Nintendo has shared a nice little trailer for Mario Vs. Donkey Kong on the Nintendo Switch.
The original Mario Vs. Donkey Kong released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004, and was conceived of as a throwback to the arcade games that Mario and Donkey Kong were originally known for. Now, what may surprise you is that this game’s developer was Nintendo Software Technology. This is a first party Nintendo studio based in America, in Nintendo of America’s Redmond Washington office, and is primarily made of graduates incoming from the DigiPen Institute of Technology, also based in Redmond.
The game premise itself really isn’t too deep. Mario becomes a toymaker, making small wind-up versions of himself called Mini-Marios. Donkey Kong gets enraged when he tries to buy some Mini-Marios, only to find that they have sold out. He steals Mini-Marios at the toy factory, and Mario sets out to get his toys back.
This Mario, instead of grabbing familiar power-ups like mushrooms and flowers, can only rely on his calisthenic, Gymkata-like moves. He can do all manner of jumps and somersaults, and players have to master all his maneuvers to get through the various stages. Invariably, some levels call for him to grabe a key and bring it to the proper keyhole, or to guide a Mini-Mario to the proper path where it can be rescued.
The Mario Vs. Donkey Kong remake for the Nintendo Switch ostensibly is a one-to-one remake of the Game Boy Advance original. It seemed to be mostly upgrading the graphics from the pseudo-3D, Donkey Kong Country-like sprites on the original platform, to real computer generated graphics for a 2.5D look today. But in Nintendo’s newest trailer, we’ve just learned that they’re adding so much more.
We already knew this remake was upping the level count from 48 to 130. Now, thanks to a new trailer, we know that there are new worlds called Merry Mini-Land and Slipper Summit. On top of that, there will be Plus Levels and Expert Levels.
To increase the playtime even further, there will be Time Attack, but as a concession to a new generation of players who have picked up the vocabulary of accessibility options, there is a new Casual Difficulty. Hopefully, this really will tone down the frustration of this potentially frustrating arcade action puzzler.
The Mario Vs. Donkey Kong remake will be releasing exclusively to the Nintendo Switch on February 16, 2024. You can watch the new trailer below.
