ORIGINAL REVIEW FROM 03-04-2022
Playing the first Mario VS Donkey Kong recently, the spiritual successor to this game released nearly 10 years later, made me look back to this game with a lot of fondness. Its not really a stretch in my eyes to say that it is one of the most impressive Game Boy games, period. But I need to clarify to those unfamiliar with this game: Its more than just "really good, for a handheld title"- it's on par in terms of scope and quality with some of the SNES' finest, and genuinely has no right being as good as it is.
It's a game inspired by the original Donkey Kong, a game where your only action besides walking and climbing ladders is a pitifully short jump, yet it both understands what makes that gameplay fun, and expands your moveset and the variety of levels to make the game even more fun. 3D Mario would end up borrowing a lot from this game, with its focus on acrobatics and the like. Some levels in Mario 64 like Bob-Omb Battlefield and Whomps Fortress feel made with a similar level design philosophy, of climbing a tower with an arsenal of wacky jumps. But for as mindlessly fun it is to just waltz around in 64 its always felt unfocused in a way that doesn't click with me, mostly due to the low difficulty and lack of precise platforming that stems from stretching the levels out into explorable sandboxes.
Simply put, I'm the player who tends to prefer the "Secret Stages", "Time Rifts" or "Voids" a lot more over the explorative "main game" these kinds of 3D platformers tend to provide. And DK94 feels like a game made up solely of those more focused segments. By making a game that both has tight, focused challenges with precise jumps and tricky timing ALONGSIDE the stylish flips and vaults that let you clear challenges more effectively if you master their handling...it scratches a very specific itch in my brain, basically. I don't want to mindlessly compare this game to something like Mega Man Zero, of course, but it gives me that same feeling of satisfaction, from using cool movement in very confined and challening rooms. THIS is what I really like from platformers, and I find it really cool how well DK94 captures it.
Its obviously not anywhere near as fast as other movement-based platformers: A lot of levels are more about puzzle solving and timing things whilst on slower moving platforms, or finding ways to transport the key from its spawn to the door. But the concise design of levels never make it feel like a chore, and when compared to something like the Portal games it allows you to take in the entire room at once thanks to the sidescrolling perspective, minimizing moments of analysis paralysis and instead letting you solve problems whilst working toward them with the platforming.
Its such a solid foundation with such buttery smooth controls and physics (hell, it has a better sideflip than Odyssey!!) that I have a hard time finding fault with it. At its worst I'd say that the game drags a little by the end due to the excessive amount of content. That's something I noticed Mario VS Donkey Kong was able to improve upon with its benefit of hindsight, creating a nice form of variety with the Mini Mario sections at the end of worlds. Yet shockingly, even with 10 years of hindsight, that was one of the only things that the game truly improved on.
Despite that lack of hindsight, its platform, age, scale and stupidly grand ambitions to establish a whole new kind of Mario game, DK94 barely stumbles as a first entry. And that's the sign of something truly special.
Play Time: ???
Key Word: Peak
Playing the first Mario VS Donkey Kong recently, the spiritual successor to this game released nearly 10 years later, made me look back to this game with a lot of fondness. Its not really a stretch in my eyes to say that it is one of the most impressive Game Boy games, period. But I need to clarify to those unfamiliar with this game: Its more than just "really good, for a handheld title"- it's on par in terms of scope and quality with some of the SNES' finest, and genuinely has no right being as good as it is.
It's a game inspired by the original Donkey Kong, a game where your only action besides walking and climbing ladders is a pitifully short jump, yet it both understands what makes that gameplay fun, and expands your moveset and the variety of levels to make the game even more fun. 3D Mario would end up borrowing a lot from this game, with its focus on acrobatics and the like. Some levels in Mario 64 like Bob-Omb Battlefield and Whomps Fortress feel made with a similar level design philosophy, of climbing a tower with an arsenal of wacky jumps. But for as mindlessly fun it is to just waltz around in 64 its always felt unfocused in a way that doesn't click with me, mostly due to the low difficulty and lack of precise platforming that stems from stretching the levels out into explorable sandboxes.
Simply put, I'm the player who tends to prefer the "Secret Stages", "Time Rifts" or "Voids" a lot more over the explorative "main game" these kinds of 3D platformers tend to provide. And DK94 feels like a game made up solely of those more focused segments. By making a game that both has tight, focused challenges with precise jumps and tricky timing ALONGSIDE the stylish flips and vaults that let you clear challenges more effectively if you master their handling...it scratches a very specific itch in my brain, basically. I don't want to mindlessly compare this game to something like Mega Man Zero, of course, but it gives me that same feeling of satisfaction, from using cool movement in very confined and challening rooms. THIS is what I really like from platformers, and I find it really cool how well DK94 captures it.
Its obviously not anywhere near as fast as other movement-based platformers: A lot of levels are more about puzzle solving and timing things whilst on slower moving platforms, or finding ways to transport the key from its spawn to the door. But the concise design of levels never make it feel like a chore, and when compared to something like the Portal games it allows you to take in the entire room at once thanks to the sidescrolling perspective, minimizing moments of analysis paralysis and instead letting you solve problems whilst working toward them with the platforming.
Its such a solid foundation with such buttery smooth controls and physics (hell, it has a better sideflip than Odyssey!!) that I have a hard time finding fault with it. At its worst I'd say that the game drags a little by the end due to the excessive amount of content. That's something I noticed Mario VS Donkey Kong was able to improve upon with its benefit of hindsight, creating a nice form of variety with the Mini Mario sections at the end of worlds. Yet shockingly, even with 10 years of hindsight, that was one of the only things that the game truly improved on.
Despite that lack of hindsight, its platform, age, scale and stupidly grand ambitions to establish a whole new kind of Mario game, DK94 barely stumbles as a first entry. And that's the sign of something truly special.
Play Time: ???
Key Word: Peak