Donkey Kong Bananza gives one of Nintendo’s oldest icons a new lease on life — aside from Mario, DK’s the only one that’s been there since the very beginning. It feels like the latest in a long line of innovative platformers from Nintendo. But perhaps the most crucial part of Bananza is the tech behind it, the downright impressive destruction mechanics that let you shape and mold the world how you see fit. Bananza feels like a game that simply wouldn’t have been possible on the first Switch, even though it did start its life as one. And the way it redefines Donkey Kong feels like the perfect opportunity for Nintendo to do that same thing with its other icons — especially a certain fox that’s been on sabbatical for far too long.
It’s been nearly a decade since the last Star Fox game, with Star Fox Zero all the way back in 2016. The Wii U game, while having some interesting ideas, was received quite poorly and for good reason. The GamePad controls were a bit of a mess, and because the game stuck so firmly to tying everything to the GamePad, the overall experience suffered.
But that’s emblematic of a larger problem with the series as a whole — Nintendo has never quite figured out what to do with the space-faring shooter since Star Fox 64. Often regarded as one of the best Nintendo games ever made, the franchise has been defined by the shadow of Star Fox 64. Games either emulate Star Fox 64 too closely (Star Fox: Assault) or deliberately break off in wildly different directions (Star Fox Adventures), and both attempts haven’t really seen success.
Star Fox has a long-running identity crisis, but Donkey Kong Bananza is the perfect example of how to redefine a long-running franchise. Of course, I realize that Bananza and Star Fox are about as different games as you could imagine — but the point is in how Nintendo harnesses the technology and retools its longstanding formula.
If you’ve played any Nintendo platformer, you know how to play them all. You know you’ll be gathering a bunch of collectibles, platforming, all that jazz. But the brilliance of so many of Nintendo’s games is how it integrally twists that formula. Super Mario Odyssey did so by giving you the possession mechanic, and Bananza’s big twist is its destruction.
It takes a bit to wrap your head around, but Bananza integrally changes the very way you interact with a platformer — how you think about the world, puzzles, and exploration. It’s a revelation that only gets deeper as the game layers in more skills, terrain types, gimmicks, and Bananza transformations. Bananza perfectly layers in little twists and tweaks on the core formula of the platformer, with all of those adding up to feel like something drastically different, and refreshing, by the end.
And that right there is the lesson that Nintendo should take for a new Star Fox. Past attempts at the series have either decided to try and re-create Star Fox 64, or deviate almost completely. It feels like the answer for Star Fox is to take that tried and true formula on twist it just a bit, just enough to turn it on its head, but not enough to make it unrecognizable. Obviously, it’s hard to say exactly what that might look like; I’m not Nintendo after all. But it feels like there are boundless options for how to expand the idea of a Star Fox game.
It could be through integrating more open world or light exploration elements, in the same way Breath of the Wild innovated on the Zelda formula. It could be through more complex customization elements that let you hand-craft your own Arwing, and how it functions in battle. Maybe it’s through integrating more lite strategy elements that give you more fine-tuned control over the actions of your squadmates. There’s even a world where I could see the destruction mechanics of Bananza working in a Star Fox game, letting you blast through asteroids to make paths in space, or blow apart enemy bases.
Nintendo’s established franchises feel like they’re in a better place than ever. Zelda has had an unimaginably strong last few years, and highlighted the Switch 2 launch with enhanced editions. Mario Kart World was the big launch game, and there’s undoubtedly something else on the horizon next year. Kirby, Metroid, and Pokémon all have new entries coming by the end of 2025. There’s a prime opportunity to reinvigorate a dormant franchise, and Donkey Kong Bananza is our first example of how the added power of the Switch 2 can truly enhance Nintendo’s design.
I can’t think of a single series that might benefit more from that fact than a high-speed intergalactic shooter. That’s especially true considering the last few years have seen a surprising influx of Star Fox-inspired games. 2022’s Ex-Zodiac and 2025’s Whisker Squadron are new takes on the Star Fox rail shooter format. Then there’s the clearly Star Fox-esque Wild Blue, a new game from the indie studio Chuhai Labs, founded by Giles Goddard — one of the original designers on the very first 1993 Star Fox.
There’s a real hunger for Star Fox out there, and it’s a genuine shame that the wily hero has been missing in action for the entirety of the Nintendo Switch.
