Dump Bin Diving: Mario VS. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again

 

With the announce­ment of a New Mario and Don­key Kong game being announced yes­ter­day, I thought we would do thing prop­erly here and look at a game in the series you can down­load right now, from home. Mario VS. Don­key Kong: Minis March Again is avail­able on the DSI, DSI XL, and all forms of the 3DS. The game was added the DSI­Ware ser­vice in 2009 and is avail­able to down­load on the 3DS eShop. Unlike the orig­i­nal game in the series, Mario VS. Don­key Kong which was hark­ing back to the Don­key Kong (1981), the newer titles plays more like Lem­mings. They are puz­zle types, cre­at­ing path­ways for your minis to reach the goal. Minis March Again is the sec­ond game, after March of the Minis, to pick up this puz­zle for­mula. MMA has four dif­fer­ent floors con­tain­ing 8 dif­fer­ent lev­els, plus a boss and spe­cial level. There is a base­ment and rooftop floors you can unlock after you have earned enough stars on the pre­vi­ous lev­els. On top of the main game there is a level edi­tor, which has online func­tion­al­ity for upload­ing and down­load­ing lev­els, great thing is, it still works. There are plenty of user cre­ated lev­els to down­load and you can still cre­ate and upload your own. The gam­play and graph­ics still hold up for being a older down­load­able title. This is a great way to get into the puz­zle series if you haven’t yet. Minis March Again is on the eShop and DSI­Ware for $7.99. If you are look­ing to get into the series before the new one arrives this year, this is your best route. March of the Minis can fetch a hefty $50 for a new copy and the sequel to Minis March Again, Mini-Land May­hem is still avail­able every­where but runs $29.99. The only com­plaints I have is if you don’t plan on going through the plus lev­els, or try to unlock the base­ment of rooftop lev­els, the game can be pretty short. The boss lev­els, while dif­fer­ent from puz­zle lev­els, can be tedious at times.

 

Is it Worth it: Oh my yes. Even if you are not look­ing to get into the series and want some­thing to play over the week­end or if you are bounc­ing from air­port to air­port, this is a great game to get your brain going. There is enough Nin­tendo charm to keep you smil­ing at the end of each level and with the down­load ser­vice still run­ning, there are enough addi­tional maps to keep you going for quite a while. For what it is worth I have seen full blown DS games that don’t have the value this $8 title has.

 

Mario VS Don­key Kong: Minis March Again — avail­able on the DSI­Ware and the 3DS eShop for $7.99

 

Dump Bin Div­ing is posted every Fri­day. It is a look at games that are with in a $20 bud­get, that may or may not be worth your time and hard earned money. The games maybe down­load­able or disc based.