Mario vs. Donkey Kong

"NST fails yet again."

Mario vs. Donkey Kong is a new title loosely following the gameplay of Donkey Kong by NST, makers of the laughably bad Crystalis remake for the Gameboy Color. This is a basic platform/puzzle game that requires you, as Mario, to navigate platforms and switches to save Mini-Mario toys from the tyranic rule of Donkey Kong.

Graphics: The graphics in this game use prerendered 3D sprites, ala Donkey Kong Country. I'm usually against this style of graphics, because for the most part they look downright horrible. In this game however, it's done very well and looks terrific. The backgrounds and animations are top notch.

Sound and Music: The music is nothing memorable save for a few tunes. The sound effects themselves are bearable, but bordering on the annoying side (does Mario ever shut up?!)

Gameplay and Controls: This is where the game falls short. You, as Mario, hop around little platforms, and flipping switches to open new platforms, avoiding monsters in the process. There are two parts to every stage- the first part your goal is to pick up a key and bring it to a door. The second part is to save Mini-Mario himself, simply by getting to him.

Each level is divided into 8 stages. The first six follow the above gameplay. In the 7th stage, you lead the mini-marios on a Lemmings-type journey back to their toybox. And in the 8th stage you fight Donkey Kong himself.

To unlock later stages (the "plus" and "expert" levels), you need to get a certain amount of stars. This is achieved by scoring a par score on each stage. Although you get points for killing enemies, your main source of points is primarily based on the time left when you complete the level.

This is where the problem, and the game's main flaw, reside- in a game that relies on precision and speed, the controls that you use to accomplish this are downright HORRIBLE. They're completely unresponsive. The game's puzzles themselves aren't that difficult- only a handful of them will trouble you. However, once you figure out the right path to take and what to do, you'll spend 10 lives falling into pits because the damn jump button decides it doesn't want to work this time around. Handstands, a simple maneuver (hold down, and hit A), sometimes just refuse to work when you're on a conveyorbelt.

The "plus" levels you unlock only make things worse. The gameplay on these levels is altered slightly- there's only one part per stage, and you must guide an AI controlled mini-mario and a Lemmings-style romp to a door. The bad controls now combine with the crappy random AI to make this experience completely annoying and frustrating. Sometimes mini-mario will decide not to walk (even though you're supposedly guiding him), and just stand under a cannonball coming his way. Sometimes he'll miss his jumps. Just random things like this will cause you to fail at these "challenges". It's ridiculous.

Replayability: Once you beat all the levels there's not much more for you to do. It's basically a puzzle game so playing through another time is pointless because you know all the answers.

In conclusion, this is a nice concept for a game and is fun for a bit. However, downright horrible controls and AI ruin the game.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/24/04