Yes, all that you’ve heard is true: Donkey Kong Bananza is, so far, THE reason to own a Switch with the number 2 on it. It’s also been a long time coming. It’s the big ape’s first 3D title of the 21st century, and the first from Nintendo‘s core Mario unit in who knows how long. It also may be the shortest amount of time a major Nintendo title has gone from reveal to store shelf — reportedly the game has been in development for years, yet the masses entered 2025 with no knowledge it was coming.
The core appeal of DK Bananza hangs on one specific gimmick: from the first minute, everything you see in your environment is destructible. The walls, the floor, the ceilings — you can punch a hole anywhere, destroy anything and usually get something for your trouble. Bananza is built around this one concept: that it is fun to dig. It’s something we really haven’t seen from any mainstream game before, unless you count Dig Dug, and it feels innovative, refreshing, and most of all addicting.
Most of the denizens of the underground are talking rocks with googly eyes, including the “Odd Rock” DK meets in the beginning of the game. It doesn’t take that rock long to break open and reveal….a 13-year-old Pauline. Together they discover the members of VoidCo, a villainous drilling operation, are responsible for every miserable thing happening to anyone. They’re trying to get to the center of the earth and obtain the Banandium Root, which is said to have the power to grant a wish.
From there Donkey Kong and Pauline have one goal: get to the planet core before the VoidCo execs do. DK can only do this one punch at a time, so down you go! The world works on Journey To The Center Of The Earth rules: each layer of the underground has its own sky and unique biome. Don’t think about it too much; it worked for Jules Verne.
In most 3D adventure platformers of this type, your prime goal is to collect a certain number of Special Item X or else you won’t be allowed to progress. Donkey Kong 64 worked like this, a thousand times over. So did Super Mario Odyssey and most other 3D Nintendo games. Donkey Kong Bananza is the first to do away with the wall. It doesn’t matter how many bananas you gather up; the only thing between you and the goal far beneath the ground is you. I’m told it’s possible, albeit difficult, to beat the game without collecting a single banana at all.
So why collect anything? Because you have different goals. Banandium Gems enhance DK with every bite. They help him level up RPG style and endow him with extra abilities or refine his current ones. If you don’t care about that and want the challenge, ignore the bananas, but they’re going to be hard to resist. Many are out in the open, tempting you with one slight puzzle or another: “come on, you can do this, it’s right there.” One other reason you’re going to be going for the bananas is that it’s FUN.
Along the way you can find homages to memorable moments from Donkey Kong’s past.
DK also picks up gold nuggets and other shiny yellow ore along his trek. These aren’t as optional; they are your very life — if you plummet off a cliff without a balloon or lose all your health without a refill, money is taken from your collection and then you return from your last checkpoint. What happens when you lose ALL your money? …No one knows because nobody in the entire world has lost all their money in this game. Picking up gold is unavoidable — you do it from digging, and you’re digging all the time. Perhaps because of this, there’s a shop that doesn’t take gold as currency. It’s the Shirt Shop and it instead demands fossils that can be found around the area — and only fossils from that specific area.
If you don’t personally care what DK and Pauline are wearing, think again…nearly every outfit provides a bonus for the area you’re exploring. When you’re in a place with a lot of water, there will be a tie that increases your swimming speed by 20%…you’ll WANT that tie. Which means you’ll be encouraged to explore the world, track down fossil maps and dig in as many nooks and crannies as possible…just as Miyamoto intended.
Eventually you’ll run across giant guardian animals that will grant DK special temporary power-up moves. The big gorilla super-sizes DK and turns him into a much stronger version of himself, able to break tougher materials regular old DK cannot. The big ostrich gives DK the gift of brief flight. The elephant turns him into a pachyderm that can inhale rocks and objects in its trunk and blow them at enemies (essentially faster than just lifting a boulder from the ground), as well as blow dangerous objects out of the way. You can only convince these guardians to grant you the moves by…collecting the pieces of a giant record, because they want to jam.
You’ll usually have mid bosses and big bosses to contend with before you can descend a level. These monsters make a big show of themselves but they’re not that hard. If you remember how easy bosses in the mainline Mario series tend to be, you can expect the same here. Their weaknesses are easy to detect and they don’t take too many hits. I actually found some tasks within the levels much more frustrating and game-ending than the bosses. You’re not going to appreciate the jungle world; it’s full of poison and thorn vines.
But when things get too frustrating, you can take a break with DK Artist (provided you’re in a situation where you can use the Switch 2 mouse controls). Nintendo included a bonus program, accessible by pressing Plus on the main menu, that uses the same “destructive environments” engine to let you paint, manipulate and alter a set of pre-loaded statues. It’s a fun diversion, and the controls are simple to learn, but it won’t replace Blender: the options and colors are limited, there’s no Undo function, you can only save one sculpture, and no matter what you intend to chisel out you HAVE to start with one of the DK characters — and painstakingly mold it into Mario or Link or whatever you have in mind.
This will be a special section of every 3D game I review. It reports how likely the game is to trigger motion sickness and nausea. I am very well-equipped to deliver this judgment since I seem to have the worst case of 3D video game motion sickness in the world. It takes a LOT to get a good grade here. So does Donkey Kong Bananza avoid triggering my nausea? The answer, drumroll, is………………..NO. (sad Price Is Right horn)
When I’m using the game’s built-in automatic camera, there aren’t many issues. But the second I have to operate the camera stick myself, whoo boy, I can feel my stomach turn. Manual camera control is unavoidable…since DK can dig anywhere, he sometimes gets lost from the auto-camera and has to be found again. There are also some moving bosses that require constantly self-adjusting the camera just to see them. I can’t play for much longer after that, which is part of the reason why this review took so long. Accessibility options are very limited compared to other contemporary games. You can turn off the shaking effect and control the camera speed, but that’s about it — there is no field of vision slider or option to put a dot on the screen, two things that are becoming more common in big budget releases beyond Nintendo.
Thankfully, playing in handheld mode reduces the chances of nausea greatly. You won’t always want to play such a great game on a tiny screen, but sometimes you’ll have no choice.
THIS HAS BEEN THE NAUSEA REPORT
Nausea issues aside, Donkey Kong Bananza is an instant classic. Like the best of Nintendo’s library, it’s the kind of thing you’ll want to replay again and again. However, as nice as it is for DK to get his own game again after so long, I really hope this doesn’t mean the proper next Mario is another eight years away.
Next: Discuss Donkey Kong Bananza on the PopGeeks Video Games Forum
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