Donkey Kong Bananza is full of surprises around every turn, and encourages a style of open-level platforming that scratches every itch fans of the genre could desire. With a wonderful world full of diverse areas to explore, as well as gameplay that is simultaneously destruction-focused and yet carefully designed, there’s so much to love in the latest top-tier release from Nintendo. For fans of anything the company has put out in terms of their best work, you can add this one to the rafters of the greatest Nintendo games. Here’s our review of Donkey Kong Bananza.

The journey begins with Donkey Kong working underground to find Banandium Gems, a rare mineral that just so happens to remind him of his favorite thing in the world. While doing so, a mining company called VoidCo. arrives to steal the gems at the demand of its president, Void Kong. The evil leader plans to head to the core of the planet and find the rare Banandium Root that grants wishes to its possessor and become rich as sin. Kong Elder, one of the ancients who live in the planet’s layers, tells DK he too must head to the core.

Alongside DK is a rock that seems to try to speak to him. Upon restoring it to its original form, DK learns it’s actually teenage Pauline, a character we know one day becomes the mayor of New Donk City in Super Mario Odyssey, the game last developed by the team at the helm of Bananza. Together, they head to the core to bring their wishes to life; DK wants bananas, and Pauline wants to get back to the surface to reunite with the world she knows. With this setup, you’re tasked with traversing 16 layers, many of which have sublayers, which take the shape of traditional levels of the game.

Each layer is an open-world-style layout with plenty to collect, including fossils, banandium chips, and gold. You are prompted pretty clearly with tasks that will move the story forward, but there’s so much to be gained from just driving around the world to see what’s behind every rock, mountain, and destructible environment. The joy of breaking the ground below you, the terrain around you, and even the objects that fill these worlds is incredible. In the early layers, I spent a lot of time just trying to see how much I could break, and the answer was just about everything.

Across the layers, you meet other elders like Kong Elder, who grant you Bananza powers, which turn DK into animals that grant special abilities. These abilities, such as increased jumping capabilities, speed, and agility, or even the ability to suck up materials in your path, help to provide you with new ways to traverse this rich landscape and defeat diverse enemy types. The abilities, accompanied by a chest-thumping action, last a finite amount of time that you can increase, along with other abilities, in a well-designed skill tree.

The skill tree in Donkey Kong Bananza includes things like health and punch power when breaking terrain. It’s also how you can boost your Bananza powers, all by collecting Banandium Gems. This certainly encourages you to seek out as many as you can, but you don’t need to be wildly overpowered to complete the main story. I have plenty of room on my skill tree left to go, and I was still able to roll credits in about 30 hours. My best guess is that the time to complete the game could be even 5-7 hours less than that.

When you do roll through the end of Bananza, there is a post-game challenge on top of simply going back to collect things you missed. There’s also the new DLC that includes DK Island & Emerald Rush. Even without these, the joy of existing in this world and its many biomes and quirky sceneries is reason enough to keep going after you technically finish it. I’m not a collect-a-thon gamer, and I rarely ever see a need to go back to try and get more items for the sake of saying I did it. Donkey Kong Bananza is so enjoyable that I didn’t even think twice about doing it this time around.

I think comparing a game like this to the development team’s previous project, Super Mario Odyssey, is somewhat counterproductive. They both have a similar open-level design with a key ability that allows you to collect the player character’s in-demand item. Each game also allows you time and interaction with really well-thought-out micro-worlds brimming with life and character in a way that Nintendo does best. Of course, games like Astro Bot and Psychonauts also get this right. However, Bananza showcases a key iteration that has made Nintendo masters of this space.

Like the original Super Mario Bros. premise, where jumping is a power, destruction is Donkey Kong’s power. If you really think about it, however, he can’t use his strength without things to destroy. With this in mind, the world itself is what makes Donkey Kong Bananza so special. Throwing Cappy gets you around in Odyssey, and yes, DK has powers that help him double-jump, fly, and cross fragile terrain. The reason this game is so much fun, however, is that everything is easily mashable and breakable.

Even the controls, signifying inputs for what direction you want to smash things, are so simple that they really tell your brain to just coast and enjoy the process of seeing what lies below every corner of the layers and sublayers. I’ve seen criticism that the game is too easy, but the boss battles do become quite tricky as time progresses. Simplicity and a clear understanding of what the core fun factor is in a game are not only complex to capture, but it’s what Nintendo does best. And it’s why they continue to be on top of the platformer genre.

Donkey Kong Bananza is an all-timer in my eyes. It’s one of the most responsive games Nintendo has made to date, with so much space for players to carve out their own experience inside lush, lively worlds layered on one another. It’s fair to say more time and a few more premier titles might be needed to make the Nintendo Switch 2 a must-have, but this alone is enough for me to say that the console is already on its way to being another great platform for memorable, joy-filled gaming memories.

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Donkey Kong Bananza

69.99

10

Score

10.0/10

Pros

• Exploration and collecting are fun throughout
• Plenty of ways to streamline your experience or draw it out
• A great story that pulls of emotional beats as well as humorous ones

Cons

• DLC and post-game aren't as fulfilling as simply spending more time playing the game