During a presentation right before my roughly two hours worth of hands-on time with Donkey Kong Bananza, Nintendo confirmed what many people suspected since first laying eyes on the upcoming 3D platformer: That it was in fact being developed by the same team that worked on Super Mario Odyssey. And that tracks, because my main takeaway after playing Bananza was that this is the Odyssey formula to a T. The giant open fields with tons of hidden Moon… I mean Bananas to collect, NPCs offering clues on where to find said bananas, the simple puzzles strewn all around that reward exploration and curiosity, the deep moveset with a ton of different mobility options… Odyssey’s fingerprints are all over Bananza.
But while the formula is largely the same, I never got the sense that Bananza was retreading old ground. It turns out that swapping out a mustachioed plumber for a tumbling hairy gorilla is appropriately transformative. Even in just those two hours, I was absolutely enamored with Donkey Kong’s personality, his sheer sense of strength and power, juxtaposed with his surprisingly speedy movement, and the satisfying destructibility of everything around him. As far as first impressions go, this is everything a 3D Donkey Kong game should be.
My demo had me jumping around to several different save files – the first covering the very beginning of the game with DK working in the mines of Ingot Isle. This served as a very basic tutorial covering the multiple ways DK could punch and smash both objects and the environment. It’s a unique but intuitive control scheme: the A button jumps, but then the rest of the face buttons are all punches in different directions. X punches up, Y punches straight ahead, and B punches straight down. This allows you to carve paths through the walls and create tunnels however you wish, with the only restriction being the material that you’re trying to break through. DK is pretty strong on his own, and can smash through dirt and crystal with ease, but sturdier rocks and stones will require him to grab a harder material out of the ground and use as an impromptu pickaxe.
It’s all as fun to perform with a controller as it is to look at. There’s a greatly satisfying and appropriate sense of power as DK is able to just plow through walls, send weaker enemies absolutely careening backwards with a single punch, and slam the ground with devastating impact, leaving craters in his wake. And he’s fast too! Between his already swift running speed, his roll, and his ability to surf on the objects he rips from the ground, DK’s moveset is the perfect blend of power and agility. It’s a super fun set of tools to play around with that feels like a mix of traditional Donkey Kong, plus The Incredible Hulk.
It's a super fun set of tools to play around with that feels like a mix of traditional Donkey Kong, plus The Incredible Hulk.After finishing up the tutorial in the mines, the next save that I jumped to was set in the Lagoon Layer, which seemed to be the first real level of Bananza. Like Mario Odyssey, there’s a sort of main throughline in each level that takes you through a series of objectives that essentially tells the story of that layer. In the Lagoon Layer, its denizens were suffering from a water shortage thanks to some nasty invaders plugging up their water supply. So the main objective in this area was to essentially get the water flowing again in a very classic “raise the water level” style of platforming stage.
You could simply mainline it by following the exclamation point markers that are easily visible with a simple press of the L button, but much of the joy in DK Bananza is venturing off the level’s beaten path (and literally beating your own path through it.) There’s just a ridiculous amount of stuff to discover even in just the very first level. Bananas are the main collectible, much like Moons in Odyssey, and are generally tied to some sort of minor puzzle or challenge. Like for example, there was one that was in plain sight, but underwater where DK can’t dive down to reach, so I had to instead jump up and crash down with a ground pound to nab it. Others are more complex and have you completing lengthy obstacle courses, and others still were locked behind special hidden platforming or combat-related challenges.
Then there are multiple different types of fossils, which are used as a currency to purchase a variety of cosmetic upgrades, much like the different clothes and hats Mario could buy in Mario Odyssey. There are so many of these hidden all throughout the walls and caves that it honestly was a little bit overwhelming to even think about trying to collect them all, but needless to say, if you’re the type that enjoys collectibles and spending a ton of extra time in a level trying to 100% it, Donkey Kong Bananza will have you covered.
The levels themselves aren't quite as vast as Odyssey's but that's mainly because they're structured very differently. The levels themselves aren’t quite as vast as Odyssey’s, but that’s mainly because they’re structured very differently. They’re layered on top of each other, with each individual sublayer feeling roughly like the size of a Super Mario Sunshine level. Once you reach the end of that sublayer’s so-called “main quest,” you’ll be able to drop down to the next sublayer, which is still essentially part of the same level. One particular challenge even had me going back up to a previous sublayer so that I could traverse a path that would let me get down to an otherwise inaccessible part of the sublayer I was currently on. As someone who has always preferred the smaller-scale levels of games like Mario 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy, but also still really loved the exploration and sense of discovery in the Kingdoms of Odyssey, this felt like a really great compromise between the two styles of level design. You can also very easily fast-travel between checkpoints of each sublayer, just like you could in Odyssey.
The next two sections were from a fair bit deeper (again, literally) into the game. The first had me exploring a mining town with plenty of minecart rides and lots of opportunities to throw explosive rocks and make things go boom, while the final level was jungle-themed with familiar purple poison lakes all throughout. The big thing that I got to check out in these two final areas, though, were the Bananza transformations. By collecting gold, I could fill a meter in the bottom left of the screen and press R and L together to activate a limited-time Bananza transformation. The Kong Bananza transformation basically just feels like DK on Steroids. He’s bigger, faster, and stronger too, and can pound through walls and enemies that would normally be too tough for normal DK.
The Ostrich Bananza transformation, on the other hand, gives DK the ability to flutter through the air and cross gaps that he normally wouldn't be able to. It’s worth mentioning at this point also that there’s a skill tree, with the player getting a skill point for every five bananas they find. It’s not the most exciting skill tree in the world, with a majority of the skills seeming to just make DK’s already existing skills and stats slightly better, but there are a couple that add new abilities to his repertoire, like double jumping while holding a rock, or being able to drop eggs on enemies from above while in Ostrich form.
I also got to check out Bananza’s two player mode, which amusingly has the second player controlling Pauline in a way very similar to how Mario Galaxy’s Co-Star mode worked. Much like in Galaxy’s coop mode, the second player is able to fire projectiles at enemies, only this time in the form of literal words that she belts out. You can change the power and properties of these words by hovering your cursor over a particular type of material and holding a button to absorb that material. And as you might have guessed, you can make use of the Switch 2 joycon’s unique mouse pointer feature to add some precision to your shots. It’s a mode that seems clearly intended for a parent to play with their young child, or to get someone who’s not into video games to participate, and in that way I think it succeeds, but it’s not a mode that I would ever engage with in any other sort of capacity.
It’s pretty common for me to walk away from a preview event hungry for more, but after my two hours were up with Bananza, I was left with the mightiest of cravings. As someone whose favorite Nintendo mascot is Donkey Kong, this seems to be shaping up to be the 3D Donkey Kong game that I’ve been waiting decades for. For Mario fans still waiting for Nintendo to announce the next major 3D Mario game, Bananza looks set to be a worthy substitute in the meantime.
Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit
Connexion
