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Donkey Kong Bananza Is a Perfect Blend of Tech and Design
And it has my favorite map system
I should never have doubted Nintendo.
In the run-up to the launch of the new Switch 2 game Donkey Kong Bananza, I was one of those weird people who just wanted it to be a Mario title. I’ve been waiting several years for the next iteration of Nintendo’s iconic 3D Mario platform game series, and to see that same development team instead swerve over to Donkey Kong and his big gorilla antics made me worry. The early trailers looked kind of cool, and I thought it was neat that it had so much smashable terrain, but I couldn’t fathom how a whole Nintendo game would revolve around that idea and somehow live up to the legacy.
Did we really need a new Donkey Kong adventure as the second flagship game for this brand new console hardware?
Yes! Yes we absolutely did! Bananza is an amazing achievement, and I’ve forgotten all about my earlier fears. It’s easily the best game on the Switch 2, and a new high bar for the platform jumping genre. For the first moment in several console generations, it feels like Nintendo cares about technical oomph again, and the entire game is like a confident and iconic group of geniuses just calmly showing you every cool thing they know.
