land and Slippery Summit, these two newer realms are interspersed among old ones and merge well with them. Merry Mini-Land bears a theme park motif with an emphasis on riding air currents, while Slippery Summit intriguingly utilises Mario’s staple of gliding across ice in puzzle solutions.
Many recent Nintendo games, including this one, offer a two-fold experience with a significant shift in the gameplay in the second half. After completing the first eight worlds and watching the credits roll, you embark on a “Second Quest,” – a challenging journey through the same worlds, filled with familiar but more advanced obstacles that put the focus squarely on the minis.
The second part of this game requires you to navigate each stage with a miniature version of Mario following your every step. This addition adds a layer of complexity as you need to familiarize yourself with their automated movements to ensure their safe passage. Just like in the original game, completing specific tasks allows you to unlock Expert stages, a mash-up of intricate platforming and tough puzzles that will give seasoned players a chance to flex their skills.
These miniature-focused stages emphasise the puzzle aspect of the game. Usually, using Mario’s move set and meticulous platforming maneuvers could provide alternative solutions to puzzles. However, leading your mini through the stages relies more on understanding their limitations and how your moves influence theirs. Initially, there’s a sense of trial and error as you encounter new obstacles that require you to adapt and learn. Even when it gets frustrating when the minis don’t behave as you’d expect, ultimately, you’ll unravel the solution, learning valuable lessons in the process. Remember, while you can’t control the minis directly, your actions indirectly govern their movements.
The visual aesthetics of the minis is a spectacle in itself. Unlike their pixelated predecessors in the original game, the mini characters in this version are crisp and glossy. Moreover, the game introduces toy versions of traditional enemies including Shy Guys and Bob-ombs featuring wind-up gears and plastic seams, and Thwomps and Boos with rotating faces depicting varying expressions. It’s a joy to witness these classic Mario enemies reimagined as cute, clockwork toys.
And beyond the modernizations like new stages and visual improvements, Mario Vs. Donkey Kong introduces some more modern features. Included is a new “Casual style” that eases the difficulty a bit by introducing checkpoints with multiple lives. Instead of restarting an entire stage from the beginning upon losing a life, you drift back to the checkpoint contained within a small bubble. The level of challenge in the puzzles remains, however, this alteration provides a tad more room for trials and gaining collectibles, as it no longer requires a flawless run where everything should be collected in one go.
In the duo-player mode, Mario is accompanied by Toad, with a common pool of lives. This adds some usefulness to the lives concept because if one of you lose a life in a stage, it doesn’t directly make you start over. Instead, you hover in a bubble, akin to the Casual style mode, while the other player can continue maneuvering around obstacles and puzzle components. Toad is noticeably quicker when carrying out certain tasks like ascending ropes, but apart from this he is identical, thereby foregoing the tendency of preparing its secondary player to function as an easy-mode option.
In certain aspects, Mario vs. Donkey Kong emanates a vintage vibe. It’s built to engage players in quick sessions, which can seem out-dated in view of a modern portable hybrid console which is perfectly adaptable for longer gaming intervals. But, it also harkens back to the best of the old times, resurrecting the clever puzzle-platformer ‘Eureka’ moments which made its ancestors unforgettable, while showcasing clear visual enhancements and life-quality upgrades that amplify its allure like never before.
