Switch 2’s Launch Lineup Gets a Boost from Donkey Kong Bananza

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Get Ready to Go Bananas for Donkey Kong Bananza

With less than a month to go, Nintendo has dropped a treasure trove of information about the hotly anticipated Donkey Kong Bananza.

For the love of bananas

Donkey Kong Bananza kicks off on Ingot Island, where the discovery of shiny, golden bananas dubbed ‘Banandium Gems’ have been discovered. Donkey Kong (DK) joins his fellow primates in excavating these tantalizing treats when a storm strikes and sends the mining operation deep into the planet. It’s down there that DK teams up with a teenage Pauline, a shy singer who is key to defeating the villainous Void Company. Once united, it’s a race against VoidCo to reach the planet core and secure its treasure.

Nintendo’s platformers have never focused too heavily on delivering a strong narrative, but Donkey Kong Bananza slightly bucks that trend. At the surface level, Donkey Kong Bananza’s plot is eerily similar to Super Mario Odyssey with the big villain stealing something precious to our hero (Peach vs. Bananas), our hero meeting a sidekick that gives them access to transforming powers (Cappy vs. Pauline) and then the duo racing across different themed worlds in pursuit of the big bad (Bowser vs. VoidCo). Highly derivative, but dig a bit deeper and you’ll find surprising depth.

What elevates Donkey Kong Bananza’s story above the typical Nintendo narrative is DK’s relationship with Pauline. DK’s fatherly actions help Pauline gain confidence, and the optional banter between the two at rest stops help strengthen it. For a company that prides itself on using as little voice acting as possible, Donkey Kong Bananza feels like a real breakthrough moment in storytelling for Nintendo, even if Pauline is the only character that doesn’t speak in gibberish.

The campaign is also helped by a fantastic third act filled with surprising twists and spectacles. Yes, Donkey Kong Bananza’s narrative is completely derivative of Super Mario Odyssey, but it improves it in all the right ways. DK and Pauline capture the spotlight, while the third act ramps up the spectacle. It’s most certainly worth the 10-15 hours needed to complete the story.

Bust a move

Donkey Kong Bananza is by no means a short game to complete. While it’s possible to breeze through the story in the 10-15 hours, you could easily double or triple that time running through side content. Much like Super Mario Odyssey, most of the time is spent collecting a special item (Stars vs. Banadium Gems) hidden across the world. Unlike Odyssey, however, you don’t need a specific amount of that item to progress to the next level, making Bananza a more streamlined experience. For narrative-focused players who want to complete the story first, removing this barrier is a welcome addition.

Much like its narrative beats, Bananza pulls heavily from Super Mario Odyssey when it comes to its design. You’ll travel to different layers, each with their own theme, and collect Banadium Gems by progressing along the story’s path, exploring, or playing hidden levels. It all leads towards a boss battle and then onto the next layer. What helps keep Bananza fresh are the themes of its different levels. There are flowing hilltops, vine-filled jungles, sun-soaked beaches and torrential downpours. All typical settings, but all rendered beautifully on Switch 2.

What truly sets Donkey Kong Bananza apart from Super Mario Odyssey, Astro Bot, or any other recent platformer is its focus on destruction. Most of the layers can be smashed to pieces, giving you a lot of latitude to mine for additional gold, resources and hidden levels and create your own pathways. Granted, not everything is destructible. The level designers still have clear flows built into their playgrounds so that the adventure can continue at the right pace. Still, destruction is fun, until it isn’t.

Is it an ostrich? A zebra? No, it’s DK!

Where Donkey Kong Bananza feels somewhat unrefined is in its gameplay. Elemental destruction is fun, until the camera gets snagged and you’re left guessing where to go. Destruction itself can sometimes feel sloppily implemented, with DK accidentally destroying important pieces of terrain when all you were trying to do was punch an enemy, or when a little piece of lava is left behind, and it ends up burning you. It’s fun punching away at the environment, but the destruction isn’t precise or refined enough in the moments that matter most.

DK himself controls well with a nice weight to him. As a primate, you’ll automatically climb up most surfaces, hang from ceilings and even utilize the environment to surf across the terrain. A skill point system allows you to purchase some upgrades for DK, including his Bananza forms. Donkey Kong Bananza’s main gameplay hook are the Bananza transformations, which allow DK to transform into different animals to gain different abilities. Kong Bananza is a buffed DK that can smash through concrete, Zebra Bananza allows DK to run on thin ice and water, and Ostrich Bananza gives him the power to glide and drop egg bombs.

The Bananzas are an interesting idea and are fun and interesting to use, but feel underutilized with most of them being highly situational. Each gets a wonderful showcase in the layer you acquire them, including excellent secret levels, but once outside those layers, some of them aren’t useful. Part of it is because Bananzas cost a full meter to unleash, and you can’t switch between them when you’re already using a Bananza. Maybe if there was a way to better switch between them, or if the layers or enemies had more variety to make all the Bananzas viable, they’d be more useful. As is, it’s a fun mechanic that isn’t utilized to its fullest potential.

Donkey Kong Bananza’s gameplay incorporates some stellar platforming with fun, yet underutilized ideas. It nails the platforming aspects it inherited from Super Mario Odyssey, but its own ideas like the destruction and Bananza transformations needed more refinement and better utilization.

As a Switch 2 exclusive, Donkey Kong Bananza does set a solid example for what the system can do. Bananza’s layers, characters and destruction are all rendered beautifully and look good on both the big screen and in handheld mode. It’s not perfect with the game suffering from jagged shadows and frame rate drops (particularly on the big screen), but the team’s first major outing on Switch 2 does a solid job at selling what Switch 2 can do.

Closing Comments

Fans of Donkey Kong have long waited for the hairy primate to get a Mario or Link style glow-up. One where he gets to star in his own 3D platforming adventure on the same level as a 3D Mario or The Legend of Zelda. Donkey Kong Bananza delivers on that, giving DK his first 3D adventure in decades and solidifying him as one of Nintendo’s top stars, even if the final product is too derivative of Super Mario Odyssey. The narrative is a step in the right direction by focusing on the relationship between the two leads and delivering a truly stellar final act. There’s a lot of Odyssey in Bananza’s world design, but that does mean there’s a lot to see and do across the beautifully rendered layers. Gameplay isn’t refined with a lot of issues surrounding the destruction mechanics and the underutilization of the Bananza transformations, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had exploring the layers and seeing what you can discover. Donkey Kong Bananza might not reach the same heights as a 3D Mario or The Legend of Zelda, but it remains fun and lays a solid foundation for future 3D Donkey Kong titles. It’s alright to go bananas for Donkey Kong Bananza.

Donkey Kong Bananza

Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2

Systems

4.0/5

Released

July 17, 2025

ESRB

Everyone 10+ // Fantasy Violence

Developer(s)

Nintendo

Publisher(s)

Nintendo

Pros & Cons

• Donkey Kong & Pauline’s chemistry shines
• The Super Mario Odyssey formula still works
• A beautiful showcase for the Switch 2 hardware

• Massive camera issues when destroying the terrain
• Performance issues galore
• Highly derivative of Super Mario Odyssey