Mario VS Donkey Kong is a game that I have a little bit of a odd history and nostalgia with. While I never actually played the original, I did have a Game Boy Advance around the time that the game, along with Mario Party Advance released, and I used to see it in the Argos catalogues back in the day, and was always interested by it. A 2D Mario game where you go up against Donkey Kong? My parents had given me two little handheld Game & Watch games keychains featuring Mario and Donkey Kong before, so seeing it here always got me interested. 

However, in spite of that, I never actually received it. I don't know if I just never put it on a Christmas list, or I did, but by the time I did, it was too late to get the game and it had gone out of stock. For me, my Mario experience on GBA would be Superstar Saga, and the Advance games.

Yet, a few years later, after receiving some money for various celebrations, I bought the very first console I ever bought with my own money - a Nintendo DS Lite, and I had just enough money to buy 3 games with it. The games? Madagascar (The tie-in games were surprisingly very good platformers in their own right), a game I can't recall exactly, and...

 ...whoops.

Yeah, so when I saw that Mario VS Donkey Kong was on DS, and it was in stock when I bought my DS Lite, I just had to get it. It says a lot that apparently kid me decided to pass up Super Mario 64, New Super Mario Bros, Mario Kart DS, Mario & Luigi Partners in Time, and Sonic Rush in favour for this game, but here we are. Apparently, that's what I decided to do. 

My parents would later gift me Mario Kart DS and Sonic Rush for Christmas that year at least. But still, it came as a surprise that instead of the Donkey Kong games I had played before in the past, instead I had this weird game where I had to draw on the touch screen and guide these little Mario toys to the end of the level, rather than actually play as Mario. But still, I enjoyed the game for what it was, and even finished the game on my own. I even remember specifically trying to chase after the additional toy variants like Toy DK, and Toy Peach. Although it did annoy me a fair deal that my favourite character - Luigi wasn't in the game.

Anyways, with that - that's my experience with this series. The first game remaining a little curious oddity from my childhood, and the second game being one of my first DS games. After that, I pretty much never touched the Mario VS DK series again.

Skip ahead to 2023 and out of nowhere, a remake of the original game is announced out of absolutely nowhere in time for it's 20th anniversary, becoming one of the first 2024 Switch exclusives. I didn't really have much of a want to get it though. Curiosity aside, £40 for a remake of a GBA game with nothing else additional was absolutely ridiculous. However, between the want to finally satisfy that childhood curiosity, and Amazon offering a bit more of a discount for the game brand new, I decided what the hell.

So I'm sure we all know the story by now - Donkey Kong, while watching TV catches a glimpse of a brand new Mini-Mario toy that causes the primate to rush to his nearest store to purchase the newest fad-...er, sensation. Except all those pesky scalpers beat him to it, proving that really - scalpers are the true villains of the Mario universe. DK, wronged by the world then opts to instead go to the factory and channel the scalping mindset - stealing all of the toys for himself, and leaving Mario to chase after him, presumably because he's about to lose a whole lot of licensing royalties, and his home with it, chasing the ape through eight worlds in order to retake all of the toys.

Honestly, a bold choice by Nintendo to tell a story about Amiibo collecting, but one that paid off, I feel.

What that brings us to is a modern take on the traditional Donkey Kong arcade gameplay, where Mario has to jump through 126 stages of puzzle platforming, collecting various collectibles in the form of presents, collecting a key that unlocks the doorway to the second part of each level, and figuring out how to get it to the door, and dodging various enemies and hazards along the way, if not using them as a means of platforming through the hazards that surround him, with a Mini Mario marking the end of the level.

After six stages of this, you'll then do two unique stages - 1 where you control 6 Mini Marios to the end of the stage, and of course - fighting Donkey Kong via various means, like throwing trash barrels at him, redirecting bombs at him and more.

But it doesn't end there - there's then an additional eight hard worlds, along with expert levels that the remake adds, where the gameplay flips to Mario needing to guide a Mini-Mario to the end of the stage, meaning if either he, or the Mini-Mario dies, it's a life taken out. 

Honestly, while I wouldn't say that it's as faithful a translation as the early Donkey Kong '94 (which may or may not be happening in this blog series), I think it's a really damn good way of taking the gameplay of Donkey Kong, and adapting it into a unique puzzle platformer, especially with how it even brings in some of Mario's 64 moveset in order to enhance the gameplay further. The difficulty level here was pretty much just perfect imo, never feeling too challenging, even as far as the expert levels, and I think they do a very good job of using the new gameplay to justify new kinds of gimmicks from other games like Mario Madness, using enemies as platforms to traverse the world.

It should also be noted that the visuals is just absolutely fantastic. I love seeing unique locales in Mario games, and this game is absolutely no exception, with worlds such as Donkey Kong jungle, feeling a lot more inspired by DK Junior as well with it's rope climbing, Merry Mini-Land being a big carnival, and especially the last world - Twilight City, a cityscape that's lit up with the night sky, enhanced with the game's wonderful animations as well (Although the remake did remove a lot of the more Crash-esque death animations Mario had in the original). 

Unfortunately, what you might be noticing is all of this applies to the standard game, and that's because the remake doesn't add anything to it, other than two worlds named Merry Mini-Land, and Slippery Summit, but this only amounts to about 24 levels added.

Other than that, there's the cutscenes being very well animated, and some good QoL changes such as making only the presents required for completion (whereas the original required high scores), the game is just a extreme bare bones remake. There's barely anything new, so unless you really want to see the game in the best style possible, with some additional levels, there's really nothing lost from playing the GBA original over this. Although on the other hand, the original is also a lot harder to come by now.

But really, that's the biggest downside here. Mario VS Donkey Kong is a wonderful puzzle platformer. A fantastic adaption of the original DK arcade games to a new playstyle, and having finally gotten to play it after so many years of interest, I really had a ball, with me having even 100%'d it thanks to how much I enjoyed it. But for £40? It's ridiculous just how barebones this really is. 

It'd at least be one thing if it was a Advance Wars scenario where they at least remade two full games. If Mario VS Donkey Kong had remade both DK 94, and Mario VS DK? This would be a easy recommendation. Very easy. But as is? Nearly full price for a barebones remake of a GBA game? I honestly don't think I can easily recommend it, despite thinking it's a legitimately fantastic puzzle platformer and a wonderful Mario spinoff title.

If you're seriously looking to give this a try and don't give a shit about paying full price for a GBA remake, barebones as it is? Go for it. I did admittedly get a few days of game time out of it. 

Otherwise? If you can get it for a sale? Like say - £25-30? Then yeah, I'd say at that point, definitely don't sleep on it. Mario VS Donkey Kong is a good game, and it'd be cool to see the series make a comeback with the original gameplay style, rather than become a rather rehashed series like the Minis caused it to become.

If nothing else, let's at least hope for a remake of DK 94. 

Or add it to the GB Online service. Just give me a way to play it on Switch.