Review - Donkey Kong Bananza
Oh Banana!
July 17, 2025 - Nintendo
Platform - Wataru Tanaka, Kazuya Takahashi, Kenta Motokura
Switch 2
Donkey Kong meets a mysterious teenage girl named Pauline and begins an adventure to the planet’s core to find the Banandium Root and grant their wishes.
Characters, World, and Presentation
Donkey Kong is back after a decade and is now working down in the layers of the world. The game goes Hollow Earth theory, and you have to explore layers inside the planet. One day, an event happens that shakes up the earth, which leads to DK meeting a teenager named Pauline. Pauline is an aspiring singer, but has stage fright. As you go on an adventure, you realize the Voidco company, led by Void Kong, is looking for the legendary benadadium root, which sits at the planet’s core and grants any wish. So with that, DK and Pauline set out to go deeper into the planet and get to the core and get their wish for lots of bananans and for Pauline to return to the surface, before Void Kong and his lackies, Grumpy Kong and Poppy Kong, get there.
Donkey Kong’s personality and character traits have been pretty much the same since the 1994 classic Donkey Kong Country. So Nintendo finally took time to change up the big ape, not a lot, but just enough to make this feel like the start of a new era. DK has a new look, rounding his features out and making his expressions more cartoon like, something we’ve seen the company do with its characters lately. While still obsessed with bananas, DK is mining for bandandiums, a gem like a banana. This proves to be the “stars” or shines” of the game as you’re constantly looking to collect as much as possible. You also have Pauline, who has a character arc that slowly builds up in a way that surprised me, considering Nintendo’s history of focusing on gameplay over story. At the start, she’s shy and has stage fright despite her dream to become a singer, and yet as you play the game, you can hear and see her confidence grow with every layer you travel. She also acts as the narrator in many ways and the voice of the player.
This is a pretty game, even if you can tell it was initially made for the original Switch console. Even if it’s not the graphical showcase for a beautiful 4K Nintendo game on their new hardware, it still has a great art style, and the destructible elements don’t feel off in any of the levels. The parts of the levels that you can destroy and dig up make sense, and the design around it is impressive. The developers had to find a way to make as much as possible destructible, while also ensuring that the rest of the elements remain and seamlessly connect. You can also tell the game was made on the same engine and assets as Super Mario Odyssey. Many of the UI elements in the game are a straight-up copy of Odyssey (especially the shops and closet). Despite this, it still has its own personality, and I hope this style stays in the next Donkey Kong game.
As for the level design for the layers (the game’s levels), they are inventive and unique. There’s a snow world that uses ice cream and sweets as its geography and makeup, there’s a world based around eating to make a giant burger, a cavern that has nice nostalgic twists, a beautiful resort with giant fruits to demolish, and a race track that lets you race Rambi the rhino against your long time friends Diddy and Dixie.
Gameplay, Design, and Sound
The main gameplay feature and hook for the game is destroying everything around you. You would think this would get boring, but it's insanely addictive and fun. I have to believe that younger kids love mashing buttons and seeing how much of the world they can destroy. It’s not just there as a gimmick, either, as it proves to find hidden caverns, is used as a way to take down specific enemies, and find fossils, which are used as the currency for outfits in the style shop. Music is also incorporated into the game as Pauline’s singing will guide you to the main path of the story and get rid of Voidco’s barriers. Pauline also uses her voice to hype DK hype to use the powers given to him by the elders. The elders give Donkey Kong his “bananza” modes, each representing an animal. The different options have their own unique actions that can help in exploration and fighting enemies.
As you explore the layers of the world, you’ll collect banandiums, fossils, lots and lots of gold, and healing apples. It’s not just digging and destroying, as platforming makes an appearance in challenges scattered around the maps. The challenges vary from time trials, 3D platforming, and even a dose of nostalgia with callbacks to Donkey Kong Country’s most famous moments. Don’t forget the outfits on your adventure, as these have effects that help you in terms of health or strength. They have outfits for both DK and Pauline. Another thing to look out for is your skill points, which you gain with every five banandiums you find. You could technically ignore the gems and still beat the game, but you’ll want to get those skill points and upgrade your options from strength power to health to special attacks.
The game’s soundtrack is another Nintendo banger, with a big part of this being the subtle musical nods to past games in the series. Without spoiling it, there are MANY nods and remixes to many of the franchise’s past entries. Speaking of surprises, this game is going to be a lock for the BIGGEST surprise and twist of the year. I don’t want to spoil it in this review, but let’s just say the finale of this game has a huge twist that changes everything and leads to the final act as Nintendo goes crazy. This leads to the final boss battle, which in itself has a huge twist with a nod to one of the 16-bit era’s most famous moments.
Negatives
Speaking of crazy finale, there is a part of this final act that does make it to the negative scorecard despite the overall finale hitting it out of the park. The finale does drag on way too much. There’s a saying with movies that some movies don’t know when to end and start to overstay their welcome, and I can tell you I started to feel that way the closer I got to the end of the game. You go from a holy crap moment to an even bigger holy crap moment, to a “okay, what are we doing here?” feeling. I think Nintendo could’ve cut out or rethought the actual final level and boss of the game to prevent that feeling, but it’s there, and I think a lot of gamers are going to feel it’s doing too much.
Another negative is the boss fights. I think Nintendo does some of the most memorable bosses in gaming, yet this game is not one of those. They aren’t atrociously bad, just uninspiring. I was taken aback by how generic they felt. That being said, the middle part of the game did have a couple of good ones, and the final act’s bosses were pretty good and damn challenging. It is an area I can’t ignore and it's unfortunate given Nintendo’s track record with boss fights.
Donkey Kong Bananza is the killer app (if there’s still such a thing anymore) for the Switch 2. This is a platformer on par with Super Mario Odyssey and Astro Bot as my favorite 3D platformers of the modern gaming era. Donkey Kong comes off as an adorably heroic character as he guides Pauline to gain her confidence and tackle her fears. The Voidco villains are credible threats, and the story comes to a crescendo of nostalgia done right, with Nintendo going nuts in all the good ways. The addictive destructibility, the collectibles, the music, the subtle callbacks to the past, and overall level design make this a future family classic. It’s some of the most fun I’ve had playing this year, and it’s nice to see the big ape not only back, but doing it with a legit game of the year contender that looks to be the start of a new era for Donkey Kong. The Odyssey team has done it again.
I’m still in the middle of my play through with roughly 450 Bananas and I’m loving it! As you said the bosses could be more challenging but what I really dislike is having to collect Fossils! There are so many of them. 😭😭
When I eventually get a Switch 2, I think I will be getting this game with it. Good review 👍