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Mario’s latest side project will have you saying “just one more game.” Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 is a sequel to 2004’s Gameboy Advance sleeper hit. The game is a very creative puzzler that puts a unique twist on Mario and Donkey Kong’s adversarial relationship. As good as the prequel was, the touch screen controls make Mario vs. DK 2 one of the most addicting games of the year.
The game pays homage to the old-school Donkey Kong games. It begins on opening day of the Super Mini Mario World theme park with Mario on hand to cut the opening ribbon. He has Pauline with him, who you may remember as the girl that Donkey Kong kidnapped in the original games. It appears that Donkey Kong hasn’t forgotten about her since he kidnaps her again after his attempts to woo her fail. You’re tasked with rescuing Pauline from our hairy friend.
The game takes place over eight worlds each with ten stages for a total of 80 different available stages. Nine of these stages will be your typical puzzle stages with the last one being a battle against Donkey Kong. In these stages, you’ll use the touch screen to move a cannon around to aim at DK. The number of minis you have to shoot at him depends on how many you rescued in that world. Instead of controlling Mario, like in the first game, you’ll control several mini Marios. Controlling these mini Marios is done exclusively through the touch screen. You activate one of the minis by clicking on him, drag a certain direction to have him move in that direction, swipe up to make him jump, and stop him by clicking on him again. The name of the game is to move these Marios, together, into a door while avoiding enemies and traps, by using a number of power-ups, switches, pipes and so forth.
March of the Minis is a great example of a game that is easy to learn but difficult to master. To get through each stage, all you need to do is get one mini to the door. To get a high score and unlock a bronze, silver or gold star you have to get all the minis out the door at about the same time, collect all of the coins and cards available in the stage, and do so quickly. This is part of the reason why the game is so addicting. When you complete a stage and get a silver star, you realize that you could have shaved a few seconds off your time or perhaps one of the minis lagged behind and you didn’t get the multiplier bonus. It’s a challenge to continually improve your score but one that is amazingly fun.
The gameplay is obviously first and foremost in a game like this. That said March of the Minis has a very sharp and charming presentation. In fact, you may even be tempted to describe the graphics—or at least the characters—as cute. The stages are all well designed with plenty of references to the Mario universe. It’s hard to complain with what is on screen. The same applies to the audio. The sound effects are serviceable if not solid and the little voice acting in the game just adds to the novelty factor. The background music is even catchy.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 is one of the most addicting and entertaining games currently available on the Nintendo DS. The game makes great use of the touch screen (and your logical thinking skills). If you have even a passing interest in puzzle games, you should give this a try. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Oct 18, 2006
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