When the Switch 2 was properly unveiled, I couldn't really get past Mario Kart World in terms of my excitement – after years of waiting, a new Mario Kart title was everything I wanted, and it ate up the first couple of weeks of having a Switch 2 in my hands. Donkey Kong Bananza was a bit of a footnote for me, something that I thought I'd pick up because it was at least fully native to the console and promised a bit of fun.
In fact, despite being a big Nintendo fan stretching back as far as the Game Boy Color, I'd never actually played a Donkey Kong game. The stars hadn't aligned in a way that brought a cartridge in my direction back when I was a kid, and its more recent titles just hadn't been on my radar for whatever reason.
Now, though, I've finished Donkey Kong Bananza (and explored its charming postgame additions), and I'll be counting myself as a franchise fan moving forward. It was a total delight to punch and smash my way through, and a great example of Nintendo's advantage over most other mainstream game-makers where family-friendly titles are concerned.
That Nintendo edge is basically down to creativity. Its best games are increasingly letting players of all ages explore their own ways to play. I deeply loved The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for this reason, since it offered a huge sandbox and loads of tools to explore it.
I didn't expect Bananza to do the same, but as the game unfolds and you get more used to its destruction mechanics, that's basically how it works. You can take most levels completely to pieces with enough determination, and the more you dig and crash around, the more secrets you uncover.
The number of optional bananas to collect is unhinged, and I also love how the game iterates on Super Mario Odyssey, with much of the development team consistent from that masterpiece of a game. Where Odyssey made you collect a certain number of items before you could graduate out of an area to the next one, Bananza is way more flexible.
I frequently skipped a little past the intended order of events by digging my way through to new areas without waiting, and the game always seemed to just jump to my speed and let me continue. That's really rewarding, and I haven't even mentioned the varied ways of getting around the world and its levels.
It's a fabulous package, and I'm super glad I did pick the game up – now I'll be nagging my girlfriend to play it for a good few weeks, so that I can see how much fun she has doing the same.
