Donkey Kong Bananza – Review

Donkey Kong Bananza marks a long overdue return for Donkey Kong, and Nintendo has pulled out all the stops this time. Launching exclusively on the Nintendo Switch 2, this 3D platformer features destructible environments, musical transformations, and plenty of extras alongside a fairly lengthy main quest.

As a revival for a beloved character and a title worked on by much of the same team as the hit title Super Mario Odyssey, expectations are high. Let’s see if it can live up to them.

Journey to the Planet Core

We start the game on Ingot Isle, just off DK Island. Monkeys are finding Banandium Gems everywhere, with Donkey Kong (DK) joining the search and eating whatever he can find. Unfortunately, his feasting is soon interrupted by the appearance of VoidCo, three antagonists who pull everything in Ingot Isle underground, DK, monkeys, and Banandium Gems included.

While searching for the way out, Donkey Kong meets Pauline, a young girl who enjoys singing despite some anxiety about performing publicly. Hints are given that she possesses a mysterious power that VoidCo wants and she joins us on the journey to find the way back to the surface.

Unintuitively, it seems that heading down is the best way to get back up. Legends say that “Those who reach the Planet Core will earn their greatest wish and more”, so they decide to chase this for a way home.

Of course, it’s not easy. VoidCo is trying to reach the Planet Core too and has placed countless obstacles in their way. Luckily, DK and Pauline have plenty of help, including Kong Elders, giant animal DJs who teach them how to transform into stronger forms using Pauline’s singing.

It’s a fairly minimal plot with few surprises along the way, culminating in an exciting finale. Outside of the main points, much of the plot consists of navigating between layers of the planet and helping residents who have been inconvenienced by VoidCo, in a way that coincidentally repeatedly blocks the route to dive deeper into the planet.

Facing the antagonists and talking to the residents as we help them in the main quest is entertaining enough, but much of the charm comes from little interactions and other moments, rather than the plot itself. Pauline and DK have (one-sided) chats where she confides her worries or tells you what she’s enjoying about the current layer. The residents’ dialogue tells you a little about how they live, and their dialogue can be amusing at times. There are even a few appearances of fan-favorite characters and references to the older games.

Unlocking the Path

The basic gameplay loop of Donkey Kong Bananza involves using Pauline’s power and DK’s strength to unlock the way to the next objective, eventually culminating in a boss fight. Many of the levels involve finding ways to use DK’s abilities to climb up high or navigate in roundabout ways, as well as more standard 3D platforming tasks.

DK can climb all but the slipperiest of surfaces and dig through ground, walls, and most other terrain. Whether it’s moving platforms, enemies, projectiles, or the few types of terrain that DK can’t deal with easily, there are plenty of obstacles on the way to the various switches and other points he needs to unlock the way forward. Pauline supports him by singing to unseal objects that make the nearby terrain unbreakable.

Most layers use this type of basic gameplay, but introduce new mechanics, often specific to the area. You’ll find yourself manipulating the environment to cast shadows on terrain to make it solid or throwing salt to neutralize walls of acid. While many do rely on mechanics that change the environment, Donkey Kong Bananza does a brilliant job of keeping the gameplay fresh by adding these new elements fairly consistently throughout the game and making them feel fairly unique, even when they use similar ideas.

Some tasks make use of the Bananza abilities. By completing quests along the way and charging the energy meter with gold, Pauline’s singing can turn DK into different animals for a short time, each with their own powerful abilities, which can be used to deal with obstacles. Some of these are straightforward and fixed, such as using a power that lets you run over crumbling ground quickly, while others may be less obvious. Flexible thinking can be rewarded too, as the direct solution isn’t always the best way and it’s possible to switch transformations on the fly to string abilities together. That it’s possible to upgrade and learn new abilities for the transformations just adds to it.

Banana Quest

I’ve focused on the main questline so far in this review, but more than anything, my time has been spent on exploring and getting sidetracked. There’s a lot to do in Donkey Kong Bananza and much of it has little to do with trying to get to the Planet Core.

It wouldn’t be a Donkey Kong game if Bananas weren’t a big part of the journey and most of the Banandium Gems are found by doing optional tasks or are hidden away in a progressively unlocked open world.

Despite being able to smash your way through much of the environment and items seemingly being hidden almost anywhere, Donkey Kong Bananza makes good use of environmental tells to hint that something might be hidden, whether it’s the path forward, an optional challenge, or a hidden item. You’ll see little scratches on walls, different materials used, or paths subtly pushing you in the right direction so that breaking down walls feels like the obvious solution.

As you use these tells (or just start running about and smashing up the place) to explore the layers, you can find standalone challenge levels to complete, short quests like finding NPCs, areas where you need to use your platforming or lateral thinking skills to reach a Banandium Gem, and ones that are just hidden out of plain sight. These can be found through a helpful sonar, or they may simply require some more exploring.

To give one example, in a challenge that can reward you with three gems, one is on the ceiling, out of sight and sonar range. You need to go to the other side of the room, climb the wall, then hang from a part of the ceiling, which itself is out of sight unless you are standing in the correct position and look directly up. The other two are gained during a more straightforward task of defeating enemies in the level. Quite a few of the challenges follow this pattern, with something hidden or more difficult to win all the gems.

Items are just out there to find too. Most layers are huge and when you consider that you can dig into the mountains or ground, there’s even more to explore. There are plenty of secret caverns or underground gems to find. It’s not just those either. Fossils are another collectible often embedded in walls or underground. Treasure chests are dotted around as well, which can contain a variety of things, including maps to find gems and fossils, which are both used for ability acquisition, upgrades, and costumes.

I had a lot of fun just running around and exploring in Donkey Kong Bananza. It felt like I was always being rewarded by finding something new, by getting gems and fossils, or even just running into a pocket of gold hidden away somewhere. That said, just running around and seeing what was out there felt like its own reward. One thing that really helped here was just how different each set of layers was from the last and how you can return to previous layers to look around as you gain new abilities.

The challenge doesn’t end when you roll credits either. You’d better hope you were collecting those Banandium Gems because you’ll need a lot of them to unlock some challenging courses with special rewards at the end of them.

No Coconut Guns Here

One aspect of Donkey Kong Bananza that I’d like to highlight is how it handles fighting.

Some enemies, particularly those nearer the beginning, are easy to take down. DK can punch through them as easily as he can punch through a wall. Just run up and give them a beating. It gets more interesting as time goes on though.

Some enemies are affected by similar mechanics to terrain. Throwing salt works on acid-based enemies, similar to acid walls. The fact they’re spitting projectiles at you makes them more difficult to deal with than inanimate obstacles, but it’s the same idea. Others might only be vulnerable if the light is touching them, or you’ll need to use a Bananza ability to get in the right position to damage them. Many enemies in this game require a little more thinking than dodging and hitting them from the right angle or with the right timing. They feel more akin to obstacles like the walls of thorns or concrete walls that need more roundabout methods to deal with.

Some bosses use this to a point. It’s sometimes a case of throwing pieces of the terrain around to affect the boss in some way, but often it’s more about reacting to dangerous changes quickly. I enjoyed each boss, especially the final one and the lead up to it which used the mechanics particularly well and combined most of the skills I’d learned so far. Before that though, a couple of the reprises of earlier bosses didn’t do enough to differentiate themselves, which was a shame.

Fur and Fine Art

I’ve mentioned how layers are noticeably different from each other, and one of the most obvious points here is their visuals. Each has a consistent art direction and the design and color schemes work really well for their individual themes. This becomes even more apparent as you get closer to the Planet Core, where quite a few of the levels have quite specific themes rather than just generic greenery or caves.

There is a lot of detail in certain points, especially on the character models. They can be rather expressive, with the body language and facial expressions exaggerated to make how they feel clear. This is certainly welcome since DK doesn’t speak.

It is worth mentioning that there are some dips in the frame rate, which is a pity. This can happen at times like when loading back into the open world after a challenge level, when destroying large amounts of terrain with explosions, when creating large amounts of terrain, or just when walking around on rare occasions. Luckily, I didn’t find it affected my experience outside of a few instances where I was fighting enemies or dealing with a tricky bit of platforming, but it is certainly noticeable.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a 3D platformer without some kind of camera angle issue. Fortunately, Donkey Kong Bananza isn’t too bad here, but it does sometimes have issues when getting too close to walls or when digging.

Sound is generally a strong point. This is no surprise when talking about the music in particular, since a lot of Donkey Kong Bananza is themed around it between Pauline’s singing, elderly DJs, and a few more aspects. There’s a wide variety of music which fits the levels well. There are some clear connections to the previous Donkey Kong titles, most clearly with the DK Rap from Donkey Kong 64 playing by default at all rest points and some musical references to Donkey Kong Country making an appearance. The transformations all have their own musical tracks too, which are all pretty energetic and Pauline’s singing is a highlight.

I mentioned other collectibles earlier, but you can find musical tracks to unlock for the music player as well. These drop quite rarely from enemies and when giving money to a certain NPC, so collecting them all would be quite a challenge.

Verdict

Donkey Kong’s and Pauline’s journey to the center of the Planet Core is one worth taking. Donkey Kong Bananza is one of the most creative and entertaining 3D platformers of recent years, with a huge world full of challenges with plenty of fun to find hidden throughout it if you take the time to explore.

DONKEY KONG BANANZA IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Platforms: Nintendo Switch 2

If you wanna check out more Donkey Kong on the Switch 2, take a look at our review of Donkey Kong Country Returns HD (now with improved load times!). Or if you want another action-adventure of a different variety, check out our review of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered.

Many thanks go to Nintendo for a Nintendo Switch 2 review code for Donkey Kong Bananza.

A gamer since the days of Amstrad and DOS and someone who has dabbled in a variety of professions. He enjoys a wide variety of genres, but has been focusing on visual novels and virtual reality in recent years. Head Editor of NookGaming. Follow him and the website on @NookSite.