Mario vs. Donkey Kong

Mario vs. Donkey Kong is a game for the Game Boy Advance. It brings back Mario and Donkey Kong's rivalry from the Super Mario franchise's first game, Donkey Kong. The game is more or less a spiritual successor to Donkey Kong for the Game Boy, as it features the return of many original elements such as the construction site setting, Mario's athleticism, and using the hammer, and borrows elements from Super Mario Bros. 2, especially with picking up enemies and items. Despite bringing elements from the previous platformers, Mario vs. Donkey Kong is more of a puzzle platformer; Mario must find the best route to complete the level by hitting switches and interacting with other objects, often in a specific order. This game spawned multiple sequels and became the first installment of the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series; this is the only game in the series, however, to feature Mario himself as a playable character since the later games have the player control Mini-Marios.

The game was re-released as a free downloadable title for the Nintendo 3DS on December 16, 2011. However, it was only available to people who purchased a Nintendo 3DS prior to the August 12, 2011 price drop, meaning that they had to be a part of the Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Program. It was re-released again on the Wii U's Virtual Console in Japan on July 23, 2014, in Europe on September 17, 2015, in Australia on September 18, 2015 and in the Americas on February 9, 2017.

A remake of the same name is set to be released for the Nintendo Switch on February 16, 2024.

Story
Mario has become so famous and popular in the Mushroom Kingdom that he has decided to establish the Mario Toy Company, which has developed a new toy called the Mini-Mario. As Donkey Kong surfs through the channels of his television set, he sees a commercial for the Mini-Marios. Donkey Kong instantly adores the toys and heads to the Toy Store, but finds that they are all sold out. Donkey Kong turns around and sees the Mario Toy Company, deciding to loot the store. The store is managed by Toads, but they do nothing to stop Donkey Kong from stealing the toys. Mario then notices Donkey Kong and starts chasing him.

After Mario chases Donkey Kong for a while, he eventually checks his bag, only to see all the Mini-Marios he stole have dropped, with Mario, the toys, and the three Toad employees laughing at him. Enraged, he grabs the three Toads, climbs the building, and Mario rescues the three Toads while fighting Donkey Kong. Upon his defeat, he falls off onto a truck full of Mini-Marios and steals thirty-six more, now with keys attached. Mario gives chase once again, until a similar cutscene occurs in which he checks the bag again. Only Mario laughs until six Mini-Marios come out. Donkey Kong then grabs the Minis with a giant robot, to which Mario promptly frees while fighting Donkey Kong, eventually wrecking the machine and electrocuting Donkey Kong in the process. After that, Mario is about to scold Donkey Kong for what he did, but finds that Donkey Kong is crying in pity and shame. Mario cheers him up by giving him a free Mini-Mario. Donkey Kong gets what he has wanted all along while Mario and the remaining Mini-Marios celebrate.

Gameplay
Each of the game's six worlds is divided into eight levels. For the first six levels within each world, Mario must find a key and open up a door to the second half of the level, which is a checkpoint. There, Mario will find the toy that Donkey Kong dropped. If Mario is defeated in the second half of the level, his points reset back to the way it was in the first half of the level. At the beginning of each level, there is short sequence showing what Mario needs to do or what he may face before playing the level. This short sequence also explains what moves Mario needs to use to complete the level, showing some button combinations.

Unlike other Super Mario games, when Mario takes a hit, he loses a life. He can also lose a life from getting squished and falling on from a great height and landing on his head. If the fall is not big enough, Mario may get stunned on his back instead. There is also a time limit, which is similar to the traditional Super Mario Bros. games; if the time limit is highlighted on 30 seconds, an alarm plays and Mario panics. If the time limit runs out, the screen will say "Time's Up!!" and Mario loses a life. When Mario grabs the key and opens a locked door, the remaining time in the first area will be added to the time limit in the second area.

Unlike the other Super Mario games, Mario has more moves besides jumping, such as handstands and backflips. To defeat enemies, Mario must pick up objects and throw them at enemies, reminiscent of Super Mario Bros. 2. Throughout the level, there are some collectibles that Mario can collect. Three are pivotal in earning a high score, which are different colored presents. Earning a high enough score, beating the default score, earns a star for that level. The stars later are used to unlock Expert levels.

Once Mario completes a level and collects enough presents, he can play a short minigame to earn extra lives. One present may have a 1-Up Mushroom, one may have a 2 UP, another may have a 3 UP, or a 5 UP, and one present may have a Donkey Kong head that gives zero lives; this is shown at the beginning of the minigame. One minigame is stopping a scrolling arrow on top of the desired present while the other has Mario swapping presents so Donkey Kong's fist squashes an undesired present.

The seventh level in each world is a Mini-Mario level. Mario leads the six Mini-Mario toys he collected back to their toy box; however, he must make sure they avoid obstacles along the way. This leads into a battle with Donkey Kong, with each Mini-Mario saved becoming a "hit point". For example, if Mario saves all six of the Mini-Mario toys, he'll be able to be hit six times by Donkey Kong before losing a life. If Mario runs out of time or loses all of his hit points, the player will lose a life and must restart the battle with Donkey Kong. If the player doesn't do the Mini-Mario level, Mario will start the fight with four hit points, and getting a Game Over will require Mario to replay the Mini-Mario level.

After Mario has beaten the six worlds and defeated Donkey Kong, six "Plus" Worlds are unlocked, numbered 1+, 2+, and so on. There are seven stages in each Plus Worlds, and there are no Mini-Mario levels. Mario must get to a Mini-Mario holding a key and lead it to the exit doorway. If either Mario or Mini-Mario is defeated, the player loses a life and must restart the level. There is only one part per level in the Plus Worlds, and they are designed to be more difficult than the main worlds. There are still Donkey Kong boss levels in the Plus Worlds. In those levels, the player always starts with six hit points and has 120 seconds to defeat Donkey Kong except in Donkey Kong Plus, where they have 300 seconds.

For the "Expert" levels, a certain number of stars collected by beating high scores are required to unlock levels. There are twelve Expert levels. Additionally, if the player leaves or restarts the level in any mode before they clear the level for the first time, they lose a life. If the level is already complete, the player will not lose a life when choosing to exit the level. However, the player will still lose a life if they retry the level, even if it is completed.

In the "Card-e+" levels, Mario starts off with infinite lives. There is no bonus game for collecting all the presents.

Controls

 * - Jump
 * - Picks up item
 * - Moves Mario
 * / - Selects between worlds
 * - Pauses and continues game.

Mario's moves

 * Jump
 * Handstand (Down + )
 * Handstand Jump ( while handstanding)
 * Handstand Double Jump ( after touching the ground from a Handstand Jump)
 * Backflip (while facing right) (Left + )

Expert
The Expert levels are a group of twelve levels that test the player's skills. In order to beat them, the player must find a key and go through the door. These levels (save for boss levels and the regular worlds' final boss) are the only levels that don't involve Mini-Marios. They are first unlocked by beating the true final boss then by stars obtained. There are no set high scores for these levels and collecting all three Presents in a level does not let the player play one of the minigames. The music that plays during the Expert levels is also sped up.
 * Level x-1
 * Level x-2
 * Level x-3
 * Level x-4
 * Level x-5
 * Level x-6
 * Level x-7
 * Level x-8
 * Level x-9
 * Level x-10
 * Level x-11
 * Level x-12

Card-e+
Card-e+ (カードe+) is the name of the mode to play e-Reader level cards, but only in the Japanese version. The mode is hidden by default, but can be enabled by connecting a second Game Boy Advance with a link cable and. The first card, which is very rare, was given to attendees of the 20th Next Generation World Hobby Fair in June 2004. The next five cards were given out as a set in a sweepstakes by , which hosts the Super Mario-kun manga, in August 2004. Only 1,000 of these sets were ever released. This mode exists in the North American release, named e World, but no cards were released. However, remnants exist in the game's code. The preloaded North American levels all appear to be prototypes of the levels hidden in the Japanese release. Most of the differences are minor with a few levels having major differences. The six e-Reader card levels are identical to the preloaded levels hidden in the Japanese release. The last two digits of the card's ID number shows its place among the 14 preloaded levels.

Development
The game was initially planned as Donkey Kong Plus, an updated version of the Game Boy Donkey Kong. The only known difference between the original and Plus, aside from the graphics, was the addition of a level designer to be used through the Nintendo GameCube for players to create their own levels with. However, the game vanished the following year, and was replaced by Mario vs. Donkey Kong, with the level editor gone and the graphics replaced with pre-rendered graphics. However, the game's sequel, Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis had this feature and took advantage of Wi-Fi Connection.

Staff
Mario vs. Donkey Kong is one of the few Super Mario games to be developed by an American team, Nintendo Software Technology Corporation (NST). In NST's team, Shigeki Yamashiro is the producer while Yukimi Shimura is the director. Wing S. Cho designed the game and Yoonjoon Lee is the engineering director.

Reception
Mario vs. Donkey Kong is generally well-received by critics, aggregating an average of 81/100 on Metacritic and 79.07% on GameRankings. Craig Harris of IGN gave the game an 8.5/10, "Great". . Harris praised the game for having "faithfully retained the Donkey Kong arcade game's look and feel". His reaction is mild about the Donkey Kong boss levels, calling them "the ones with the least amount of creativity". He criticized the presentation, calling the sprites "awkward but admittedly well-animated 3D rendered" while the voice-overs from Mario and Donkey Kong are unnecessary, although not distracting. Despite these, he praises the game's faithfulness of the Game Boy Advance Donkey Kong games, with its fantastic level design and lasting appeal.

Marcel van Duyn of Nintendolife has echoed some of IGN's statements, deeming the game to be "a worthy successor", giving the game an 8/10. As in the IGN review, Duyn criticized the game's pre-rendered sprites, saying that it "although it actually looks pretty good, it's a bit strange to see this style in a Nintendo title again after all this time." Duyn is disappointed that "the series has only had Lemmings-esque installments since", believing "the original formula is perfectly worthy of another day in the limelight."

In a more critical review, Stephen Carvell of VideoGamer praises the game's visuals, but criticizes the game's level design, calling the reliance on the color-coded switches "tedious" and the later levels for using the same puzzles. He also criticized the Mini-Mario levels for having "appalling level design that smacks of a lack of ideas." He gave the game a 6/10.

Freeze Glitch
In Spooky House on the 3rd level, in the next room, Mario should go near the far right spring. Then, he should press the red button to have the Polterguy transform into a block, once the Polterguy is almost by the right side wall. If Mario jumps on the spring between the block and the wall, Mario may go off stage and lose a life. The music then stops and the game freezes, but the enemies are still moving.

Crushed Floating Mario
In Level x-3, if Mario gets crushed by a Kurasshā while standing on a moving platform, Mario will be flattened but will still follow the movements of the platform. This can cause Mario to continuously float in the air, and can also cause him to float upwards.

Stopping Audio
At any time when the player is opening a locked door, they can press and  to activate the map scrolling. When canceled, the end level jingle will still play as well as the door's sound effects, but Mario's (and the Mini-Mario's in the Plus levels) sound effects will not.

Mario

 * "Come back here, you big monkey!"
 * "Ah, that Charles Martinet! Nice Italian boy."
 * "Oh yeah, don't forget to thank Mr. Miyamoto!"
 * ""Let's-a go, little guys!"

References to other games

 * Donkey Kong (Arcade/NES game): The boot up song when starting a new game is briefly heard in the intro to the game, and the beginning of every boss fight.
 * Donkey Kong (Game Boy): The game uses all gameplay elements from this game, although it has a very different story. Even the final battle is a recreation of that in Donkey Kong.
 * Super Mario 64: Several of Mario's voice clips are recycled.
 * Donkey Kong 64: Several of Donkey Kong's voice clips are recycled.
 * Mario Tennis: Several of the Toads' voice clips are recycled.
 * Super Smash Bros. Melee: Several of Mario's voice clips are recycled.
 * Super Mario Sunshine: Several of the Toads' voice clips are recycled.

Trivia

 * A small animation was added to the European and Japanese versions that was absent from the American version (which was built first). When Mario goes through the door, the Time Limit will be sucked in with him to make it more clear the remaining time will be added to the new Time Limit.
 * While Donkey Kong's voice uses recycled clips of Grant Kirkhope's voice from Donkey Kong 64 in all versions of the game, the Japanese commercial for the game features Donkey Kong being voiced by Donkey Kong's current voice actor Takashi Nagasako. However, in the Nintendo Switch remake, Donkey Kong's voice clips are reused from Nagasako.
 * The title screen in the Japanese version was redone to feature the Mini-Marios rather than feature Mario and Donkey Kong as is the case in the American and European versions. The Japanese style of the title screen has been used in all future games in the series, even in international releases.