The Switch is safely into its Vegas residency era now. So safely, in fact, that with the greatest hits out of the way it’s offering up some deep cuts and B-sides. I am all for this. Following on from the Super Mario RPG remake, here’s Mario vs. Donkey Kong, a gentle reworking of an old Game Boy Advance charmer. It’s lovely stuff.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong reviewPublisher: NintendoDeveloper: Nintendo, Nintendo Software Techonology (original) Platform: Played on SwitchAvailability: Out on 16th February on Switch.
And it’s interesting, too. It makes one think. Not just because it’s Mario at its most puzzley, with each mini-challenge playing out like the weird equivalent of a Mario Sudoku or some other newspaper brainteaser. It makes me think because it’s another reminder of how Mario, of all game series, is sort of a language that players like me have spent the last few decades learning to speak.
As with language, I’m still learning to recognise how much of the grammar I didn’t consciously know that I understand, as it were. What I get in a game like this, then, is a series of actions and reactions I am surprised to learn I can anticipate. Ice will cause me to slide, sure. But when precisely did I learn that a certain kind of block will cause me to teleport, while another will vanish if a switch is flipped? Elsewhere, from a truly ancient part of my brain I somehow retained the information that I will climb up faster if I’m holding two ropes, but descend faster if I’m only holding one. This kind of recall? From a man who regularly calls his dog “doghead”, because her precise name cannot be grasped in the moment? (It’s Cricket – I just checked.)
Fittingly, Mario vs. Donkey Kong is a game that I played upon release on the GBA but have almost completely forgotten. I have it in the attic somewhere, but not in the brain. No matter. Aside from a few points, which we will get to, this is a straight remake, albeit, in my case, a remake that might as well be an entirely new game.