I say this as a lifelong Nintendo fan and a proud launch day Switch 2 owner – the launch lineup for Switch 2 games was weak. Sure, Mario Kart World is an excellent new instalment to an all-time franchise, but for those not enamoured with the online race scene, it’s not something you can sink your teeth into for hours on end. Enter the great ape, swinging in to save Nintendo fans from a mire of mediocrity and upgrade packs. The ‘Leader of the Bunch’ himself, Donkey Kong, blasted onto the scene to give us the staple Nintendo 3D platformer and the Switch 2 title we all craved in Donkey Kong Bananza.
First things first – I was not especially enamoured with the new look DK when he was revealed. I understand the need to give characters a shake-up and freshen the look a little, but at first glance, I thought the stern-faced Rareware version beat the brakes off this gormless, slack-tongued new interpretation. But I’ll confess that the new look won me over as I played Bananza. This new age DK is expressive in ways he never has been before; his over-the-top facial expressions have a truly cartoon vibe, transforming Donkey Kong from a video game conduit into a Saturday morning superstar. Perhaps the most notable comparison is how much more of a character Toon Link was in Wind Waker versus the more serious instalments – the pantomime facial expressions inject an incredible amount of flavour and fun to proceedings, and that’s exactly the same here. While it’s obviously a matter of opinion, I think the change was a good one in the end.
The introduction of the game shows DK working as part of a mining operation, excavating valuable crystal bananas alongside a gaggle of other undersized primates, but where they’re using puny pickaxes to slowly dig through the earth, DK uses his trusty fists to smash through whatever stands in his way. Once the nefarious Void Company swoops in and tries to hoard all the ‘nanas for themselves, DK’s thrust into the role of hungry hero, navigating a great underground world in search of delectable crystal bananas so that he can power up and overthrow the thieves. Along the way he’s united with the young singer, Pauline – lost in the underground and longing to get home to grandma, DK brings her along for the ride unaware that she’ll be instrumental in overcoming Void Kong and his cronies.
In the pre-release cycle I thought the gameplay looked very Super Mario Odyssey-esque, and having now played Bananza, I do think that’s a good comparison – hardly surprising since both games had the same development team and producer in Kenta Motokura. But where Odyssey had you morphing Mario into different enemies to take on their traits and solve puzzles with ingenuity, DK solves his problems the only way he knows how – with pure brawn.
Bananza is a sandbox game in the most literal sense, since almost every piece of terrain is destructible. There’s separate buttons to attack forwards, above or beneath you, giving DK a full range of smashability that makes tunnelling mere child’s play. Perhaps the most helpful feature is DK’s clap skill – this acts like an echolocator, which highlights collectable items that are close by, giving you a sense of where to set your sights next. As well as your ability to Wreck It Ralph your way through whole levels, DK also learns special moves called Bananzas along the way, which allow him to temporarily transform into different hulking animal forms, each with their own signature moves for traversal or combat.
Since many of the collectables are stashed underground, I became concerned in the early goings that I’d spend the whole game burrowing around beneath the earth, making the pretty level design above ground somewhat obsolete. And while that’s somewhat true in the first few levels, realistically Nintendo are just letting you get your feet wet before slapping a number of tricky obstacles in the way (like poisonous water and molten hot lava) that make wanton smashing a risky business. Once I had to start being more careful, I found that many more traditional platforming elements came into play and the game became a much more well-rounded experience as a result.
While it might sound daft, Bonanza is hard to put down because it’s so damned playable. Crystal bananas and ancient fossils (the in-game currency) are hidden everywhere – sometimes mere metres apart – and it’s delightfully easy to charge from one success to the next without ever needing a real strategy or plan of attack. Now, I have to say that the level of difficulty never comes close to rivalling that of other platformers (whether that’s the Donkey Kong Country Returns games or Mario Odyssey), which all have sections requiring real platforming chops if you want to 100% the game. Between DK’s new pantomime facial expressions and the low skill ceiling, Bananza feels like a gateway title for younger or less experienced players, easing them into the genre, hoping to nurture a lifelong obsession with more hardcore challenges.
Bananza hits a sweet spot by giving you plenty to do and making each small task enjoyable – you might not get a great sense of achievement from the individual parts, but the sum more than makes up for it. Speaking on a more macro level, I feel like the pacing is a little bit off though. After a haphazard and chaotic introduction, you quickly settle into a sense of repetition that results in an experience that’s a little like an undercooked loaf – rather stodgy in the middle. Thankfully though, Bananza roars back with a truly excellent closing act and finale that left me more than satisfied.
As you collect crystal bananas, you’ll earn Skill Points which you can spend to upgrade DK’s stats (like his health or punching power) or to unlock entirely new abilities. While I really liked this idea, I didn’t think it was implemented as well as it could have been, mainly owing to how many bananas you can collect in quick succession and how quickly you can max out the meaningful improvements. It might not be so simple if there were a multitude of incredibly useful skills available, but honestly, I got through the majority of the game without buying a lot of the upgrades, and even once I had them, I didn’t really use them. The Bananza forms are far from balanced either – while they have specific uses, one of them is hardly required at all and one of them is so ridiculously powerful that once you unlock it, you’ll hardly use anything else. I’ll give them an ‘A’ for effort but a ‘B-’ for execution.
The level design in Bananza moves away from the Odyssey template that saw you navigating a few massive open worlds, and instead breaks levels down into more manageable parts. Since you spend the game digging into the depths of the planet, each world in Bananza is known as a ‘layer’, and each layer is split down into a few separate ‘sublayers’. The characters, enemies and overall theme stays the same between the sublayers, but splitting things up gives a much more traditional feel of progressing through individual levels than Odyssey had. To be honest, the amount of square footage to navigate is probably comparable between the two games, but I found playing through separate layers in Bananza a lot less daunting than the vast scale presented to Mario and Cappy.
The levels themselves have an impressive verticality to them that makes them incredibly fun to explore. Whether you’re barrel blasting onto floating platforms in the sky or digging your way hundreds of metres below the earth, you can tell there’s been a concerted effort to make the world DK inhabits feel as tall as it is expansive. Spying a collectable up on a high ledge and scaling the walls like King Kong to reach it actually gave me the same sense of exploration from Bananza that I got from Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, just without any annoying stamina to slow you down. Not a comparison I expected to make for DK, but certainly a welcome one.
Lastly, I think the character design in Bananza deserves great praise, not only for the aforementioned improvement to DK’s character, but for reintroducing Pauline as a genuinely excellent sidekick. Nintendo have done a masterful job of making the tiny teen songstress into a loveable assistant to the hulking DK, always shouting words of encouragement and singing the theme songs to your Bananza transformations. Perhaps the most engaging interactions are when you rest at a new getaway for the first time, as Pauline rambles on to DK about her pre-sleep thoughts, discussing things about the area you’re in, the characters you’ve met and offering insights into her past. I wasn’t enthused by Pauline in any way before Bananza but I’ve now done a complete 180 on the character, and can’t wait to see how she fits into the Donkey Kong universe going forward.
Donkey Kong Bananza is an absolute blast. Barreling through vibrant non-linear worlds and pulverising everything in your path is incredible fun from the moment you pick up the controls. Donkey Kong feels more like a main character than ever before, and Pauline might be the most lovable sidekick Nintendo have ever produced – I’m genuinely excited to see her become a staple of the franchise for years to come. It’s a collectathon that’s driven by addictive playability and avoids the banana skin of becoming a grind like Donkey Kong 64 before it. The smaller, multi-part levels feel less daunting than the huge expanses in Super Mario Odyssey, but are just as varied and exactly as fun. Despite not offering the same degree of challenge as Mario’s last epic and getting a little bogged down in the middle, Bananza is a great time, and finally gives DK a 3D instalment that fans can be proud of.
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