Donkey Kong’s Latest Quest: ‘A Flawed Gem’

Donkey Kong Bananza is an imperfect masterpiece.

Nintendo’s ambition propels its new console, the Nintendo Switch 2, to its maximum capability and even further, serving as both a technological marvel and a practical test.

Fortunately, the occasional slowdown and frame stuttering do not overshadow what may be one of the best final boss battles I’ve ever played, or the delight of what could become a game of the year finalist.

Donkey Kong’s first 3D outing in 25 years plays like a power fantasy. 

And once you get the hang of controlling an ape that’s bigger, faster and stronger than Mario, you won’t want to stop. 

In case you missed it, Donkey Kong Bananza was crafted by the team that made 2017’s incredible Super Mario Odyssey. 

There are a lot of similarities but they are very different games. 

Bananza‘s worlds are comparatively massive and they are destructible. 

Avoiding spoilers, these worlds are among Nintendo’s finest. There are more of them than you might anticipate, most include an intriguing feature, and DK can battle his way through nearly all of them.

He can rip chunks off a wall, the floor and from enemies and then use that chunk as a weapon. You can throw it like a projectile, use it as a platform to double jump with or ride it to “surf” across water and spikes. 

You’ll need to master all of the above if – like me – you plan on collecting every secret.

At its heart, Donkey Kong Bananza is an old-school collectathon. 

There are more than 700 “Banandium Gems” to collect and hundreds more fossils to find, which can be traded for costumes that give DK buffs like faster swimming or reduced damage from poison or icy water.

You’ll stumble across plenty of both as you naturally progress the story, but you’ll have to stray off (and under) the beaten path to find everything. 

Like Mario Odyssey, most of these rewards are tied to besting bosses, challenges or environmental puzzles. Almost all of these tasks are unique but some – like finding Cranky Kong or buying a Banandium Gem from the shop – are basically repeated across multiple levels, which I’m not a huge fan of.

Again, like Mario Odyssey, the names of each Banandium Gem are a cute nod to where it is or how to unlock it. However, unlike Mario Odyssey, there’s no way to get those helpful hints from a friendly NPC. You’re never told what that name of a gem is until after you find it. Instead, you can bash your way through an environment to find buried treasure maps that pinpoint the location of a gem or fossil on your map but that takes away some of the fun.

Journey to the centre of the Earth 

Bananza‘s story is both wonderfully simple and straight up (sorry for the pun) bananas.

DK just loves and wants bananas.

But when a villain comes to steal those bananas, DK’s mining colony gets squashed underground and he gets partnered with a singing rock that quickly transforms into a shy, 13-year-old called Pauline, who recruits DK on a mission to the earth’s core where they can make a wish to return to the surface. 

Like with magic, the trick is to not think too hard and just enjoy the show. 

Nintendo is the master of keeping things ambiguous. Fans will pour over references to Pauline’s grandmother and when she calls New Donk City “my city” but the game never gives any definitive explanation as to why Pauline is 13, where the story fits on a “timeline” or if the story is somehow connected to Super Mario Odyssey. 

What matters is the charming relationship between a silent ape and his shy companion. 

Pauline narrates most of what happens on screen and – if you jump into bed for a rest – she’ll regale DK with a little story about her hopes as he falls asleep. It’s incredibly endearing and that charm extends to cute idle animations like Pauline playing with DK’s hair. 

They really feel like a perfect pair. And as DK helps Pauline find her voice, she grants him powers that we’d never imagined. 

Now you’re playing with power    

Donkey Kong is a beefy boy, and Nintendo leans right into that power fantasy. 

On top of DK’s standard bone-shattering punches, he can unlock the ability to transform into five super-powered animals. These are called Bananzas. 

Nintendo has already revealed three of these: the Kong (super strength), Zebra (super speed) and Ostrich (flying) Bananzas. 

To call them overpowered is an understatement. These powers would break most games. Here you’re encouraged to break everything. You can trigger each Bananza at any time, anywhere and (because there’s so much gold just lying about) the metre required to activate a Bananza is pretty much always full.

There are specific challenges for each transformation and, like DK himself, each can be levelled up to be even stronger. 

No one is really talking about how amazing the music is when you activate these – but it’s incredible. The Zebra one in particular is such a vibe. There’s a lot of Splatoon‘s DNA in each of these tracks, adding to what is already a stellar, nostalgia-filled soundtrack. Nintendo has been nailing its soundtracks of late and I can’t wait for Bananza‘s to be added to the Nintendo Music app.     

If you’ve purchased a Nintendo Switch 2, chances are you’re going to buy this game. 

It’s big, it’s beautiful, it’s charming and it’s fun. 

Yes, it’s disappointing that the game’s performance isn’t flawless. Typically, I’d expect more from Nintendo – especially when it’s the 3D Mario team. Its framerate issues appear to be more pronounced in larger levels – and while I haven’t done a frame-by-frame analysis – I think things looked smoother in handheld mode when VRR was enabled.

AI upscaling does a lot of the heavy lifting to make the game look as nice as possible, but its flaws are obvious too. If you spin the camera around fast enough, the hearts in DK’s health bar start to blur together, which I’ve never seen in a Nintendo game before! 

Regardless, if you’ve been waiting for a classic collectathon on the Nintendo Switch 2, look no further.    

Early access to Donkey Kong Bananza was supplied to Mark Santomartino for the purpose of this article.