Donkey Kong Bananza - Review (Switch 2)
He's the leader of the bunch, you know him well
Donkey Kong smashes his way onto the Switch 2 with Bananza, developed by the team at Nintendo which created the seminal Super Mario Odyssey.
The game starts out simple enough. You control Donkey Kong, working as a miner with a load of other monkeys. You are mining gold, but primarily, looking for Banandium, a type of Banana crystal that you can eat. Mr Kong is larger and stronger than the other apes, so whilst they are using pick-axes, he simply smashes his way to anything he wants to get.
This means punching through the earth to find hidden caverns, breaking things apart, and generally just creating havoc. It’s telling that of the four main face buttons on your controller, three of them just punch in different directions. In addition to the punching, you can also rip terrain up from the ground, which you can then use as a weapon, a projectile, or spin it and use it to surf around.
As you’re exploring these early caverns, you come across an odd rock, which is scared and can talk. You discover an evil mining company called Voidco is trying to steal all the Banandium for their own nefarious means, and sinks all the miners into a deep pit. The only way back to the surface is by travelling deep to the planet’s core, where it is said it can grant any wish. Oh, and also beating the bad guys and collecting Banana’s along the way.
It’s not a complicated narrative, but it serves the game well. Primarily, Donkey Kong Bananza is about exploration, with destruction a means to an end. Each level is separated by different layers of the earth, the deeper you go, new levels open up with more difficult enemies and terrain. In the first world, you are tasked with performing a Bananza by an Elder Kong, which is a type of DJ set he wants you to perform.
Performing this Bananza unlocks a transformation for DK, where he can turn into an even bigger gorilla capable of greater destruction. During the course of the game you unlock more of these with more specialist uses, such as a Zebra that can dash and an Ostrich that can fly. These power ups are limited and require gold to recharge, but thankfully that is in abundance so you never really feel the limitations.
As you perform the first Bananza, it’s revealed that it was a thirteen year old girl inside the rock, namely, Pauline. Her power is singing, and she can use this to unlock various seals in the game, and to power up Donkey Kong by performing the Bananza. It’s a good thing when she appears - since DK doesn’t talk and you spend a lot of the game just exploring for collectables, having someone around who can add a bit of commentary is quite nice. In terms of the story, the game plays into the bond between them, and it’s quite a heart-warming tale really.
As I mentioned before, each level is very open, both in design and the way you can approach things. There are various things to collect in each world, namely Banandium and fossils. Fossils are used to purchase new clothing, which gives various buffs and special skills. Banandium goes towards unlocking new skills, which range from increasing the power of your punches to unlocking new maneuverers like a spin attack.
By slamming the ground DK activates a sonar, which highlights hidden items near him. You can then smash through the ground directly to get to them, follow a path, whatever you like. The game is pretty lenient in letting you solve puzzles however you like. There are also challenge rooms too, in an early one you had to navigate a bunch of lasers on a spinning turbine. However, I simply smashed through the ground and walked underneath them. The game really allows you to use the game mechanics however you like, rather than forcing you to play things a certain way.
It’s worth mentioning that whilst the destruction mechanics are super fun, it isn’t a full physics simulation. If you destroy a mountain and remove all it’s foundations, the top level doesn’t crumble, instead it will just float. This may seem disappointing, but bear in mind the game has to preserve some sort of structure so that you can still discover and find things. It’s not persistent either, whilst you are in a world all the damage remains, but travel to another one and back and it will reset.
Limitations aside, Donkey Kong Bananza is a really great game. I think Nintendo has always struggled a little with what to do with Donkey Kong. Since Donkey Kong Country, he has appeared in a number of his own games, but they have never felt like games that only Donkey Kong could be in. This one is different - no other Nintendo character could just have taken his place. They’ve crafted a game specifically for him, and that shows.
The graphics are really nice, and performance is pretty good too. There are moments when the frame rate drops, during massive sprees of destruction or in the map view mode, but it’s few and far between, generally it holds at sixty. Being a Nintendo game, there are of course many other secrets and features I haven’t mentioned, but I don’t want to give the whole game away!
Ultimately, Donkey Kong Bananza is a bit of a triumph for Nintendo. They’ve tried something new, and it’s really paid off. There isn’t another game quite like it, and there isn’t another character that could have pulled it off. This is a Donkey Kong game through and through, and I’m here for it.
Rating - 4.5/5