I honestly could not have told you what I would have wanted from a 3D Donkey Kong game in the year 2025, but Donkey Kong Bananza seems to have checked all of the boxes I didn’t know I had. When I first started the demo at a recent hands-on event for the Nintendo Switch 2, I wasn’t sure if this Donkey Kong game was something for me, but I walked away after 15 minutes more than impressed.
The game opens up with a small tutorial section on Ingot Isle, a mining outcrop that’s teeming with personality. Small prospector monkeys line the mines, jumping for joy when you find hidden banana collectibles. Nearly everything in this world is destructible and the game encourages you to start breaking down the walls. I started swinging my big Donkey Kong fists, digging tunnels around the area, and finding secret bananas (known as Banadium) hidden behind walls. It felt tactile and responsive like the world was my playground to destroy.
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There’s something special about a world that’s meant to be literally taken apart. A nice puzzle box in which the answer isn’t to solve some intricate puzzle, but rather something that’s designed to be physically peeled away at, carving your own path. We’ve seen Nintendo use similar mantras in games like Breath of the Wild or even the new Mario Kart World. Splashing their “Go Anywhere” ethos across the world. Donkey Kong Bananza takes these ideas and uses destruction as the paint to splash upon the canvas.
Donkey Kong Bananza is a smashing good time.
After I decimated my way through Ingot Isle, I was eventually thrown into a more vibrant and colorful world. But all I saw was another world waiting to be ripped apart. Nearly every button on the controller is designed to facilitate breaking stuff. It’s actually quite intuitive, too. The X button swings up, the B button swings down, and the Y button swings left to right. So, it’s a natural feeling when choosing a direction to go. However, this is only just the beginning.
I quickly learned I could rip chunks out of the ground and throw them at enemies and other parts of the environment, but the team took this idea a step further. Each material in the game has a hardness level. Mud, for instance, is soft and less destructive than something sturdier like hard rocks. So, you need to keep in mind what type of material you’re throwing to better determine the impact it will have on the space. Soft mud won’t break most things but instead sticks to the surface at the point of impact.
As I progressed the demo, I decided to dig straight down to the bottom-most layer I could find. I had no idea if I would find anything, but I was determined to keep going. I quickly found a little underground grotto with small pools of water and big stone revolving doors that, at first glance, seemed like I needed to bypass with some light platforming. Instead, I found a giant explosive rock and blew up the doors. Allowing me access and giving me a sense of independent discovery. A little puzzle that I felt I had agency over how I approached it rather than simply solving it the “intended way.”
Geology rocks!
I spent the rest of my time with the demo rolling around and even surfing on some giant rocks, which you can do whenever you want. When rolling around the environment, you can rip a chunk of rock off and begin surfing along the ground with it. I’ve yet to find a specific use for it, but I just think that’s sick.
I did find something called a “sub-layer” during my time with the game, which seems to be a more traditional bite-sized platforming section, but unfortunately, the demo loaded me out of it when I reached it. I expect these to be similar to Mario Odyssey’s smaller levels that can be found hidden around each of the worlds. With a few moments left, I climbed up a giant cliffside and overlooked the world below, noticing all of the holes and tunnels I had left. The strewn remains of earth and silt I left behind in my quest for collectibles. As I took stock in all of it, the message “Thank you for Playing” came across the screen and my demo ended.
Donkey Kong Bananza is a glow-up for the Donkey Kong series that feels like it’s been stuck in 2D for a bit too long. I’m not exactly sure how this formula extrapolates out into a full game, but I’m certainly intrigued by the prospect. Luckily, I won’t have to wait too long because Donkey Kong Bananza arrives this summer.
