Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars Reviews
I see myself getting a ton of mileage out the Workshop and Community options, which should keep me engaged for quite a while longer. If you are novice at puzzlers, Tipping Stars might be the game for you. Veterans will have to give this one a hard look, as it might only please them in the latter half of the journey.
The amount of content in Mario vs Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars is great, but its lack of new ideas isn't.
Tipping Stars is just about what you'd expect from a modern Mario vs. Donkey Kong title: unique, fun in short bursts, and inexpensive—but nevertheless, nothing terribly exciting. Although it certainly is the product of Nintendo's B-game (in contrast to the blockbuster, irresistibly creative products it's known for churning out elsewhere), it's a nifty $20 distraction that does include a respectably versatile level designer and affiliated online sharing system.
Mario Vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars is not a bad puzzle platformer, it just doesn't bring anything new to the table. The cross-buy between Wii U and 3DS is a welcome bonus, but perhaps this was done because the game feels very much like mini game for your phone and is not very well suited for either of the two systems.
Unlike previous Mario vs Donkey Kong games, which were mostly effortless recommendations, Tipping Stars is a game where the recommendation comes with a lot of caveats. As long as you keep those in mind, and keep your expectations tempered, there is no reason to not get the game at all. For what it is, Mario vs Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars is well made and a lot of fun.
The conundrums are clever, the characters cute, but there's precious little inspiration in Mario and Donkey Kong's latest puzzler
'Tipping Stars', Nintendo's latest installment in the 'Mario vs. Donkey Kong' series, offers up tons of content and compelling central mechanic, but struggles to justify its price point.
Removing "what", limiting "where," and focusing on "when" limits what can really be done in the main stages. The minimal "storytelling" that wraps the main game suggests where the developers wanted the focus to be: in the experimentation and design of the Workshop and in the sharing of the Community. That other stuff? Just a tech demo.
The best part of playing Tipping Stars is finding a devilishly clever community-made level to enjoy, but is that good enough? The basic gameplay in this entry just seems uninspired, especially its main campaign. It feels like Nintendo's famed devotion to fun first is simply missing from the game, which merely ports a too-familiar formula to new devices. It's time to just let these lemmings jump off the cliff.
A disappointingly familiar entry in the long-running puzzle series, that comes across as very cheap (in terms of production values, if not price) but not particularly cheerful.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars takes too long before it truly tickles your brain.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars is not bad. It is essentially Mini-Land Mayhem! with visual and technical upgrades. It never instills any sense of wonder or accomplishment, and it often feels more like work than play. It's a very paint-by-numbers affair; for a puzzle game it doesn't actually require much thinking, only doing. It is a game that exists, and that's about as much as there is to say about it.
And as a game in its own right? You can't accuse it of being short on content, features or ideas, but it's hardly long on them either, and it's a shade overpriced for what it is. Perhaps worse, you can tell that Tipping Stars is a game made with care but without passion, a game that isn't its own raison d'�tre. Like the little clockwork Marios marching toward their goal, it's got purpose, but it's not the real, joyful thing.