Donkey Kong Bananza swings onto the Nintendo Switch 2 with the kind of energy, charm, and raw brawn we haven’t seen from DK since the golden age of Rare. Developed by Nintendo EPD (the 3D Mario team), Bananza doesn’t just aim to fill a Mario-sized platforming gap, it crushes it with barrels of creativity, expressive animation, and beautifully chaotic destruction.

A Beautiful Bananza

Bananza clearly demonstrates its lineage the instant you swing into the first level which is filled with nostalgic arcade girders. From Donkey Kong Country to Banjo-Kazooie, the packed and chillingly colorful areas are steeped with personality. Even the heavily animated Nintendo characters such as DK who is very much alive in the game are graceful and full of heavy movement.

And the soundtrack,  it’s an instant classic. You’ve got a remixed “Stickerbush Symphony”, a jazzed-up overworld theme, and Pauline belting out catchy transformation tunes that feel like the spiritual successor to “Jump Up, Super Star!”.

Destruction With Platforming Perfection

The core of Bananza lies in its uniquely destructible 3D world. It’s not just about jumping and swinging, it’s about tearing through environments, solving physics-driven puzzles, and experimenting with your Bananza transformations:

• Kong Bananza
• Zebra Bananza
• Ostrich Bananza

Each is not only fun to control but seamlessly swappable mid-transformation, offering a level of combat and traversal depth we haven’t seen since Super Mario Odyssey’s capture mechanic. The only downside: they might be too powerful. Bananergy (the gold-fueled transformation meter) is so abundant that some puzzles can feel trivialized if you choose brute force over brainpower. But hey, that’s part of the charm.

Framerate Funk 

It’s not all smooth swinging. While Bananza maintains an average 60 FPS most of the time, it can dip during peak destruction sequences or the beginning of new levels. These drops are not major, but they can be significant for those looking for perfection. The stutters that do occur are quite forgivable in the context of the burst of delightful mayhem happening on screen.

Bananza Boss Battles

The initial boss fights are all show, no substance. Aesthetically, a stone squid inspired by Splatoon is striking, but the early fights can be finished in less than 30 seconds due to the absurdly easy Bananza forms. Thankfully, that’s not the case in the later stages of the game, where post-game bosses provide a real challenge.

And while Bananza doesn’t demand high-stakes platforming to reach its credits, it offers loads of side content and secret challenges for completionists. Optional challenge rooms, hidden Gems, and a post-game that pushes every mechanic to its limit ensure plenty of juicy content long after the story ends.

There’s even a surprisingly strong two-player mode. One player controls DK, while the other assists by launching Pauline’s musical projectiles using motion-controlled Joy-Cons, it feels perfect for co-op sessions.

It is clear that Nintendo EPD undertook a substantial gamble with DK headlining Switch 2’s 3D platforming launch, and it certainly pays out in barrels. Shattering everything: the levels are an aesthetic explosion, intense to an unthinkable extreme, and an unforgettable experience in epic-scale destruction, Bananza is an astonishing refinement of the development Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario Odyssey started. While there are noticeable performance issues, some of the transformation mechanics and simplification of complex challenges is somewhat overboard, it is an absolute delight that a game so full of creativity and charm can have such trivial matters.

Score: 9.5/10