Donkey Kong Bananza — Review

Donkey Kong has spent twenty-plus years as Nintendo's most underused major mascot. Bananza is the answer to that — and it's a louder, more confident answer than anyone expected.

The Hook

Almost everything in the world can be punched, smashed, or tunnelled through. Levels are layered top-to-bottom and you carve your own paths. It's the rare big-budget platformer that reshapes its own geometry as you play — and the design holds together even when you're tearing it apart.

How It Plays

DK's moveset is built around weight and momentum in a way Mario games deliberately aren't. The combat is more central than expected, and the dig-through-the-floor traversal becomes a problem-solving tool as often as a movement option. The progression of new abilities is paced almost perfectly across the runtime.

What Stands Out

The art direction is some of Nintendo EPD's most ambitious recent work. The boss roster lets each fight commit to a different verb — climb, dig, brawl — rather than collapsing into pattern-memorisation. The Pauline system is the surprise standout: she's the best secondary character Nintendo has written in years.

What Holds It Back

A handful of late-game environments lean too heavily on the same tunnelling beats. Performance dips in the densest set-pieces, though never far enough to hurt the moment. Boss roster is slightly thinner than the runtime calls for.

Who It's For

Anyone who wanted Donkey Kong to matter again. Anyone with a Switch 2 looking for the platforming game that actually justifies the hardware. Anyone who has been waiting for a 3D platformer to do something genuinely new since Odyssey.