Review: Donkey Kong Bananza for Nintendo Switch 2

As a Rare-era Donkey Kong fan, I wasn’t excited to play Donkey Kong Bananza until I learned some late-game spoilers. Now, finally after beating the game, do I think this is the best way forward for Donkey Kong? This review will cover what I like and dislike about the game, not influenced by any other reviews. Without further ado, let’s get started.

So, I finished Donkey Kong Bananza, playing it for about 25 hours. I haven’t collected every banana or fossil, but that’s not necessary. Going into the game, I was not expecting much. I hated the redesign of Donkey Kong, most notably his tongue inexplicably sticking out all the time, and I didn’t think the inclusion of Pauline was respectful to rare DKC games by essentially removing Diddy or Dixie as Donkey Kong’s partner character.

I also didn’t think the game (developed by the Super Mario Odyssey creators) looked or played like a Donkey Kong game, but rather a 3D Mario game with Mr. Driller, Breath of the Wild, and Rampage injections. However, I’m happy to report that the game is actually fun to play. But was I wrong about my concerns?

The Positives

Graphics and Environmental Design

To start off, the game looks pretty good. I wouldn’t say that it blew me away graphically, but I own an Xbox Series X and I’m used to games that look pretty decent. It is, however, the best-looking Donkey Kong game on a technical level. I prefer the art style of all the Super Nintendo DKC games, and maybe even Tropical Freeze, but there’s no denying that this is a next-generation Donkey Kong game the likes of which we’ve never seen before.

The starting area actually happens to be my favorite, since it kind of reminds me of DKC 2 with its darker atmosphere. Yeah, even though the game takes place underground, most of the areas aren’t actually dark. The environments remind me of World of Warcraft‘s expansion The War Within, where most of the game takes place underground but there’s somehow tons of light and it looks like it’s not actually underground. I got to be honest, I don’t think that makes much sense, and it kind of annoys me a little bit when I think about the logic of it—or lack of logic. I understand that to take advantage of the digging and destruction gameplay, Nintendo needed to make the game take place underground, but I definitely prefer DK Island as a setting both for my own sanity and for its logical variety. Oh, and if you’re wondering, no, at least for my 25 hours of gameplay, Donkey Kong Island is not a playable area (update: this was added in an overpriced DLC pack which isn’t worth your money).

Core Gameplay and Collectibles

Another positive is a big one, and that’s the gameplay. Look, I have some negative things to say about this later on, but as a non-Donkey Kong game—as in, if you look at this game as a new IP—this is a really great gameplay hook. Smashing and destroying things is tons of fun, at least throughout the story’s duration. I also like collecting the many fossils, bananas, and other collectibles. If you’re an N64 collectathon fan, you’ll probably love the gameplay. Although there is some platforming and puzzle solving, the majority of the game is either fighting enemies or digging and smashing things, and luckily that doesn’t get boring for the story’s duration. Although, post-game, without much direction, I did find myself getting a little sick of it.

Bananas, Skill Trees, and Rehearsals

Unlike Super Mario Odyssey, where collecting moons didn’t really matter that much after a certain point, bananas are actually useful here. You use bananas to upgrade your skills, and then at the end of the game, you need bananas to take part in post-game rehearsals. Rehearsals are just like challenge gauntlets where you have to survive waves of enemies and puzzles until the end, and that’s where I’m currently at in the game. I kind of like the skill tree, although, let’s be honest, it doesn’t really suit a Donkey Kong game to upgrade your moves. However, in the service of gameplay, it’s an interesting and probably smart idea with plenty of mostly optional upgrades. There are bananas and fossils hidden literally everywhere in this game, and while you might get sick of the sheer number of collectibles, I personally didn’t mind it as much as I could have.

Nostalgic References and Character Cameos

One of the biggest positives for a Donkey Kong fan is that there are references to prior rare DKC games. There are at least two bonus levels that are ripped pretty much exactly from DKC 1 and DKC 2, and they were by far the best parts of the game with the best music and gameplay. Sadly, that does mean I wish they had made a DKC sequel instead, but I’ll take what I can get. Diddy and Dixie also make a very brief appearance in one of the shortest levels, and I’m relatively satisfied with their representation in terms of dialogue. However, I do wish they had more to do in the game, but we’ll talk about that later on in the review. Cranky Kong is a highlight, definitely a step up from his dialogue in DKC Returns and Tropical Freeze, and even Rambi makes an appearance here and there. That said, I think he was heavily underutilized with only one gameplay segment that, to be honest, wasn’t that fun.

The Soundtrack

The music in the game is not bad, and at times really good, but I don’t think it’s on the level of any of the DKC games. Yes, if you include remixes of old games then maybe, but that’s kind of cheating. I need to listen to the music more before I definitively rank the tunes, but while playing the game, I never really stopped to go, “Wow, the music is amazing.” Except for when a particular DKC 2 track made an appearance. (Update: After about a year since release, I still don’t remember any of the music in the game except the remixes.)

Late-Game Spoilers and Epic Boss Fates

Spoiler Warning: The final couple hours of this game should have been the entire game. I’m going to reveal a spoiler here, so if you don’t want to know what happens, you can skip ahead a little bit. All right, so yeah, King K. Rool and the Kremlings and many of the enemies from older DKC games make a triumphant reappearance in Bananza, but only in the final couple hours. I wish that instead of hiding the enemies, that they were visible in plain sight the entire time. But what they’ve done is make it so you only really see them after you’ve defeated them, except for the bees for some reason. “Not the bees! Not the bees!” The greatest surprise of the game is the many different King K. Rool boss fights, and those battles can be challenging. That’s interesting because I found that most other bosses in the game were laughably easy. But the final Void Co. boss fight, as well as two of the three K. Rool fights, were relatively challenging. Not overly challenging, sure, but a small child might have difficulty defeating these bosses even after many attempts. It’s great to see K. Rool back, and I have to admit I was extremely happy with the way they portrayed him and his epic final battles. I am so glad that the new enemies weren’t the final bosses because, well, I didn’t actually like the new enemies that much anyway. If you just want K. Rool back in a faithful and epic way, then this game does deliver in spades.

Also, for all the complaints I will have about Pauline later on in this review, I did like her bittersweet ending—well, kind of ending—and she wasn’t as bad as she could have been. I think younger kids, especially girls, will adore her. So if you’re a 13-year-old Disney-princess-loving girl, Pauline is nothing but a welcome addition.

Overall, the game has plenty of positives, with the most notable being the gameplay is simply fun. Especially in the first 20 hours, you will definitely enjoy the gameplay loop even if technically it is repetitive. There are some things that break up the usual smashing gameplay like challenge areas, some platforming, puzzles, etc., but the majority of the game is hitting things and digging up stuff. I don’t think it feels like a Donkey Kong game, but rather it feels like Donkey Kong is a skin that they slapped on a new IP. But if this were a new IP, I would call it a great one.

The Negatives

Okay, still here? Now it’s time to put on our critical, cave-dwelling, Donkey Kong Country-loving, banana-tinted glasses and destroy this game with the negatives.

The Problem with Pauline and Character Sidelining

Let’s start off with a big one. I didn’t like that Pauline replaced Diddy, or Dixie, or Kiddy Kong as a partner character for Donkey Kong. I have nothing against Pauline, but I just don’t care about her in a Donkey Kong game. Pauline has never appeared in a rare Donkey Kong game before, and the very notion that she has more screen time than every other character combined, except for Donkey Kong, is a little ridiculous as a rare Donkey Kong fan. As I mentioned in the positives, Diddy Kong and Dixie Kong only show up for a brief few seconds in a rather unfun mini-game. It made me a little angry, to be honest, because I wish Diddy or even Dixie were the star of the show along with DK. Now that I think about it, why couldn’t Dixie Kong be the one to sing?

Redesign Disappointments

Furthermore, I don’t like Diddy’s redesign, who for some reason has undergone a downgrade that looks as though an AI model generated it. It’s not as noticeable as DK’s redesign, but that makes it all the more unnecessary, and it seems as though Nintendo did it just for the sake of it rather than for any good reason. I don’t know why there’s a line of flesh between Diddy’s eyes, and the “DK” symbol on his hat looks like an afterthought. It’s not as bad as Donkey Kong’s redesign, but it’s just kind of frustrating to see.

Speaking of Donkey Kong’s redesign, I know a lot of Mario fans love this redesign, but as a rare DKC fan, I don’t like it. I just think he looks more stupid, and whenever his tongue is sticking out, which happens a lot, I just wish for the old rare design. Sorry, but nope. I have played this game for over 25 hours, and I’m still not used to it. I never will be, honestly. I don’t like this design, and that’s perfectly fine. I don’t need people in the comments telling me I’m wrong for having an opinion. And I know the creator of the old Rare design apparently loves this redesign, but so what? Just because he created the old design doesn’t mean his opinion changes my opinion, nor should it. He’s allowed to be nice and say whatever he wants, but so am I. I don’t like the new design and I wish the old one would come back.

Tone and Musical Critique

On the topic of Pauline, she’s not as annoying as I thought she would be, but there’s no denying I am not playing a Donkey Kong game to hear about her insecurities as a singer, as well as her constantly singing like a Disney princess whenever I have to transform into some monstrosity. Mercifully, you can turn off her singing during transformations. Again, if you’re a pre-teen Disney girl, Pauline is the best thing that’s ever happened in your life. But if you’re an old man like me, this is just not what we want. Especially as a rare Donkey Kong Country fan, I’d rather hear David Wise’s beautiful compositions that are up there with the best music ever made, period, than this average 20-something-year-old singer portraying a 13-year-old singing some okay-at-best Disney rip-offs (update: apparently, the voice actress for Pauline is middle-aged). You can play as Pauline in two-player mode, but I never tried this out, so I can’t comment on it.

Enemy Design and Lack of Kongs

The new enemies are, frankly, not very appealing visually. I loved the last couple of levels because they featured DKCenemies, but it’s definitely a Jungle Beat-inspired game for 99% of the adventure. Still, there’s only two DKC-inspired bonus levels that I could come across in the world so far, which actually pisses me off a little bit. Why are the best parts of the game so few and far between? Shouldn’t most of the game celebrate Donkey Kong’s best moments? Another complaint is at least, so far, I haven’t encountered Funky Kong or any other Kongs except for the obvious Cranky, Diddy, and Dixie—and of course, the new enemies. I wasn’t kidding when I said Pauline takes up the majority of game time. Make no mistake, this is a Pauline game with a new and not-so-improved redesign of Donkey Kong as her escort.

Transformations vs. Animal Buddies

I didn’t like that the Bananza transformations essentially replaced all the animal buddies, except for Rambi for one mediocre racing segment. To me, this is like making the world smaller, where Donkey Kong is literally the only character you can control—not including Pauline. Why should Donkey Kong be like an ostrich? Why not ride Espresso? I understand it’s more convenient from a gameplay perspective to simply transform at will, but Donkey Kong Country has always had a realistic, lived-in world as a selling point where gameplay wasn’t always the absolute most important thing.

The Mario Influence and Future Concerns

There are tons, and I do mean tons, of Mario influences here that are not necessarily for the best if you’re a rare Donkey Kong Country fan. Let me clarify: if you’re just a Mario fan or you don’t care that much about rare Donkey Kong, then many of my complaints won’t matter to you. That’s fine. But as a hardcore rare DK fan, these things do matter. If you approach the game like it’s a regular, generic 3D collectathon with influences from Dig Dug, or Mr. Driller, Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, Rampage, and maybe even Knack for the PlayStation, then this is a great game. And even as a rare DK fan, you’ll probably enjoy the game thanks to its amazing portrayal of the final boss, as well as some much-needed references to DKC games.

However, from a gameplay perspective, I think Donkey Kong Country Returns and Tropical Freeze are much more faithful to the spirit of rare Donkey Kong. Yes, not in terms of references, but in terms of the DNA or genes of older Rare games. This is clearly a Japanese-developed Mario Odyssey team production. That’s not necessarily bad, but it’s not what I wanted from a Donkey Kong game, and I’m fearful that this is the style of Donkey Kong game we’re going to get from now on.

For example, when I first played Breath of the Wild, I really did enjoy it, but after Tears of the Kingdom, I got sick of it as a Zelda fan who loves Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, and all prior 3D Zelda games. While Donkey Kong Bananza is a great addition overall to the Switch 2’s library, I hope it’s a one-off for Donkey Kong, just like I hoped Breath of the Wildwould be a one-off for Zelda. There are so many things you could do with a straight-up 3D Donkey Kong game on Donkey Kong Island. I’m not convinced that Bananza, a radical departure from the old DK gameplay, was necessary before attempting a more traditional 3D Donkey Kong game with actual minecart levels. Yeah, sorry, the minecart sections in Bananza weren’t good enough. And real animal buddies, and memorable villains outside of the final boss fights. Void Co. didn’t really do anything for me, and neither did the weird new enemies.

The gameplay hook of Bananza can appear again for some other Nintendo characters or even new ones, but for me, I am hoping that the next DK game is more faithful in gameplay to the older rare Donkey Kong games. I doubt Nintendo will abandon the Bananza style for DK, both in gameplay and in design, but I suspect that many people will gradually, perhaps slowly, become sick of it just like Breath of the Wild.

Conclusion

Overall, I really enjoyed Bananza if I close my eyes and think of it like a new IP with some DK styling and references. From that perspective, I would happily give this game an 8.5 out of 10. As a Donkey Kong game, that is much harder to rate, and I fear any rating I would give it based on that would result in people grabbing their banana torches.

But I’ll just go ahead and say I wasn’t wrong about being fearful of Bananza not being like a Donkey Kong game. However, I was surprised at how fun the journey actually was. So, and I’m being sincere here, well done and congratulations to Nintendo for making a truly great game. And could we please have the old Donkey Kong back now….please?

Final Score Notes

Reviewing this game requires two different lenses: an objective, unbiased score for the casual player, and a pure ‘fanboy’ score from someone who has starved for a new Donkey Kong game for years. If you don’t share my hyper-fixation, stick to the baseline score. But if you’ve been waiting as long as I have, feel free to use the lower score.

• As a standalone 3D Platformer / New IP: 8.5 / 10
• As a faithful Donkey Kong successor: 6.0 / 10

Verdict

8.5 Great

Donkey Kong Bananza is a brilliantly fun 3D platformer and an exceptional piece of game design when viewed as a standalone experience. The core loop of smashing, digging, and hunting down meaningful collectibles is incredibly addictive, and the late-game re-emergence of a popular character provides a genuinely epic climax.

However, for die-hard fans of the classic Rare era, the game suffers a profound identity crisis. By prioritizing heavy Super Mario Odyssey style mechanics, sidelining iconic Kong family members in favor of Pauline, replacing classic animal buddies with transformations, and shifting to a controversial new design for DK, it trades away the unique, atmospheric DNA of Donkey Kong Country. It is undeniably a great game, but it leaves long-time fans wondering if the soul of the franchise has been left behind.

Ups

1. Addictive core gameplay loop.
2. The return of a special character.
3. Nostalgia hits.
4. Genuinely useful collectibles.

Downs

1. Identity crisis.
2. Sidelined Kongs in favor of Pauline.
3. Frustrating redesigns.
4. Missing the DNA of Donkey Kong.

• NintendoUp's Rating 8.5
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