Donkey Kong Bananza

Genre: 3D Platformer

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

.

Review:

When a new console launches, one of the major things people look for is the big “system seller” platform-exclusive title, a game that is not only an early highlight of the console’s lineup, but a game that makes it so that people will want to get the console specifically so they can play it. It’s not an obligatory requirement for game consoles to have this – both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 lacked any absolute must-have game in their launch lineup, and still went on to be two of the greatest game consoles ever made. But often it can be a bad sign for what’s to come for a new game platform if there’s nothing like this at launch.

I don’t think anyone has been predicting doom and gloom for the Nintendo Switch 2, and I think generally people were pleased with the console’s launch. But I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to say that there wasn’t really a system seller in the launch lineup. Don’t get me wrong, I think Mario Kart World is an excellent game, and Fast Fusion is outstanding, but neither felt like something that would truly make people say “you need to get a Nintendo Switch 2 so you can play this game”. No, for that, you would have to wait about a month.

Yeah, I’m not burying the lead on this – Donkey Kong Bananza is the first absolute must-have exclusive game on the Nintendo Switch 2.

.

He’s Finally Back, To Kick Some Tail

Donkey Kong has repeatedly been a game-changer in Nintendo’s history, with both the original arcade Donkey Kong game and Donkey Kong Country being massive hits that helped shape the videogame industry. Despite this, Nintendo hasn’t really been treating Donkey Kong like a major franchise lately. His last new starring role in a game was over a decade ago in 2014’s Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze on Wii U.

With Donkey Kong Bananza releasing in 2025 a mere month after the launch of Nintendo Switch 2, the big ape is not merely being shoved into the spotlight to fill in for the absence of a new Mario game, he’s rightfully taking a spotlight that’s well-deserved. This isn’t just some family-friendly 3D Platformer, it’s not a Mario re-skin, and it’s not merely a graphical showpiece that’s all style and no substance. This is a game that combines gameplay elements from the 3D Mario games, the Donkey Kong Country series, and entirely new and original elements to make something both wholly original but also very familiar.

The premise here is that DK has come to Ingot Isle after hearing their mining operation has discovered crystallized bananas called banandium gems, excited to try this large, tasty new treat. However, not long after he arrives, the entire place is thrown asunder by the arrival of Void Co., a company represented by a trio of villainous monkeys headed by Void Kong. The group tears apart the mining operation and heads farther underground to purloin as many banandium gems as it can find. Of course, DK can’t have this, so he heads off in pursuit, soon after joined by the diminutive Odd Rock, who sits on his shoulder and helps him out. Before long, Odd Rock is broken apart to reveal a now-freed teenage version of Pauline (instantly destroying all attempts at making sense of Donkey Kong’s timeline). The pair join together after being told the bottom of the mines hold the key to returning Pauline to her home on the surface (and DK is just in it to get more banandium).

It’s quite a lot of story for a Donkey Kong game, but players needn’t worry, this is all about the gameplay, and the story mainly acts to set up the premise that DK is gradually going deeper and deeper into the Earth, into worlds called layers that often seem suspiciously well-lit as if they were on the surface, with Pauline joining him to activate magical “Bananza” transformations through her singing.

.

Makes Crushing Rocks Seem Such a Breeze

Each layer has its own theme – you have your beach-themed layer, your grassland-themed layer, your snow-themed layer, and so on. And each layer is further split up into multiple sub-layers, basically you have worlds and levels. These are connected via massive circular chasms, and there are multiple connections linking them together. So what you have here is kinda’ a combination of Super Mario Odyssey-sized free-roaming levels connected via The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom-style chasms.

Within each level, you’ll find that this game is built around two core mechanics. First, DK can climb just about anywhere, save for slick surfaces, in much the same way as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom’s Link but without any stamina gauge to worry about. However, more noticeably, DK can wreck nearly everything in the level.

Okay, not everything everything. Some substances can’t be broken, or require other means to break them. However, the overwhelming majority of each of this game’s levels can be ripped apart and stripped to the bedrock if you wanted to. Donkey Kong is incredibly destructive, and even lightly bumping into things or dropping down from above causes damage to the environment, and DK can tunnel through the earth, or rip chunks up from the ground to toss at enemies or “surf” on.

So the first thing I need to get into here is that Donkey Kong’s move set is extremely satisfying. A is jump and the other face buttons all have DK pummel forward, upward, or downward, ZL grabs stuff, ZL lets you roll, R lets you slap the ground or clap in the air to gather nearby collectibles and also use a sort of sonar to reveal nearby buried treasures, and L has Pauline sing, which has multiple uses in-game.

It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you do it all works pretty well – having three different punch buttons really shows you that this is a major element of the gameplay, and combinations work as you’d expect, such as the downward punch used mid-jump turning your jump into a butt stomp of sorts. Just moving around is a breeze – you can roll, use a mid-air jump, then roll again, giving us a modern version of Donkey Kong Country’s “Coyote Time” jumps that feels like Super Mario Odyssey’s jump-Cappy-dive-bounce-Cappy-dive combo that’s a staple for more skilled players to get extra distance in a jump. Combine these natural-feeling gymnastics with smart context-sensitive use of commands, such as how grabbing when not near an object has you rip off a section of flooring or wall, or can be used to catch objects flung by enemies. Everything just flows very nicely in a way that we’re used to with Mario, while still making DK feel like he has a lot of heft and absurd amounts of muscle to throw around in ways Mario never could.

However, while movement is fluid and natural, the star here has to be the destruction. it is so immensely satisfying being able to rip apart just about everything, use random parts of the environment as a melee weapon and slam them into a massive enemy who is literally torn apart by your attacks.

Especially early on, you can use this destruction to bypass intended puzzles to reach collectibles through walls, floors, or ceilings just by tunneling to them with your fists. However, this game wisely makes sure that as the game goes on you have to increasingly show mastery over skills, rather than just making everything accessible by digging to it.

.

And This Time, He’s In the Mood

This leads to the next thing of note here – destruction in this game is not mindless, though you might be tempted to think so. New players will likely enjoy tearing apart every inch of the game’s earlier levels, but quickly enough you’ll learn to save your efforts because there are more effective ways to progress through the game. The banandium gems that act in place of Super Mario Odyssey’s moons are generally not just buried randomly in the environment, and rather they’re usually at points of interest, connected to caves, or behind walls that are conspicuously marked in a way that’s designed to draw your attention. There are also combat challenges, puzzle challenges, and timed challenges hidden away that you can enter.

Donkey Kong Bananza’s levels absolutely carry much the same design ethos of Super Mario Odyssey’s puzzles and challenges, with a ton of variety of things to do. It’s just that these things are all built around DK’s uniquely destructive move set – one part of a level might require you to toss boulders to break apart the dirt that damaging spikes are rolling down to influence their direction, another might require you to use debris to surf over mud so you can maintain enough speed to get from one point to another in time, and yet another might require you to heft hunks of soft sand to stick and form a bridge. Despite DK’s focus on destruction, this game never stops thinking about different ways you can put this to use.

In fact, it is for this reason that some players may find Donkey Kong Bananza to be something of a “slow burn”, as it gradually reveals more and more ideas to the player, opening up over time to reveal just how deep the gameplay here really is. In one of the game’s earlier levels, you find yourself in a bramble-filled forest with poisonous purple sludge separating islands formed by massive trees. To get around, you’ll have to make use of massive seeds that when tossed against a wooden surface turn into a massive vine connecting you to that surface, though these vines only last until you throw the same seed to another spot. Using this, you’ll need to carefully plan out how you’ll make safe pathways for yourself, and you’ll need to rein in your destructive instincts or you’ll soon find yourself with nothing to stand on separating you from the poisonous muck.

And we haven’t even gotten into the Bananza transformations that you earn later on, which act as temporary power-ups that you can activate at any time if you have enough resources to fuel it, with the first one simply supercharging your normal abilities, but later ones granting you super speed and hovering abilities.

All of this is within a game structure that takes an Open-ended 3D Platformer like Super Mario Odyssey and adds RPG-style elements, such as an upgradeable skill tree and stat-boosting equipment. Yes, Donkey Kong got a Platformer with RPG elements before Mario did. This gives players plenty of motivation to fully explore the game’s large levels and solve its puzzles, something that was already a joy to do. I only wish Mario Kart World understood goal design the way this game so very clearly does.

Overall, both the core gameplay mechanics and the level design are immensely creative, possibly better than anything Mario has ever been in. But this is offset by a slow start, since you won’t be seeing much of this stuff until you progress through the game. While this may seem like a shallow destruction derby at first, trust me when I say that the farther into the game, the more you see this ape has both brawn and brains.

.

This Kong’s Got Style, So Listen Up Dudes

Of course, being one of the first major first-party exclusives on Nintendo Switch 2, you would hope that Donkey Kong Bananza acts as a showpiece for the hardware, and you will not be disappointed in this regard. Not only is the extent of the land deformation in Donkey Kong Bananza impressive, but every impact sends tons of bits and pieces flying everywhere, and when things really get going, you can have potentially hundreds of bits of debris littering the massive environments at a time. What’s more, the environments are lush, detailed, and gorgeous, and the character animations are phenomenal, particularly for DK himself, who has tons of personality.

All this gorgeous beauty does result in the seams showing from time to time, though. While the game normally runs at a smooth 60FPS framerate, those framerates can slow down some when the screen gets particularly busy, and at least on one occasion as I plunged into a boss fight I noticed the terrain pop in all at once in an ugly manner. However, overall this is a smooth experience and a visual treat, and a true showpiece for the Nintendo Switch 2.

.

… As We Take You Through This Monkey Rap

While the visuals are amazing, the sound is no less deserving of praise. Through all the destruction, this game does an outstanding job making each substance sound different in a way that really underlines just what it is you’re punching through, whether it’s crumbling rock, squelching mud, or the cracking of the banandium gems.

And while most of this game’s characters are voiced by nonsense noises or DK’s own indecipherable grunts, Pauline is fully-voiced and quite talkative. And while having a talking kid constantly accompanying you could threaten to be extremely annoying, it turns out the reverse is true – Pauline is absolutely charming thanks to excellent voice acting by Jenny Kidd, as well as good writing that takes a one-dimensional character whose history in the Mario series has only ever been “likes Mario”, “screams for help”, and in Super Mario Odyssey “enjoys singing and is a city mayor”. Here, she’s a fully-realized character, whose passion for singing is paired with stage fright at the thought of singing in front of an audience, who tries to put a brave face on her worries about never finding home again, and who’s clearly growing attached to the big lug she’s traveling with.

Curiously, Pauline was added as a character specifically because the game’s creators felt it fit the game’s musical themes, and here is another area where this game absolutely shines. Throughout the game, you’ll occasionally have voiced themes (Kidd apparently also does Pauline’s sung vocals), as well as some really excellent synthesized music, both original and with nods to past games throughout the series. Sadly I don’t currently have a full list to share with you, because this game is absolutely packed with great themes, but just so you have a few examples, check out Breaking Through!, Lagoon Layer Theme, Kong Bananza Theme, and Zebra Bananza Theme, and just know that I don’t have every song to point you to, but trust me when I say this is an outstanding soundtrack.

.

Put Your Hands Together If You Want To Clap…

Beyond the visuals and sound, Donkey Kong Bananza makes it a point to try to use as many unique features of the Nintendo Switch 2 as possible. The game includes an asymmetrical multiplayer mode similar to the one found in Super Mario Galaxy, where a second player can take the role of Pauline, using tangible shouts to attack enemies, which can be done using mouse mode. This gameplay can also be done via Game Share, for those who want to play together remotely.

In addition to this, players can aim using gyroscopic controls, the game features Amiibo support to unlock in-game outfits and get other in-game bonuses. However, once again, the unsung hero of the Nintendo Switch 2 here has to be HD Rumble 2, which does an amazing job making each of the game’s punches feel unique based on what DK is slamming his fists into, yet in a way that doesn’t make the rumble get overbearing or annoying over time.

.

C’mon, Cranky! Take It To The Fridge!

There’s so much more I wanted to go into here, but I feel like I have to end it somewhere. I could talk about the ways that this game respects Donkey Kong’s varied series history while creating something wholly new. I could talk about how this game is a marvelous substitute for a new 3D Mario without feeling too much like a Mario game. I could talk about the immense freedom the game gives players, the wonderful feeling of exploration and discovery, the great combat that fits perfectly with the gameplay, the wildly creative bosses, the way that the overpowered Bananza Transformations act as a “choose your own difficulty level” button, the genius of tying the “sonar” button to a function you use all the time to collect pickups…

However, I’ll just say this: if you were waiting for a game that gave you a reason to buy a Nintendo Switch 2, this is it. Throughout this review, I’ve been comparing this game to other games like Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, games that are among the best games Nintendo has ever made. This is without a doubt the best 3D Donkey Kong game Nintendo has ever released, though this isn’t really saying much. Perhaps more importantly, this is one of the best 3D Platformers ever made, by Nintendo or anyone else. I think only time will tell how I feel it stacks up to the likes of genre-defining masterpieces like Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario Galaxy, but at least right now as I’m playing this with a wide smile across my face, I’d say it’s faring pretty well in that contest.

tl;dr – Donkey Kong Bananza is the long-awaited return of Donkey Kong in a massive family-friendly 3D Platformer that is one of the best games the genre has ever received, giving players the freedom to go almost anywhere and destroy almost everything, yet this destruction is harnessed with exemplary level design and wonderful gameplay, with a gorgeous presentation that is a showpiece for what the Nintendo Switch 2 can do. This game ain’t perfect – it has a slow start and the performance briefly struggles in places. However, none of this changes that this is an absolute must-have game on Nintendo Switch 2, and a reason to buy the console.

Grade: A++

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Jamie and His Cats, Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Homer Simpin, Johannes, Francis Obst, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Jared Wark, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}