‘Donkey Kong Bananza' Review: Have A Banana
The latest entry in the Donkey Kong series is a banana-fuelled blast, and may be one of the best platforming games in recent years.
The main setup of the game has you control the titular Donkey Kong as he tackles the evil Void Company while venturing to the core of the planet to make things right.
Developed by the team behind Super Mario Odyssey, Donkey Kong Bananza has a lot of functional and structural carry-overs from that game.
Each new level, as you venture deeper into the planet, has distinct biomes and is effectively a mini-open-world layout.
Now, in Super Mario Odyssey, you collected coins and moons to progress, whereas in Donkey Kong Bananza, it's more open-ended with additional currencies to choose from.
The skill upgrades are as numerous as they are helpful.
The currencies are also more functional here and are spread out over different areas of gameplay. The gold you mine goes into buying items, whereas fossils give you different clothes (which also afford differing attributes).
The 'moons' in this instance are massive Banandium Gems, and these are used to upgrade a large and varied skill tree.
This is because this game is as much about exploration as it is about destruction. The last game that nailed this kind of setup was the original Dragon Quest Builders, which still holds a fond place in my heart to this day.
FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™
Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase
Pinpoint By Linkedin
Guess The Category
Queens By Linkedin
Crown Each Region
Crossclimb By Linkedin
Unlock A Trivia Ladder
Anyway, destroying an area in a fit of monkey rage is deeply satisfying and also gives you the currency for all the aforementioned upgrades.
You also have fun challenges dotted around each area and tasks you have to complete in order to thwart the evil Void Company.
Even as you tunnel underground, the camera keeps up fine.
Boss fights are also ingenious and again help you satiate your banana-induced monkey rage.
The game is also entirely massive and has a huge amount of replay value, as you go back and search for items and more Banandium Gems, so you definitely get your money's worth on this one.
There's also a great musical component to the game, as Donkey Kong and Pauline sing songs, which makes for a lovely and characterful experience.
As this is a new Switch 2 game, it does look lovely and runs very smoothly considering all the deformable terrain at work here. Controls are also very fluid, and the camera handles all the crazy bespoke tunnelling you do pretty well.
Overall, Donkey Kong Bananza does what Super Mario Odyssey did before it: offer one of the best platforming games available on a new system. The fact that the bulk of the game is about wanton joyous destruction is also another big bonus. So, if you want to tunnel to the center of the planet and destroy most of it along the way, Donkey Kong Bananza is your kind of platformer.
Donkey Kong Bananza
Platform: Nintendo Switch 2
Developer: Nintendo EPD
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: 17th July 2025
Price: $69.99
Score: 9/10
Disclosure: Nintendo sent me a copy of this game for the purposes of this review.
Follow me on X, Facebook and YouTube. I also manage Mecha Damashii and am currently featured in the Giant Robots exhibition currently touring Japan.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
7 minutes ago
- Forbes
Switch 2 Upgrade For ‘Kirby And The Forgotten Land' Seems Worth $20
Earlier today, Nintendo dropped a video detailing the brand new and upcoming Star-Crossed World expansion for one of the original Switch's best adventures: Kirby and the Forgotten Land. The bad news: You can't play the DLC on Switch 1, nor can you reap any of the purported performance benefits. The good news: If you already own the base Switch game, as well as a Switch 2, and also happen to have an extra $20 lying around, then you'll be off to races later this month. And truthfully, the fresh content looks to be worth the price of admission. Viewing the updated gameplay footage on YouTube, I was immediately struck by the noticeably faster framerate. It's impossible to tell for sure without actual hands-on testing, but it sure seems like the developers have this running at a solid 60fps—excellent! Even on Switch 2 hardware, the vanilla Kirby and the Forgotten Land is capped at a meager 30fps, so this framerate bump will be much appreciated. The gameplay already appears so much smoother; definitely one of the benefits of releasing a more advanced machine, and very recently, too. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Granted, in its advertising copy, Nintendo is being pretty vague about the specific technical enhancements that will ship with the Switch 2 version, even though the upped framerate is pretty apparent. 'Improved graphics' and 'enhanced resolution' don't really tell us anything exact, really, but in a recent Nintendo Treehouse segment, one of the hosts said they're targeting 1080p for tabletop and handheld modes and 1440p when the Switch 2 is docked and playing on a TV or monitor. Honestly, it's a nice overhaul from how the game plays on the original Switch, which is 720p in tabletop/handheld and 1080p docked. This puts it in line with other first-party Switch 2 titles, like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, which both run at 1440p when docked, with some handy upscaling thrown in for good measure. I'm still waiting for Nintendo to aim for docked 4K/60fps performance with all of its in-house titles, but in the meantime, I'll have to settle for the buttery smooth 4K/60fps gameplay of third-party offerings like Fast Fusion. Performance improvements aside, the Switch 2 Kirby DLC itself seems very cool and definitely worth a look. The continuing story is triggered by a sudden meteor impact, which opens up familiar but altered Starry Stages that you'll need to complete in order to access the Star-Crossed World proper. So overall, there's new paths, new and altered enemies, new transformations (the bouncy Spring Mouth, a wall-climbing Gear Mouth and the sliding Sign Mouth), new collectible figures to earn and for all you masochists, an even harder boss rush mode called Ultimate Cup Z EX. I actually played through Kirby and the Forgotten Land for the first time not too long ago and found it to be very, very good. One of the best 3D platformers I've played, as a matter of fact, though not nearly as solid as Super Mario Odyssey. It will be fun returning to this bright, cheerful nod to post-apocalyptic experiences like The Last of Us and Horizon Zero Dawn, and even while I wish the upgrade came 'free' with my NSO subscription like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, I think $20 is more than fair for what we're getting here. Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World arrives in stores and on Nintendo's digital storefront in just a few weeks, on August 28.
Forbes
6 hours ago
- Forbes
‘Quordle' Hints And Answers For Wednesday, August 6
Before today's Quordle hints and answers, here's where you can find the ones for Tuesday's game: Hey, folks! Hints and the answers for today's Quordle words are just ahead. How To Play Quordle For any newcomers joining us, here's how to play Quordle: Just start typing in words. You have four five-letter words to guess and nine attempts to find them all. The catch is that you play all four words simultaneously. If you get a letter in the right place for any of the four words, it will light up in green. If a word contains a letter from one of your guesses but it's in the wrong place, it will appear in yellow. You could always check out the practice games before taking on the daily puzzle. Here are some hints for today's Quordle game, followed by the answers: What Are Today's Quordle Hints? FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder What Are Today's Quordle Answers? Spoiler alert! Don't scroll any further down the page until you're ready to find out today's Quordle answers. This is your final warning! Today's words are... That's all there is to it for today's Quordle clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog for hints and the solution for Thursday's game if you need them. See you then! If you'd like to chat about Quordle and New York Times word games such as Wordle, Connections and Strands (and to hang out with a bunch of lovely people), join us over at Discord! Also, subscribe to my newsletter, Pastimes!
Forbes
19 hours ago
- Forbes
Today's Wordle #1508 Hints And Answer For Tuesday, August 5th
Looking for Monday's Wordle hints, clues and answer? You can find them here: How To Solve Today's Wordle It's hot out. I suppose that's normal for August, but sometimes it just wears me down. The evenings are lovely, though. Nothing like a perfect summer evening, the sun finally setting. The night air cool but not cold. It's perfect. Of course, we're here to solve a Wordle, not wax poetic about balmy summer nights. Let's solve it! Wordle is a daily word puzzle game where your goal is to guess a hidden five-letter word in six tries or fewer. After each guess, the game gives feedback to help you get closer to the answer: Use these clues to narrow down your guesses. Every day brings a new word, and everyone around the world is trying to solve the same puzzle. Some Wordlers also play Competitive Wordle against friends, family, the Wordle Bot or even against me, your humble narrator. See rules for Competitive Wordle toward the end of this post. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Today's Wordle Hints And Answer Wordle Bot's Starting Word: SLATE My Starting Word Today: DRONE (19 words remaining) The Hint: Brings the babies. The Clue: This Wordle has far more consonants than vowels. Okay, spoilers below! The answer is coming! . . . Every day I check Wordle Bot to help analyze my guessing game. You can check your Wordles with Wordle Bot right here. DRONE was actually a fantastic opening guess today, leaving me with a yellow and green box and just 19 remaining words. At first, I thought STORY might be the Wordle. I was so close! Only two words remained and I debated between STORK and STORM. I was pretty sure we'd had STORM in the past, however, so I went with STORK and lucky for me, I was right! This Wordle made me think of the film Children Of Men, a fantastic movie that I just wrote about recently. The film is about a dystopian future where women are no longer able to have babies. There's a joke that Michael Caine's character, Jasper, tells. It goes like this: I get 1 point for guessing in three and 1 point for beating the Bot. The Bot gets -1 for guessing in five (something we rarely see!) and -1 for losing to me. At last, I take the lead in August, making up for a disastrous start to the month. Erik: 0 points Wordle Bot: -1 points The word "stork" comes from Old English storc, which is of Germanic origin. It is related to Old High German storah and Middle Dutch storc. The word likely imitates the bird's call or is derived from a root meaning "stiff" or "rigid," possibly referring to the bird's stiff-legged stance. The ultimate origin is uncertain, but it is common across Germanic languages. Be sure to follow me for all your daily puzzle-solving guides, TV show and movie reviews and more here on this blog!
