I was so sure that Nintendo would launch the Switch 2 with a new Mario adventure. So, Nintendo being Nintendo, of course they launched with Donkey Kong instead. Mean Mr. Kong hasn’t been in a 3D adventure of his own since way back with the N64, and that effort was… polarising, at best. So polarising Nintendo hasn’t deemed it fit to make it available on the retro consoles yet. But then, we’re not here to talk about that one. We’re here to talk about the Donk’s second 3D outing and, thankfully, Bananza is much less likely to be polarising.
Donkey is underground now. Deep underground. Mining for… bananas, I think. And then his world is turned upside down when a meteorite falls from the sky and a rock thing joins him on his quest. That rock turns into a teenage girl (Pauline), and the D-man and his pal start descending deeper and deeper underground.
Yes, in the screenshots you can see very above-ground-like environments. Nintendo seems to have been inspired by the woeful Godzilla vs. Don…-Kong cinematic universe, where, for some reason, the planet is hollow and sunlit inside. So, as you complete your main objective on each of these underground-but-not-really environments, you’ll be able to travel on to the next one, and that’s how you move from oases to beaches to forests to snowy mountains.
I’ll level with you all – I couldn’t find the narrative or setting of this nonsense engaging in the slightest. The levels and environments are colourful and vibrant enough, but I was playing through them rather than finding them particularly immersive. I also preferred when Pauline was a rock. The good news is that Donkey himself is a highly endearing character with the Switch 2 pumping out a lot of personality through his immaculately groomed fur. He’s an idiot, but a playfully funny one, and the cut scenes were worth watching just to see how he would (over)react to the next thing he encountered. Nintendo obviously understands what an utterly nonsensical character Donkey is, too, and the development team had their tongues firmly in cheek right throughout. The best joke is how one of the main unlockables is a series of pants for the big ape-man. For years now, Donkey Kong has had the “Donald Duck effect” where people are very aware that he’s wearing clothes on his top (in this case, a tie), and that makes us all wonder why, exactly, he’s not wearing pants. Well, now Nintendo has given you a solution, ya puritans.
In short, I was having fun with Donkey Kong’s character, but I didn’t really care for the narrative or context of the game beyond that. That’s also okay because this is a platformer, not an RPG or visual novel, and what actually matters in this genre is how much fun they are to play. Bananza is so much fun to play.
The first thing you’re going to notice is how destructible everything is, and this is no doubt why Nintendo figured that this would be a good title to launch the Switch 2. If you can see something, it’s very likely you can dig, smash, tear or break it, and there’s just no way the original Switch could handle the complexity of the voxel art that the developers have used for Bananza.
Because you’re capable of, quite literally, levelling a mountain if you’re so inclined, the next objective marker is rarely the most interesting thing in Bananza. Instead, you’ll be spending so much time looking for little secret loot caches and nooks on the other side of walls. This is, in an odd way, vintage Donkey Kong. Remember how, back with the Donkey Kong Country trilogy on the SNES, there were bunches of bananas hidden every few paces in the scenery that Donkey could draw out by slapping the floor? Or that there were all kinds of hidden treasure room barrels that just required you to take a leap of faith off a cliff? That same heritage really powers the way that you’ll be relentlessly terraforming Bananza’s environments to find the hidden goodies.
The Mega D is also able to climb just about every surface you can imagine, and has a reasonable skill tree that gives him access to even more abilities. Later on, it’s also possible to transform into alternative forms, each with even more abilities. Of the many platformers I’ve played over the years, few have felt as totally open and free in how I can move and explore as this one. The only minor downside to all of this is that the camera can struggle to keep up with the combination of your pace of movement (and destruction), and the fact that you’ll fairly regularly end up down holes in the scenery or smashing your way through a wall and disappear behind it. Reorientating is easy, though, and in the moments that matter (like boss battles), the camera is unobtrusive.
This focus on freedom is also why it’s also so impressive that the game’s puzzles and challenges are so well calibrated. Bananza starts off a touch too easy, perhaps, but soon enough you’ll be scratching your head as you figure your way around the space. Given how many tools you have for movement and removing obstacles, I can only imagine how much work went into designing the world to still challenge players while giving them that freedom. In typical Nintendo style, it seems like every new place you visit challenges you in a different way, too. The creative variety in Bananaza is genuinely impressive, and that’s even considering Nintendo’s own standards here.
Donkey Kong Bananza is the perfect launch window title for the Nintendo Switch 2. It highlights the kind of creative whimsy that Nintendo can achieve with its new hardware, demonstrates that the Switch 2 really is more than a slightly bigger Switch… and is just a very fine game on top of all of that. Donkey Kong has finally appeared in a 3D platformer worth a damn.
