Donkey Kong Bananza review: Messy, but all-out bananas fun

Sometimes I wonder if it’s a rule in Nintendo’s offices to never say “no” to any idea ever. We all poke fun at Hideo Kojima for the weird stuff he includes in these games, but at some point in the development Donkey Kong Bananza, someone asked, “What if DK transformed into a muscle-bound snake with the power to bounce really high and slow down time with his eyes?” and I can only assume Shigeru Miyamoto stood up and applauded them.

That’s why “only Nintendo could have made this” is one of the highest compliments I can offer a game; it seems to be one of the only triple-A developers left that isn’t afraid to inject games with ideas that are absurd and nonsensical purely because they’d make fun game mechanics.

In the lead-up to the Switch 2’s launch, a lot of people, myself included, were hoping for a sequel to Super Mario Odyssey in some shape or form, and despite how it may appear, DK Bananza is practically a spiritual successor to that game.

It follows the same structure, where you’ll be exploring mid-sized open areas full of little challenges, collectibles, and puzzles to solve, all to be rewarded with bananas – this game’s equivalent of stars/moons. It has that same joy of exploration that Odyssey captures so well, where no matter which nook and cranny you poke into, you’ll find something of interest there. You’ll see even the tiniest little element of the environment that seems out of place, and be rewarded for investigating it.

It’s extra impressive considering you can explore many more layers of the terrain than normal, as this game’s main gimmick is DK’s ability to smash through anything, with the world being made up of almost entirely destructible terrain. Smashing through mountains is just as satisfying as you would hope too, with you frequently being rewarded with showers of gold nuggets and treasure chests popping out of the walls as you tunnel through to your destination.

The level design takes full advantage of the possibilities this offers. There are plenty of little goodie-filled caves and hideaways buried in seemingly unassuming chunks of terrain. Thankfully, the game gives you the ability to quick-scan nearby terrain with a clap, pinging anything of interest that’s behind a wall, which means completionists won’t waste endless hours smashing into every wall just in case there’s a banana hidden behind it.

It’s not just about breaking the terrain though, as you can also rip out a chunk of whatever you’re standing on for a variety of uses. You can drop it beneath you while in mid-air for a double-jump, ride on it to quickly propel you along the ground like it was a skateboard, throw it around to either build new terrain or clear up hazards in your path, or of course, swing it around to smash your enemies to bits.

However, there is a great variety of different terrain types, and they’re all best suited for different jobs. Sturdy terrain is better for smashing whatever’s in front of you, soft terrain is a good building material, and some terrain types even have unique properties, like how ice will clear away lava, rainbow rock will launch you up into the air, or golden banandium will explode on impact.

It means that no matter what you’re trying to accomplish – be it clearing some enemies or a platforming challenge – you always have loads of tools at your disposal and you’re always rewarded for a spot of lateral thinking when it comes to finding a solution. The boss fights are the best example of this. As is standard in a game like this, none of them are particularly challenging, but they force you to use everything you know in unique ways that still make victory satisfying.

That’s without even mentioning the Bananza transformations, which allow DK to power up with unique abilities for a limited time. He can become an ostrich to unlock the ability to hover and glide, an elephant to hoover up swathes of terrain and fire them from his trunk, or a zebra to run really fast. If anything, they’re worth including just for the slightly unsettling but objectively hilarious looks DK adopts when his ape body doubles in size, becomes heavily musclebound, and has his head transform to fit the animal. The snake form will forever haunt my dreams, and I think that’s pretty neat.

There are also a handful of RPG elements, most notably skill points and equippable gear with unique effects. The skill points are somewhat unnecessary, as most of them are just about slightly increasing the power of your existing abilities. There are a few platforming abilities locked behind it, but it’s the kind of stuff that should’ve been included in the base moveset. In fact, with the arguable exception of increasing your max HP, none of it makes a notable difference to the game balance, and it wouldn’t have felt any different if each ability had a set strength instead.

It seems to be there as more of a motivation to get players to explore and find as many bananas as possible, as collecting five bananas earns you a skill point. This is a slightly more elegant solution to Odyssey locking story progress behind a certain number of moons, but the skill tree system itself isn’t all that rewarding. Unlocking a new ability was never particularly exciting, and quite early on, I stopped giving my skill point allocation much thought.

The gear system also leaves a lot to be desired. While it does make for plenty of fun cosmetic options for both DK and his companion, Pauline, the special effects are always designed around the specific zone you find them in. For example, the trousers you can buy in the ice world will decrease the damage you take from icy water, which is only useful in that one area, so no matter how much you like their cosmetic appearance, you may as well change to something else as soon as you leave.

I can see the point behind it as, like the skill points, it heavily encourages you to explore and find the fossils that serve as currency for the apparel shop, but it takes a bit of the fun out of the well-designed cosmetics when it’s mostly about min-maxing for the specific challenge that’s currently in front of you, then forgetting all about it once you move onto the next world as the game tosses the last mechanic away.

One strength I wasn’t expecting from the game was the narrative. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not some amazing complex tale, but it goes a step further than games in the Mario franchise typically do, using Pauline to tell a very sweet story about self-expression. This is good as – despite riding on DK’s shoulder the entire time – she can feel a little bit like set-dressing, only using her voice to unlock a few doors and trigger Bananza transformations. There was definitely room to use her singing powers for some interesting gameplay ideas, but I don’t mind that it was more there to be the central focus of the narrative.

That sentiment sums up my feelings on Donkey Kong Bananza. It’s a little messy and definitely has a few missed opportunities, but the core gameplay is so much fun that I couldn’t put it down. It captures the thrill of exploration that made Odyssey so compelling while taking the gameplay mechanics in a completely unique direction that kept developing in ways I didn’t see coming, and that’s exactly why I love Nintendo’s fun-first approach to design so much. If you’ve been waiting for a reason to buy a Switch 2, it’s just arrived.

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