Donkey Kong Bananza

Donkey Kong Bananza has been my game for the rest of the Summer, where it's arguably one of the two must-have titles for the Nintendo Switch 2, the other being Mario Kart World. Still, I was hesitating for a long time whether I really want this game or not, for reasons explained later, but ultimately I do not regret the purchase and my time with it.

Not only is this game the actual successor to the beloved Super Mario Odyssey, but it's also taking some inspirations from Zelda. The game's core mechanic, however, may even be something to be copied by Zelda in the future, so let's take some notes... Read more for a deep dive into the adventure of Donkey Kong and Pauline.

Super Mario Odyssey 2 

Yes, Donkey Kong Bananza is truly the successor to Super Mario Odyssey, even when it doesn't have "Super Mario" in its title. But both franchises are heavily connected anyway, since Mario originated from the arcade Donkey Kong. With the same development team at its back, Bananza has the same DNA and follows a very similar structure, just with a DK- and digging-themed reskin.

Instead of a journey to the moon, you're on a journey to the planet's core. Instead of gathering moons, you're eating lots of Banandium Gems. Instead of collecting purple coins, you're collecting fossils. Instead of 2D sprite sections, you get a few recreations of classic Donkey Kong Country levels. Each layer on your journey behaves like a small open world area, just like the different kingdoms. And you will also encounter different tribes and species on most of them. Except this time you won't encounter any uncannily realistic humans, where the overall character designs feel more closer to what Rare did in the past with Banjo Kazooie.

The core difference is really the main mechanic. Super Mario Odyssey focused on controlling enemies via Cappy, while Donkey Kong Bananza is all about smashing through terrain. This already reflects in its mostly simplistic controls: you can jump, punch forward, punch down, and punch up, with a different face button for each of these actions. With the shoulder buttons you can rip put chunks of terrain and use them as a surf board, or throw them. But you can also make music and create something like a sonar wave (with a hand slap), which both helps you to find things.

The ability to destroy almost everything and freely punch tunnels through the terrain is very satisfying, with all certainty the main selling point. You would expect this to become boring eventually, but it doesn't wear out so easily and gets always refreshed with new ideas, like different types of terrain. The game's visual clarity suffers a lot from it, however, where all the destruction and chaos can make things confusing easily. The game can get a little overwhelming at times, despite its simplistic controls.

All the destruction may also sound like every completionist's nightmare, where you might be inclined to dig through absolutely everything, but Bananza handles this rather well. While smashing through the rocks, you will randomly find treasure chests with goodies, which can also contain treasure maps.

These maps show you the location of any missing Banandium Gems or fossils, so you know exactly where to look for things. You can also purchase them from the gold you collect, but since this isn't the only way to get them, it doesn't feel like "cheating" or giving up, unlike with the moon locations in Super Mario Odyssey. 

Progression is also different from Odyssey. You do not need to collect the Banandium Gems in order to get to the next layer. That's entirely based on exploration and clearing certain objectives in the story, usually resulting in a boss fight at the end of each layer. The Banandium Gems serve as skill points for upgrading Donkey Kong's abilities. This can be more health, stronger punches, additional moves, and more. There is a lot to unlock here, where the Banandium Gems don't suddenly become useless after obtaining half of them, unlike the moons in Super Mario Odyssey.

In fact, even when you've collected all 929 bananas it won't be enough to unlock everything. You will have to purchase the remaining 71, for a total of 1000. In order to buy more bananas you have to collect Banandium Chips, in addition to all the gold, where one banana costs 100 chips at the end. And this can be a bit of a grind, because you won't nearly enough from playing through the game normally. (I found the Wallopoids x5 challenge room on the Feast Layer to be the quickest and easiest.)

Anyway, the second pillar of the gameplay in Donkey Kong Bananza are the eponymous "Bananzas". Those are temporary transformations into different animals, which greatly increase your destruction power and/or your mobility. It's Donkey Kong in Hypermode, but without its downsides. You will refill the "Bananergy" by collecting gold and chips, which makes this seemingly unbalanced, because you will get more of those anyway when you're transformed, which easily allows you to stay in a Bananza form for a long time. Only with the mobility-focused transformations (like the Zebra and the Ostrich) or in challenging environments you may actually run out.

In a way, this is the answer to the capturing enemies in Super Mario Odyssey, though it feels more like Majora's Mask, because all of the Bananzas are a lot more versatile and fully developed playable characters. The Ostrich, for example, let's you glide through the air and attack with egg bombs from above.

Sadly, the one thing that's truly absent from Super Mario Odyssey is the enemy variety. You will encounter the same couple of basic enemies in every layer, which only come in different variations based on the materials they are coated with. The boss fights in the game are also underwhelmingly easy, with a few exceptions.

Also, Pauline is a much more talkative companion than Cappy, where her constant comments can be annoying at times. But at least the Void Corp employees have more charm and personality than the Broodals did.

 

Legend of Donkey Kong

While playing Donkey Kong Bananza, you might also notice some similarities to the more recent Zelda games. First of all, since you can punch easily into the ground, you should also be easily able to get out of the holes you've just made. And therefore Donkey Kong is as much of a free climber than Link in Breath of the Wild – even more so, because he does it without any limitations to speed or duration.

The only thing that will stop him are certain surfaces, like thorns, ice, and smooth metals, which you will often find in the game's Challenge Rooms. Those are very reminiscent of the shrines in Breath of the Wild in style, only with a slightly more psychedelic atmosphere.

And while the whole game takes place underground, most of the layers are structured much more like large sky islands. This gets already obvious on the Lagoon Layer, the game's first major area, where its golden colors bring forth memories of the floating lands in Tears of the Kingdom.

Going back to Tears of the Kingdom might be difficult after playing Bananza, however, especially with the cave explorations. You will certainly miss the convenience of DK's punches there and wish that you could transform into some Goron on steroids...

At one point you also get that "Link tries to reach for Zelda's hand, as she is falling down into the abyss" moment, only with Donkey Kong and Pauline. It almost feels like a parody. Another throwback is to the Sign Maze from Link's Awakening, where Bananza has a similar puzzle waiting for you on its Resort Layer. 

The game also has a heart-based health bar, where you even get yellow extra hearts after resting on a bed, where it looks like Nintendo wants to establish this as a universal design pattern. The health is more gradual than in Zelda, however, where you can lose percentages of a heart while staying in poison or alike.

Another trend adopted from the Zelda series is that the collectible outfits will grant you different perks. You can change your tie, your trousers, your fur, and later in the game also your hat, while Pauline gets whole wardrobe changes. And only the fur is purely visual. For the most part, the ties make collecting things easier, while your trousers offer aid for different environments and Pauline's perks are related to the Bananzas, mainly increasing their duration. But there are some exceptions. For example, the Soggy Cravat protects you from lava, which is incredibly helpful in a lot of the later challenges.

Though, overall there isn't really much of a strategy to this. You can obtain new outfits from collecting fossils on each layer and usually the new outfits you get are more useful on that specific layer, so you often just wear the latest unlocks.

 

FOMO Kong

Donkey Kony Bananza is clearly one of the best Nintendo Switch 2 exclusives as of now, arguably even the best, but it doesn't even register a third of the sales of Mario Kart World. And Nintendo seems to be desperate to advertise this title with strategies that you normally would expect from a free-to-play mobile game. Whether you like this stuff or not, the last two months had three concurrent time-limited events going on. It's almost absurd for a full-priced title.

One was the "DK Challenge" as part of the Nintendo Switch Online offerings. In North America you could even obtain physical items as a reward here for clearing all challenges. The rest revolves around the game's DLC, DK Island & Emerald Rush, which has these regular events going, lasting for one week. Here can win exclusive in-game statues to decorate DK Island. And there was also a Super Mario Bros. collaboration recently for the the 40th Anniversary, which was purely cosmetic, but there was a special music disc that could only be obtained during the event. (Music discs are yet another collectible in the game, where you can change the music in certain locations.)

Hopefully, the Emerald Rush events will be repeatable in the future, but it's questionable whether the other stuff will ever make a return... And that's a shame, because the base game itself is mostly fun to complete, where all this FOMO nonsense is putting a dent into an otherwise fantastic singleplayer experience.