Can’t blame a Kong for podcasting.
Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Donkey Kong Bananza, the first 3D Donkey Kong game in almost 30 years and a launch title for the Switch 2. The main thrust behind Bananza is that it’s a collectathon platformer not dissimilar to Mario Odyssey, but with the ability to heavily interact with the terrain. This means punching through the walls and floors, grabbing projectiles out of the ground, and through this making your own paths through the levels. It has the launch title energy of trying to show off the new hardware, and the terrain deformation effects combined with the generally improved graphical fidelity does a pretty good job of it. The game also fills the levels with unique gimmicks and prescribed challenge areas, and also features an endgame and a DLC with even more content so it isn’t short on things to do if you want sink like a hundred or more hours into it. Personally, just seeing the credits took long enough for me, though I wouldn’t describe the main story as having too much filler. Altogether this feels like a worthy game for the (admittedly now year old) new console. We’re going to be talking about the game’s pacing and how we each found our flow through the levels, Bananza transformations and how they play, and how no one cares about your dog unless you’re a famous game developer.
Thank you for joining us again this week! It may seem like a typical us move to not talk about a big tentpole release until a year after it came out, and it is. Whoops. I am glad to have finally gotten to play it, partially because it justifies the purchase of a Switch 2 I made earlier this year, but also because the game is actually quite good. How did your opinion of the game differ from that of the trailer, if that was an experience you had? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord server! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Perfect Tides: Station to Station, the sequel to the point and click adventure game we played a couple years ago, so we hope you’ll join us then.