It might be tempting to see Mario reduced to a clockwork doll with a key in his back as a telling metaphor for Nintendo's ruthless exploitation of its own world-beating IP, but the truth is that it's hard to pick up Minis without getting quickly drawn in to the series' particular brand of cheery brainteasing. Granted, this is hardly the most drastic of sequels, but it didn't need to be: instead, it stands as an indicator that, even as the DSi heads ever deeper into the online space, on some level at least, it's still business as usual.
