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Didn’t catch my interest immediately

Donkey Kong games haven’t been my got-to games. I did play them back in the 90s on Super Nintendo console. The games weren’t the easiest and after that I never got into playing them. When Donkey Kong Bananza was revealed I wasn’t keen of it at all. I just don’t know why, but when Nintendo had another deep-dive presentation into the gameplay and world I was kinda sold. And so I did, I bought Donkey Kong Bananza at launch and I did play it through.

Plot

In the vibrant world of Donkey Kong Island, a treasure hunt begins on Ingot Isle, where miners excavate in search of the elusive Banandium Gems, recently discovered within the depths of the mines. Donkey Kong sets off towards the mines to collect some gems, only to find himself confronted by VoidCo, a nefarious organisation led by the villainous Void Kong, alongside his lackeys, Grumpy and Poppy, who are robbing the jewels and collapsing the mine. In his quest to stop VoidCo, Donkey Kong navigates through a mysterious sinkhole, they plunge into an expansive subterranean realm, home to a community of underground monkeys.

That’s how the game starts. Donkey Kong and his companion will meet new and more odd habitants—and more various terrains—as they venture deeper and deeper to the core of Earth to stop Void Kong. I think the story overall was OK, rather thin, but it was enough.

Gameplay, controls, audio and visuals

The gameplay in Donkey Kong Bananza is 3D-platformer mixed with environmental destruction. Players can literally smash nearly everything in the levels that were various biomes from ice worlds to lava lands. The levels themselves are underground and he must travel to the core of the planet. Alone DK is not as he has a young girl with him, Pauline, who can sing and with that open new areas and other lockable things. Players play as Donkey Kong, a gorilla in search of Banandium Gems that will help him to level up his skills. There are lots of things to level up such as health and smashing power. DK also get to transform to various other animals that are time-limited powers. The transformations allows him to use powerful new moves. I did find the gameplay to be weirdly addictive and soothing. it wasn’t overly difficult to play and I was sure the camera would be bad—but it wasn’t. The camera did follow DK well and it easily could clip through the ground as DK was digging his way through things. In Donkey Kong Bananza there are lots of very well-made boss battles. I didn’t find them to be difficult, but fun to beat.

Controlling DK was made superb. There are certain button to certain direction of smashing; up, down and forward. It made the gameplay so much easier and it made lot of sense control-wise. DK can—of course—jump, roll, pick up things/ground and throw it, slap ground (that collects the nearby objects and works as a sonar, finding hidden treasures). With the superpowers he can also do thing such as fly and run fast.

The music in Donkey Kong Bananza is very much like in every other Donkey Kong game, not as memorable, though. The game is voice acted with some parts only. The only person speaking English was Pauline, when other characters (that were animals and stones) spoke like characters in Banjo-Kazooie; with mumbling something indistinct. But don’t worry there are subtitles automatically on.

Graphically Donkey Kong Bananza looked good. The graphics weren’t anything realistic but more stylised. Everything were bright and colourful. The new design of Donkey Kong looked good, all the levels were different to the other and the enemy-design was great. Performation-wise the game did suffer sometimes, but mind you, it likely took every ounce of Nintendo Switch 2’s power to run this and little dips here and there didn’t ruin my experience at all.

The last Banana

I did like my time with Donkey Kong Bananza and it became my favourite Switch 2 game thusfar. The game is about 15-20 hours long if you just play it through, but collecting everything will take you about 40 hours. The game is well-made and every aspect of it works to perfection. There might some little performation issues, but they are only certain areas/incidents. If you like games like Super Mario Odyssey, you will like Donkey Kong Bananza.

Donkey Kong Bananza is only available on Nintendo Switch 2

SCORE:

5/5

“I did find the gameplay to be weirdly addictive and soothing”

RELEASE DATE: July 17, 2025
GENRE: Platform / Adventure
DEVELOPER: Nintendo
PUBLISHER: Nintendo
PLATFORMS: Nintendo Switch 2 (reviewed)

 

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