Mario vs. Donkey Kong

"Undoubtably one of the best games this year!"

Nintendo has done it again! This old and original Nintendo rivalry is back in this, the first DK style game made exclusively by Nintendo since 1994. (Rare made all the DK games between Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong 64.) This game will be sure to put you to the test, with challenging puzzles that test your skills and reflexes while trying to get back all the Mini-Mario toys that this stupid monkey stole. (Yes, for all you that don't know, Donkey Kong means "Stupid Monkey" in Japanese.) Don't be fooled by the box cover, either, because inside is a game that is a lot longer and tougher than you think it will be.

Story (Out of 15)

There really isn't much to the story, but there needed to be a reason to make the game go on the lines that it does. Anyways, DK is chilling out, eating bananas, and watching TV. As he's flipping through the channels, he comes across a commercial for the new Mini Mario toy, a wind-up toy that walks, talks, says "Mamma mia!" and comes in a crystal ball. When it tells him to "buy one, buy them all!" that's what he initially sets out to do. However, when he gets to the toy store, they're all sold out!

So, what does this monkey do? The Mario Toy Factory happens to be right across the street! So, as the mushroom retainers are hard at work, DK busts in, pours all the Mini Marios into his bag, and storms out, but not before Mario shows up. After a brief confrontation, DK bolts, with Mario hot on his tail.

A somewhat interesting story, but not one you would expect to see develop, no? After all, this is an action-puzzle game, and technically, any game that has "puzzle" in its genre is either going to have no storyline, or a really weird one. Factually, I say that this storyline is pretty much above-average in terms of storylines in this genre.

Score: 10/15
Very innovative for an action/puzzle game, but still not enough for a great story.

Play control: (out of 15)

Mario has tons of different moves for you to try and learn within the game. (Of course, if you played Donkey Kong '94 for GB way back when like I did, you already know these moves.) He can do anything. He can handstand, jump from a handstand, fling himself off of wires, and, yes, even with all that flab, Mario can pull off a backflip. A lot of the time, you can even use these moves in combination in order to move on up faster.

On the contrary, in certain situations, there is just no leniancy in the presice reflexes this game requires you to have. The controls are so responsive that there's no way you can accidentially mis-time your second jump of a double jump and still get away with it. However, this really isn't a drawback of the game, and should really add to the challenge of the game.

Score: 15/15
Lots of advanced moves, along with responsive, yet unforgiving controls.

Graphics: (out of 5)

Allow me to say that the graphics are fairly decent in this game. There have been rumours going around on some boards, such as GameFAQs, that the mario sprite is basically a smaller one of that used in Super Mario Sunshine, and that sprite rotation is used in some instances, such as when Mario is spinning around on a wire. At the same time, however, Nintendo did a good job sprucing up the graphics, and creating an easy-to-navigate menu system, for easy navigation from the title screen to your desired level. The cutscenes, even though they're made up of still images, (that sometimes scroll), shows what the GBA's screen is capable of showing, seeing that many of those cutscene images are of N64 calibur and above. Really, the opinion of what the graphics look like in this game are up to you, but I personally think they're just the bomb.

Score: 5/5
The true power of the GBA's graphics ability is shown here.

Gameplay (out of 35)

Played Donkey Kong 94? Then you only THINK you know how to play this game.

Okay, so really, Mario vs. Donkey Kong is pretty much like its older brother, Donkey Kong 94, and it lies on the same mechanics; do what you need to do in order to get to the key, and then make your way to the door to unlock it. However... in Mario vs. DK, that's only HALF the level.

Each world is divided up into eight levels, the first six of those consisting of the whole key and door thing. Each of these levels are divided up into two parts. The first one, as noted above, is much like the standard DK '94 level, where you must find the key, then unlock the door. This leads to the level's second half, where you find the Mini Mario that DK has dropped. At that same time, there are three "presents" (total) in each level. If you're able to collect all three of them, which are either distributed as two in the first part and one in the second part, or vice versa, then you'll play for 1-ups once you get through the stage.

The seventh level of the world is a Mini Mario stage. (Hence the MM designation) In this stage, you must guide your rescued Mini Marios to the safety of the toy box, while collecting T-O-Y. The more you get in, the more health you have for the next level, which is a no-holds barred battle against DK himself. If you can hit him four times, he'll take off yet again, and you'll chase him into the next world. At the end of the sixth world, you will go against DK one last time... or will you?

One of the great things about this game is that the six worlds you see at first don't even make up half of the game. Once you've finished the main part of the game, you then proceed onwards to the "Plus worlds." (And no, this is not a play-on of the "Minus World.") This is another collection of six worlds, but the procedure of each level is different. This time, you're trying to take out all three goals at once. First, you need to rescue the Mini Mario, then guide it to safety using the key-and-door method. However, by this time, you should know that Mini Marios aren't capable of everything that Mario can do, so you gotta think about it, because if you lose your MM, you gotta start that level from scratch again. Since you rescue each Mini Mario one-by-one, there is no need for MM stages in the plus levels, so there are only seven levels per world.

After you beat those six worlds, then defeat DK in yet another "final battle," it's over now, right?

WRONG! You still have 12 expert levels to do. These levels are designed to be extremly difficult; something that only an experienced master gamer can do. How do you get these worlds exactly? Well, by this time, you've probably noticed that if you break the level high score and a) You collect all three presents, b) in an MM level, you rescure all six MM's, or c) in a DK level, you defeat DK without losing any health, you'll gain a star. These stars are the key to unlocking the expert levels.

Also, I can see that there will probably be a deadly misconception by most gamers about this game; Because this game is a Mario game, it's going to be easy. Wrong. In fact, Mario vs. DK is the exact opposite. This game is geared towards the hardcore veteran gamers that have been playing for a few years, and let me tell you... this game gets hard real fast. I mean, by world two, I was starting to have trouble. Heck... I'm not even halfway through this game yet, and I'm already stumped to kingdom come on the level I'm on now (5-3). This is coming from me, someone who's played video games since the Atari 2600, 18 years ago. I've practically been playing video games since I was born.

All in all, this game turns out to be both surprising and challenging, and should be taken with caution. On the other hand, this will probably contribute to hours and hours of play time, depending if your brain functions right or not, and if your frustration level tends to stay low. Well, not to insult those that don't use their brain that much while they're playing, since I'm the same way, but still.

Score: 35/35
Don't let the theme of this game fool you. This game's a doozy!

Sound (Out of 10)

Needless to say, even though Nintendo did a lot of sound work, they really skimped out on the voice effects. Most of the Mario soundbytes can be found from games ranging from SM64 to SMS. Not only that, but it was even caught by my friend that Luigi's "Yippee!" soundbyte was used when Mario jumps through the keyhole into the second half of the level! (This was, of course, in those games where Luigi had a voice similar to Mario's, so they could pretty much get away with it.) And since when did DK talk in English? What happened to his "Raddakoo! Raddakoo!" (However, I still kinda found it funny when I reached world three, and Mario yelled, "Come-a back, you big monkey!"

Otherwise, some of the other music and sound effects might bring back nostalgic moments for most veteran gamers out there, especially the good-ol hammer song. The game's main theme consists of a remix between the SMB theme and the Donkey Kong Country theme, and there's the old "dooooooo do doooo dooooo DOOO(trill)OOOO DOOO!!!" when DK appears.

Score: 6/10
Great music score, but unoriginal voice effects kinda put a dent into it.

Replayability (out of 20)

Even though there's a lot to this game, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of replayability, except if you just keep going back in order to try to get a better score on a level. Even so, there's only so high of a score that you can obtain in every level. Basically, you'll go back to try to get the stars, and once you've beaten all the expert levels, you've pretty much done everything with this game, unless you like doing it on all three save slots. (Which reminds me... where's the "copy data" option in this game, like all the other games made by Nintendo have?)

Score: 10/20
The only reason you'll go back to do anything again is to pass time while you're stumped or to try to get all those stars to unlock more expert levels.

Ups and Downs - my Final Thoughts

Ups: Pretty much, this game strives to revive the classic rivalry between the original Jumpman and Donkey Kong, the "girlfriend stealer." This game is all about nostalgia... with a twist. Also, some of the new concepts will make this series seem even fresher than ever. Oh... and don't think that everything you see here was used in DK '94, because there are many things in Mario vs. DK that are unique to this game, and vice versa.

Downs: The only downside I see to this game is the difficulty. If you're just an average Joe, you'll find that this game gets very difficult and frustrating at a very fast rate. However, remember that you can always go back and play previous levels as much as you like, so that you can get the hang of some of the techniques that you'll need. Also, at least some kind of multiplayer option would be nice, even if it was just to unlock some easter eggs or whatever.

In Summary

Having played Donkey Kong 94, I couldn't wait for this game to come out, and when it finally did about a week before I wrote this review, I was there with my bank card at the local EB Games buying this game. In many ways, this game has impressed me, and in other ways, this game has let me down. However, this game has a more positive outlook from me than it does negative. If you loved DK '94 and have sufficiently improved in skill, then you'll just dig this game.

Final score:

Story: 10/15
Play control: 15/15
Graphics: 5/5
Gameplay: 35/35
Sound: 6/10
Replayability: 10/20
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FINAL SCORE: 81/100

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/31/04