Less of a Donkey Kong Eighty-One remake and more of a Mario Sixty-Four premake. The arcade classic entirely revolves around precise platforming under an extremely restrictive moveset, and while some familiar physics quirks remain, DK '94 instead opts for a loose, flexible approach. The one major feature that survived the porting process is the scale of each level, but while the original saw its single-screen stages as linear paths for Jumpman to run through as an ape hurls the kitchen sink at him, the Game Boy edition treats them more like open-ended jungle gyms. The Super Mario 64 comparison is half literal and half figurative: the game features primitive versions of both the side and triple jumps, but these moves are representative of a design philosophy that allows skilled players to cruise through each exit on their own terms. Theoretically, this should clash with the fact that DK '94 is, indeed, a puzzle platformer, but the puzzles in question generally lack a single, strict solution and mostly serve to add variable state to otherwise simple level layouts. This means that they hardly ever slow Mario down, and instead just create another set of tools for players to improvise with while routing through each stage. The microscopic scale justifies itself here- not only because of the pick-up-and-play nature of handheld gaming, but because being able to see most, if not all, of the course at once lets you immediately plan out which parts of it you're going to attempt to skip, bolstered by the return of Lady's lost items as sub-objectives. And of course, this was Nintendo during its apex years, so it's a forgone conclusion that every individual level mechanic in here is introduced and combined with every other one flawlessly. Interestingly, observant Marioheads might notice that this game also features some experimentation with non-failstate punishments that would later define the Wario Land series. Most notably, if Mario falls from a high drop, but not one large to kill him, he'll enter a roll when he lands. This not only leaves him exposed to enemies, but also drops the item he's holding and denies the player control for a few seconds. In a game where quick, stylish traversal is the greatest reward, awkward, time-wasting mistakes may actually be worse than death. Just a fraction of the ingenuity that makes up, in my opinion, the very best OG Game Boy title.