For the final a number of years it’s felt like Nintendo simply hasn’t cared that a lot about Donkey Kong. As Nintendo gifted just about each considered one of its cherished characters their greatest outing ever on Switch, the nice ape who as soon as stood excessive atop the girders of Nintendo’s important arcade cupboard faceplanted arduous on the concrete with a litany of ports, remakes, and remasters. But on Switch 2, Nintendo is lastly giving considered one of gaming’s greatest icons the love he deserves with a model new, flagship, launch window 3D action-platformer, and if the primary half-hour we spent with Donkey Kong Bananza are any indication, Mario’s unique rival is wanting poised to face tall as soon as once more.
It’s arduous to speak about Bananza with out referencing that darn plumber as simply seconds after leaping into its Underground World, the numerous parallels to Super Mario Odyssey turned abundantly clear. While Nintendo hasn’t confirmed the builders of Bananza, after enjoying it we’re prepared to guess Odyssey developer Nintendo EPD Tokyo is behind it.
Bananza’s setup will really feel immediately acquainted to anybody who’s spent hours throwing Cappy and amassing Power Moons. DK is joined by an lovely assistant (this time within the type of a purple rock who talks and sings) to scour self-contained explorable sandboxes for Golden Bananas, a few of that are discovered by finishing story missions whereas others are sprinkled throughout the panorama simply ready to be discovered. As you discover, you discover remoted linear problem rooms that dial again the exploration in favor of testing your fight and platforming talents. There are different collectibles to seek out too, like gold presumably enjoying the position of cash, dozens of fossils (which we didn’t discover a use for throughout our demo) and foreign money we’re hoping will likely be used to outfit Donkey Kong within the native taste. Even the UI is paying homage to Mario’s globetrotting journey! So when you had been disillusioned the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct lacked an enormous, flashy 3D Mario, I’m right here to inform you that Donkey Kong Bananza feels just like the sequel to that components we’ve been clamoring for, it simply occurs to star the large monkey as an alternative.
Wrecking Crew
Like one of the best Nintendo video games, Donkey Kong’s model new moveset utterly fits him as a personality and feels proper the second you step into his footwear (okay, huge bushy ft). Bananza is furiously quick and delightfully damaging as Donkey Kong can demolish many of the terrain in his path, and we spent our demo remodeling the plush opening space crammed with grass, timber, and lakes into DK’s private chaotic excavation website. DK punches ahead, upward, and downward, immediately destroying most supplies and oftentimes carving a makeshift path to observe that may result in completely new areas. At one level I used to be punching by way of a mountain only for the heck of it and a precious collectible fell into my lap, so there’s undoubtedly worth to breaking floor in every single place you’ll be able to – it might result in a groundbreaking discovery.
If pulverizing each stone wall in sight sounds overwhelming, it actually didn’t really feel that approach within the second, which is probably going because of how a lot enjoyable we had controlling Donkey Kong. In addition to turning every part to rubble, Donkey Kong also can decide up big stone boulders from the bottom, partitions, or wherever, and hurl them to obliterate close by enemies. Or, he takes a web page out of Link’s e book and might use the stone slab to boogie board at a fast tempo throughout the panorama. There are absolutely dozens of distinctive strikes and chain combos ready to be found and I can think about how a lot enjoyable speedrunners could have making an attempt to grasp DK’s moveset, which already feels ripe with expressiveness and risk.
Bananza’s central theme of exploration by way of destruction was current all through each second of our demo, even right down to the map display. Instead of a easy top-down overview of the panorama, the map here’s a fully-rendered 3D mannequin of the complete space in its present state, that means if you pause to get your bearings, you’ll be able to see all the partitions you’ve punched and caves you’ve carved. It’s just like the Hero’s Path characteristic in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom cranked as much as 11, and it felt like an extremely spectacular contact.
That map helped us observe down problem rooms which rewarded us both with Golden Bananas or a ton of money. And in contrast to Odyssey, there’s no extra questioning when you have a Moon left to seek out and going inside to attend for Cappy to inform you, as a result of the doorway to every bonus room tracks what number of Golden Bananas you’ve discovered and what number of extra are ready inside. We noticed three of those rooms in Bananza’s opening space, with every specializing in both platforming, fight, or destruction: we needed to monkey bar our approach by way of an impediment course, take down three stone enemies earlier than time ran out, and blast by way of as a lot gold ore as doable to take house an enormous payday. They had been all enjoyable and distinctive and left me excited to see what different challenges are in retailer.
I additionally suppose Bananza is on observe to be one of the crucial attractive Nintendo video games I’ve seen. It actually does benefit from Switch 2’s {hardware} – the environments are lovely and DK’s animations are splendidly expressive, and I left feeling like the subsequent technology of first-party Nintendo video games had really arrived.
Donkey Kong Bananza is out July 17 for $69.99, and I would destroy my total home if I’ve to attend that lengthy to play it once more.
Logan Plant is the host of Nintendo Voice Chat and IGN’s Database Manager & Playlist Editor. He performed the complete Donkey Kong Country sequence earlier this 12 months and is so excited for a model new DK sport. It’s approach overdue!
