YMMV / Mario vs. Donkey Kong

• Awesome Music:
  • The series in general has some pretty awesome tunes, but one of the composer's favorites seems to be Spooky House I in the first game, which seems to have ended up being the series' standard ghost house music (March of the Minis in particular has multiple variations on that particular track instead of having more than one unique track like the original). The versions from March of the Minis return in Minis March Again! and are joined by a sped-up version of the standard version, with these being used for Plus Mode's version of Magnet Mania in that game.
  • The Spooky House III theme in the original Mario vs Donkey Kong goes hard with the organs and bongos to make for a hauntingly epic track. The remake's rendition is just as amazing, keeping the bongos while adding cymbals and violins, and it extends the track to include more violins along with a clarinet solo.
  • The Mini-Mario theme is very catchy and has been in every Mario vs. Donkey Kong game. In Mini-Land Mayhem!, each level select screen got a variation of the theme and the Plus Mode versions were sped up, while the version in the Nintendo Switch remake of the first game incorporates some lovely live instrumentation.
  • The Slippery Summit II theme in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong remake is surprisingly beautiful and melancholy for a game with such a playful and jazzy soundtrack, with a piano lead that becomes backed by strings later in the song.
  • The remake also has an awesome techno remix of the first battle used for the fake final boss.
  • "The Final, Really Final Battle" is, simply put, a phenomenal banger in both the original Mario vs Donkey Kong and its remake, with electric guitars to really drive home the frantic climax against Donkey Kong. It's so iconic that it even makes a brief appearance in the remake's intro cutscene when Donkey Kong switches channels!
• Breather Level:
  • Level 5-5 in the first Mario vs. Donkey Kong has a high score of 24,500 points, which is as low as it gets for the regular levels, only requiring the level to be beat with 145 seconds remaining. It’s so lenient that even if you die in the second half of the level and miss out on the bonus time from the first half, it’s entirely possible to keep going and easily get the star for the level, as you’ll have 180 seconds to make it to the end, with bonus points from hammering the enemies to boot.
  • The first two levels of Super Skywheel (World 8) of Mini-Land Mayhem! are surprisingly easy for so late in the game. Other than the Shy Guy blocks, 8-1 looks like it could be part of World 1 and 8-2 would be right at home in World 3.
• Broken Base: While the Mario vs. Donkey Kong remake's soundtrack is generally considered to be superior to the original due to the faithfully recreated jazzy versions of the original Game Boy Advance version's OST, Fire Mountain and Twilight City had their tracks completely overhauled. Some fans enjoy and prefer the more atmospheric take on these tracks, while some others felt that the new tracks did not fit the atmosphere or focused on being too "clean" respectively. It's worth noting that Fire Mountain and Twilight City had four tracks in the original as opposed to three, which might be why these worlds had their tracks replaced for the remake.
• Contested Sequel:
  • On one hand, you have people who enjoy the Mini-style of Mario vs. Donkey Kong games for its interesting, Lemmings style gameplay and interesting puzzles. On the other hand, you have people who preferred the first game in the series that was more in line with the classic Donkey Kong arcade and Donkey Kong '94 and hate the fact that the Minis ended up hijacking the series. In 2024, the GBA original was remade for the Switch, thus bringing the game to new fans.
  • Even fans of the Minis have their own problems with the series. Starting with Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again!, opinions on the newer entries in the series range from them being simply forgettable to outright unfun, with the series being ignored at best by the time of Mini Mario & Friends: amiibo Challenge.
  • The original Mario vs. Donkey Kong is one to Donkey Kong '94. While many consider it to be on par with DK94, if not an Even Better Sequel to it, just as many consider it inferior, finding its level design and gimmicks to be a downgrade from its predecessor. Funnily enough, the game started life as a remake of ''Donkey Kong '94".
• Difficulty Spike:
  • Spooky House (world 4) of the first Mario vs. Donkey Kong is where the high scores start becoming a lot more strict, especially in the North American version. You’ll need to rely a lot more on backflipping and handstand jumping at the right times and places to save as much time as you can if you want to earn the stars on the levels in this world, especially for level 4-3, as shown below. Luckily, the Switch version just has you collecting the three presents in a level to get the star.
  • Teatime Twirl (world 3) of Mini-Land Mayhem is this, from this point onward the levels are bigger, puzzles more complex, and the DK battle can be legitimately difficult if you're not paying attention. This is where it shifts gears from a platforming game with puzzle elements to a puzzle game with platforming elements.
• First Installment Wins:
  • Not to an especially big degree, but the original Mario vs. Donkey Kong is still the most beloved and well regarded by fans and critics alike. In 2024, the game was remade for the Nintendo Switch, just in time for its 20th anniversary, which was still received with relatively positive reviews, but was criticized by some fans for making some changes to the original that were unfavorable.
  • For fans of the Minis, Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis gets the lion's share of the attention also being well regarded in its own right, with the DSiWare Minis March Again! and DS Mini-Land Mayhem! occasionally receiving mentions, and anything afterward ending up neglected.
• Franchise Original Sin: Many fans despised how the series shifted from the puzzle platformer gameplay of DK94 and Mario vs. Donkey Kong in favor of focusing purely on Lemmings-like gameplay with the minis. However, this gameplay style was also present in MvDK, as the final level of each world usually has Mario guide the minis to the goal. However, in that game, they weren't the focus (the puzzle platforming levels were) and you were still controlling Mario in them, so they were just seen as tolerable gimmick levels at most. The sequels, however, made the mini levels the primary focus, while shifting the focus away from Mario in favor of the minis, as most of the time, he stood in the background commanding them, leaving him increasingly Out of Focus in his own games. March of the Minis! at least gave Mario a role in the final battle where the Mini Marios must reach him so that he can throw them at DK to damage him, but as the series went on, he would only appear in some cutscenes, and the altered gameplay is when those fans started to get annoyed. Later, when the frequently released games became drastically similar to each other, the series became ignored at best, disliked at worst by all sorts of fans, even fans of the Minis that had no issue with the focus on them initially. By the release of Mini-Land Mayhem!, which was the fourth game in the series, fans had gotten tired of the formula and with the games' lack of innovation outside of a few minis or gimmicks here and there and recycled content, and the other spin-offs weren't very successful due to many abandoning the series.
• Funny Moments:
  • These games occasionally had Mario speaking more than just a few grunts, with some sentences being sprinkled in the cutscene. Hearing Charles Martinet hamming it up a few times as Mario is very fun, with some of Mario's lines being very funny to hear.
    "No you don't! No you don't!
    "Oh, you mamma mia! (devolves into Italian gibberish)"
    "Come back here, you big monkey!"
  • The original release of the first game was also chock-full of various death animations for Mario. While Mario naturally collapses/gets knocked back from colliding with enemies and hazards, he notably falls flat on his head if he dies from falling from too great of a height (or if he gets hit by Donkey Kong himself in his boss fights). He even burns before ending with an Ash Face from dying to fire, X-Ray Sparks when dying to electricity, and getting Squashed Flat if crushed from any direction. These are all accentuated by cartoon sound effects for each type of death, and the death jingles with Mario saying a variation of "Mama mia!". As a result, it's pretty easy to see Death as Comedy in this game, as despite the over the top (and arguably brutal) animations, Mario's still able to utter the phrases despite them and then try again.
  • The Switch remake's version of Donkey Kong breaking into the factory has one. Thanks to being a full blown animation this time, we get to see how DK was able to make off with so many Mini-Marios uncontested: After DK bursts through the doors, there's a short beat before all the Toads in the factory start panicking and running around.
• Fridge Brilliance: How the first game's remake showed how DK managed to steal so many Mini Marios from the factory as mentioned above was likely the vision the developers had in the first place, since even in the original release, no one else seems to try stop him after he intimidates the Toads in the factory before Mario starts chasing him.
  • Likewise, Jen Taylor's one line for the Toads was left intact to show the line he spoke at the start of the cutscene was gibberish and not anything specific.
• Good Bad Bugs: In the first game, Mario has a generous period of invincibility when he's ascending during a jump.
• Heartwarming Moments: After Mario defeats the Final Boss in the original version of the first game, Donkey Kong can be seen crying at his failure to get the Mini-Mario toys. Mario initially scolds him, but after seeing the poor ape cry, he softens up, takes pity on Donkey Kong and gives him a Mini-Mario toy, and everybody's happy. In the remake, Mario celebrates his victory, but after noticing Donkey Kong sulking after his failure to get a single Mini-Mario toy, Mario tells him: "Hey, it’s okay. Here." He then hands one of the Mini-Mario toys that he was holding in celebration over to the ape, and Donkey Kong happily accepts it.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The Excuse Plot of the first Mario vs. Donkey Kong is that Donkey Kong is unable to buy a Mini Mario, as they're sold out, leading him to raid the factory where they're made. This has drawn comparisons to the amiibo, figurines of Nintendo characters which also became notorious for selling out quickly.
  • The first game was originally intended to be a remake of Donkey Kong '94. In 2023, it was announced that this game would be getting its own remake for the Switch.
• Ho Yay: In the original game, DK sees a commercial for the Mini Mario toys on TV and has hearts in his eyes.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The series received significantly less backlash compared to most examples (such as the mainline New Super Mario Bros. series) mostly because this series was vastly ignored at best after the fourth game, but those who did play them noted how games after March of the Minis (other than Minis on the Move, which tried to be innovative) were mostly the same with only minor changes to the gameplay or slapping a new mini character, even reusing the Video Game Settings and plenty of musical tracks/leitmotifs outright.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Mmm, bananas..."
  • DK's remote having only one button that changes the channel and does nothing else has led to a lot of jokes about how impractical said remote is.
  • The popular interpretation of the factory worker Toad's heavily-compressed line in the first game's intro is "They're forty dollars!", which has led to a plethora of jokes about the price of Mario-related products, both in-and-out-of-universe. While the Switch remake would go to show that it's merely Mondegreen as the uncompressed line is gibberish that sounds like the phrase in question, this hasn't stopped people from saying that the memetic phrase is now in HD.
• Nightmare Fuel: For people who are used to the heroic Donkey Kong, you'll be shocked to see the reckless beast he becomes simply to get toys, especially in the first game: he puts deadly traps everywhere, makes monstrous screams (only in the GBA original), and even takes Toads hostages for a boss battle.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Pauline's new brunette redesign is usually mistakenly attributed to this series. It actually first appeared a decade earlier in Donkey Kong '94.
  • Likewise, Takashi Nagasako's voice acting for DK began here in the Japanese ads for the first game, well before he began voicing him in Donkey Kong Jungle Beat.
• Replacement Scrappy: The Minis in the second game onward are this to Mario, for those who preferred the gameplay style of the first game.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: In Minis March Again!, playing the story levels with all four Mini toys will list them on the top in the following order: Mario, Toad, Peach, DK, repeat. If you get them to the door in that order, the Minis will emit large colored stars in their respective colors (red, blue, pink, and yellow) when they enter the door as opposed to small blue ones, and getting them all in order leads to an audience cheering for you, but there's no tangible reward for doing this at all.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: Remake difficulty drop in this case, but in the Switch remake of the first game has a couple notable ones:
  • Mario can no longer die from falling from too high. He now just gets stunned, regardless of how high he falls from, even on classic mode. This does however, mean that his death animation for that has been Adapted Out.
  • Retrying a level no longer costs a life.
• Sequelitis: After the third game in the series, Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again!, a fourth game sequel was released in just a little over a year, Mini-Land Mayhem!, afterwards three more sequels were released between the 3DS and Wii U in less than three years: Minis on the Move, Tipping Stars, and amiibo Challenge. The majority of the time, these games are forgotten or ignored in terms of the subseries as a whole, and those that do have an opinion on this set of games usually consider those reactions to be pretty reasonable for Minis on the Move (which tried to be innovative) and the final game amiibo Challenge (which added many playable characters with different gimmicks), the others not so much (which were mostly the same with only minor changes to the gameplay or slapping a new mini character, even reusing the Video Game Settings and plenty of musical tracks/leitmotifs outright). Even worse, the plots became increasingly more minimalistic, especially in cutscenes, to the point that Tipping Stars had no plot whatsover, as it's not explained what led Donkey Kong to kidnap Pauline this time, the cutscenes are barely animated and used static frames almost like in the first game.
• She Really Can Act: When she's kidnapped in Mini-Land Mayhem!, Pauline's voice sounds fairly realistic and almost depressing.
• Tainted by the Preview: The first trailer for the remake showcases a two player mode, with the second player controlling Toad. Luigi fans were not happy about this.
• That One Boss: Donkey Kong in 8-DK of March of the Minis. Unlike the previous fights against him, you cannot attack DK directly, as he will always break the Mini if it hits him. Instead, you have to fire Minis at the top of the platforms to get the bananas to fall onto DK. There are three Snapjaws on the vines and a Bird which flies over the cannon. This Bird is extremely annoying, as it will periodically fly down to the cannon to try to hit the Mini in the cannon, and every time you damage DK, it will rapidly fly back and forth while dropping eggs while he's invulnerable. While the bananas can defeat the Snapjaws and the Bird, they will respawn, so they're only a temporary solution to them. It's also easy to run out of time while trying to find good opportunities to attack, as you only have 180 seconds for the DK levels. Getting a gold star means either not losing a single Mini or losing one Mini and defeating DK with at least 100 seconds remaining, with the latter being especially tough to accomplish due to having to keep track of the angle of the cannon, DK's movements, and the other enemies.
• That One Level: The first half of some levels from the first Mario vs. Donkey Kong can be this, especially if you're looking for a high score.
  • In level 5-3 (7-3 in the remake), you must grab a key at the start of the level, take the first conveyor belt with it, switch directions before going on the second, throw the key on the third and immediately switch directions, take back the first conveyor belt, switch directions again and press the red switch, take this conveyor belt once again and hurry to get to the key before the time limit. This one is particularly difficult for newcomers who can be stressed by the conveyor belts' switch system (discovered only two levels earlier in the original) which has to be exploited in an advanced way, the color switch system which can be forgotten because of it, and especially the key's time limit. The remake makes things a bit easier by changing the directions of the conveyor belts so that after throwing the key on the third conveyor belt, you no longer have to immediately switch directions before taking the first conveyor belt.
  • In level 6-3 (8-3 in the remake), you must use a blue switch to make red barriers disappear so you can synchronize Robokikkis, then use the red switch to take the key which would be stuck under blue blocks. This one is particularly hard if you're looking for a high score in the original.
  • Level 3-4+ requires Mario to guide the Mini Mario to the right while the blue switch is active, hit the red switch, and then slide down the rope at the left of the stage to lure the toy into jumping down the gap to where the door is instead of across the gap onto the spring. This can be a huge Guide Dang It! moment when trying to beat this level for the first time.
• That One Sidequest: Even though these levels from the first Mario vs. Donkey Kong game aren't that bad normally, trying to beat the high score for them in order to get the star can be very tough. This only concerns the original game though. The 2024 remake ditches the score system completely, so merely getting the 3 presents in the level is the only requirement to get a star.
  • Level 3-2 requires a high score of 32,000 points to get the star, which means finishing the level with at least 220 seconds on the timer. However, the first part of this level only gives 120 seconds, while the second part gives 150 seconds, meaning you only have 50 seconds to beat both sections for the star. The Thwomp-like blocks featured throughout this level may force you to waste time waiting for them to drop down, there’s lava to jump over, and the fire bird in the first half doesn’t help matters either.
  • Level 4-1’s high score is 29,000 points in the American version, necessitating a remaining time of at least 190 seconds, and with only 120 seconds for both parts, it means having to beat the level within 50 seconds. The first half is a puzzle with two Thwomps who will waste your time if you mistime hitting the yellow and red switches, and the second half is a rush through stalactite platforms, conveyors, a Twhimp, and a Thwomp to get the rest of the presents and reach the Mini Mario toy. The European version has a high score of 28,500 points, which is still tough with only 5 extra seconds to beat both sections of this level.
  • Beating the base high score in 4-3 in the North American version is much harder than doing it in the surrounding levels. The first area of the level is extremely cycle-based due to the line-guided Lifts that you have to ride to get anywhere, which severely limits the possible time bonus ^note every second left on the clock is multiplied by 100 and added to your score you can get if you don't maximize your efficiency within these cycles. If you aren't opening the key door before the first section's timer goes below 90 seconds, you'll be rushing through the second half to wring out those precious few seconds in the hopes of even meeting the base high score of 31500, though even with good cycle management in the first half (~94 seconds entering the key door), it's highly likely you'll only be about 1000 points above the original score. The European version adds a solid floor in the middle of the spikes in the first half and tones the high score down to a much more manageable 30,000 points, which is 15 extra seconds to spare when compared to the North American version.
  • Level 4-5 needs 30,000 points, with 120 seconds for the first half and 150 seconds for the second half, requiring a remaining time of 200 seconds or more to get the star. The problems don’t start until the second half, where you have to guide the Polterguys into the right spots to serve as stepping stones to proceed. While the yellow Polterguy can be skipped by using the red blocks, the blue Polterguys can’t, and all of them have to be lined up correctly to climb up the ropes and get the blue present over spikes. And there’s a Thwimp guarding the Mini Mario for good measure.
  • Level 6-mm has its high score at 18,000 points in the North American version, which is a very steep requirement for a Mini Mario level where you usually only get 120 seconds to beat it. You’ll have to use the conveyor switch and the color switches accordingly to prevent the Minis from getting electrocuted and then bring a trash can up through two electric traps for the Minis to make it past the two block wall to the toy box, all while having at least 65 seconds on the timer by the end. In the European version, the score is 17,000 points instead, which is far more lenient in comparison.
  • Level 3-6+ is challenging even without factoring in the high score, but when you only have 150 seconds with a requirement of 21,000 points, you're going to have to reach the door with Mini Mario with 110 seconds or more remaining. The fire bird is by far the most dangerous obstacle, since if you don't climb up the rope to hit the red switch soon enough, it will fly into Mini Mario and destroy it, forcing you to start over. And because of how strict the time limit is, you can't afford to wait for it to pass by, either.
  • Level 5-2+ has a high score of 22,000 points, and the timer is only 150 seconds. This forces you to rush through the stage with Mini Mario to beat it with at least 120 seconds remaining. With the piranha plants spitting seeds across conveyors and having to switch the direction of the conveyors on the spot, this level can be very frantic in having to borderline speedrun it to get the star.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: While the Switch remake of the first game was fairly well received overall, it made a handful of divisive —or outright disliked— changes from the original Game Boy Advance version, leading a significant number of fans to feel the remake lost some of its charm. Some fans have also felt baffled by these, considering the remakes of Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door have managed to stay a lot more faithful to their original games.
  • When the Switch remake's versions of the first two cutscenes were first shared by Nintendo on January 16th, 2024, several fans took issue with how Mario's talkative dialogue had been axed when he sees Donkey Kong making off with the Mini Marios from the factory (and the only remnant of his original dialogue in that scene being his yell of "Hey!" from "Hey! Come back here!"). This wasn't well received by fans, as many fans found Mario's dialogue in the game as a big part of their enjoyment of it. As a result of this, this has led to concerns about similar changes plaguing Mario in particular^note (as the commercial voices and a Toad's now-memetic voice line were shown to have been retained), with the biggest being that uncompressed versions of lines such as Mario's Italian gibberish and "Come back here, you big monkey!" not seeing the light of day. These concerns weren't helped by another preview of the game showing the world intros, which seems to have all of Mario's different voice clips for each world replaced with "Stop! Come back!"^note (This is because that prior to the clip's release, the game's website showed this same animation for Mario, but muted). The final release confirmed this was the case, as Mario only says "Stop! Come back!" before starting each world, with the exception of the first Plus World, where he says "Mama mia... here we go again!". It would also be shown that Mario's dialogue from the true end credits were scrapped entirely among other lines that weren't carried over from the original, which also didn't go over well with fans.
    • Related to Mario's other dialogue not being reused, Grant Kirkhope's voice lines for DK not being reused whatsoever left a rather bitter taste in other fans' mouths who are not endeared by Takashi Nagasako's performance even if it was to be expected.
    • The removal of Mario's classic voice acting is all the more disappointing when one considers how this is the first game to feature The Original Darrin Charles Martinet after he announced his retirement. Martinet's original performance in the GBA version had what many fans considered to be him at his finest (especially in the true ending/credits), and its reappearance as uncompressed audio in the remake would have been a nice tribute/send-off to the actor in the video games.
  • The changes to the death animations (first shown in the release of the demo and overview trailer), which now look more akin to the traditional death animations from the main games instead of the Slapstick from the many different ways Mario could die. While the standard animation for getting hit by an enemy or hazards was less contentious since Mario only fell over from these, people especially began to take issue with how the fire death was changed to a Rump Roast. Not helping this is that the fire sound effect is drowned out by Mario's voice clip and the death jingle. It's likely these were changed because Nintendo thinks the old animations are too violent now, but fans lament the loss of a key comedic element from the game.^note However, it was discovered that death animations resembling the original ones were Dummied Out in the demo files, further suggesting the new ones were a result of Executive Meddling at the very least. Either that or the animations were from an old build, since this is a demo released two weeks before the game's official release date, and some of these animations were seen in the files. An ad for the game after the demo's release showed that Mario getting Squashed Flat is the only unchanged animation while every other death animation was the typical death throes, this led to a number of fans convinced that the other death animations were deemed too violent and not cartoony enough, hence them getting scrubbed out. By extension, Icy variants of fireballs in Slippery Summit mean that a new freezing death animation could have been made had it not been for the changes.
  • The removal of the original bonus minigames in favor of a bonus platformer level also has left fans split. Some like it for the gameplay being incorporated into it and don't miss the old levels, others preferred the simple yet quirky nature of the original minigames, and dislike the new one for how it's no longer connected to the gift boxes collected in levels and feel like they could have coexisted with the new minigame.
  • The end screens for clearing a world being changed to a "YEAH!" Shot of Mario on a simple background themed to the world are also seen as another unfavorable change by some. This not only meant the action shots of Mario fighting DK and the renders of Mario interacting with the Mini Marios not being remade, but also more instances of Mario's other dialogue being stuck as compressed versions on the GBA version as mentioned above.
  • On more minor notes, fans even looked to how the animations felt less dramatic and/or felt stiff even when not compared to the original such as Donkey Kong not reacting much to things being thrown at him or how Mario and company come across as considerably nicer to Donkey Kong (which consequently makes Donkey Kong himself come across as meaner for no reason without the added meanness thrown in).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Of the Mario characters who had amiibo at the time of Mini Mario & Friends: amiibo Challenge, Wario is the only one who doesn't get his own Mini in the game. Not helping that this was also around the Audience-Alienating Era after the release of Game & Wario.

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