I'm gonna be honest, most of this game got a resounding "ehhhhh it's alright" reaction from me. Don't take this as a negative, though; not every game needs to blow my mind (man I say that in a lot of reviews don't I) and I did have a decently fun time with this game. This remake just doesn't feel like it has much content and what is here felt pretty middling overall. I'll try not to say anything too definitive, though, since I've heard good things about this game's extra levels that I'll be playing after I've typed up this review.
I haven't played past the first world of the original Mario vs. Donkey Kong, so I am basing this remake off its own merits. Its a bite-sized puzzle platformer where the goal is to find the key and figure out how to get to the door, then in the second room you just gotta find the mini Mario capsule. Each level has three presents (except for the Mini Mario levels which have you lead Mini Marios to find letters that spell "toy"), kinda like Pauline/Lady's three accessories in the arcade Donkey Kong, and you get a gold star from finding them all in a level. I have no idea what these gold stars do, but I did manage to get all of them in the main campaign, so...maybe its just a marker for 100% completion? The big gimmick for most levels are the different color switches that activate blocks of the corresponding color. They do find some unique ways to mix it up, but admittedly a good amount of the levels sorta blended in with each other to me because they mostly rely on this gimmick. Unfortunately the level design did not feel especially clever or interesting to me, but I will say that later levels were a bit challenging. Also, when I say this game is bite-sized, I mean more so in how the levels are structured rather than the content. Mario vs. Donkey Kong does have eight worlds and six levels (eight counting the DK boss level and Mini Mario levels) per world, which isn't bad at all, but the fact that each level only takes like five minutes at most to complete - consisting of no more than two, sometimes three, rooms - makes the game feel so short. I'm guessing this was done in the original to make it feel more like a game suitable for the handheld experience, playing in short bursts. I said the game is a puzzle platformer, but, if I'm being honest, for like half the game I hardly had to think to finish these puzzles. It did get a bit more challenging in the later half and a handful or so levels were quite tough for me (I won't act like I didn't get a Game Over at least once), so I won't try to paint it as some mindlessly easy game, but nonetheless I couldn't help but feel a tad disappointed. I remember Donkey Kong '94 on the Game Boy was so cool and creative to me and I don't even have nostalgia for that game because my first time playing it was around two or three years ago, but even though this game is a remake of the successor to Donkey Kong '94, it felt weaker overall. Maybe that's just me giving DK '94 more of a pass though since its a Game Boy game and this is a shiny new 2024 Switch title.
Brief shoutout to the small stuff that makes up this game. The visuals are nice, I'm not sure why people think they're soulless since I think they're fun in their own way and look pretty good overall. Something I see get talked about a lot with this game is the voice acting and I can see why, its a little jarring since it has a lot of obviously reused sound clips (one of them even still sounds a bit compressed, that being the Donkey Kong Country Returns voice clip they reuse in the final DK fight), but it is nice to hear Charles Martinet again. I imagine there's probably people confused that Nintendo didn't have Kevin Afghani record some more brand new Mario audio for this game but I imagine they kept the Martinet voice clips just to keep that energy from the original, with Mario saying "Hey, come back!" and other similar lines ripped from the original. I'm an absolute sucker for good video game music and I must say that this game's soundtrack really surprised me with how great it sounds. I don't remember the original Mario vs. Donkey Kong having very memorable music but I've been repeatedly listening to this remake's OST for a few days, it tends to either go for atmosphere or a smooth jazzy sound and it absolutely nails both. Highly recommend everyone reading this review goes and listens to it...well, assuming Nintendo hasn't already taken down all uploads of the game's soundtrack.
Overall, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed with this game, but I don't mean to constantly complain and nitpick in this review since I did genuinely enjoy my time with the new Mario vs. Donkey Kong. I thought the levels, though mostly really easy, were fun to play through since Mario's movement felt nice and it was cool figuring out the puzzles. I'm hoping that I end up really loving the postgame content (expert levels since I don't plan on doing the Time Trials).
I haven't played past the first world of the original Mario vs. Donkey Kong, so I am basing this remake off its own merits. Its a bite-sized puzzle platformer where the goal is to find the key and figure out how to get to the door, then in the second room you just gotta find the mini Mario capsule. Each level has three presents (except for the Mini Mario levels which have you lead Mini Marios to find letters that spell "toy"), kinda like Pauline/Lady's three accessories in the arcade Donkey Kong, and you get a gold star from finding them all in a level. I have no idea what these gold stars do, but I did manage to get all of them in the main campaign, so...maybe its just a marker for 100% completion? The big gimmick for most levels are the different color switches that activate blocks of the corresponding color. They do find some unique ways to mix it up, but admittedly a good amount of the levels sorta blended in with each other to me because they mostly rely on this gimmick. Unfortunately the level design did not feel especially clever or interesting to me, but I will say that later levels were a bit challenging. Also, when I say this game is bite-sized, I mean more so in how the levels are structured rather than the content. Mario vs. Donkey Kong does have eight worlds and six levels (eight counting the DK boss level and Mini Mario levels) per world, which isn't bad at all, but the fact that each level only takes like five minutes at most to complete - consisting of no more than two, sometimes three, rooms - makes the game feel so short. I'm guessing this was done in the original to make it feel more like a game suitable for the handheld experience, playing in short bursts. I said the game is a puzzle platformer, but, if I'm being honest, for like half the game I hardly had to think to finish these puzzles. It did get a bit more challenging in the later half and a handful or so levels were quite tough for me (I won't act like I didn't get a Game Over at least once), so I won't try to paint it as some mindlessly easy game, but nonetheless I couldn't help but feel a tad disappointed. I remember Donkey Kong '94 on the Game Boy was so cool and creative to me and I don't even have nostalgia for that game because my first time playing it was around two or three years ago, but even though this game is a remake of the successor to Donkey Kong '94, it felt weaker overall. Maybe that's just me giving DK '94 more of a pass though since its a Game Boy game and this is a shiny new 2024 Switch title.
Brief shoutout to the small stuff that makes up this game. The visuals are nice, I'm not sure why people think they're soulless since I think they're fun in their own way and look pretty good overall. Something I see get talked about a lot with this game is the voice acting and I can see why, its a little jarring since it has a lot of obviously reused sound clips (one of them even still sounds a bit compressed, that being the Donkey Kong Country Returns voice clip they reuse in the final DK fight), but it is nice to hear Charles Martinet again. I imagine there's probably people confused that Nintendo didn't have Kevin Afghani record some more brand new Mario audio for this game but I imagine they kept the Martinet voice clips just to keep that energy from the original, with Mario saying "Hey, come back!" and other similar lines ripped from the original. I'm an absolute sucker for good video game music and I must say that this game's soundtrack really surprised me with how great it sounds. I don't remember the original Mario vs. Donkey Kong having very memorable music but I've been repeatedly listening to this remake's OST for a few days, it tends to either go for atmosphere or a smooth jazzy sound and it absolutely nails both. Highly recommend everyone reading this review goes and listens to it...well, assuming Nintendo hasn't already taken down all uploads of the game's soundtrack.
Overall, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed with this game, but I don't mean to constantly complain and nitpick in this review since I did genuinely enjoy my time with the new Mario vs. Donkey Kong. I thought the levels, though mostly really easy, were fun to play through since Mario's movement felt nice and it was cool figuring out the puzzles. I'm hoping that I end up really loving the postgame content (expert levels since I don't plan on doing the Time Trials).