Donkey Kong Bananza is hugely entertaining and not what we expected

The rumours are true and not only has Donkey Kong had a major makeover but his new Nintendo Switch 2 game is like nothing he’s ever starred in before.

Although there were plenty of educated guesses about what games might arrive early in the Switch 2’s line-up the only one based on an actual rumour was a new 3D Donkey Kong game. That rumour has turned out to be absolutely correct, although it’s not quite the game many expected.

It was imagined that it might be a de facto 3D Mario game, featuring both characters and made by the same Nintendo EPD team responsible for Super Mario Odyssey. It’s not yet clear who’s making the game, but while the latter may well be true there was no sign of Mario or any other existing characters from either the Mushroom Kingdom or the Donkey Kong Country games.

And while the annoucement trailer did suggest there will be some traditional platforming sections, including 2D stages reminiscent of Donkey Kong Country Returns, everything we played was completely different to that and revolved destroying everything in your path, up to and including the scenery itself.

The story seems to involve Donkey Kong digging for jewel-like bananas, with an army of enslaved monkeys, that look very similar to Diddy Kong, working for a group of currently unnamed bad guys. The larger bananas appear to function similarly to moons in Super Mario Odyssey, in that they’re the tangible reward for exploration but, really, you’re just encouraged to experiment and play around with the level and your abilities.

DK can punch through solid rock, but he can also punch downwards and upwards and seemingly climb over any surface, allowing him to batter a level to smithereens, in his search for smaller ingots of gold and other collectables (including fossils which apparently unlock costumes in a shop we never saw).

He also has his signature hand slap that can collect nearby objects and act like a sort of echo location to reveal nearby hidden secrets. Plus, he can do a ground pound type move, a forward roll, and rip up a chunk of the ground at any moment, like the Hulk, and either hurl it at enemies (including via an optional first person aiming view) or use it like a rotating surfboard (that doesn’t make any more sense in context).

Initially, Donkey Kong appears ridiculous overpowered and it’s hugely entertaining to just demolish everything you can get your hands on and tunnel through the underground mines you start in, like an angry mole. The demo then fast-forwarded us to later in the game, where there are more substantial enemies and obstacles including exploding rocks, which are crucial for taking down a tough mini-boss.

It’s all hugely entertaining and the scale of destruction, and the amount of damage you can do to each stage – levelling it down to the water table, is hugely impressive. There seems to be a lot more to the game than we ever got into too, as there’s a weird purple rock sitting on your shoulder in the second part of the demo and we have no idea who they are or what they do.

As positive as the first impressions are though, the demo was surprisingly janky for a Nintendo title. It’s not finished, so the frame rate issues and skittish controls will probably be fixed in the final game, but the camera really struggles to show a sensible view of the action when you start taking apart the scenery.

Or rather it does usually manage to do so but this often involves weird views where it’s clipping through the floor or walls. We think most of this is intentional though and there’s probably no other way to do it, given there’s so few limits on what you can destroy. This makes us even more interested in seeing the finished product and how Nintendo manages to mitigate what is probably an intractable problem.

Even if the game ends up seeming somewhat clumsy at times that suits the great ape and his big new makeover. His new look is also featured in Mario Kart World but here you can see how vastly more expressive he is, compared to the stoic Rare version.

Some will no doubt complain at the change but we’re all for it, in terms of both how Donkey Kong looks and how much this new game plays in a totally different manner to his previous titles – and indeed any other game we’ve ever played.

Formats: Nintendo Switch 2
Price: TBA
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Release Date: 17th July 2025
Age Rating: 7

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