Forget Ellie vs Abby, Link vs Ganon: if you want a gaming rivalry for the ages, Mario vs Donkey Kong is where it’s at. Or at least, that’s what Nintendo’s newest title would have us believe.
A remaster of the original game, which came out all the way in 2004 (a whopping twenty years ago), this Mario vs Donkey Kong remaster is the latest in Nintendo’s ongoing project to remake all the beloved classics gamers enjoyed in their childhoods (coming hot on the heels of Super Mario RPG, and ahead of Paper Mario).
The premise is simple, if bizarre: watching TV late one night, Donkey Kong sees that the newest must-have toy on the market is a mini-Mario. Only – horrors – they’ve sold out. Incensed, he breaks into the Mario-making warehouse and makes off with a huge bag of them, to the dismay of the real Mario.
And guess whose job it is to run after DK and fetch them back. So begins the game: 130 levels in which Mario must traverse volcanoes, glaciers and even a haunted house in his pursuit of those Mario toys (quite why Mario is selling tiny replicas of himself is another question entirely).
Yes, that’s 130 whole levels, but fortunately, Nintendo knows what it’s doing and doesn’t let the game stagnate too much – there’s even a time limit in which players need to complete each level, although this can be turned off in Casual Mode.
Mario vs Donkey Kong is a straightforward multi-level platformer that is broken down into sections of six levels. Each of these sections has a specific gimmick that aligns with the territory the pair are traversing: a glacier features extra-slippery surfaces and dangerous icicles, the haunted house has spooky ghosts and the volcano features lava that keeps rising as the time ticks on.
Within that, the levels themselves break down into two parts. In the first, Mario must traverse a series of puzzles to find a key and unlock the secret door Donkey Kong has stashed the toy behind; in the second, he must make his way to where it is sitting and fetch it.
And as if that wasn’t enough, every section there’s a mini showdown between Mario and Donkey Kong, which mainly consists of the pair throwing metal barrels at each other like neighbours who have gotten into a fight on bin day.
If that sounds like an awful lot to be getting on with, you’d be right, and if it suggests that the levels start to get repetitive after a while – well, you’d be right about that, too. Gimmicks are all very well, but collecting around a hundred mini-Mario toys over the course of eight or so hours starts to feel like a glorified shopping trip.
When compared to the glorious inventiveness of last year’s Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the disparity is even clearer. This feels like the Nintendo equivalent of autopilot – which, to be clear, is still miles ahead of most other studios, but it’s missing that spark. It’s perfect for half an hour of mindless problem solving on a lazy afternoon, but stimulating it is not.
