A new game, “Mario vs. Donkey Kong,” was released Feb. 16 featuring Mario and Donkey Kong exclusively on the Nintendo Switch. 

The game begins with Donkey Kong watching a commercial about Mini-Marios. After which, he breaks into the Mario Toy Company and steals a bunch of them.

When starting up a new file in the game, it will ask players if they want to play in casual or classic mode. 

Casual is recommended for players who want more of a relaxed game. Classic is recommended for players looking for more of a challenge. 

Players will be playing as Mario and complete levels by going through different obstacles such as climbing ropes, jumping onto moving platforms and having to press different colored buttons in order to move walls and platforms to get to certain places.

The goal in the game is to retrieve all the Mini-Marios that Donkey Kong stole. 

In order to complete the level, players will need to retrieve a key to open the door to the next scene. There are also three presents to collect throughout each level, and depending on how many you collect, you can receive different rankings: gold, silver or bronze. 

Players can complete levels by retrieving the keys solely, but having a higher score will encourage players to go back and find items they didn’t catch initially.

The game allows users to add more players, but when doing so, an additional lock is added to the door to get to the next level. 

Two-player mode requires coordination and communication on both ends to complete the level before the two-minute time limit. 

With over 130 levels to complete, players will have their hands glued to the Switch for a while as more levels will be unlocked as you play.

One thing that may be overlooked but shouldn’t be is that players can join in and out of the level seamlessly.

If you start playing on your own and have a friend join the following level, you can continue as if you’re playing by yourself. However, there is an additional lock put on the door, so both players will have to retrieve keys to open the lock and the door itself. 

This game only allows for two people at a time to play the game, so player one will be assigned Mario, and player two will play Toad.

Something to keep in mind is if you are playing with others, you are probably going to take the controllers off the deck because you need both controllers. 

However, some users might not want the Joy-Cons to be off of the screen, but the game doesn’t allow for that. 

In both single-player and two-player, the game requires the Joy-Cons to be off of the Switch. 

After spending countless hours playing different games from the Mario franchise such as “Mario Galaxy,” “Super Mario Bros,” “Mario Kart” and many more, it was surprising to see how puzzle-based the game is.

The Mario franchise would be deemed as a platform-game series, only now, in “Mario vs. Donkey Kong,” the game is based on puzzles which could be seen as repetitive to some players. 

Although the objective is the same throughout the game, it is a challenge having to use your brain in new ways to complete the 130 levels the game has.

Playing the game reminded me of Crash Bandicoot since you’re able to complete the game without having to collect everything at first, but players are encouraged to go back and retrieve missed items.

After playing many levels, I was shocked to see even though I had been playing for a while, each level felt surprisingly different than the last. Playing with a friend always adds more fun to games since there’s cooperation needed, but even playing solo, I had a good time and definitely didn’t feel the game as being repetitive which could be a factor considering this game is a puzzle-platform based game and not just a platform game. 

“Mario vs. Donkey Kong” is available for purchase on the Nintendo eShop and physically for $49.99.