It’s been a while since we’ve had a decent Donkey Kong game. Or any Donkey Kong game, in fact. The big ape has been absent from our consoles ever since 2014’s Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (not counting the Mario vs Donkey Kong games, which paint him as an out and out wrong’un). We’ve not had a new 3D DK game for around two decades – ever since Donkey Kong 64.
That was a bad game. Good news: its successor is not.
This is the first Nintendo Switch 2 game to come out since the console launched in June (not counting Mario Kart World) and it’s a joyous hoot. The premise is simple. DK and his monkey friends are working deep in the Banandium mines, collecting (duh) massive crystal bananas that can be eaten for power-ups. But trouble strikes when a gang of evil apes comes knocking. They want to keep all the bananas for themselves, and so DK sets out on a quest to hunt him down and claim them back.
A large chunk of the fun is down to the extraordinary freedom that the gameplay provides, courtesy of those massive handy fists that Donkey Kong has. Almost everything in every level can be smashed – and indeed, the game encourages you to do just that, via a series of meticulously created levels that span everything from lagoons to rolling hilltops. Pummelling through stone (or dirt, or metal, or pretty much anything) in pursuit of sweet loot, carving massive twisting passageways for yourself, is a pastime that never gets old.
This is good, because there ends up being a lot of things to smash, and kudos to the team for finding new ways to keep it fresh. Most of the loot is gold (which can be used in turn to fuel DK’s power-ups, but is so plentiful that it kind of loses its value as the game goes on), but there are bananas, too, hiding underneath layers of substrata, as well as fossils that can be cashed in for wardrobe upgrades.
And in addition to the bosses to defeat, there’s also another surprise in the form of companion Pauline. The same Pauline that DK kidnapped back in the arcade games? Why yes, but here she’s a 13-year-old girl who has a magical singing voice – though she’s shy about voicing it in public.
The pair make a good team. DK can’t speak, naturally, so Pauline fills in, offering little quips and interacting with the world beyond offering a thumbs-up (Donkey Kong’s reply to most requests for help, it turns out).
As the pair bash their way through villain after villain, we also get to see new power-ups, which evolve to cope with the changing environment (from lagoons to rolling fields) – as well as a rudimentary skill tree that gives Donkey Kong extra hearts and more power.
All of this goes to make it into an unusual type of 3D platformer. It’s a forgiving game: the bosses aren’t too tricky to defeat, while the plentiful resources make acquiring better abilities easy. Plus, there aren’t really platforms per se – but who’s quibbling, when the end result is this fun. The developers clearly enjoyed themselves making this – the ape is back, and it’s a smashing good time.
Donkey Kong Bananza is coming to the Nintendo Switch 2 on July 17
