Mario vs. Donkey Kong is fine, but Nintendo remade the wrong game

We’ve reached that stage in the Switch’s life cycle where Nintendo – never averse to initially raiding its catalog for material – is liberally pulling old titles off the shelf to reset the aging machine’s release schedule. create and supplement it, while its core development teams are likely focusing on software for the successor to the hybrid console.

Following on from last year Super Mario Bros. movieMario has been a particular focus of Nintendo’s old game recovery department. A remake was released at the end of 2023 Super Mario RPGwhile a new version of will be released this year Paper Mario: The Millennial Door. Sandwiched between these two we get something more esoteric: Mario vs. Donkey Konga remake of the 2004 compact puzzle platformer for the Game Boy Advance.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong belongs in a curious lineage of Mario platformers, almost an alternate history for what the games would have been like as the revolutionary 1985 version Super Mario Bros. had never happened before. In these games the original Donkey Kong arcade game is the template: Mario has a limited move set and much less momentum, running back and forth on tight, single-screen levels packed with puzzles and tricky challenges. After Mario vs. Donkey Kongmutated the series into something else again, a kind of car platformer for the DS consoles in which the player controlled marching mechanical Mario toys called “Minis” with the stylus.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong is where those Minis made their debut. The conceit is that Kong, in a restless mood, has robbed a Mario toy factory and stolen a bag full of cute clockwork plumbers. In each thematic series of levels, Mario must rescue six of the toys individually and then lead them back to a toy chest, Pied Piper style, before facing Kong in a thrilling boss battle.

After Super Mario Bros. Miracle so perfectly captures the joys of the 2D Bros. games, Mario vs. Donkey KongThe precise, limited gameplay requires some acclimatization. Mario has a few nifty moves – he can jump higher from a handstand or from a skidding change of direction – but controlling the plumber in a 2D platformer without a dash button or wall kick initially feels like playing with one hand tied to your back.

Acrobatics is not something Mario vs. Donkey Kong however, it will pass. This is cerebral platforming where puzzling out the route to the goal – whether that’s a Mini in its capsule, or a key to be carried to a locked door to reach the next screen – is just as important as crafting the (sometimes very precisely timed) jumps. The game is constantly throwing new mechanics and types of enemies at you, although “enemy” is a misnomer here, as most serve a different purpose in each level’s interlocking system – often serving as moving platforms. (In Mario vs. Donkey Kong you can stand on the heads of most enemies, pick them up and throw them, as in Super Mario Bros. 2.) There are color-coded switches that turn platforms, walls, and ladders on and off; springs that can be moved across the level to reach higher places; teleport blocks, floating Shy Guys that turn into platforms, and more.

Image: Nintendo

There is no room for improvisation here; there’s usually only one solution to each level, although figuring it out is a pure, logical pleasure. It can be less fun to actually implement that solution once you’ve figured it out. Mario vs. Donkey Kong sometimes feels even more old-fashioned in design than its 20 years would suggest, with tight time limits and precision jumping gauntlets that will test your patience and eat up Mario’s lives, as well as a level structure that will keep you coming back a few times. screens when your lives are at zero.

Fortunately, one of the key features of this new Switch version is a “Casual” playstyle, which removes the time limit and adds mid-level checkpoints where Mario gets sucked back into a bubble when he hits a cropper. I recommend turning this on immediately; it doesn’t take anything away Mario vs. Donkey Kong‘s puzzle-solving side, and makes the game much less annoying and repetitive to play. There are also new two-player and time attack modes.

The game has also been expanded to include two entirely new ‘worlds’ or sets of levels, expanding it from six to eight worlds. These are remarkably well designed, with some cunning additions to the game’s toolbox, such as Slippery Summit’s icy surfaces; they are both more involved and play smoother than the original levels. Even with the additions Mario vs. Donkey Kong isn’t a long game, lasting 5 to 10 hours – although it is longer than it first seems, with additional “Plus” levels for each world unlocked after you beat the final boss.

Image: Nintendo

Mario vs. donkey is a good game and this is a good new version of it. There’s just one problem: it’s not the best game in its series. And that game, which is seriously getting old and is currently difficult to play, would have been a much better subject for this kind of remake treatment.

I’m talking about the creator of this style of Mario game: the 1994 version of Donkey Kong for the Game Boy, commonly referred to as Donkey Kong ’94. It’s one of the gems of Nintendo’s catalogue: a relentlessly inventive, postmodern remix of what was already an outdated arcade title, expanding it into something much more versatile. After beating the original levels of the arcade game, Donkey Kong ’94 transforms into a 100-level puzzle platform adventure that reinvents itself with a new mechanic every four levels. One of the first is a switch that allows you to place platforms and ladders wherever you want, with the catch being that they disappear on a timer. From there it only gets smarter and bolder.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong was directly inspired by it Donkey Kong ’94 and features many of its mechanisms, including the lock-and-key system and the Super Mario Bros. 2-style handling of enemies. It’s a very solid puzzle game, but the design just isn’t as inspired as the older game. Until Nintendo decides to give its actual puzzle-platforming masterpiece an equally considered remake – or at least deigns to add it to the Game Boy collection on Switch Online – Mario vs. Donkey Kong will have to do.