Even though I was very impressed playing Cyberpunk 2077 on a Nintendo device, no game impressed me more than Donkey Kong Bananza on the Switch 2. When I first started playing it was just some good old Nintendo entertainment. Look at this cute little meaty monkey. Oh he is jumping for a banana. Hey, I can turn the Joy-Con around and smack him in my chest that is great. And so on. But the more I played it the more it transformed from junk food pleasure to technical magic.
The initial minefields exist mainly to teach you a basic control scheme in a digestible way and I digested them. I refer you to my answers above. It felt like Yoshi's Crafted World or Princess Peach: Showtime nice to look at but not as impressive as the top games. Then I got to the first main area, and realized that this might be the biggest gunplay Nintendo has ever put out.
Donkey Kong Bananza Is the Best Showcase Yet for the Power of the Switch 2
Is that hyperbole for a company that has reinvented the foundations of what a platform game means so many times? Probably. But I'd rather err on the side of Donkey Kong because it seems content to hide its talents.
In Donkey Kong Bananza, the fully destructible environments make each level feel like it's made up of at least two levels. I was running along the surface, still trying to get used to its mechanics when I accidentally started sinking into holes and found another level beneath me. Initially, these were mainly mazes with coins and hidden bananas but as you progressed through the game, they became more complex and important.
That was before you learned about the other flowers. These levels are rocky islands and because you can climb around the walls it means you can explore new areas by moving around each ledge where you could not platform through normal running and jumping. You can also surf rocks pull them out of the wall to use as makeshift weapons, and tunnel underwater to create a plug hole effect that drains the lake water. It is a very impressive, a lot of technical brilliance, on par with the limitless creativity of Tears of the Kingdom but it is very hard to demonstrate without having it in your hands.
It is still there though So if you look carefully. It is just something. As is a long standing Nintendo tradition there's no mention of the developer's name. I generally do not like that practice. This creates a strange idea of Nintendo as some sort of deity that with only the help of a few humans whose faces appear in every Direct gives birth to the video games we proclaim as blessings from heaven.
However I think my feelings about this reflect those of someone who is very much involved with gaming as an industry and most people do not know or care what it means that their game wasn't actually developed by Nintendo but by Good Feel and or HAL Laboratories or Acquire. In the case of Donkey Kong Bananza I think Nintendo is making a mistake by not giving us more information.
Who's Behind the Development of Donkey Kong Bananza?
After playing Donkey Kong Bananza and experiencing it is speed as well as looking closely at its graphics, in-game items, and cartoony font and I am pretty sure the game was developed by Nintendo EPD specifically the internal EPD team that helped The Godfather conceive and deliver Super Mario Odyssey. Super Mario was nowhere to be seen at the Switch 2 launch - except perhaps driving a go-kart which lends a lot of credence to this theory. Certainly this all-star team isn't sitting this launch out.
If this is true Nintendo is missing a big chance to market. This is not just a case of someone involved with video games having a particular fondness for the art of one video game. Super Mario Odyssey has become shorthand for platforming perfection. Just look at the reviews of Astro Bot when excellence was reduced critics gave the highest possible praise: that it's equal to, or nearly equal to Super Mario Odyssey.
Having a team that's known for creating the best examples of a genre, and then having them recreate that same genre on more powerful hardware, and not telling people it is the same team doing it seems contradictory. Without even knowing how much Odyssey is respected, some casual gamers might look at the Nintendo Switch 2 launch line-up and wonder why there's no proper Mario in it. If you can tell them it is a 3D platformer for the Mario boys then you are offering a perfect alternative.
Ultimately Donkey Kong Bananza will sell itself (if tariffs allow) because it looks great Donkey Kong itself is an iconic game, and it is a key game for people wanting to try out their new Switch 2. Nintendo is a bit like Coca-Cola or McDonald's you wonder why it spends money on marketing when everyone already knows about it. But I find it weird that a team that can legitimately claim we made the best game ever representing our genre does not tell you it made the new game until you have already played it and see its name in the credits.
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