Over the years, Nintendo has made a number of amazing franchises and seemed to have a knack for bringing their beloved characters to other genres. From Mario Kart to Super Smash Bros, they’ve made their mark across the board. Among these fine titles is the Mario and Donkey Kong series, which is one of Nintendo’s many attempts at the puzzle genre. This series has seen a number of revision over the years, but with Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move moving completely into the puzzle genre, will it be enough to attract fans or should they have left the game unchanged?
Lets look at what’s HOT and what’s NOT in our review of Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move.
HOT
Simple, but Challenging
Similar to most iOS/Android games out there, Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move is a shockingly simple game. Simply put, every puzzle requires you to go from point A to B by setting a course with “randomly” selected tiles. The trick is that sometimes you’ll get what you need, where as other times you need to think ahead by getting rid of excess pieces. In addition to having to figure all this out, you’re given a set amount of time and you’ll ideally finish with all three coins. At first the levels are ridiculously easy (see below), but over time they will become surprisingly hard. This is because the game slowly lowers your buffer, while still upping the difficulty of the puzzles.
This is what makes Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move an enjoyable experience. You see, once you hit the 40th or so puzzle, you’ll have to start planning ahead and moving a lot faster if you want any sort of chance of finishing the stage. At first it can be pretty stressful (especially if you don’t plan ahead), but once you get a feel for the game, it starts to be a lot more enjoyable. This is especially true for when you go after all the coins, since it will probably take you a number of tries to obtain them all. Besides simply solving dynamic puzzles, there are other types of puzzles in Minis on the Move.
Various Twists on the Formula
Besides Mario’s Main Event (the aforementioned stuff) and the extra extremely difficult stages, there are three other modes. The first of these modes is puzzle palace, which is very similar to Mario’s Main Event, but is also very different at the same time. Unlike the previous mode, Puzzle Palace gives you a finite number of pieces, so every move counts. Unfortunately this means the mode can be cheated via online solution and contains no replay value after you solve it, but is still a nice if you’re looking for a less stressful approach to the gameplay.
Unlike the previous modes, Many Mini Mayhem takes a different approach to the previous concepts. This is accomplished by not only adding multiple characters to keep track of, but changing the way you accomplish your overall goal. These puzzles come in two different, but distinct forms. The first is a set path, where you need to spin certain pieces to get all the characters to the end. The other allows you to freely move any tile on the ground (provided no one is on it) and build paths to the end or the various coins on the field. At first these can be tricky, but they’re among the easier puzzles in the game.
