Mario vs. Donkey Kong Review

thesixthaxis.com:

When they first burst onto arcade cabinet screens in 1981, Mario and Donkey Kong instantly became one of the greatest hero and villain pairings since Pong’s left and right paddles. Yet as iconic as they were at the start of the decade, by the end of it Mario had moved onto fighting oversized spiky turtles, and DK was lining up for his own reptile-bashing platforming series, but beneath it all there was still this simmering rivalry that would be rekindled with Mario vs. Donkey Kong, a GBA classic now remade for Nintendo Switch.

Compared to the original Game Boy Advance game’s pixels and sprites, Mario vs. Donkey Kong has been lovingly remade with 3D graphics, bringing it much of the look of a New Super Mario Bros. or Mario Bros. Wonder. It’s a solid remake, and there’s nice changes like all of the enemies now being made to look like mechanical toys, though with the shift to modern graphics might come expectations of modern Mario Bros. platforming gameplay, and this game is not that.

There’s no princess kidnapping in this game, but rather DK fell completely in love with mini wind-up toy Marios to the extent that he’s made off with a whole factory’s worth of the cute little gizmos. Naturally Mario gives chase, but as opposed to the usual side-scrolling fare, this is much more of a puzzle platformer to test you wits.

There’s still plenty of the Mario platforming that you’ll expect to find here, with the plumber-turned-toy-magnate able to jump, pull handstands, somersaults, clamber up ropes at double speed and more, but it’s all in aid of finding a key, taking that to a door that opens to a second half of a level, and then finding the Mini-Mario toy to finish the stage. There’s also three present boxes to snag on the way through a level.

A lot of the puzzling boils down to using coloured switches to bring coloured blocks in and out of existence, but there’s also enemies that you can stand on, pick up and throw, using them as temporary platforms across spikes, Bob-ombs to