In March of the Minis, after the success of the Mini Mario toy line introduced in the first MvsDK, three new lines are developed - Mini Peach, Mini Donkey Kong, and Mini Toad. To help Mario unveil the new toys to the Mushroom Kingdom, Pauline (who has become extremely well-endowed since her 2D incarnation…seriously, holy crap those things are huge, but I digress…) has agreed to appear as a special guest. From here, the story is as old as time itself. Big gorilla falls in love with girl in dress, offers toy, gets rejected, goes apeshit loco, kidnaps girl, plumber and mini toys to the rescue.

So anyway, March of the Minis is played through control of the mindless Mini Mario toys using the stylus. The basic point of the game is to get as many of the toys past danger and into the door leading to the next area as possible. In the demo you only needed to rescue one Mario toy to move on, but that may change for the final version (harder levels requiring you to rescue more, perhaps). The kicker is that these toys are more like lemmings than anything else. They'll just keep moving until either they reach the goal or they die, so you have to keep your eye on all of them to make sure they're safe.

You use the stylus to both manipulate the Minis and the environment. A push in one direction will send the Mini aimlessly marching that way, until either a push in the opposite direction to turn him around or a tap to stop him, or death/goal. You'll also need to push buttons, pull levers, and anything else Nintendo decides they want you to do to the environment to keep the Minis out of danger and get them where they need to go. Along the way there are, of course, bonus items to collect. Not really sure what these do yet, or if they're just for bragging rights, but often times they do take you out of your way and are not easy to obtain, just like any bonus in a Mario game. Up to you if you want to go for them or not, but more hardcore gamers will likely feel the need to at least try to get as many as possible.

If nothing else, this game requires one thing from you - the ability to pay attention to multiple things happening at a time, and to split your attention between all of the Minis moving around the board as well as traps, devices, and baddies that may be getting in your way. Both a direct sequel and a slight departure from the last Mario vs. Donkey Kong, March of the Minis will likely appeal to many who enjoyed the first game, as well as a new audience who might have missed out. Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 launches September 25 of this year across the US.