Everyone’s favorite Kong is back for a massive 3D adventure. Oh, Banana!
What Is It? Donkey Kong is back for his first standalone 3D adventure since the Nintendo 64. Donkey Kong Bananza pairs DK with a young Pauline to thwart the evil Void Kong’s plan to mine bananas all the way down to the core of the planet. Sure, why not?
The core gameplay mechanic is DK’s ability to destroy terrain/rocks. The majority of each level is breakable and you will likely spend a lot of time simply crushing rocks because it is so much fun. You will also crush a wide variety of enemies and bosses along the way, but the good stuff is found in that sweet, rocky terrain that make up 90% of the landscapes in the game. It is incredibly satisfying with the rumble feedback and visual destruction combining to create one of the most addicting core gameplay mechanics I’ve seen in a long time.
So, you will be crushing stuff, but why? The broad goal for a given level is to find the boss so you can drop down to the next sublayer level. Do this a bunch of times and you’ll find yourself at the planet core for the grand finale.
Along the way, collecting bananas is the main thing to chase. These are often found along the main path, but there are dozens of bananas to find off the beaten path in each level/sublayer. Some of these are simply well hidden in the level, or obviously placed but require some thinking about how to reach. Additionally, a large portion of them are within challenge areas you can discover. These challenges are typically platforming or combat sections, but there are variations on this throughout the game. I don’t believe there is any specific banana count required to advance in the game, but they do feed into a skill upgrade system which will make DK even stronger. You can add more hearts to your health bar, power up your punches, and other abilities. This is a fun loop of exploration and challenges feeding an upgrade system.
The final wrinkle are the Bananza powers. I won’t spoil them all, but you will get a handful of different animal-related powers throughout the game which allow you to transform when your meter fills (it is fueled by gold, which is readily abundant throughout the entire game). An early example is the zebra power which allows you to run quickly enough to cross over pathways which would otherwise crumble under the weight of a normal DK. There are Bananza powers for many familiar tropes; strength, speed, flying/gliding, high jumping, etc… None of these are surprising, all of them are fun in their designated spots, but most of them fail to transcend the levels which were built around them.
Hitting the credits will take about 15-20 hours, but that can be wildly inflated if you spend your time exploring each layer and sublayer, and even more if you go back through prior layers after unlocking new Bananza powers. There is a robust set of post game content as well and a total banana count of around 1,000 (the actual number is surprisingly elusive to find online). For the record, I hit the credits with 296 bananas, so somewhere around 30% of the available number.
The game pops with wonderful cartoon graphics throughout. Donkey Kong uses the new model from the recent Mario movie, and it works well here. Pauline, the named enemies, and just about everything else that crosses the screen has a lot of character through some great looking art.
The Best Part: The jingles. Each time you collect a banana there will be a sound bite which says “Oh, banana!” When you use Pauline’s singing to wipe away a wee bit of otherwise unbreakable corruption, which will happen dozens and dozens of times as well, she sings “oooooooh, oh-oh-oh.” If you have played this game for any length of time, I can guarantee you heard both of those 1-2 second sound bites in your head as you read these sentences. These happen so frequently that there is a very real chance of this getting annoying, but the absolutely perfect audio will be etched into your brain by the time you’re done, it truly stands up with some of the best sound clips in video game history.
The Worst Part: The boss fights. The early fights are a bit boring, simple, repetitive and lightly confusing, then later fights ramp everything up, including the issues. There are certain late game fights which are so hectic I never actually figured out the intended way to beat a boss, i.e. which Bananza power I was supposed to use. The notable exception to this is the wonderful final boss fight, but I won’t spoil that here.
The Verdict: Donkey Kong Bananza’s core gameplay mechanic is so simple, fun, and addicting that it carries this game. Not that the other pieces are awful and need carrying, but it kind of doesn’t matter what else they threw into this game when it is constantly fun to bash rocks as Donkey Kong, even through 15-20+ hours. To that point, I found the Banazna powers to be a bit underwhelming and expected, and the boss fights were mostly, at best, forgettable, but none of that mattered because I was having a blast exploring these wonderful levels and destroying most everything.
It’s easy to consider everything Donkey Kong Bananza isn’t, but if you focus on what it is, you will find a joyous game of terrain-crushing 3D platforming goodness. We need more of that in video games.
How to Play: Switch 2*
*console played on for this review
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