One of the surprises just revealed about Donkey Kong Bananza is that the game comes from the team behind Super Mario Odyssey at Nintendo EPD Tokyo – the director and designers have not been confirmed by Nintendo, but that this project is from the same studio will absolutely raise expectations – and having spent a few hours playing the game, I can see some of that freewheeling design ethos shining through. Yes, this is a game where you can mindlessly smash stuff, but there’s also a lot of clever design around this core gameplay hook to provide more structure, bring delight through different gameplay ideas and abilities, and fill the world with challenges and diversions.
At the core of any 3D platformer is how you get around, and Donkey Kong Bananza is a delight in that regard. In contrast to the carefully measured jumping distances and heights of a Mario game, DK can barrel his way through the worlds. There’s a real heft and weight to his running, jumping and forward tumbling, but he can also grab onto and clamber up most vertical surfaces in a way that is so immediate and empowering. There’s obviously a route planned for you to follow, some prescribed paths and goals to reach, but you’re also deeply rewarded for using DK’s movement abilities to get off the beaten path.
You can also just reshape the world. There’s three buttons dedicated to punching – one each for forward, upward and downward punching – and DK’s strength is such that he can just obliterate chunks of the world, carving out tunnels through the rock with his bare fists. Depending on the softness of the terrain, that will be quicker or slower, and things like concrete cannot be punched through, but instead need you to find the exploding purple rock known as Boom Bombs to chuck at it. This also feeds into the combat, with many enemies having skeletal bodies that have been encased in rock for you to smash through first.
What digging really allows for, though, is uncovering secrets hidden below the surface. It feels like there’s a never-ending string of surprises and delights to find by smashing holes in the world. There’s a whole bunch of Banandium Gem bananas to find, with every fifth gem that DK gobbles up netting you a skill point to unlock and augment his abilities – things like jumping off a held rock to hop further, a spinning attack, or extended range for his sonar-like ground slaps. There’s also chests that can be spawned in as dynamic rewards, giving a nice bundle of gold or maps to some of the collectables hidden elsewhere – like fossils which are needed for buying new costumes and hair colours. And heck, there can also just be entire caverns or rooms hidden away for you to find when you smash through their walls!
As was revealed during last week’s Nintendo Direct, the purple crystalline buddy that was featured in DK Bananza’s initial reveal is actually Pauline. This is a younger version of the character that is yet to become mayor of New Donk City, where her one true aspiration is to become a famous singer – and a powerful singer, at that. The pair of them have to adventure deep to the centre of this world where legend has it that they’ll be rewarded with their dreams coming true. Each world you play through might as well be being bathed in daylight, even if its supposedly miles underground. It’s a very Disney Channel, kid-friendly rendition of Pauline’s character that I instinctively fear will start to grate through the story, but it’s also a good way of giving DK a new adventuring companion and bridging some of the divide between Donkey Kong Country and the Mario series.
Pauline’s singing, though, is the key to continuing their adventure. Certain parts of the world have been blocked off by a shimmery purple goop, which can only be removed by reaching the point from which it’s spread and having Pauline sing to break through the tape blocking it, unleashing DK’s movement abilities on these areas once more.
And then there’s the various Bananza transformations that her voice can trigger. Kong Bananza transforms DK into a bare-buttocked giant of himself, able to smash even through concrete with a little bit of wind up, greatly helping with certain fights and challenges. It’s pretty much what you’d expect, the only limit being how long the transformation lasts before you need to collect gold and recharge. The second transformation is Ostrich Bananza, lending DK the ability to flap and then glide through the air, even dropping explosive eggs from up high – they’re trickier to aim than you might like, and there’s more to come beyond that.
We got to play with DK’s Ostrich form in a level deeper into the game where there’s vine-link tree trunks to clamber around on, lower platforms sit amidst poisonous water, and ostrich peoples to meet. It was really just a glimpse of what’s to come, and this area where we could experience Ostrich Bananza wasn’t really the best use of this form, just scratching the surface of what it could offer in terms of gameplay. These Bananza transformations are what I’m most curious to see explored through the full game.
You’ll also get to use these transformations on plenty of occasions through the challenge stages that you can find dotted around the world. Teleporting you to different arenas, they can be straight up timer battles, side-scrolling stages, or something a bit more puzzling – like having Kong Bananza and needing to completely demolish a house in the most effective way possible. It’s like the Shrines from Breath of the Wild…. but you’re DK instead.
Having Pauline along for the adventure opens up the option of co-op gameplay for Donkey Kong Bananza, in a fashion very much in keeping with Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Odyssey. It’s the same style of lopsided co-op where one person plays as the main character and the other can add a bit of chaotic help to the action, though there’s some really neat tricks that feed off the world deformation and materials as well. Simply put, Pauline can sing and shout ranged attacks, which are targeted by player 2, making great use of motion control pointing or the mouse mode – it was this latter option that we tried, and it naturally works great for aiming.
What’s very cool is that Pauline’s shouts can absorb materials from the world and then send word-shaped blocks flying – it defaults back to stone if nothing has been absorbed. This even includes the Boom Bombs rock, which is great for battles where you need to smash through rocky outer shells, but it also allows you to pick up softer earth and create in-game sculptures in a much simpler fashion than just playing as DK. The only limit is that Pauline only has so many charges of a material before needing to recharge.
While this kind of co-op is far from essential, it’s still great to have for family gaming. That there’s also support for GameShare support for both Switch 2 and Switch 1 locally, and via GameChat is also fantastic.
I was a little unsure of Donkey Kong Bananza from my first hands on at the Switch 2 reveal event, but while some elements like just how chaotic and frenzied the screen can get while digging with complete abandon still feel a little unlike Nintendo, playing for longer reveals a lot more of what this team are trying to do and how the inventiveness that’s been a core part of this studio’s games for so long can really shine through.