Donkey Kong Bananza Review – A Smash Hit

It has been a long time since we saw Nintendo’s iconic ape take a proper swing at a 3D adventure. While the 2D Donkey Kong Country Returns and Tropical Freeze games are exceptional in their own right, we’re long overdue for an open-world playground that lets Donkey Kong be, well, a gorilla. Donkey Kong Bananza is exactly that. It’s a smashing good time, and arguably one of the best reasons to own a Switch 2.

Here’s the thing about Bananza: it understands its protagonist. Whereas Mario is an accurate acrobat, Donkey Kong is a wrecking ball (with a tie). Nintendo has leaned into this fact by filling a world with dirt, rock, ice, metal and handing players the tools to break almost all of it. That’s what sits as the core hook: destruction physics. DK doesn’t just run and leap across platforms to reach his destination; he aggressively carves his own route through the environment using sheer force.

In other platformers, a wall of ice impeding progress would require looking around for alternative routes or utilizing fancy gymnastics to circumvent. Instead, Donkey Kong just grabs a chunk of rock from the floor, physically ripping it out of the voxel-based terrain, and hurls it at the obstruction, leaving a new opening. Problem solved. Every smash, slam and earth-shattering blow feels incredible, even when employing such simple solutions. These same tactics extend to the enemies, which come encased in a variety of materials that require a specific approach. For example, an enemy covered in lava had to be cooled with snow to be made vulnerable to Donkey Kong’s usually devastating punches. If only the integration with HD Rumble 2.0 sold the weight of everything playing out onscreen, but this new feature does little to elevate above the company’s previous haptics. The lack of transformative vibration doesn’t detract from the experience and I’m mostly mentioning this for anyone wondering if their old Switch 1 Pro controller is holding them back; it’s not.

Smash ‘N’ Grab

All of this destruction isn’t just for show. It’s how you find everything. The “Banandium Gems”—this game’s equivalent of Moons or Stars—are often buried. You have to look for surface irregularities. A slight bulge in a canyon wall might hide a cave system. A patch of loose dirt on a jungle floor might be the roof of a hidden tomb. It taps into that primal, sandbox urge to just dig. And no matter which way you start digging, you’re bound to stumble upon something of interest in no time.

The game’s structure is a literal deep dive. You start on the surface of Ingot Isle and work your way down toward the planetary core to stop Void Kong. This “Hollow Earth” setup allows for some bizarre and brilliant biomes. The transition between these layers is seamless, courtesy of the enhanced capabilities of the Switch 2. You can punch a hole in the floor of the Hilltop layer, play a freefall minigame (which is essentially a disguises the loading screen), and land moments later in the Canyon layer below without a traditional transition. However, the level design does have a few cracks. Because you can destroy so much, it’s easy to accidentally make a section harder than it needs to be. I once destroyed a natural bridge I actually needed to cross. The game is smart enough to respawn crucial geometry if you leave the area, but in the moment, you may dig your own grave.

Joining Donkey Kong is Pauline, being upgraded from a side character in the developer’s work on Odyssey to a full-fledged companion. Pauline isn’t just a damsel; she’s your multitool. She rides on DK’s back, and her gameplay function revolves around her voice. She can sing to interact with resonant objects, shattering glass obstacles or activating ancient machinery that DK’s brute force can’t budge. The dynamic between them is surprisingly sweet. It’s a buddy-cop movie where one partner is a 400-pound gorilla and the other is a jazz singer. The endearing bond punctuating the quiet moments between the two grounds the chaos.

This is also where the co-op appears. Player two controls Pauline separately, despite being physically restricted to her gorilla friend’s back. While she can’t smash terrain like DK with her bare hands, she can crumble mountains with her voice. It’s a slight step up from playing as Cappy in Odyssey, but it’s still not as demanding (or engaging) as a full second character.

Going Bananzas

We have to talk about the transformations. DK gets to take advantage of Bananza Transformations. The Zebra form, for example, turns the game into a high-speed racer. You are galloping across open plains, smashing through obstacles with unstoppable momentum. It controls a bit loose, but barreling through the world (or even sprinting across water) makes for a good time. Then there’s the Elephant form, which turns the destruction dial to 11. You become a tank. You can spray water to harden lava into rock platforms or wash away mud walls. The physics interactions here are multifaceted, and satisfying. It felt like Breath of the Wild-lite chemistry engine logic applied to a platformer.

Where Bananza begins buckling under the weight of its exceptionally fun design is in its camera. For a game that takes place largely in tunnels, caves, and enclosed spaces, the camera struggles at times. When you are digging a narrow tunnel to find a secret, the camera often clips into the wall or zooms in so close you can only see DK’s fur. It’s claustrophobic, and not in a good way. But just like everything else, you can smash your way out of these situations fairly easily, returning the camera to its desired spot.

There are also some framerate dips. The Switch 2 is a capable machine, but when you have countless physics objects flying around because you just ground-pounded a crystal pillar, the framerate takes a hit. It drops from a silky 60fps to a noticeable 40-ish. It’s not game-breaking, but in a title that relies on momentum, you feel it.

Donkey Kong Bananza Review Verdict

[Editor’s Note: Donkey Kong Bananza was reviewed on Switch 2, and a copy was provided to us for review purposes.]