I purchased Donkey Kong Bonanza at the end of December 2025, but only just finished it. The reason behind the drag could be explained by my infatuation with Marathon, but it is also down to the sudden drop in enjoyment as I charted below.
Donkey Kong Bananza had would have been a superior game if it had fewer sublayers. One could argue that Nintendo was stuffing the game to justify its $99.99 CAD price tag, but I found they stuffed it full of garbage sublayers — one of them was literally themed as the “Landfill sublayer” (SL1000).
The game started out very strong, full of ideas, and wonders. I felt incredibly powerful as Donkey Kong and even more so when he went off towards Bananza mode. Smashing through enemies and terrain was satisfying. Discovering new transformations was also a fun motivator to keep going. I didn’t know what I was asking for though. As I dove deeper towards Pauline and Donkey Kong’s collective goal of reaching the planet’s core, that lustre began to wear off.
Not all the Bananza transformations were as fun or universally useful as Zebra, Ostrich or Kong. Some felt very niche and gimmicky. I think game went awry trying to finesse power switching into pressure situations. Donkey Kong isn’t Metroid or even Zelda for that matter; transformation swapping was clunky because I had to take my thumb off movement to do it. I much preferred dedicated play spaces for transformations.
I knew this was a collect-a-thon style game. This game was apparently from the people who brought us Super Mario Odyssey which I enjoyed. I found the sheer number of collectibles to be gratifying as it seemingly rewarded exploration. “Oh, Banana!” eventually gave way to “Oh, Banana…” as I grew disenchanted by the notion of finding all these bananas, fossils, and other nonsense to collect. I criticize Ubisoft’s open world collect-a-thons and Nintendo was just as guilty with Donkey Kong Bananza. The number of copy-and-paste activities throughout the entire game’s sublayers stripped away any lustre the game had left towards the end.
It seemed like the developers ran out of level and gameplay ideas by the end of it all. Oh, and surprise: King K. Rool is back for whatever reason and he’ll drag us through more of the same again.
Minor performance lurches during boss fights didn’t detract from these beacons of creativity within the game though. The boss fights truly put the understanding of the game’s mechanics to the test and I found them to be the more ambitious gameplay moments in the game.
Nintendo have not mastered voice acting, dialog, or anything that isn’t just their characters making short quips. I didn’t care for all the dialog written for Pauline. It was a very simple story of overcoming fears and personal growth. I saw what they were trying to achieve. They simply missed their mark by a fair bit and it only highlighted the lurching momentum of the game.
Donkey Kong Bananza felt like a vertical facsimile of Ubisoft’s open world titles towards the end, but that initial thrust was genuinely magical and novel. Donkey Kong has never felt so fresh and vibrant as he does in this game. Nintendo took his goofy brawny essence and gave him a new lease on life. I started the game with the feeling of awe because I never played anything like it before. It’s unfortunate that by the end, I was already sick and tired of it. Truly a bizarre journey.
Verdict:
It was okay
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