Like most Nintendo properties I’m not overly familiar with Donkey Kong, having never played any of the games. I’m aware the Country titles are the sort of mainline games, but what makes them different from Nintendo’s other numerous 2D platformers I couldn’t say at all. However, much like how Kirby and the Forgotten Land was an introduction to Kirby for me, Bananza introduced me to Donkey Kong. While the game likely plays more like Mario Odyssey than a standard DK affair, I think it should appeal to both long-time fans and newcomers.

Gameplay

Now when this game was shown there was speculation that it was from the team that developed Mario Odyssey, and in a rare move Nintendo actually confirmed this before release rather than people having to wait for the credits to roll. It’s a topic for another time on why I think Nintendo should do this more often, but in the case of this game I think the similarities should make it fairly obvious. As Donkey Kong (for some reason usually only called DK in this game), you go around collecting bananas, progressing through different environments that are usually a twist or surprise rather than being standard desert level or something along those lines.

That’s about where the similarities stop though. First, even just the collectathon aspect is entirely optional. Outside of the first banana you encounter you can skip all others and complete the story, and all other collectables are optional as well. The game may prove more of a challenge this way, but unlike Odyssey locking advancement behind moons you have more freedom. And that really is a key philosophy of the whole game as the other major mechanic is nearly fully destructible environments. While contained to a box of either unbreakable barriers or an endless void to fall into, practically the entire world can be destroyed if you so choose. This also means that while the game might be designed to guide you in certain directions, you can go anywhere by simply punching your way through a wall.

Now while entirely optional to story progression, a skill tree mechanic means you’ll likely want to collect at the very least bananas. Five bananas turn into a point to spend, although the usefulness of some upgrades is debatable. I found myself often sitting on 10 or more unused points as I didn’t really know what to spend them on. Health was certainly useful, but other upgrades didn’t necessarily feel impactful. The repetitive and often encountered in rapid succession “ooo banana” voice clip did deter me a little further from collecting as well. When it comes to collecting fossils, I saw even less reason. These provide both cosmetic options in clothing and fur color, with the clothing having an additional benefit. That being said, I chose clothing early on, and only thought to maybe change it as I approached the final boss. Given that it didn’t really seem to affect my experience, I would say you can opt more for form than function in your choices here.

We still haven’t even gotten to the game’s namesake feature, bananza. Essentially with the help of Pauline (yes, she’s here, I’ll talk about her in Story) and a few meetings with elders, Donkey Kong can transform and adopt the abilities of different animals. Admittedly I found most of them to not be that exciting compared to some of the mechanics found in individual worlds. Kong bananza (just a larger gorilla) is fun for breaking through lots of things, making gold farming easier, and similarly the elephant with its ability to destroy hazardous terrain were the most practical in my experience. Zebra’s entire existence seems to be based on crossing terrain that breaks when stepped on by being faster than the rate at which it will fall away, essentially solving a self-made problem. I realize that’s how game mechanics work, a problem exists and a solution exists, but it would be nice if zebra had other uses, especially when it comes to navigating terrain ostrich can be a better option as with the glide skill upgrade it becomes a great way to get to certain areas. The last one is snake, which I don’t think I ever really got the hang of how to use, but even in the world where it’s introduced I struggled to find value in its existence.

Story

Now Donkey Kong at the end of the day is just a banana-loving monkey. If he was the only protagonist then that would be the end of this section, but this game aims to wreck whatever DK canon may have been established by giving us a young Pauline. Having either fallen into the depths and/or been kidnapped (I really don’t remember), she teams up with DK to reach the surface and fulfill her dreams. It’s not particularly deep, but it has its charm. Past here I’ll be spoiling things, so skip ahead to the next section if you don’t want to learn more.

Now in a change from many of Nintendo’s platforming series, this game features voice acting. However, all of the actual talking is done only by Pauline, and really she is the main character of this game. Her arc is becoming confident in her singing ability so she can become who we see in Mario Odyssey. I do think it’s handled a bit clumsily, as by the time you get the final bananza and she does her little concert thing she confidently takes hold of the mic with no hesitation, only to be more reluctant in moments later in the game. Again, I don’t think it’s particularly deep or that anyone was here for the story, the other elements not being particularly moving in any direction of the emotional range, but it’s cute enough.

Graphics & Performance

As the second game on the Switch 2 and one trying something a bit more complicated than Mario Kart I was very interested to see how things both looked and ran. While I didn’t do any comparisons to the closely related Mario Odyssey I would say this game looks better, though camera funkiness makes it a little harder to appreciate at times. Overall I’m once again thankful for the Switch 2 being largely the same as the Switch 1, just more powerful.

That extra power was certainly needed to handle the destructible environments, but there were still noticeable framerate drops and one point the console simply stopped outputting to my TV very briefly, though the game itself didn’t crash. These drops mainly occurred when going crazy with Kong bananza, but during some fights, in particular the final one, I also noticed issues. This is early on in the Switch 2 lifespan, so future titles may avoid these issues, but it seems while games will overall look and run better we won’t always have the smoothest experience. That being said, I never noticed other things like pop-ins or reduced framerate for characters who aren’t even far out of view. Switching between sublayers was also generally issue free, so it was comfortably playable 99% of the time.

The Finale

Obviously spoilers but I wanted to talk about the finale of the game so skip to the conclusion if you want to avoid those. Now when I say the finale I want to touch on what ends up being quite a large portion of the game. After reaching what initially seems to be the last layer, you fight Void Kong one more time, Pauline has her big moment to shine, but to me it clearly seemed like there was more to come.

And oh boy was there a lot more. Turns out K. Rool has been stuck down here for who knows how long, and now he is out to complete his goal of getting the banandium root. What follows is a layer that honestly felt longer than most others, a feeling probably brought on by the repetitive nature. While it feels like it was meant to be a sort of showcase of the entire game, they skip out on a lot of mechanics and enemies. Combined with the fact these enemies haven’t really changed in any way from what has been previously experienced, it gets old fast. There’s also a fakeout final fight where K. Rool is really just a damage sponge, and the following sequence and actual final fight that is another damage sponge drag things out even further. In short, the finale is underwhelming and brought my enjoyment down a bit after an otherwise good experience.

Conclusion

Donkey Kong Bananza is a good game for anyone looking for something to do with their Switch 2, and while I made comparisons to Mario Odyssey it separates itself in a number of ways to stand on its own, though it does not reach the same level of Odyssey. The mechanics don’t feel like they form an entirely cohesive package at times, but I managed to spend essentially a whole weekend doing little more than play this game. And at the end of the day, what more can I ask of a game other than being hard to put down?