head to head

Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem! cover artvsPsychonauts 2 cover art

Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem!vsPsychonauts 2

Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem! leans Optimization (Pure Optimization); Psychonauts 2 leans Optimization (Practiced Mastery).

EXECUTION4 /10READS0 /10VARIANCE1 /10OPTIMIZATION7 /10
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem!Psychonauts 2

Axis by axis

Execution4 vs 5

Psychonauts 2 leans harder on execution: Moderate platforming and combat timing, forgiving by design

Reads0 vs 0

Even - both lean on reads about the same.

Variance1 vs 1

Even - both lean on variance about the same.

Optimization7 vs 6

Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem! leans harder on optimization: Planning girder placements for perfect scores is the real game

Two games can score the same on an axis and still test it in very different ways - read each rationale, not just the number.

full breakdown

Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem!

full breakdown

Psychonauts 2