Donkey Kong Bananza review: ground-breaking Nintendo adventure

Donkey Kong Bananza is a glorious prelude to what’ll likely be Nintendo's platforming renaissance, and a clear sign to get a Nintendo Switch 2.

Developed by the same team behind Super Mario Odyssey, I leapt into Donkey Kong Bananza with high hopes, and had my faith rewarded in spades.

The plot follows Donkey Kong putting in some hard labour at VoidCorp mining corporation searching for, you guessed it, bananas. Instead of growing on trees these golden fruits can be found underground, but DK's 9-5 is cruelly interrupted when the corporation's president, Void Kong, opens an enormous sinkhole, plummeting DK into a new adventure.

He's not alone though, as he's joined by a young Pauline before she becomes the singing superstar of New Donk City we meet in Mario Odyssey. The pair join forces to find their way back to the surface, but in order to get there they must first descend through several layers of the Earth until they reach the planet's core. The story was surprisingly good for a Mario-esque game, and actually had some genuinely touching and surprising story beats littered throughout.

Now, Donkey Kong Bananza is the first 3D Donkey Kong platformer since Donkey Kong 64, though despite being of the same IP and some tongue-and-cheek references to our great ape's past, Bananza is a completely different kettle of banana-flavoured fish.

Like Super Mario Odyssey, it champions creativity, intuition and experimentation. DK’s overwhelming strength can be used to break apart the environment and there's really no limits on the destruction. You can pull chunks out of the ground to smack enemies with them, throw them, even surf on them. Almost everything can be climbed on too, adding a lot of verticality. Clever players can use these mechanics to traverse levels/layers with ease and even skip some sections, so I'm excited to see what speedrunners do with the game.

These bold mechanics did come at a bit of a cost though; at times it felt like the game was fighting against me, despite my best attempts to buy what it was selling. When climbing DK felt far too slippery, often dropping or pinging off the wall for seemingly no reason at all. This was especially apparent when trying to tunnel into a wall I was scaling as sometimes he'd break through with no issue whereas other times he'd break the wall and then plummet down, presumably losing his grip or something. It didn't happen enough to ruin the experience but it did lead to some frustrating moments early into the playthrough…

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Each level/layer presents new challenges as the game goes on, usually in the form of tougher enemies, tougher surfaces requiring more time to break through and more dangerous environmental hazards. The game compensates this in two ways, Bananza Powers and the skill-tree.

While Pauline isn't as strong as Donkey Kong she lends her aid in other ways, the power of song. With her singing Pauline can power up DK with Bananza Powers, learnt throughout the game. The first one you acquire is Kong Bananza, which transforms DK into a bigger gorilla with supercharged punches, which can disintegrate previously unbreakable materials.

These powers are a great help to DK and Pauline, and they were fun to learn and master alongside DK’s basic moveset. Many have greater use in areas prior to unlocking them too, making them useful for exploration and collectable hunting which I'll touch on later.

Players can also invest in a skill-tree. Now I'm not ashamed to admit I hate skill-trees in games, I think they're dreadfully boring but Donkey Kong Bananza’s skill-tree is fairly inoffensive. It's also optional, as there's nothing included in the skill-tree that you actually need to progress, it's just good to invest in it anyway. On offer are things like health upgrades, stronger punches, and additional abilities for the Bananza transformations to name a few. Despite my resistance to skill-trees I'd recommend giving it some attention.

The levels themselves are fantastic. Again, like Mario Odyssey, each one is visually and tonally distinct from the one before, adding plenty of variety to the scenery. I was surprised by how open-ended they felt, as while some layers were definitely bigger than others that didn't mean the more bite-sized areas were void of things to see and do.

Each layer is filled to the brim with hidden bananas to find which function like Mario Odyssey's moons, though they're not tied to progression at first. You'll find them in bonus levels, side quests and stashed away in the environment. You'll also get several for defeating bosses, one of the weakest parts of the game in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, they were well-designed and themed well but whatever gimmick or trick the game wanted you to use to beat them could usually be ignored in favour of switching on Kong Bananza and brute-forcing your way through them.

They got much better towards the end of the game though, and if you ignored the skill-tree and the health upgrades you'd likely have to be smarter in how you approached them, so I guess I'll give it the benefit of doubt.

Other collectables aside from the bananas include fossils, which can be traded for different fur colours and outfits for both DK and Pauline. They're not just cosmetics either, the outfits boost your stats as well but not to a degree where you're forced to wear something you don't want to wear, form before function is how I selected DK's wardrobe.

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All in all Donkey Kong Bananza is another splendid technical playground from the Super Mario Odyssey team. It's redesigned and reinvigorated Donkey Kong to marvellous effect, and that's coming from someone who was a big fan of Rare's version of the character.

I'm not exaggerating when I say the last third of the game had me standing up in joyful disbelief, and by the time the credits rolled I was more than happy to dive back in and look for the collectibles I'd missed along the way.

Donkey Kong Bananza is the second first-party Nintendo game to release for the Nintendo Switch 2, and combined with Mario Kart World I'd argue it's more than a good reason to get yourself Nintendo’s new console if you haven't already.

Pros: Immaculately crafted levels, gorgeous visuals, innovative gameplay that rewards experimentation, engaging storyline, Bananza powers are a lot of fun

Cons: Slippery traversal mechanics at times and simple bosses

For fans of: Super Mario, Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie

9/10: Exceptional

Donkey Kong Bananza is available exclusively for the Nintendo Switch 2 on 17 July. Review code was provided by the publisher. Read a guide to our review scores here.