Donkey Kong Bananza Review

Donkey Kong Bananza Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2

Donkey Kong has never been afraid to cause a little chaos, but Donkey Kong Bananza takes that energy and dials it up to eleven. Fast-paced and full of personality, it’s a far departure from the platforming of the Donkey Kong Country Returns era. Bananza is a risk… taking the franchise away from its roots and leaning more like Mario Odyssey in spirit, with an open-ended playground design and Red Faction levels of destruction. Coming off the back of Mario Kart World, Bananza is the first major new IP entry from Nintendo on their latest hardware, and it shows. This is a big, ambitious swing for a franchise that’s often played it safe in recent years. You can smash through buildings, send barrels flying across multi-layered levels, and leave a trail of banana-fuelled mayhem in your wake. It’s Nintendo’s bold new console, and this feels like the bold new Donkey Kong to match. But with that shift comes risk. What’s it Like? Put on your best tie, grab a hard hat, and prepare to go bananas as we review Donkey Kong Bananza on Nintendo Switch.

Bananas

Donkey Kong Bananza opens with DK living his best life as a miner on Ingot Isle. He’s doing what he does best, smashing terrain and finding Banandium, a delicious Banana crystal very similar to Mario Odyssey’s Moons. But things quickly go south when Void Co. arrives, a shady corporation led by a smug, evil president and his team of cronies. They steal all of the island’s Banandium and use it to power their machine, designed to reach the planet’s core and activate something called the Banandium Root.

DK sets off to stop them, but he’s not alone for long. He’s soon joined by a mysterious rock creature who’s quickly revealed to be Pauline. Together, the two set out to bring down Void Co. and recover the stolen Banandium. The tone is silly and over-the-top from the very beginning. Donkey Kong himself is more expressive than ever, and the cast is full of big personalities. There are also plenty of cameos and throwbacks sprinkled throughout the story, which fans of the series will no doubt enjoy. It’s lighthearted and chaotic in all the right ways, giving the adventure a strong sense of fun without ever taking itself too seriously.

Tears of the Kongdom

Gameplay in Donkey Kong Bananza sees you exploring layers and sublayers of the planet, each forming a connected world filled with secrets. These stages are open-ended in design, encouraging exploration and experimentation over speed or precision. Rather than follow a set path, you’re free to carve your own route by digging tunnels, tearing up terrain, or smashing obstacles apart in search of Banandium crystals.

The game leans into its destructible environments in a big way. DK can turf surf, throw chunks of the world at enemies, and even reshape parts of the landscape to overcome challenges. It gives the entire game a feeling of playful chaos, but never at the expense of structure. Maps you uncover help guide you toward hidden paths, and NPCs offer hints that reward careful attention.

A major feature is the introduction of Bananzas, temporary shapeshifting powers that expand DK’s movement and utility. The Zebra form lets you sprint across fragile terrain without breaking it, while the Ostrich ability allows for long glides across wide gaps. Each form opens new routes, helps in combat, or becomes vital during boss encounters. As you collect Banandium, you’ll earn skill points for every five crystals found.

These points can be used to upgrade both DK’s core abilities and Bananza powers, letting you unlock things like stronger throws, faster digging, extended Bananza durations, or entirely new movement options. It’s a simple system, but it adds a good sense of progression and rewards exploration beyond just collecting for completion’s sake. Boss fights bring their own energy. While a few early battles feel more about spectacle than challenge, several late-game encounters are surprisingly demanding. Their designs push you to make full use of your abilities, and a few offer smart twists that break from traditional attack patterns.

Bananas have layers

Donkey Kong Bananza is easily one of the best-looking games on the Switch 2 to date. From its vibrant lighting to its detailed animation work, everything feels handcrafted and full of life. DK and Pauline are especially well-animated, with a level of expression that reminds me of Luigi’s Mansion 3. Dialogue is used sparingly, with much of the emotional weight carried through exaggerated movement, subtle gestures, and clever staging, and… It works.

Pauline has plenty to say during key moments, but DK’s reactions and body language do just as much to sell the story. The bond between the two characters grows naturally throughout the journey, especially in optional rest areas where Pauline shares personal memories or comments on recent events. These quieter moments are smartly integrated and add depth to their dynamic without slowing the pace.

Standard enemies in Bananza often come with layered armour that you’ll need to peel away before they go down. It adds a small extra wrinkle to combat and makes even basic encounters feel a bit more involved. Combat is fun, especially when you send enemies crashing into each other, setting off a chain reaction of destruction.

Bosses, on the other hand, are where the creativity really shines. Each one has a unique design and often ties into the surrounding environment, whether it’s a creature formed from volcanic rock or a bunch of mimic octopuses (octopie?) formed together into a giant rocktopus. They’re fun to fight, but also great to look at, packed with personality and built to surprise. The level design deserves just as much praise. Each layer of the planet has its own atmosphere and visual style, from sunlit paradise zones to rusted-out junk heaps. Environments are packed with detail and are fun to explore, with clever landmarks and terrain features that make it easy to stay oriented even in the game’s more sprawling areas.

Performance

For the most part, Donkey Kong Bananza runs beautifully. The frame rate holds steady even during large-scale destruction or fast-paced traversal, keeping everything feeling responsive and smooth. Whether you’re turf surfing across terrain or smashing through entire chunks of the map, the game rarely stumbles.

That said, there are a few exceptions, and unfortunately, they happen during some of the game’s key boss battles. In these moments, the frame rate dips noticeably, usually when the game is rapidly generating or removing large portions of the environment in real time. It’s understandable given the scale of what’s happening, but it’s still disappointing to see performance take a hit during otherwise high-impact moments. These dips aren’t constant; you could count them on one hand, but they do stand out. Outside of that, there may be the occasional minor skip or hitch, though nothing that meaningfully affects gameplay. Overall, performance is solid, with a few brief cracks in the armour that show up when the game is at its most ambitious.

Value & Accessibility

For my Kongs looking into accessibility, Donkey Kong Bananza includes a solid range of options. Players can toggle settings like camera shake, motion sensitivity, and remap their controls as needed. There’s also an Assist Mode, which offers a bit of extra help, similar to what’s available in Mario Odyssey, making things more forgiving for younger players or those new to platformers. A local co-op mode is also available, where one player controls Donkey Kong and the other plays as Pauline, launching vocal attacks and interacting with the environment. It’s a fun and accessible way to share the experience, and it works well for players of mixed skill levels.

At $110 AUD, Bananza offers excellent value. My playthrough came in at around 15 to 20 hours, and that was with a fairly rushed approach. By the end, I’d collected 320 Banandium gems out of the 777 visible on the compendium, leaving a huge amount still to find. For completionists, that could easily push the total playtime well past the 60-70 hour mark. There’s plenty of incentive to go back, and the structure of the game makes that return journey feel rewarding rather than repetitive.

DK Bananza is exceptional fun and one of the most memorable and enjoyable experiences I’ve had in a video game in a long time. It was a risk for Nintendo to move away from the familiar rhythm of the DK Country series, but it’s one that pays off in spectacular fashion. What we get instead is a zany, over-the-top, utterly joyous adventure that showcases exactly what the Switch 2 is capable of, both technically and creatively.

At the heart of Bananza is more than just bananas and destruction. The bond between DK and Pauline becomes as central to the experience as the environments you’re tearing apart. It’s heartfelt, surprising, and it grounds the game emotionally in a way I didn’t expect. Mechanically, it’s a blast. The core destruction gameplay feels outstanding and consistently satisfying across the campaign, and I was continually surprised by how rewarding it was to go off the beaten path in search of Banandium. There’s a strong sense of discovery layered into the chaos, and it makes for a game that’s both mechanically thrilling and joyfully explorative.

Donkey Kong Bananza has not only set the bar for the franchise moving forward, but raised it for the entire platforming/adventure genre. Whether you’re in it for the spectacle, the secrets, or the story of an unlikely friendship, DK Bananza delivers, and I absolutely loved every minute of it.

So, What’s it Like? Donkey Kong Bananza is like Mario Odyssey mixed with Red Faction.

Donkey Kong Bananza is a What’s it Like Certified Exceptional game.

In the interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by Nintendo, but this doesn’t influence my score.

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