Ever since Donkey Kong Bananza was announced, I’ve been a bit worried about the future of the Donkey Kong we all know and love. Sure, the new design is liked by some, but also hated by many (including me). What’s worse, it seems as though Nintendo is set on making this new tongue-out, overalls-on design a permanent and irreversible change, meaning the old Rare design could soon be left in the past.
Recently, Nintendo removed a Nintendo Switch system profile icon featuring the old Donkey Kong design, and replaced it with an icon for the new design, as if to erase history.
This doesn’t seem to make much sense if you’re a fan of the Super Nintendo World theme park, which recently opened in Osaka, Japan in December 2024, and will come stateside soon. These theme parks use Donkey Kong’s older design, as featured in Donkey Kong Country Returns—the game in which the theme park is modeled after.
However, it’s likely that Donkey Kong Bananza wasn’t in development during the theme park’s planning stage, and so luckily for fans, the new design wasn’t implemented in time for the parks.
This does create a huge problem of inconsistency, but it doesn’t seem Nintendo cares that much about Donkey Kong’s design consistency. So…this is unfortunately nothing new.
Anyway, I believe the new design is a permanent change for DK, and Nintendo won’t ever be going back to Rare’s design. Let me explain why.
The End of an Era
Nintendo recently pumped out Donkey Kong Country Returns HD in January to coincide with the theme park’s Donkey Kong Country expansion. Nintendo handed the development duties of the port to Forever Entertainment—who turned out to be one of the worst developers they could have possibly chosen. And this developer was (hopefully) dirt cheap for Nintendo, since they changed barely anything other than increasing load times and introducing frame rate issues not present in the original Wii game — indicating a clear disrespect for the source material. To add insult to injury, Nintendo didn’t even bother crediting the original creators of DKCR.
After all we know now, I believe that DKCR HD was Nintendo’s final (and somewhat forced) obligation to the older Donkey Kong.
Donkey Kong Bananza must have been in development for at least a couple of years, and so Nintendo surely had plans to change Donkey Kong’s old design for quite a while. However, they were kinda stuck with the theme park, so they had to do something to cross-promote a game with the theme park, just like a piece of merchandise. They hadn’t released a Donkey Kong game in over a decade, so they had to act fast and slap together something to sell to parents who had taken their kids to the theme park.
They ended up doing the bare minimum with DKCR HD, not even adding any new levels, characters, etcetera. If DK Bananza wasn’t a thing, I’m positive Nintendo would’ve taken greater care to make DKCR HD a memorable experience.
Instead, Nintendo treated DKCR HD like something they couldn’t care less about. Not only did they enlist the help of a third-party to develop the port instead of doing it with their own studios, but they chose the worst possible developer they could find, with the lowest budget they could manage.
A Switch 2 Surprise Disrespect
To add a banana on top of this crap sundae, Nintendo even dropped the first trailer for the highly anticipated Nintendo Switch 2 next-generation system on the same day Donkey Kong Country Returns HD released. Why would Nintendo do this to a new game release featuring a first-party character?
This is because, I believe, Nintendo wanted to be done with the old Donkey Kong and, in their minds, “finally” move on to Bananza. They spent hardly anything on the development of DKCR HD, so why not release a Switch 2 trailer on the same day and take away Donkey Kong’s time in the spotlight? This isn’t some conspiracy theory, this literally happened. Donkey Kong fans are so used to be being abused by Nintendo, that they’ll accept basically anything.
As soon as Bananza was ready to be unveiled, Nintendo went to work in changing profile icons and merchandise on their online store to the new design. Nintendo was finally free of the old Donkey Kong (except for, of course, the theme park).
The Future of Rare’s Donkey Kong Design
So, what does this mean for Rare Donkey Kong fans? Well, if you like Rare’s design of Donkey Kong, it’ll always exist in the older titles. Nintendo can’t take away your old SNES cartridges. But, I believe the old DK will not be coming back in future installments—at least not in a major way.
Sure, games like Super Smash Bros. might feature assist trophies or other references to the old designs, but the actual character in the next Smash Bros. will almost certainly be of the new DK design. And future games, starting with Bananza, will likely only feature the new design as well. In other words, Nintendo is quickly phasing out Rare’s Donkey Kong design, and no newer title will go back to it—in my opinion.
Before you leave a hate comment, I’m aware that Donkey Kong Bananza is referencing older Donkey Kong games by Rare in some ways. That’s fine, and I know many of you are excited by that. But I’m talking about the design of DK here, which is a major issue for many people.
And, while this is a topic for a different article, I actually think Donkey Kong Bananza is a weird game. It pays homage to Rare in some ways, but it feels like it’s a Donkey Kong game developed by people who simultaneously don’t know what the hell Donkey Kong is about, but also somehow have a fanboy fondness for past Rare titles.
Bananza’s Weird Gameplay
The gameplay footage for Bananza so far comes across as a Rampage-style destruction game, where DK runs around demolishing the entire level. I’m sorry, but this has never been what Donkey Kong is about, and it seems like the developers just took a look at Donkey Kong and guessed what his gameplay should be like without ever actually touching the original Rare Donkey Kong games. That’s why it’s weird that there’s seemingly many references to past Rare DKC games—almost as if half of the developers weren’t fans of Donkey Kong and half of them were.
But what do I know? I’ll have to play the game and review it after it releases. These are just my initial impressions, and hopefully I can get my hands on a Switch 2 before the game releases so I can review it completely and properly.
Kongclusion
Thank you for reading. If you’re interested in our full, raw, and uncensored thoughts on Donkey Kong’s new design, check out NintendoUp’s Roast of Donkey Kong Bananza.
What do you guys think? Is Donkey Kong’s new design permanent, or will Nintendo ever go back to the older—and better—Donkey Kong design? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and leave a like for more Donkey Kong videos and everything else Nintendo.