I heard you were waiting for a game — some sort of killer app, if you will — that would make you feel like the Nintendo Switch 2 has finally launched. Well, here it is. Donkey Kong Bananza is a 3D platformer that serves as a showcase of what Nintendo does best: creating an entire game that revolves around one, single unique idea and making sure that the final product delivers nothing short of pure, unbridled joy.
Our story starts with DK in a cave. Immediately, Nintendo wants you to know just how strong he is. With a single swipe of his paws, DK can chew through chunks of rock. Keep spamming that punch button and before you know it, you’ll be carving out new pathways up, down, left, or right in any environment you find yourself in. I’m not kidding when I say I spent a good 10 minutes in the tutorial cave just seeing how much destruction I could cause.
The answer is a lot. I destroyed the entire damn tutorial cave. I mean of course there are limits to how much you can destroy, but that tiny little cave turned into a giant hall by the time I was done with it.
Prior to this, I’d only ever dabbled in a little bit of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and was almost immediately turned away by how difficult it could be for a platforming newbie like myself. So I wasn’t so sure that Donkey Kong Bananza would be for me. The good news, then, is that in terms of difficulty, players can expect this one to fall more in line with the likes of Super Mario Odyssey.
Donkey Kong Bananza is more about 3D exploration than anything else, with the occasional puzzle and challenge rooms thrown into the mix for folks looking for a little difficult spike. But for the rest of us mere mortals who just want to revel in the sheer joy of the game and have a fun romp through its story, you can absolutely do that.
A little ways into the game, you’ll meet Pauline and gain access to DK’s Bananza Mode which lets him go, well, bananas. His punches deal more damage, he moves faster, and he just turns into a wrecking ball of destruction. While DK mostly speaks in grunts and excited “hmm”s when he sees bananas, he plays off well with Pauline, who uses her singing abilities to pave the way forward for DK. They make an unlikely pair but they also lend a genuine sense of earnestness to Donkey Kong Bananza that you so often see in Nintendo’s first-party games.
As you progress through the story, you’ll be rewarded with bananas. Five bananas earn you a skill point, which can then be put towards increasing DK’s health, strength, Bananza Mode upgrades, or other skills that might make your life easier, like a wider radius for DK’s palm smack that lets him collect gold and items around him. Just like the Moons in Super Mario Odyssey, there are literally hundreds of bananas to be collected in Donkey Kong Bananza.
Unlike in Odyssey, however, progression isn’t tied to the number of bananas you get. In fact, you could probably get away with beating the entire game without investing your skill points at all, and I, for one, will be looking forward to watching challenge runs of this game as the weeks go by. While the main story itself doesn’t pose much of a challenge, there’s plenty of content to chew through after the credits roll.
Like most other Nintendo platformers, the post-game is where the real challenge begins, which should please genre fans. By the end of the game, I’d already collected literally hundreds of bananas, but there are still plenty more to find. Whether they’re in hidden corners of the world, or tucked away in challenge rooms that will seriously test your skills and how well you understand the game’s mechanics.
Some challenge rooms are simple, only requiring you to defeat enemies within a time limit. Others are far more tricky, tasking you with maneuvering through obstacles while dealing with foes, or finding hidden items in weird corners of the room that you wouldn’t even think of checking. It’s in these challenge rooms where Donkey Kong Bananza really shines. They challenge you to think outside of the box and come up with weird, interesting ways of using DK’s powers to uncover new methods of progression.
This is very much a game that loves saying “yes” to the player. DK can climb almost every surface in the game, punch through anything, and while that might sound like it’s veering too close to the territory of giving the player too much freedom and making things too easy, Donkey Kong Bananza threads the needle beautifully. Yes, you can do almost anything you want. And yes, this game will constantly find new ways to surprise you around those same mechanics.
Along the way, you’ll also find yourself picking up fossils and Banadium Gems, currencies that can be exchanged for other items. You’ll likely spend most of your fossils on new cosmetics for DK, some of which give you minor stat boosts. As someone who absolutely adores character customization in games like these, I found myself whittling away hours just hunting down fossils so that I could unlock every fur dye option for DK, and all the trousers and ties I could get my hands on.
Donkey Kong Bananza is one of the most joyful games I’ve played this year. It’s a solid 3D platformer that won’t disappoint genre fans, and a reminder of just how delightful video games can be.
You can check out our review policy here. Reviewed on Switch 2.
