Quality Time: Donkey Kong Bananza (Switch 2)

In platform games, level design is king. The exact placement of platforms is a science that even the best in the business can still get wrong on occasion. A game’s difficulty can hinge on the smallest of decisions, a poorly placed power-up able to take a riveting challenge and trivialize it to the point it’s absolutely forgettable. This delicate balance is often a make or break, sink or swim element of the games that rely so heavily on navigation as the foremost obstacle to overcome…

 

But in Donkey Kong Bananza, DK smashes through these ideas quite literally.

Throwing convention aside, the big ape is able to put his immense strength to use smashing down through the very ground he’s meant to stand on. If a difficult jumping challenge lies before him, he can sometimes smash his way around it, dig his way underneath it, or even sometimes come in from above, breaking the ceiling so he can plop down to the goal. Donkey Kong Bananza does make some things indestructible, it does place some barriers that absolutely can’t be smashed… but then it also lets you pick up chunks of the terrain you destroyed nearby and stack it up or make a bridge out of it, the game still giving you tacit permission to subvert the carefully placed challenges.

 

Despite area design almost just being a suggestion at times in this 3D platformer though, Donkey Kong Bananza manages to easily be one of the best platforming games of all time. Some of it comes down to just how satisfying it is to break apart everything, Donkey Kong’s destruction swift and straightforward when it needs to be but still containing its own surprising depths to plumb to even further mix up ways to explore the world. Another part of it is that Donkey Kong Bananza also understands where to apply the kind of pressure that would require more thought or work to circumvent the design, the player able to find joy either by going with the suggested route or concocting their own method of overcoming the situation. These are not obstacle courses where you get penalized for missing a marked spot, the game happy to revel in your sneaky tricks but also aiming to make some of those moments you make your own way as exciting to figure out.

 

Donkey Kong Bananza bucks conventional wisdom but is also crafted with care, the game neither leaving things too open that you’re always relying on concocting clever digging routes nor does it lock you down too much when it does assert itself a bit by adding some restrictions for a bit.

 

But before we delve deeper into the excellent gameplay, we must loop back to a question I’ve sort of brushed over: what even is Donkey Kong Bananza? We’ve talked about a big ape digging with his fists, but there is much more going on in this game than a big gorilla punching rocks, and for that reason, this Quality Time review will be splitting up the discussion of the game into a few layers. Now, it would have been fun to divide the sections in the same way this game does, this quest to dig to the planet’s core presents each new world as a Sublayer, but I’ve unfortunately already used that concept to discuss a particularly awful SeaWorld game. Here, we will be much like DK in that we dig deeper and deeper, hitting different layers, but each one will essentially serve as a point at which you can decide to turn back. Quality Time reviews can vary in how much they cover, an excellent game sometimes requiring spoilers and intricate details mentioned to truly tell someone what makes it as special as it is. To the effect, each segment of this review will be its own Sublayer, a spot where we move from things like a general discussion of the game’s content to a deeper look at even its smallest touches and finally into full-on spoilers for elements too exciting to avoid commenting on.

 

If you need to know the final rating and don’t want to risk scrolling, know that being a Quality Time review already guarantees it achieved my highest rating. For those of you willing to dive into a deep discussion of what makes this 3D platformer so remarkable, join me as we crack open the crust and dive into our first sublayer for discussion…

 

SUBLAYER 100: FOUNDATIONS

Our story begins with Ingot Isle experiencing a rather curious sort of gold rush. While the island is actually rather flush with gold to mine up, what seems to have caught the eye of plenty of primates like our leading man are the Banandium Gems. Despite their name, these appear to be edible minerals based on Donkey Kong smashing them apart and immediately scarfing down the broken bits with a delightful announcement of “OH, BANANA!” to underscore it. However, after getting some time to mine with your bare fists, you’ll find DK’s banana bashing spree complicated by the arrival of VoidCo.

 

Lead by the impish and greedy Void Kong, VoidCo doesn’t just want all the gold and gems, they want to go for an even bigger prize: the planet’s core. Word is a wish can be granted should you reach it, and as part of their drilling efforts to reach the center of the earth, they end up dragging Ingot Isle and everyone on it down underground. While certainly a power-hungry villain, Void Kong’s wish does feel like it would be something like having a lot more money, and while Donkey Kong is happy to break apart his various efforts to control others and make a quick buck, it’s not quite the world-ending danger that might get the big ape moving on its own. However, an early chance encounter ends up providing not only a greater motivation for trying to beat Void to the core, but it also provides a good deal of heart to a game where the protagonist’s initial motivation was just “get more bananas”.

 

A little living rock known as Odd Rock quickly encounters DK, and considering he’s already smashed his way through a good deal of dirt and stone on the way to the meeting, it’s not too abnormal that the rock fears him. Showing he’s not all muscle though, the kind Kong whistles to show he’s got heart too, Odd Rock won over in one of the first little bits of the game hinting at an underlying theme about how music can help bring us together. It’s no coincidence Odd Rock is so quickly swayed to trusting DK though, because as the box art already practically gives away, that little stone is not actually your companion during your journey. Despite its delightful voice, Odd Rock quickly is cracked open by the power of music and revealed to be Pauline, a young girl who has dreams of being a singer but hasn’t yet gotten over her stage fright. Her wish to return home spurs Donkey Kong to take the quest a bit more seriously, and in turn, Pauline finds she has to step up as well, learning her voice can aid DK in a variety of ways like unlocking new powers or clearing away VoidCo’s corruptive barriers.

Pauline is supposedly a 13-year old girl despite looking a good deal younger than that, but rather than discussing the nature of growth spurts, I will say it feels like just the right age for her. Along the journey, she can act like a precocious kid at times, enjoying the more fun moments of riding on a gorilla’s back and making childish but charming observations about what they encounter. At the same time, she’s old enough she can be a bit more intelligent or creative about how she expresses herself, directed curiosity as well as some more structured humor feeling more appropriate from a kid who isn’t too young or too old. DK himself doesn’t speak out loud in the game, Pauline even calls him DK solely because his monogrammed necktie helpfully tells her his name, but Pauline gives a voice to the adventure but one that doesn’t crowd out the player either. A subtle highlight of the journey ends up being moments where she can speak her mind on small elements of their journey together, the player able to find Getaways along the way that you can sleep at to restore health and get a little boost but also hear Pauline share her thoughts with her new friend. It’s not too hard to see where her personal journey might take her, but she is an excellent little companion, providing some supportive commentary, cheering you on during destruction and battle, and perhaps just as important, she isn’t constantly chattering away. She’s present, helpful, but not overbearing, the game letting the almost filial relationship between ape and girl grow through simple moments and more expected story check-ins rather than having it yank attention away from your own actions.

 

For some discussion on the gameplay though, let’s dive a bit deeper down to…

 

SUBLAYER 300: BREAKTHROUGH MECHANICS

Now that you know why an ape wants bananas and a little girl is holding onto the hair on his back, we can discuss how he gets those Banandium gems. As mentioned at the start, the defining feature of Donkey Kong Bananza is your bare-fisted digging, DK able to punch forward, upward, and smash his way downward with ease and swiftness. The material you’re trying to break through can influence this, but a good deal of the game’s sublayers are filled with so much earth you’ll not be lacking for things to smash your way through. Areas will have a base layer of something called Neptunite that is absolutely impenetrable, but that’s because there needs to be a bottom so you can’t just dig down infinitely beyond where anything interesting lies. You can, however, smash through an incredible amount of level geometry, including seemingly meaningful spaces like buildings and landmarks. While a tedious task, people have even already set about breaking every bit of destructible terrain to see the barren world left in their wake, but if you do smash something you didn’t mean to, you don’t need to worry. Not only can you reset the terrain from the map screen, but any time you leave the layer and return, it resets the ground so you can smash through it all over again.

 

As for why you’d be busting apart the earth, the reasons certainly vary. You’ll be able to easily find gold deposits all throughout the underground world, to the point it is actually one of the more trivial things you’ll collect. A character here or there will ask you to pay 100 gold for building a bridge or making a barrel cannon to launch you somewhere else and it’s so abundant you might have gotten 1000 gold just in the tutorial area. Instead, Banandium Chips feel like the more valuable find, these looking like a cross-section of the golden banana gems and used for more helpful purposes like buying actual Banandium Gems. In the realm of less readily found collectibles though are the fossils, these coming in limited amounts in each layer and going towards buying new outfits for Donkey Kong and Pauline. Not only is it nice to be able to give the big ape some new neckties or change his fur color and Pauline’s outfits are often rather cute, some of them hold special bonuses to help protect you or make collection of things like gold and chips go faster. The effects aren’t so big that you ever feel forced to change, but the fossils work well in being a more interesting reward system and one with other useful touches. Banandium Gems aren’t often just laying around in the ground, but fossils can be placed more liberally and as rewards for smaller bits of navigation. They are often the most directly connected to digging around or reshaping the earth, bigger fossils requiring more effort and thought, but if you are just smashing around randomly for fun, you might eventually find a small one. As a nice added touch, many of them are references to previous Donkey Kong adventures, although curiously some smaller sublayers elect to repeat earlier fossils but as alternate colors when it doesn’t feel like making a few more small 3D models with cute throwbacks would have been a big ask.

 

The fossils keep an exploratory itch present all throughout the adventure, and since you can randomly stumble across treasure chests underground containing maps or buy them at the store, you also have a means to find them all if you do decide to do a more focused search. Banandium Gems are the most important collectable though… despite not really being required at all to beat the game. Besides a few post-game activities that ask you to have a certain amount, you can skip Banandium Gems without being penalized and you’ll never have to backtrack or force yourself to get a very hard one if you don’t want to. However, despite setting up no gates that ask you to do such collecting, grabbing Banandium Gems almost feels more important than a standard collectible. Rather than working like keys to advance the game, every five bananas you collect will unlock a skill point you can spend, DK having a range of options for how to grow. To further aid his movement and exploration, DK already has some useful skills be default like slamming his hands on the ground to send out a sonar pulse to reveal underground objects of interest, and the Turf Surf option lets you grab a chunk of rock and ride it to easily slide over danger or explore at speed. Over in the upgrades, you can make the sonar expand further, DK punch through hard ground faster, you can make his Turf Surf last longer by not breaking apart his ride so quickly, and you can even unlock the cutely named “Surf Surf” where you can ride those rocks over water as well.

There are some more expected upgrades like extra health and carrying capacity for health refills, but also moves like the Spin Jump give you a way to quickly launch yourself upwards. Donkey Kong is already an excellent climber though, the ape’s digging assisted especially well by the fact you can always just clamber up out of any hole you dig and cover vast vertical spaces rather swiftly. Climbing can have some hiccups, a few times the camera didn’t play along or Donkey Kong seemed to start climbing differently than the direction pressed because of camera adjustment issues, but it’s not a dealbreaker. In fact, DK gets even more ways to explore the world than his already exceptional range of default skills and upgrades thanks to something presented right there in the game’s name: Bananzas.

 

Once Pauline learns special songs, her music can help DK transform into more powerful animal forms. The first one you acquire is the not so unusual Kong form, DK getting to be an even bigger gorilla who can easily tear through terrain better than ever and even smash the concrete that you would usually need to throw explosives at to break through. As you get more Bananzas though, they give you even greater access to ways to break the game world open. The Ostrich Bananza lets you flutter and glide, able to cover bigger gaps than usual so even distant platforms won’t hold you back. Later Bananzas can make digging an even easier task or let you reach higher spaces, and many of the Bananzas are multi-faceted like one that lets you easily scoop up and reproduce rocks elsewhere so you can sneak helpful terrain bits into areas you might not otherwise have access to them. Almost all of the Bananzas are a blast, although the Snake Bananza’s bouncy movement is a bit rough to control despite its spring jump’s utility but you can swap between each animal form with just a button press so you can even chain together their abilities for combos that make navigation even easier. The Zebra Bananza does stand out though for the wrong reasons, the speed focused form not having as much value as the others since the only spaces it really seems to have use being dedicated challenges for it. On the other hand, it might have the best Bananza theme, and that is a difficult battle since all of them are particularly good.

Since the Bananza songs play while you’re transformed it is certainly fortunate they’re all incredibly catchy and energetic despite essentially having gibberish lyrics beyond the form name being repeated at parts. Bananza forms can usually be activated with little limits, the player needing to build up Bananergy for them… which is acquired by gathering the already abundant gold to the point that you’ll often be ready to transform again by the time the current Bananza runs out. They are, in essence, power-ups you’ll almost always have access to once you learn them. This does diminish the game in one small way, many an early boss encounter trivialized by activating a Bananza that all too easily smashes through the opposition, although boss design does get better later in the adventure. Having Bananza’s essentially on speed dial doesn’t invalidate the hunts for Banandium Gems either, the game still able to structure the underground world in ways that challenge you to do something tricky or get creative in addition to the simpler rewards scattered around to still provide some incentives for mindless but fun wreckage.

 

To get a bit more of a look at the areas though, we’ll be diving deeper once again, and moving into more detailed discussion about things that could be considered spoilers, at least up until the climactic showdown with Void Kong. For now, let’s move onto…

 

SUBLAYER 800: HIDDEN DEPTHS

When you hear a game is an underground adventure, you might expect a lot of caves and dark spaces. Donkey Kong Bananza has a few of those, but they are far from the norm, and in fact, when the game kicks off, you might even think the game isn’t taking its concept that seriously. You’re digging down towards the planet’s core, but the very first sublayer you encounter after going underground is the Lagoon Layer with its grassy cliffs and bright sunny blue sky. Perhaps you’ll shrug and accept it, the locations are more interesting because you can have things like a forest or the beaches and giant fruits of the Resort Layer.

 

Then, as you reach deeper locations and talk to the inhabitants, you learn a bit more about the underground world, and how a surprising degree of thought and care was given to making it make sense. Those sunny skies aren’t just developers shrugging and going with what looks best. Deep below the surface, a society of inventive snakes have crafted Synthetic Suns for the residents of the underground world, the artificial nature of them even put to use in the Radiance Layer where you turn on a disabled sun and reposition it in the sky to shift the way the shadows line up to activate platforms. In the Tempest Layer, a society of elephants have devoted themselves to creating helpful weather forecasts for the underground ecosystems, a strange bird they oversee able to impact the weather. Rather than relying on knowledge of real world science and things like how big enough Amazon warehouses actually get their own clouds near the ceilings, the game confidently sets you about in its world and waits for you to later find the explanations for how things work, Donkey Kong Bananza not feeling like it has to trip over itself to explain everything. It’s an underground world with mystery but one that tries to make sense, and even once it has given itself carte blanche to get more elaborate with area designs, it doesn’t just settle into one idea for each layer.

That forest layer mentioned isn’t just a bunch of trees to climb and smash, a society of ostriches have set up a hotel there. The Radiance Layer’s snakes do have inventors devoted to bringing light to subterranean civilizations, but their elder also sets up elaborate art installations that also help to double as some navigation challenges for you during your visit. The Freezer Layer is a big snowy place and ice cream isn’t out of place there, but the zebras who make the treats are a fun addition before you start to uncover the burbling hot lava beneath it all that makes the area appropriately layered. These underground animal civilization may be separated by layers of rock and stone, but they also coexist, a good deal of them providing services for the others and all happily joining together for musical moments with their elders that double as DJs.

 

An even more interesting group of underground inhabitants though are the Fractones. Little rock people with big bright eyes, the Fractones come in many shapes but seem a bit basic at first. They appear all throughout the underground and are the primary residents of a few of them, but despite looking simple at first, there is a lot more going on with them than first appears. First, they are often made of a special material called Fractonium you can use to build, a Fractone able to become a ladder or a bridge if you’re willing to rip chunks off them for long enough. They recover from any stolen body material quickly and even break themselves apart sometimes for fun, and since some come in other materials, it might be a way to get something like an explosive rock where the material might not otherwise exist. Fractones can play different roles like the dapper one who helps you at Getaways by making each shopkeeper’s service readily available without tracking them down, the Quiztone who will reward you if you can complete a fun little set of questions, and the Exploritone. All throughout the underground you find engravings left by the Exploritone who has decided to dig deeper into the earth to search for the origin of Fractones, adding a new mystery to be curious about but also providing a sense of history to the layers. Some places you end up in don’t have a local species but merely the remains of one that once lived there, like the giraffes who helped build the industry of the Canyon Layer. Exploritone’s writings give you an idea of what the place once was like when its original inhabitants still lived, but it can also give a sense of the future too. A fun little layer exists called the Racing Layer where DK reconnects with some old friends, riding Rambi the rhinoceros to race his former adventuring companions Diddy and Dixie. Not only does the racing also prove to be more open-ended to player action than it first appears thanks to the way you can build ramps with your boost, but the Exploritome found the place before the races were established, a sense of continuity in this world’s still evolving history expanded by this little touch.

 

However, the worlds aren’t just there to look pretty and establish a well-considered setting. One of the most exceptional elements of Donkey Kong Bananza’s already superb design is how it lays out the layers for your adventure. Donkey Kong Bananza definitely understands that you will be excited to try out your ability to smash through the world. Early layers ease you into it some, a good set-up for those who might not normally play 3D platformers, but then Hilltop Layer and Canyon Layer both give you huge spaces to absolutely destroy the place to your heart’s content, but they consistently reward it more than any other space. However, as you smash through mountains in Canyon Layer, you might start to ask yourself if the rest of the game will be just bashing through rock to such a degree, so the game begins to pull back with its follow-up layers with more considered spaces. There’s still stuff to destroy, but a place like the Forest Layer has a lot more open space meant to traverse through jumping, climbing, and Ostrich glides rather than just bashing through every bit of ground. More dangerous terrain like chilling waters or pools of poison ask you to be smarter, and challenges start asking for more thoughtful destruction. Things like ice crystals that need to be guided to tumble into the right baskets require you to reshape the terrain to make accommodating channels for their movement. Later down the line, you’ll find more creative ways material can be used, such as spaces where throwing chunks will create bridges, allowing you to create rather than destroy your way to a solution. However, as you get more of those structured sections, you might start itching for some more mindless rampaging through rocks, and then the Landfill Layer arises, a place purely devoted to digging your way down.

Landfill Layer is actually the best demonstration of some other genius choices that once again maybe stand against the go-to thoughts for game world design. When you dig underground in Donkey Kong Bananza, the holes are only about one gorilla wide, meaning the camera should technically have issue showing you. Many 3D games would zoom in on you in a tight space but that would make digging around more difficult, so instead, Donkey Kong Bananza decides to toss away the conventional wisdom. You’re able to see through the ground around you to help you with your digging task, sometimes even able to see a Banandium Gem or other cave. Seeing through walls is usually a cheat or some exploit of fiddling with a game camera, but here, it is crucial, especially in Landfill Layer where you are tunneling your way through a massive dirt shaft. What’s more, the game’s map updates for every bit of destruction, it even being a 3D map so you can not only consult it to orient yourself, but you can get a satisfying view of how much you’ve changed the level over time. Donkey Kong Bananza is choosing the most helpful and fun ideas without caring if it might be demanding to display it or it might buck the idea that seeing through walls is immersion breaking. It knows when you’re digging you want to see what you’re doing and it won’t let anything get in the way of it if it can, the exploration more exciting because you’re not fighting the systems but instead gifted a bounty of options to do it as much as you like.

 

Donkey Kong Bananza does have a few spaces separate from the main sublayers called ruins, these found throughout and actually taking you to unique short challenges. Some are quick combat challenges that likely won’t ask much of you, DK just as quick to smash baddies as he can boulders and only a few of these specific battles aim to really involve much thought to clear. The other ruins though will often provide a laser focus on one of the game’s many gimmicks or mechanics to test your ability to handle them more directly. Sometimes terrain isn’t as available to smash or grab in these areas, or you might be asked to do it more intelligently or quickly than usual. These are a very good way of breaking up any and every layer though. You get a quick dose of more structured game design that isn’t as easily broken open but still makes great use of the mechanics and movement options found elsewhere, and these spaces are also where Bananza abilities can be tested with more structured challenges since a small little world can be built solely for them. They don’t dispense with the idea of player freedom, even the game’s toughest trials can sometimes have creative workarounds if you consider your options, but they are the space where the game can compartmentalize things better so you are directly approaching a challenge rather than sometimes stumbling across the end by digging your way to it by chance.

Some special mention should certainly go towards the game’s villainous trio. Void Kong has two employees of note, Grumpy Kong helping to build some of the bosses you encounter along the way and Poppy a more capable ape who provides a more intelligent balance to the group. Grumpy Kong’s creations often involve terrain breakage in some form, Donkey Kong often having to smash through shells to reach the boss’s weak point, although this is why many of the early bosses are pushovers when faced with Bananza forms. Luckily, some later bosses break from the mold a bit, the slug Muckety-Muck a good example of a tough foe that makes good use of the terrain still. The giant slug can only be hurt by salt you need to lift and throw at him, but the salt can be blocked by terrain the boss adds and he moves around fairly regularly so he’s not too easy to nail with salt chunks. The Mad Mixer is also another good twist, the game’s brief mine cart riding sections used for the fight and you need to hurl explosives at it to break him apart or smash through its shields.

 

Donkey Kong Bananza repeats a few bosses oddly enough, and not with major advancements despite it, but when you start reaching the endgame, the bosses start to get more exciting. Poppy Kong, sadly, has two very weak fights, but to make up for it, she instead has perhaps the most depth of any Kong in the series besides maybe Cranky Kong, the old ornery ape helped by his fourth-wall breaking appearances in manuals. Poppy instead talks to you quite a few times during the journey and shifts her thoughts on the situation, even aiding Donkey Kong eventually as she finds it in her best interests rather than serving Void Kong to the end.

Void Kong does get to have a good climactic fight that feels like it could have been a superb conclusion to an already phenomenal game. His boss battle utilizes terrain to great effect and its difficulty is kept intact by limiting you to not using your Bananza forms, and after a game of using music so often to oppose evil, connect groups, and bond with Pauline, the climax tests that one more time with a scene where Pauline’s voice can risk giving Void access to the core’s wish granting power, but it’s also the only way to save DK. In the end though, after getting to know VoidCo.’s trio, of having Void Kong’s face taunt us as it brands his corruption across the layers, we wrap up this adventure by beating him in a battle that serves as a very nice capstone to this fun new villain group…

 

But we’ve got a little deeper to go still.

 

SUBLAYER 1500: LEGACY

Donkey Kong Bananza is a sensational game, a king among 3D platformers, and quite a good deal of it comes from what it does differently. It creates a world you can come to love, it tells a story that is wholly its own, it focuses on brand new ideas like the digging and the Bananzas. For a regular fan of video games only looking for something fun, it does so much before that final fight with Void Kong to craft something that feels cohesive, creative, and forward facing.

 

But this is the first new Donkey Kong solo outing since Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze back in 2014, the series languishing in cameos and rereleases since then. Even counting it though, both it and its predecessor Donkey Kong Country Returns as well as Donkey Kong Jungle Beat all represented an odd shift for the franchise. Donkey Kong was Nintendo’s first big hit, Mario is even technically a spin-off of it depending on how you classify things, but the Donkey Kong series found its identity most strongly in Donkey Kong Country. We saw the original girder climbing ape retire and become the delightfully ornery old ape Cranky, who does appear in Bananza as someone you can find in each layer for a reward (although his repetitive rants could have been made more interesting). Donkey Kong Country gave DK a whole world, a supporting cast, and villainous adversaries all his own, a series of challenging platformers giving the big ape his own niche even in a company with many other platforming franchises. But it was Rare who headed the games, and Nintendo decided against buying them out when they needed some financial support, Microsoft coming along and snatching that developer up, meaning Donkey Kong was without a home essentially. New games would be made, odd turns in climbing pegs and playing bongos, but even when he returned to platforming, the games almost seemed reticent to acknowledge the smallest bits of the older Country games. Each reference was either because the element was too big to ignore or felt almost like pulling teeth, and it felt like people who didn’t care for the series as much as they should had the reins at times or that Nintendo itself was locking them out of being more respectful to the past.

 

This is your last chance to leave before a big spoiler, and if you do go back now, just know that Donkey Kong Bananza is far more respectful to the past even in ways bigger than just digging up fossils with fun cameos.

 

Once you defeat Void Kong, he goes scrambling to try and get his wish regardless… only for the past to reassert itself in a glorious way.

 

The fist of King K. Rool smashes Void Kong away, Donkey Kong’s old nemesis who he hadn’t faced since 2007 reappearing nearly 18 years later. The final stretch of the game, its most difficult moments, its best boss battles, all happen thanks to the big crocodile reclaiming his spot as the villain of a franchise that has felt like it’s been trying to shut him away for years. There were signs this could happen, some enemies you face line up pretty well with the Kremlings who serve under K. Rool and Cranky’s ramblings along the way are actually meant to be about K. Rool but the old gorilla’s choice of words make it sound like he could be talking about Void Kong instead. It may feel a bit out of the blue for those without the context on who he is, but it also comes with a spectacular finale that is hard to resent. VoidCo. was able to have a full narrative that wrapped up before this indulgent and fan-pleasing reappearance, and the fights against K. Rool continue to escalate over and over, the guy never staying down and whipping out more and more tricks that shift the format while still fitting into the Donkey Kong Bananza gameplay mechanics excellently.

Donkey Kong Bananza would still be getting a Quality Time review even without the demonstration that Donkey Kong’s delightful past is no longer going to be kept buried, so much already working about the adventure before then, but including a few nostalgic throwback levels in the ruins can’t hold a candle to the rollercoaster of an ending K. Rool brings with him. It keeps one-upping itself with new gameplay sections as K. Rool just won’t stay down, Donkey Kong Bananza having its cake and eating it too as it gets to have an appropriate ending for this adventure’s unique considerations as well as one that fits itself into the wider series. K. Rool even gets to bring with him multiple wonderful remixes, Donkey Kong Bananza’s music sometimes fading away behind all the noises of smashing despite having some lovely tracks like Lagoon Layer’s theme, but the finale can give you goosebumps as nothing is held back for this grand return. Even if K. Rool is some stranger to you, his presentation, his musical accompaniment, and the multiple enjoyable action segments that come with his appearance make this turn something that feels completely justified for how much more it adds to an already exceptional experience.

 

When the game ends though, the adrenaline rush over, there are oddly enough some unanswered questions and maybe the ending could have leaned a bit more into the emotion of the moment it constructed for Pauline and Donkey Kong, but there are still some entertaining tasks left to do down below beyond finding what you missed. Donkey Kong Bananza gives you a great deal to do and may even influence how you view other video game worlds after, I even found myself wanting to smash apart obstacles in my way in other very different games like Mario Kart World after spending so much time with this game. It doesn’t overstay its welcome either, a full completion possible thanks to the maps and more powerful Bananza powers speeding things up while the regular adventure was already beefy enough despite its freeform nature. It’s easy to accept a few weak bosses and some movement problems with things like the Snake Bananza to get to the wonderful core of a game that can balance appealing to the past with forging a new path into the future.

 

THE PLANET CORE: KONGCLUSION

Donkey Kong Bananza puts so much control over the action in the player’s hands it’s almost dizzying. Your abilities tied to transforming the terrain are so effective and surprisingly vast that you can circumvent many challenges and yet the act of doing so is often as entertaining as the intended route or even more exciting to figure out. The world is built with so much care towards enabling player freedom but not losing its touch for engaging challenges while also putting a great degree of thought into realizing the underground world from a lore standpoint. It’s a crowd pleaser when it comes to simple thrills and yet packs surprising depths, a touch of emotion layered on top of it all with the addition of Pauline and her struggles to put herself out there and embrace openly doing what she loves.

 

There will always be room for traditional platformers and obstacle course design, and I’d be just as happy if DK’s next adventure was another 2D platformer in the vein of his 1994 outing on the Super Nintendo. Donkey Kong Bananza doesn’t feel like it wants to leave anything on the table, and besides a few little things like repeat fossils, Cranky’s rants, and the easy early bosses, so much feels like it was deeply considered and done despite what others might consider limitations. It didn’t care that you could see through walls, it made that a strength so the digging would be better. It doesn’t get hung up on the idea of players circumventing a challenge by digging around or using abilities, because Donkey Kong Bananza understands that can be just as fun and engaging as doing things the intended way. Calling anything “intended” feels a bit off though since the game knows and supports that approach to adventuring. Even when it thins things down in the ruins, you still can make your own solutions, but if you do approach them the way presented, they’re going to be entertaining rather than restrictive. Maybe the Zebra Bananza could have been given some spaces to make better use of it, but also the other Bananzas are so flexible and easily activated and swapped between they feel like they’re just more options in the kind of toolkit that’s captivating to explore on its own merits.

 

Even tossing in the fan-pleasing finale feels like it was done to ensure Donkey Kong Bananza is the kind of remarkable package that is hard to fault. Its flaws are so minute compared to the careful consideration put into elements of its design, it doesn’t settle into the environment destruction idea as it keeps concocting inventive twists, and it doesn’t force you into tight boxes to play the game a certain prescribed way. Donkey Kong Bananza isn’t a sandbox like how other freeform games are sometimes described, it’s more like a box of LEGO that also comes with tape, glue, and chisels. Despite all that, it can remember to bring emotion to the experience, the charming bond with Pauline, the moments of wonderful music that rises above the noise, and the reminder that Donkey Kong Bananza’s creators care for the character and world so that long-time fans are pleased and new ones can find a great new setting to spark their imagination.

 

As technology advances and more developers are inspired by what we see here, perhaps some of its destructive elements won’t feel so unique eventually. However, despite breaking this new ground, Donkey Kong Bananza also did it with expert care, identifying how to handle it rather than ending up in pitfalls. Video games can always get better, but when you craft something intelligently, its appeal will never fade away. Donkey Kong Bananza committed to its concept and built around it superbly. Even as you destroy its excellently crafted world, you’ll come to love it.

 

I hadn’t yet mentioned a nice little extra thrown in just for kicks, the DK Artist mode a cute bonus where you can reshape and sculpt a rocky figure. It’s not the most accommodating art tool, you need to start with a base like a rock bust of Donkey Kong or a bunch of bananas, and adding in more to model with or doing small touches isn’t very easy. It seems almost like it’s a reworking of whatever tool they used to make terrain in the main adventure, even forgoing colors for things like painting with lava or snow so you don’t get a full palette. Its limits may be some of the appeal, like how claymation is more impressive for eschewing what’s easy, but despite not being a deft hand with the tool, I decided to use the game itself to provide my final rating, as if there was any question. And so, Donkey Kong Bananza on the Nintendo Switch 2’s rating is…