Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move (3DS)

When the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series shifted away from having you play as the agile plumber taking on his gorilla rival to instead trying to alter side-scrolling stages so wind-up toys can safely make it to their destination, the games began to blur together a bit. This wasn’t helped much by their choice in subtitles, March of the Minis, Minis March Again!, and Mini-Land Mayhem! not really making it clear upfront what new they brought to the table. Seeing a game titled Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move would likely just lead to the belief it was the latest game to use this formula, but for the series’s first entry on the Nintendo 3DS, something new was indeed attempted, the toy-guiding puzzler play not only now taking place in a 3D environment, but the way you control the action had changed quite considerably from the samey side-scrollers.

 

Mario’s Main Event is the mode that helps you learn Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move’s fundamentals. A level presents the player with a grid that already has a certain amount of tiles filled in, these tiles typically depicting a white path that the wind-up toys will follow unquestionably. You cannot control the Minis directly, the action figures of familiar Mario series characters starting to move on their own once a valid path tile is placed beside them and continuing to move until they reach their destination or encounter something that will destroy them. You can poke them on the touch screen to give them a speed boost, but otherwise your influence will be placing new paths in the open spots on the grid to ensure they can continue moving forward safely. If they do reach a spot where no tile is placed or where one that doesn’t connect properly sits, they will teeter for a while with some increasingly panicked audio cues so you know to quickly head over and fix things, but normally, tiles that are placed are going to be permanently affixed to their position. You can get a bomb from time to time to destroy a placed square and it is actually a necessary tool in some levels, but the bomb cannot destroy any tiles that were already in place at the level’s start.

While getting to the star-shaped goal is technically the only necessary task in a level, there are three coins to collect that will combine into a star if you grab them all, these going towards unlockable content such as the other modes. Much of what makes a level difficult will come from trying to make sure your Mini can make their way to every coin and then the exit, and as you get into later levels, new ideas will be added to make the process more complicated or dangerous. Bounce tiles will help a Mini leap over dangers, Donkey Kong themed toys might help you by hurling you even further than the bounce pad, and while the Shy Guy toys are an instant loss if your toy touches them, there are hammers your toy can pick up to briefly gain the power to knock those enemies away. Effectively utilizing or avoiding the different dangers and tile types becomes key to clearing a level properly, but in Mario’s Main Event, there are a few additional pressures applied to your work. While you can look at the level overview as long as you like, as soon as you begin the stage, a timer begins ticking down, some levels perhaps not difficult to lay out a proper path for but finding a speedy enough one is instead the challenge. A bit more of a consistent concern is the fact the tiles you need to place are doled out in a pipe on the right side of the touchscreen. You don’t have control over which path piece is coming up next, meaning there are times you may need to make a suboptimal route just because the game is denying you more convenient tiles or you’ll need to find ways to toss away ones you have no use for. This is especially crucial since if the pipe delivery system gets clogged up with too many tiles, it will lead to an immediate loss.

 

Showing that a surprising amount of thought went into its systems, there are ways to mitigate both of these pressures. While the bomb is a fine way to eliminate one tile you placed poorly or even one that needs to go after serving its purpose so it can be replaced, there is also a tile recycler piece where you can toss in three you don’t need and you’ll gain a piece that transforms into an accommodating strip of path based on where it’s placed. If you need a recycler you can make a small loop of corner pieces, but loops can also help you with the time limit. If your Mini finds itself on a path that you then close into a complete loop, it will rise up into the air and stopwatches will appear on it, each one the mini grabs giving you some additional time. A figure eight is even more useful, not only giving you much more time but also providing a Bonus tile that serves as a secondary way to complete a level. Walk out on the bonus tile and even if you missed some of the coins you are meant to collect, they’ll appear in the after-level minigame that the Bonus tile provides. With many levels already having more than one solution based on how you utilize the tiles it provides and options like the bomb and recycler, the loop system and Bonus tile give you even more control over the puzzle solving despite the concept of Mario’s Main Event being you don’t directly control the toy or the tiles you’re granted.

 

Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move already conceives of many small but challenging stages for its main mode, the 60 on offer even supplemented by additional expert stages but still keeping its scope condensed so you can experiment and don’t need to do anything too complicated like memorizing the order the stage provides path pieces. On its own it’s already a well-iterated upon concept that gets a good amount of mileage out of its component pieces, but there are quite a few more modes left, some just as robust as Mario’s Main Event. Puzzle Palace has just as many stages and is a more relaxed approach to the path-building puzzle solving, there being no time limit to concern yourself with and all the tiles you’ll need to use to clear a stage are available at the start. However, only just enough tiles are provided, the challenge instead arising from being able to identify that perfect layout and placing your pieces accordingly to give the Princess Peach Mini (or whichever one you choose to use since you can swap your toys around) a way to the exit. At first this is a fairly relaxing approach, but as it begins integrating the same dangers and piece types featured over in Mario’s mode, the exact placement of tiles becomes more difficult to figure out. It is a bit of a shame at first to see the energetic on-the-fly path-building featured in the Main Event absent, but eventually even this low pressure mode starts adding in interactive elements like conveyor belts whose direction you can shift by tapping a switch and tiles that turn in different directions you’ll need to actively manage. While the introduction of bombs in this mode can lead to some more demanding forward thinking tile placement later down the line, Puzzle Palace also benefits from keeping its stages fairly small, especially since any wasted space could confuse the player. Instead, they’re tightly designed so the solution can reasonably come to you, even if it might take quite a while to figure out how to overcome the obstacles already in place.

Many Mini Mayhem provides an interesting blend of both modes seen so far. In a stage in this format, multiple toys will be active at once, the player needing to make sure to properly guide them all to safety even though they’ll inevitably be taking different paths. The mushroom-headed Toad Minis have their level mechanics shift around quite a bit. Some levels are complete already but the challenge comes from spinning certain tiles to change their direction so you can properly guide the toys to your desired destinations before time runs out, conveyor belts similarly needing quick and proper management in the stages they dominate. Other times you’ll be placed in levels where you can pick up and freely move every path piece on the touch screen, but the tight space and limited open spots means you need to make sure you are setting the toys on productive paths because you can’t lift a tile once a toy is standing on it. Both approaches to managing your Minis are entertaining in their own way and manage to shake up how a seemingly simple concept can be directed and challenged, and by swapping between which approach is featured in Many Mini Mayhem neither one is asked to evolve to the point the complexity could make managing a group of toys overly touchy or overwhelming.

 

The last major mode can seem a bit daunting when you first look at it though. Giant Jungle is where the Donkey Kong Mini is featured, and this mode only features 3 levels in total. All other stages in Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move can be seen in full on the bottom screen from an aerial view, this simpler view making it easier to eyeball where to place roads and any problems you’re having while the top-screen can display the 3D models without worrying too much if they occasionally block your view of important information. In Giant Jungle though, a single stage is rather huge, the player needing to scroll around to view its many regions. There are 10 stars to collect on your path to the goal and the tile distribution is handled in the same way as Mario’s Main Event where you won’t always know when you’ll get a certain path piece, but what keeps this mode from being too demanding is that many tricks like the loops and recyclers still work, there are time pick-ups natively in the level, and there are multiple valid solutions for clearing the level. In fact, once you split the work down to approaching each region as its own little challenge, it becomes easier to link together your work into one massive chain of completions and time management that isn’t the intimidating prospect that it first appeared to be. It’s by no means easy, but it also values both planning ahead and adapting on the fly, and even small techniques like tapping your toy to make it briefly move faster can here mean the difference between a valid tactic and one that wouldn’t have worked on tile placement alone. In fact, once toys have a completely clear road to the exit in any mode, the timer stops and they’ll auto-complete the rest, meaning you can even beat the clock even when your Mini seems like it’s too far to make it to safety in time.

 

The four core modes of Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move are distinct from each other, robust, and pursue different directions for how their challenge is derived, and there is even the option to create your own levels and share them with other players online. Unfortunately they are restricted to the Mario’s Main Event format, but it’s still a way to lengthen your time with a game that already packs in a little over 200 distinct stages. Perhaps a bit incongruous with the rest of the game though is a Mini-Games mode. While the game does mostly just present gameplay for you to learn and enjoy (series regulars Mario, Donkey Kong, and Pauline only appear on menus and in congratulations screens) the Mini-Games don’t tie into the path-building in any way, instead focusing on very active games involving launching the Minis with a slingshot apparatus. Mini Target Smash has you firing them up in the air to break targets with different point values to try and earn high scores, Fly Guy Grab instead has you firing a claw at flying enemies for points where you need to reel them in after you hit one, and Cube Crash has you hurling the wind-up toys at big cube clusters to break them apart with the points you earned depending on your efficiency and how many shapes are destroyed in the time limit. These do have a few stages each that introduce little complications or push forward an idea more strongly, but they still feel very lean and their time limits means your potential to earn a high score is limited by the small amount of content available. The last mini-game, Elevation Station, is unique at least, the player turning a crank to make a platform a Mini-Mario toy is standing on rise or fall as enemies and coins come in from the screen’s edges. While its three stages are set challenges as well, they also have a clear end goal in trying to survive the whole stage and grab all the coins in the process, making it something you can more clearly perfect than the slingshot’s score challenges that would require a lot of memorization to conquer. None of these are really bad ideas, but they don’t really feel like a good companion for the other content in the game nor are they robust enough to stand as an appealing mode on their own.

THE VERDICT: Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move creates an active puzzle solving challenge and iterates upon it in a variety of intriguing ways. From managing many moving characters at once to trying to tackle an enormous stage, you’ll find no matter the mode the stages are tightly designed so you can figure out valid routes and yet many can still be open to a variety of solutions thanks to the different special options you can utilize. The four modes each offer a unique appeal like the Puzzle Palace being more relaxed but more stringent, and while the Mini-Games feel a bit stapled on, this puzzler provides a strong selection of stages that feature clear challenges that avoid being so cerebral a player could be scared off or feel drained from trying to figure out the solution.

 

And so, I give Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move for Nintendo 3DS…

A GREAT rating. An impressive balance was achieved in Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move, the player finding value both in identifying long term strategies for a stage but able to influence their success with on-the-fly actions and adjustments. You don’t need to panic and juggle too many things at once, the Minis and touch screen giving you clear signals and a decent amount of time to act if there is an issue, and while the time limit and tile distribution can put a bit of a squeeze on you at times, both can be dealt with in a few different ways so it’s not just about clearing a level as quickly as possible or finding a perfect spot for every piece you’re given. You can make mistakes and still get the star for a stage, but modes like Puzzle Palace still value a thoughtful approach because of the different restrictions they apply to play. The Mini-Games do feel a bit out of place, perhaps their intent being some way to cool off with something less involved if you ended up just barely failing something like the Giant Jungle and need a break, but Elevation Station at least has a strong focus. Having four strong iterations on the core concept is already an impressive feat and perhaps hoping for a fifth in place of these small diversions would be greedy, but the experience already offers a lot to do and makes solving a level seem achievable yet still enough of a challenge that it is gratifying to have things come together into a perfect victory.

 

A fruitful diversion from the typical design style featured in this Mario subseries and a bit of an oddity in retrospect, future titles like Tipping Stars and amiibo Challenge returned to side-view play with the systems found in the games before Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move. It still remains the only Mario vs. Donkey Kong game to use “Mario and Donkey Kong” as its title instead as well, but perhaps it was for the best this was their only game to use the 3D path-building style. They already explored four effective formats for it, ones that managed their size and demands well to remain entertaining instead of grueling brain-benders. Plenty of strong ideas were poured into this 3DS title to make it not only stand out in a series that usually follows a similar formula, but also as puzzle game that can stand tall on its own merits.