Donkey Kong Bananza bursts out of the shadows and straight into our crosshairs with a subterranean spectacle that’s part action romp, part banana-fueled odyssey. This in-depth exploration of Donkey Kong Bananza introduces an unexpected pairing: Donkey Kong and Pauline, whose tag-team antics plunge players into a cavernous underground world full of pulpy foes, shifting mechanics, and smash-heavy hijinks. From crumbling ruins to twisty rail rides, it’s all about momentum and mania in Nintendo’s latest evolution of platformer chaos carved from stone, driven by vine.

Donkey Kong Bananza Review Pros

• Beautiful graphics.
• 8.7GB Download size.
• Milestones within the smashing stats feel a bit like achievements.
• Amiibo support.
• Two game modes – normal and assisted mode. Assisted mode will help you with guidance and easier enemies etc.
• Camera settings – Invert axis, sensitivity slider, camera shake, shake intensity, and motion controls.
• Drop in and out local co op play.
• Action-adventure gameplay.
• Tutorial pop ups as you play with a little video showing the action in umm action.
• You can smash and break nearly everything in the world, I mean, you can totally take areas down to nothing.
• Find gold nuggets within the world and the actual world itself.
• Puzzle elements throughout.
• Has all the charm and shows why Donkey Kong is beloved.
• Odd Rock is your rock based companion and will give hints and tips as you play.
• Fast loading times.
• A hue knockoff game world, it’s 3D and you have 360 degrees camera control.
• Checkpoints can be triggered.
• A full 3D interactive map that fills in with points of interest as you discover them.
• Bananas and fossils are hidden collectibles, you can have them appear on the map.
• It’s such a fun, happy game to play.
• The tech they use for world destruction is honestly breathtaking.
• Many memorable characters.
• The game is so satisfying as you can play how you want and do what you want. The world is not fully closed in, and you can do as you please.
• Physics is at play, so foldable items can roll down hills.
• You can see and interact with characters from previous games, and they are nostalgic within themselves.
• The one thing to surprise you is how easy and how often you will find secret areas, little rooms and alternate routes.
• You can smash up the wall, hit high, climb, jump slams, slam the floor to grab gold around you, and you can pick up and throw parts of the world. You can even roll around on a boulder to smash stuff up.
• Aiming the reticule when throwing the boulder.
• Big boss encounters.
• Unlock shortcuts that benefit you, especially the ones on twer like structures.
• Pick up and use different element based cubes like fire and ice.
• Loot chests can be found and opened.
• Heart based life system and you collect apples to replenish it.
• Find many bonus rooms.
• Smashing up crystallised bananas is so satisfying.
• Many memorable set pieces.
• It’s a game that anyone can play, as you can make your own adventure and do as you wish.
• Fossils can be used to buy new clothing options, and entering a wardrobe lets you dress up.
• Odd Rock can show you where to go if you get stuck.
• Handy reset terrain button on the map.
• Place your own map pins.
• Unlock fast travel points.
• The game controls well, and combat is just a case of smashing people or throwing boulders.
• Find and use beds to sleep and get a temporary heart piece.
• In game cutscenes and character interactions that you can skip and fast forward through.
• Collect bananargy from gold and fill your bar so you can turn into a huge Donkey Kong who has a stronger punch and a charged punch that can break stronger walls.
• Crystalised bananas actually build up and reward you with skill points to put into the massive skill tree.
• Odd Rock changes into Pauline, a young Pauline at that, but the powers are the same as Odd Rock’s.
• There are these weird blocks that cannot be stood on, but thrown anywhere in the world at them and they become them for a short time, so throw a stone and it becomes a stone cube, for example.
• Clothing can give buffs.
• Smashing stats show what and how much of the world you have smashed up and the locations. You earn bonus gold as you complete milestones.
• Save when you want from the main menu.

Donkey Kong Bananza Review Cons

• You cannot remap all the controls or do the buttons individually.
• I kept losing track of what I was doing as I got carried away by all the smashing.
• So many times the camera goes into first person and goes all weird and makes it hard to see.
• Annoying at times that parts of the level reset when you leave and then come back.
• The climbing isn’t not always fun, and any overhang makes it nigh in impossible to pass.
• I found myself missing things often, again, it’s because there is so much you can do.
• Tutorials are definitely more focused on the controls than the mechanics of the world.
• At times, you will open a chest and loads of gold will spill out and go everywhere.

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Donkey Kong Bananza:

Official Website: 

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Store Link:

Nintendo