Story

• The story in any Mario game is usually not too deep or important which is definitely the case in Mario vs. Donkey Kong.
• Mario has decided to try to cash in on his popularity by starting his own toy company.
• His new wind-up Mini-Mario action figures are selling like hotcakes, and stores are having a hard time keeping them in stock.
• Apparently after watching a commercial for the toy, Donkey Kong decided that he must have the toys.
• When he found out the stores were out of the toys, he decided to go straight to the factory and steal the Mini-Marios.
• Mario must now rescue the Mini-Marios that Donkey Kong has stolen.
• Overall the story is week and is just a back drop to give you an excuse to play some more Mario magic.

Gameplay

• Mario vs. Donkey Kong is a mixture of simplistic gameplay elements from the days of 2-D platform and arcade style games.
• Your main focus is to guide Mario through each level by solving a variety of puzzles, and jumping challenges, all while avoiding the bad guys.
• There are six main worlds in the game, each has a familiar theme to those who have played other Mario games, like a Fire world, A Jungle world, and a Haunted House world to name a few.
• Each world is composed of six levels, a Mini-Mario stage, and a Boss Stage.
• The levels in a world are made up of two timed stages.
• In the first stage, your goal is to pickup the key (ala Super Mario Bros 2), and get it to the locked door, to exit the stage before the time runs out (ala Super Mario Bros).
• While holding the key, you abilities will be limited to just the normal jump.
• In the second stage, your goal will be to make your way to the trapped Mario toy and free it before the time runs out.
• Each stage is not very large. Most are just a screen in two in width or height, and have a time limit of around a minute and a half.
• Clearing a stage is more than just running from one side to the other, killing bad guys, and getting power ups along the way.
• In fact there is not a lot of offensive power to Mario’s abilities, but there will be some opportunities to smash baddies with a hammer or to defeat them some other way.
• Most of the challenge of a stage is figuring out how to avoid the enemies, while maneuvering your way to the exit. In this, the game is more like a puzzle game with platform characteristics.
• Later stages will build upon these abilities and characteristics until you have a wide variety of options at your disposal.
• One characteristic that is prevalent throughout the game are the switch blocks.
• Most levels have switch blocks that you must jump on that will turn on and off blocks of corresponding colors.
• Knowing when to hit which switch block makes up a good deal of the puzzles.
• Using these switches in combination with making a variety of typical platform jumps, and using different level specific characteristics will allow you to clear the levels.
• Besides just clearing the level, there are other goals to shoot for.
• Each level has three gifts that if collected will allow you to play a simple mini game after the level to win extra lives.
• There are also 1-up mushrooms to go for.
• Finally you can win a star for each level by beating the high score for that level and by having retrieved all three presents for a level, though you do not have to complete both in the same try.
• This will require you to finish in the fastest possible time as time saved is added to your score (again, like Super Mario Bros).
• Also, you may have to collect up to all three presents as they also give you points.
• I found that getting the star in each level was the real challenge in beating the first six worlds.
• Once you beat all six worlds, you will unlock the “Plus” worlds which are six more challenging worlds each with 6 new levels.
• For the hardest challenge, earning the stars will unlock the “Expert” worlds which are the hardest in the game.
• At the end of each world are two unique levels: the Mini-Mario Level and the Donkey Kong boss level.
• The Mini-Mario level plays a little different than the other types of levels.
• Here you have the six Mini-Mario toys ready to follow you to the toy box.
• However, they cannot use ladders or perform sophisticated maneuvers like Mario.
• You must find a way to make them follow you and get around obstacles to lead them all to the toy box.
• Along the way, instead of collecting presents, you collect the letters ‘T’, ‘O’, ‘Y’.
• You can end the level as soon as at least one Mini-Mario has made it to the toy box.
• You will get a higher score by collecting all the Mini-Marios and finding all the letters.
• The number of Mini-Marios saved becomes the number of health points you get for fighting the boss level.
• After collecting all the Mini-Marios you will go directly to the Donkey Kong boss level.
• This is where the main offense in the game occurs.
• Here you have to pick up object that are lying around, or in some cases that Donkey throws at you and then hurl them back at Donkey.
• You must do this while dodging his other attacks and dealing with other obstacles.
• For example in one level, Donkey hits different switch blocks which changes which path you can take to get to him.
• Overall the gameplay was a nice mixture of puzzle and old school platform action.
• Each level is pretty well designed, and always does a good job of offering new gameplay elements to consider.
• Anyone who has ever played the old Super Mario Bros games should feel right at home with the gameplay.
• Unfortunately there are no multi-player modes.