Mario Vs Donkey Kong was originally a puzzle-platformer for the GameBoy Advance that was remade for the Nintendo Switch.  Donkey Kong wanted to buy one of the new Mini-Mario toys, but after he discovers that they’re all sold out, he decides instead to just rob the toy factory where they’re made!  The demo contains four stages, the first three being regular platforming levels, while the last has you guiding all the Mini-Mario toys through all the TOY letters and into the toy box at the end.

Frankly, not a lot of puzzling was really involved in the demo, with the main feature being to step on switches to change which blocks were visible or invisible or having to figure out how to get the key to the door before time runs out (the key disappears if unsupervised for too long).  The demo was cute enough, I suppose (the Mini-Marios are especially cute), and made me think of a cross between the usual platforming Mario titles mixed with the puzzle elements of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.  However, I see this game getting old rather fast as the demo was very easy and required very little thought to complete.  And from what I read online, the majority of the game doesn’t offer much of a challenge.

In general, the demo didn’t really impress me, and in the brief 15 minutes I spent playing it, I already felt that Mario was a bit clunky to control.  Especially in the level where you have to transfer the key from one ledge to another, it was rather annoying that Mario couldn’t quite jump high enough to reach the next ledge and had to instead rely on ladders to traverse.  The controls are just very basic, which makes Mario less fun to control than he is in, let’s say, the 3D Mario games where he has different jumps of varying heights.

Mario Vs Donkey Kong is available on the Nintendo Switch for $49.99, which most people seem to agree is way overpriced for a short and easy remake of an old GBA game (in fact, I hear it’s easier than the original game, partly because they removed fall damage).  Although the game has 130 levels, I hear that it can be beaten in about 6 hours (though 100% playthroughs seem to range anywhere from 8-20 hours, so…).  Having regretted buying Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker due to its easy and tedious nature, I feel like Mario Vs Donkey Kong is going to be another case of a game that wears out its welcome far too quickly.