Games I Played In 2025 - Donkey Kong Bananza

 

   

Console: Switch 2

Developer: Nintendo EPD

Release Date: July 17, 2025

Donkey Kong Bananza is a 3D platformer with a focus on destructible environments, exploration, and combat. Made by the same team that made Super Mario Odyssey, this is the first 3D Donkey Kong platformer since Donkey Kong 64 and the first mainline Donkey Kong game to be made by a Japanese studio since Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, the latter of which was developped by the same core team as Bananza as well. In a way, Bananza feels like a sort of IP reboot for Donkey Kong, introducing new characters, redesigns to existing characters, and tying it a lot more firmly with the Mario universe while keeping it its own thing, similar to the Yoshi, Wario, and Luigi's Mansion subseries. Though not the first Nintendo-developped game for the Switch 2, it is the first non-Mario Kart game in the system's infancy, and is thus an important title in its library.

 

DIGGING FOR BANANAS

In a big shift from previous Donkey Kong games, Donkey Kong Bananza takes place in underground worlds instead of various jungles and islands, and there is a very strong emphasis on digging and mining (which is naturally done by punching) instead of swinging from trees. Similarly, instead of bananas, you're actually looking for Banandium Gems, which are edible rocks shaped like bananas. Despite taking place in an underground world, all the levels (called layers) are more or less typical Nintendo platformer fare, with a snow layer, a grass layer, a beach layer, a fire layer, and so on. Similarly to Super Mario Odyssey, there's still layers that feel original or give a cool spin on a tropey setting, but it's still very firmly a Nintendo platformer in that way. While I didn't mind any of it and had tons of fun, I still can't help but feel like the underground mining setting seems unfitting for the Donkey Kong universe, despite the games often using minecarts.

Bananza is quite the pretty game, though I wouldn't say it's anything mindblowing; instead, the impressive part is the freeform environmental destruction. Being able to freely destroy, pick up, throw and modify the environment of every single layer (with some limitations) is genuinely something I found awe-inspiring the entire time I played, and it's clear that a lot of time went into developping the mechanic. The game fully encourages experimenting and exploring the layers, with the camera (mostly) allowing things to proceed seamlessly and in a fun way, as well as the ability to simply reset the terrain of the layer you're currently in from the map screen.

Animations are also great across the board, especially for DK and Pauline; DK in particular is extremely expressive in a really endearing way thanks to his redesign. In many animations, it's great seeing how Pauline interacts with DK, often by having to hold onto him in some way. DK feels incredible to control and, in true Nintendo fashion, is fun to just run around with. Punching through rock and walloping enemies never gets old and it always feels great to do, which is a good thing due to the abundance of collectibles that require digging through terrain and the surprising amount of combat in the game.

A key mechanic of the game is the five titular Bananza forms, which allow DK to shapeshift into a larger Kong, a Zebra, an Ostrich, an Elephant or a Snake. As Donkey Kong series veterans will quickly see, the latter three are very obvious references to the Animal Buddies from the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, while the Zebra is a new addition that I feel could've been made to be another reference, such as a Rhinoceros or even a Wildebeast. These forms all add a lot of mechanical depth to the game, especially since switching between them is a key feature, but for now I just want to comment on their visuals... and it's a bit disappointing. While there's clever design ideas here integrating bananas to the forms, I can't help but find that they all look a bit too goofy and weird to be memorable, especially since they all make DK a lot less expressive in general and all have a predominantly black and gray color scheme. This can't even be changed with the fur dyes that can be used to customise DK, as neither those nor the overalls will show up on the Bananza forms.

The bosses are a bit of a mixed bag visually, as a lot of them just resemble large enemies and aren't particularly memorable in any way outside of their battles, which tend to be fairly good. However, the new antagonists introduced in Bananza are fantastic, with Void Kong, Grumpy Kong and Poppy Kong all feeling like characters that should becoming recurring members of the cast. After the two games helmed by Retro Studios (Country Returns and Tropical Freeze) introducing new villains that felt generic and cookie-cutter, seeing this trio was truly refreshing. Void Kong in particular is a great villain that greatly contrasts DK's, and I hope to see all three of them in the future both in Donkey Kong games and in wider spin-offs. I will say, though, that their designs perhaps feel a little too busy to be integrated into Mario spin-off games like Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong and Funky Kong have, but we'll see. Though Void Kong is the clear stand out of the three, I like Grumpy Kong the most.

Though the story of Bananza is as simple as you'd expect from a Nintendo platformer, there's still plenty of charm to be found here. The antagonist trio feel like they're properly developped (which I was shocked by) and, most importantly, Pauline is cleverly and successfully positioned as the heart of the story. She's the only character to have full English voice acting, as all the other character speak in gibberish grunts. Her character truly shines during the times you rest at a getaway, which are unlockable areas that allow you to recover health, because she has a unique line of dialogue for the first time you rest at each of them, and there's quite a lot of them. I'd argue, though, that the use of legacy characters is too light, and I'd rather have seen more of them.

 

GETTING DIRTY AND GOING BANANAS

Donkey Kong Bananza features a total of 777 Banandium Gems, but sometimes these grant three or even five gems instead of just one, spread across all of its layers and sublayers, as well as having anywhere from 15 to 60 Fossils of varying rarities in all of the major ones. As one can expect, this means that there's a lot to find in the game, yet it's all framed in a way that makes almost all of it completely optional: the game gives you linear goals to get to the center of the planet, and other than those very simple goals everything else is basically optional. As a result, Bananza offers a very laidback gaming experience should you want it, or it allows you to get into the nitty-gritty of things and comb over entire layers for collectibles. Most of the layers are quite fun despite being a bit on the generic side (or even similar to Odyssey in a few cases), though some feel a bit undercooked. 

Thanks to how fun DK is to control and the fluidity of his moveset, it's very easy to get sidetracked and start seeking out Banandium Gems and Fossils. Most strikingly, the hand slap move, which is used to gather loose Gold (the game's primary currency) will also highlight any nearby Banandium Gems and Fossils like a radar, which makes it even easier to just start punching through walls to get goodies. The platforming feels incredible, though it has a bit of a higher skill floor than Super Mario Odyssey's, I 'd say mostly due to the controls not feeling as intuitive as they could. The best example is how pressing ZR will grab a chunk of the terrain at your feet and rip it out, and then pressing ZR again will let you surf on it. Then, while riding the chunk, ZL dismounts while Y (the Punch Forward button) is to speed up, which to me never felt right as I'd instinctively keep pressing ZR to speed up. Though this is obviously a subjective thing and your mileage will vary, it's not very often that this happens in a Nintendo first-party game for me, so it's worth noting.

Unlike many platformers, Bananza has a fairly big focus on combat, and it's handled about as perfectly as it could be: it's simple and easy in a way that doesn't make the game's entire point be combat, but also is tricky and specific enough to make dealing with it a fun obstacle. There's good enemy variety and the game can get pretty difficult at times when not in Assist Mode, with enemy attacks dealing quite a bit of damage. The terrain mechanics are woven into the enemies, with many being covered in a material which can change how you tackle them. Punching enemies feels fun and responsive, and swinging or throwing chunks of terrain almost always feels good, though throwing chunks in particular can be a little unwieldy when free-aiming. I'm honestly shocked how much it's fun to fight enemies, and I think the team at Nintendo EPD knew it was fun since there are many combat challenges where you must defeat enemies quickly.

Something I think is worth noting, however, is the default control scheme for punching and jumping, which I think makes sense conceptually but in practice it makes the game awkward. Namely, DK can punch in three different directions: up, forward, and down. As a result, it feels like it'd make sense to make these Y, X and B respectively, leaving A for jumping. This works on paper, as the buttons reflect the direction the punches are aiming towards, but it causes a big game feel problem: jumping and then punching forward (which is an extremely common thing you do in Bananza) ends up being awkward due to the two buttons not being next to each other. Thankfully, there's an option to switch the A and B buttons' functions, making the game feel far better to control, but the fact it's not by default is puzzling, especially since I've seen quite a lot of people bring up this complaint, and unfortunately not everyone looks at options menus.

The five Bananza forms also spice up both the exploration and combat as well, opening up a lot of freedom to tackle the game's challenges however you want in most cases, and it's especially fun near the endgame where the game fully expects you to keep switching between them to do things at the drop of a hat. The Bananza forms, however, are also pretty polarising in their design, however, in that they can very much end up making a lot of the level design feel optional. While they're technically meant to be limited-time transformations you have to fill a gauge for, in practice it's extremely easy to just always have the Bananza gauge filled, to the point that you can spend most of the game in a Bananza instead of DK himself. They're great for exploration and for combat, but also somehow end up feeling overpowered in an unfun way to an extent.

The Kong Bananza form is perhaps the least interesting one mechanically, as it allows DK to charge punches that will break through all but the hardest of materials and also create shockwaves, while also allowing him to punch through terrain faster. The Zebra Bananza is my least favorite; it makes DK much faster, allowing him to run on brittle surfaces and water, and gives him a charge dash that lets him sprint forward but makes it hard to steer, and also allows DK to attack enemies by braking, which felt completely useless. The Ostrich Bananza allows DK to hover for a limited time and then glide, as well as drop exploding eggs, and it's one of the most useful forms for exploration. The Elephant Bananza is my favorite and makes digging a breeze, allowing DK to suck up materials in a huge area in front of him and store up to 10 chunks of the most recent materials sucked up which he can spit out and throw whenever he wants. Finally, the Snake Bananza has two powers that don't really mesh together but feel good to use: a charge jump that can be done twice, and a Glare that slows time down for a few seconds; however, while in Snake form, DK bounces instead of walking, which makes it quite annoying to interact with NPCs and the like.

Interestingly, Bananza solves a big problem I had with Super Mario Odyssey while also introducing a new one in return. In Odyssey, every Power Moon (the main collectible, analogous to the Banandium Gems) had the same value, so it felt strange for a difficult challenge to give the same reward as just talking to a specific NPC, for example. It indirectly discouraged players from engaging with challenging parts of the game outside of just desiring the challenge itself. Bananza introduces a Skill Tree, where one point is granted for every five Banandium Gems acquired. Immediately, Banandium Gems become far more valuable just from that addition alone, and seeking out challenging ones to get becomes a far more worthwhile reward...

...At least on paper. The Skill Tree is designed in a fairly uninteresting way where instead of giving cool new abilities to spice up gameplay, it feels more like quality of life upgrades that you should start with for the most part, from making multiple abilities quicker to giving you more range on the hand clap, or even unlocking a Bananza form's key abilities like the Ostrich's gliding or the Zebra's braking attack. Standard upgrades like more health and the like make sense, but ultimately while the Skill Tree is a great solution to the uneven value of the main collectibles, it ends up stumbling into a problem of its own. And it's not lke I have better ideas for what it could have instead; I feel like a skill tree in a platformer in general is pretty redundant, and this only proves it. Plus, skills end up taking anywhere from two to five skill points to unlock or upgrade, making it more of a little bonus than something interesting. Still, it's less of a problem than what Odyssey had.

As for the Fossils, they are similar to the Purple Coins in Odyssey in that they're a currency for buying cosmetics, which take the following forms: Ties, Overalls, Fur Dyes, and Pauline Outfits. All but the Dyes also grant bonuses, once again tying more value to the collectibles in a way. These bonuses are mostly inconsequential to be honest and are usually things like having 10-30% faster movement in snow or while swimming. There's some worthwhile bonuses in there, but I've never been a fan of tying cosmetics to gameplay traits, so I can't say I'm the biggest fan of this change. Not to mention, unlike Odyssey, the customisation feels very bland due to largely being based around changing the texture or color of DK's pants or fur, or the shape of his tie which is often not visible. Compounding the issue is the fact that due to the overly easy way to access Bananza forms, you often end up not seeing these unless you're making a concerted effort not to use the Bananza forms. Pauline's outfits are all absolutely adorable, though, and closer to what I'd want for DK himself... but she also gets three recolors per outfit (with bonuses that are of different intensities) which is a bit lame.

Nevertheless, the gameplay itself is rock solid, though the boss battles leave a bit to be desired all things considered. They're pretty much the same quality as Odyssey's, where they're quite simple and have one or two obvious weakpoints you have to exploit three to five times. They're rarely difficult and have pretty forgettable designs, which I think is a marked weakness of this dev team since the same happened with Odyssey. They never really have managed to make memorable bosses that feel like something that could be referenced in future games or looked back upon fondly. Thankfully, the new antagonist trio's fights are quite good by comparison, and the difficulty ramps up really well in the postgame boss rush.

However, while this team might not be great at making great midgame bosses, they are perhaps the best in the entire industry when it comes to crafting a great finale. Odyssey had a fantastic one, and as for Bananza, I'd argue it might be the best finale in any game, or at least definitely in the conversation for Top 5. The final few boss battles are genuinely great and challenging, as are the last sequences, and the intensity and energy of the game goes absolutely haywire, leading to a blistering, almost two-hour long finale (depending on your skill) that leaves players cackling in utter excitement. Naturally I don't want to spoil or oversell it, because these sorts of things are subjective to a point, but I really do believe this game is great the whole way through and then crashes past excellent all the way into being an all-timer by the end.

 

LACKING MUSICAL IDENTITY

 

Donkey Kong Bananza's soundtrack was led by Naoto Kubo, with Daisuke Matsuoka, Reika Nakai, Yuri Goto, and Tsukasa Usui forming the rest of the team. The entire team outside of Kubo is quite new as far as Nintendo goes with only one or two games to their names, but Kubo's most noteworthy previous work is Super Mario Odyssey, which is very unsurprising. His work is great, but Bananza's music very much feels like it would fit in just fine in a Mario game, and it lacks the Donkey Kong energy of its predecessors. Not for lack of trying, though, as it does seem like they studied previous games' soundtracks to an extent, especially the Donkey Kong Country series judging by the amount of more ambient tracks that seem inspired by David Wise's contributions to the Country series. 

It's hard to describe, but even as someone not too invested in the Donkey Kong games before this, it just doesn't feel like a Donkey Kong soundtrack. There's little to no jazz to be found, same for mostly hand percussion-centered tracks. A few of Grant Kirkhope and David Wise's previous works in the series are rearranged and they're almost certainly the most noteworthy tracks in the whole game, which feels like it illustrates the problem with the soundtrack very well. Puzzlingly, while Jenny Kidd voices Pauline in full English, the songs that she sings while Bananza mode is active are all in Splatoon-like gibberish. It's done very well and could almost pass as a fake language, but it feels like a missed opportunity since she's genuinely a good singer. It's worth noting that these Bananza themes are complete earworms, which isn't helped by the fact that they'll play a LOT over the course of the game. It's still a very good soundtrack overall, but outside of a handful of new tracks, I feel like a lot of it is pretty forgettable or blends in together. 

 

PROS AND CONS

PROS

• Fantastic game-feel; DK feels amazing to control and both exploring and combat feel great.

• Great new antagonists that feel like worthwhile additions to the series, especially Void Kong.

• Collectibles are all fun to find and feel more rewarding and incentivised due to the Skill Tree.

• DK's redesign adds a lot of appeal to his character.

• Pauline's dialogue is a genuine highlight.

• An absolutely incredible finale that highlights everything great about this game.

• Solid enemy variety and challenge variety for the most part.

• Generally great levels across the board that are always fun to explore.

• A lot of collectibles are optional, giving the player the choice to get whatever they want.

CONS

• Soundtrack doesn't feel like a Donkey Kong soundtrack outside of some rearranged past tracks, which is especially a shame considering how much music plays a part in the story.

• Some questionable control choices.

• Bosses are a bit lackluster for most of the game, both in terms of gameplay and visual design.

• Customisation is visually limited and tied to traits that change the gameplay.

• A couple of levels feel undercooked.

• Bananza forms are unbalanced and a bit too prominent despite being fun to use.

• Not enough of a celebration of past games.

• Skill Tree feels like an obligation rather than something fun. 

• The overall setting feels a bit strange and out of character for a Donkey Kong game.

 

WORTH PLAYING?

Donkey Kong Bananza, like Mario Kart World and, to be honest, a lot of Nintendo first-party releases, is a system seller. It looks great, plays great, feels great and is just extremely solid all-around. I'm not the biggest fan of the Donkey Kong series; I have a lot of knowledge about it but find myself struggling to enjoy the 2D platformers that make up the majority of its catalog. I think this game in particular made me a real fan of DK, helped by his redesign, and I can't wait to see where the series goes from here. As far as I'm concerned, this is a must-own for everyone that took the leap and got a Switch 2. It's a borderline magical game.

It's not perfect and feels less like an improvement over Super Mario Odyssey and more like a companion piece. It's fundamentally different in many ways, yet similar in others where problem designs were clearly iterated upon. But it ultimately doesn't really matter, it's still an incredibly good game that could feasibly be anyone's Game of the Year for 2025. It's that good.