I think these days, after years of Nintendo outright eschewing the console power rat race and focusing instead on different ways to play and honing their core craft, we forget that Nintendo is still a pretty sharp company in terms of technical innovation. Raw power went aside with the Wii, but the company’s dedication to tinkering around the edges to create stand-out original experiences in other ways remained – or perhaps even intensified. There’s been a lot of examples over the years, of course, from clever game design innovations to zany peripherals – but Donkey Kong Bananza has to be one of the finest showcases of that thinking from Nintendo in years.
It’s not that Bananza is really demonstrating all-new technology, obviously. Right from the preview period I was jokingly calling it Red Faction Gorilla, so similar is its worldview and technical execution to an Xbox 360 title from fifteen years ago. But what you have here is a remarkable expression of that sort of world destruction technology and design – and in true Nintendo fashion everything done is carefully placed in service of fun, imagination, and satisfaction.
The structure of Mario Odyssey is lightly reproduced, with precious bananas swapped out for Moons and players given a suite of open-ended sandbox levels within which they can do the bare minimum to progress or dig deep to clear each stage out. Except here, the digging is literal – Odyssey’s brilliant-but-cute gimmicks swapped for something more all-encompassing, with Banadium Gems hidden in every nook and crevice of each map, and DK’s skill set built around ripping said map to pieces. Sometimes, less is more. This game is that writ large: design brilliance through design purity. DK is a big strong lad about smashing stuff. He doesn’t need anything more outlandish than that.
Gathering all of those bananas requires not so much puzzle solving, but careful thought about the mechanics at your disposal and how best to deploy them for whatever specific micro-task is at hand. In this you get an easy-to-play game that even a real beginner can pick up but with real satisfying depth for those who want to really dig deep into the game’s mechanics. The perfect Nintendo game is always like this – with a Pixarian ability to thread the needle with winks, nods, and challenges for the grown-ups all while providing an overall package that even very young children can enjoy. It’s just brilliant.
There’s a vision of Nintendo as a slightly insular company – and while Nintendo indeed always ‘does its own thing’, but it does so with its eye on others. And so one can see in Banaza shades of the destructive and creative play spaces of Minecraft and the like in much the same way as one can sense the influence of Skyrim on Breath of the Wild.
It’s curious too how one half of the game’s directing duo is a relative outsider – Kazuya Takahashi’s last credit prior to Bananza was on Final Fantasy 15, where he directed the main game’s quests and then fully led the actually rather underrated multiplayer expansion. I personally imagine this as demonstrative of how Nintendo (and, to an extent, Japanese development in general) is shifting its approach to employment. Years ago it would’ve been relatively unthinkable that a newcomer could arrive from another company and, no matter the previous seniority, step right into leadership on a flagship game. But here you get that. Admittedly this is likely so that the Odyssey leads (that game’s director served as producer here) could likely carry on thinking about Mario’s future – but between them, Takahashi and Mario veteran Wataru Tanaka provide a fresh feel from the shared director’s chair.
There’s another shift, too. Endgame spoilers ahead.
Attribution
What a nostalgia bomb, hey? After years of ignoring most of Donkey Kong made outside of Japan, we finally get a game that doesn’t just pay lip service to DK’s proud years coming out of the UK – it goes further, showing an active adoration of that time.
I’m not just talking about returning villains, familiar music, and a trip to a location from the Mario universe here – I’m talking about all of Bananza’s original stuff too, which all oozes a sort of Rarewarian energy that Japan has never really bothered to worry about before. Vibes are always difficult-to-impossible to articulate in text, though suffice it to say that Bananza just feels of a piece with the Rare-era DK games – and not just because the underground’s various inhabitants are all googley-eyed creatures.
Pair that love of the past with a surprising sense of narrative style and you get something that hits difficult to the usual Japan-made platforming fare. I’m not sure if that story ambition comes from existing in a post Mario movie world, or from hiring a guy who worked on Final Fantasy, or somewhere else entirely – but it’s there. I punched the air as old foes returned and classic musical refrains tugged at the memory centers of my brain. And I had a lump in my throat when a teary-eyed Pauline said goodbye to DK in (one of) the game’s ending(s). I can’t think of a Nintendo title that achieved that for me, other than a couple of Zelda endings.
Anyway, I ramble, as one is want to do in this sort of gushing thing. Bananza is far from a perfect game, as I outlined in Eurogamer’s four-star review. One can see where it falls short of Odyssey-level greatness and see plenty of opportunity for improvement. I also dare say there are certainly on-paper ‘better’ games this year, as you’d expect – we’ve given out a few five-star reviews. But sometimes, that slightly imperfect game just speaks to you more. It weasels its way into your heart and becomes an absolute favourite.
Bananza is that for me. And if this is the template for the future, I can’t wait for the next Mario – or to see what’s next for DK and Pauline. And, if we’re tugging at my heartstrings, I wouldn’t mind a new Star Fox either. Could 2026 be the year? I hope so.