I want to preface straight away that everything from this point is a spoiler. I have deliberately not used an image in the whole article in case anyone scrolls through it or gets flashbanged with it, and don't want to ruin anyone's day one experience of Donkey Kong Bananza. In that essence, you have been warned, but I had to gush now that I am free from my review embargo to gush about this moment in-game!
And no, this article is not about Diddy or Dixie Kong. So once again, spoilers ahead.
I had been playing Donkey Kong Bananza for a few days at this time, slowly jotting notes for my review as I made my way deep into the planet's core. I had faced Void, Grumpy, and Poppy plenty of times and had come across what I figured was the final world with a battle against Void Kong. After defeating Void in the cutscene playing, I paused a bit at what I thought would be the final moments of the game as DK was turned to stone, Pauline sang to save him, and Void rushed the Bandium Root to what, I figured, would transform him into a final form of some kind.
And then everything changed when the King awoke from his slumber. Void was knocked away, and from the dust and nearly 20 years since his last appearance (outside of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate), King K. Rool returned.
I had to pause the game and immediately take in what had just happened. Remember, for most of the time, Nintendo has been using other enemies for the DK Country Returns games, and I had thought that K Rool (and the Kremlins who appear in one final world below this one) were an enemy lost to time. But nope, here they were! Right in front of my eyes!
It did make me emotional to see K. Rool again, and seeing others discover that he and the Kremlin army were in the game, including classic soundtracks remade for this title, has been making a ton of people happy. My only pet peeve is that we see them for a fraction of the story, but it did make for a nice surprise and even gave us a canonical reason why we hadn't seen them in quite a while.
Someone said to me that Cranky fortells the return of K. Rool through his dialogue if you find him in each world, but I was skipping through that to get the Gem, so that's my only fault for not seeing the signs. K. Rool also makes for a fantastic final boss. My only hope is that it won't take another 20 years to see him in a mainly DK game again.
The post I cried when this nefarious Rare character returned in Donkey Kong Bananza appeared first on Destructoid.
