A large monkey kidnaps in a playable homage to the damsel in distress King Kong. That was the great idea Shigeru Miyamoto in 1981, the first of many that changed Nintendo and the video game industry forever and that saw the birth of a jumping hero, literally Jumpman, later renamed Super Mario. The rest is history, and you can read texts and documentaries about the legend and the impact of Donkey Kong in the world, but today we are interested in considering the main mechanisms of this first part and its sequels.
When I shared my impressions with Mario vs. Donkey Kong for Switch released a few weeks ago, the game that’s coming out now is a remake of the classic Game Boy Advance from no less than twenty years ago. Since I have gray hair and was lucky enough to play the original, I can compare both because the context is very important here.
Serves as a reminder that this is a platform puzzle game. That is, a limited scenario, almost without lateral development, in which you have to avoid several traps, use different mechanisms and collect gifts, keys and wind-up toys to advance until you reach two final levels: one Lemmings style
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The first thing I want to say is that Mario vs. Donkey Kong falls into the bag of good efforts from Nintendo in recent years. That means it can be compared to Super Mario RPG or A Link’s Awakening. His modern, polygonal graphics are beautiful, the art direction manages to showcase and separate the worlds as the original and his own Soundtrack is fantastic. Seriously, sometimes you want to take the level a little easier just to enjoy the music.
And what can we say about the content: the puzzles added by the two new worlds, Happy Miniland (M4) and Slippery Peak (M6), not only are there more of them, in many cases they are also better than the classics. Because? Because they venture into systems (interchangeable airflow fans or sliding floors) that lead to very fun and ingenious designs.
To all this we have to add many other worlds in a more complicated Plus version once the credits have been seen, in which each level already contains one minimario Active for greater challenges and then the classic worlds for experts. If we take into account the cooperative mode that works well in much of the game, the time trial mode or the necessary relaxed mode for new players, we are dealing with a very valuable package.
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What is the but? Well, the most important reason is that as a remake, I think Nintendo should have refined the response and feel of the controls. You can always argue that it respects how the original worked, but it was an ideal opportunity to improve on it. The Switch’s digital Dpad in handheld mode isn’t present (one of the things we asked for from the Switch 2) and the analog controls aren’t the best. Mario too often does strange things by pushing down, especially when releasing an object, or turning around (and why can’t you leave it in place?), and perhaps this is inertia management (the amount of time needed to move on to jump away) is not the case today most appropriate. Sometimes he doesn’t hold on to a ladder or you see yourself losing a life because you touched half a pixel of an enemy or the edge of a hazard, which doesn’t look good either by current gaming standards. Hitboxes
I’m not asking for it difficulty irrelevant; The challenge of the levels is well measured and the challenge eventually increases as you approach the end of the first round, but I feel that the controls are not the most pleasant and that their response leaves something to be desired, especially when we talk about Nintendo. Also, since it’s more about patience and planning than skill, sometimes it gets tiring and you don’t feel like trying again: some levels are difficult to repeat. In fact, it’s an experience that, in my opinion, is more suitable for once or twice a day than marathons due to its structure and approach.
Even the fights against DK, which left me with a certain indifference, are not as satisfying as the best levels (I love this, for example Haunted house, M5). I accept that they are the main reference to the 8-bit Donkey Kong, but they are inadequate for their role as bosses.
With all of this, I am clear about the absolute recommendation of Mario vs. Donkey Kong for those who loved the classic, but not so much for puzzle fans who are used to the agility of modern controls. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a modern way of understanding the origins of the legends, but given the slowdown in pace/interest and somewhat dated controls, I’m a little tired of what I remembered as the joy of the GBA .