Donkey Kong Bananza is the true successor to Switch 2 Super Mario Odyssey
Blog Andrew Joseph 02 Jul , 2025 0
In my about two hours of hands-on speech with Donkey Kong Bananza, Nintendo confirmed many people’s suspicions since the first look at the upcoming 3D platformer: In fact, it was developed by the same team working on Super Mario Odyssey. This is my main gain back Playing Bananza is, this is T's Oddie style.
But, although the formula is largely the same, I never felt Bananza rereading the old ground. It turns out that swapping a bearded plumber for a tumbling hairy gorilla has a proper change. Even during these two hours, I was absolutely obsessed with the donkey’s personality, his pure power and sense of power, juxtaposed with his surprisingly fast movement, and the satisfying destructiveness of everything around me. As far as first impression is concerned, this is everything about the 3D Donkey Hole game.
My demo made me jump to several different save files – the first covered the DK working in Ingot Isle's mine at the start of the game. This is a very basic tutorial covering a variety of ways DK can punch holes and crush objects and environments. This is a unique but intuitive control scheme: the A button jumps, but the rest of the face buttons are punched in different directions. X punches upward, Y punches forward, B punches downward. This allows you to carve the paths as a wall and create tunnels, with the only limitation being the material you want to break through. The DK itself is very strong and can easily smash on dirt and crystal, but the solid rock and stone will require him to grab a harder material from the ground and use it as an impromptu pickup.
Just as fun to perform with the controller you want to watch. Since DK is able to till the walls, dispatching weaker enemies will definitely tilt backwards and slam the ground with a devastating impact, causing the crater to shake, which wakes up. And he is very fast! Between his already rapid running speed, ability to roll and surf on objects ripped from the ground, DK's movement is a perfect blend of strength and agility. It's a super fun set of tools to use, like a traditional donkey hole mixing together, and the incredible Hulk.
After completing the tutorial for the mine, the next saving I jumped to was set up in the lagoon layer, which seemed to be Bananza's first actual level. Like Mario Odyssey, there is a major traversal on each level that takes you through a range of goals that essentially tell the story of that layer. In the lagoon layer, its residents suffered from water shortages as some annoying invaders blocked their water supply. Therefore, the main goal of the field is to essentially make water flow again in a very classic “raising water level” style.
You can do the host line by following the exclamation point marker that is easily visible through L Button, but a lot of joy in DK Bananza is venturing over the off-road path of the level (and literally beat your own). Even in the first level, there is only a lot to discover. Bananas are the main collection, like Odyssey satellites, often associated with some kind of minor puzzle or challenge. For example, there is an invisible thing, but underwater DK cannot reach it, so I had to jump and knock it down with the ground pound. Others are more complex, you let you complete lengthy obstacle courses, while other obstacle courses are still locked behind special hidden platforms or battle-related challenges.
Then there are a number of different types of fossils that are used as currency to buy various cosmetic upgrades, just like the different clothes and hats that Mario can buy in Mario Odyssey. have so Honestly, many of them are hidden throughout the walls and caves, and even want to try collecting all of them, but needless to say, if you are the type who loves collectibles and spends a lot of extra time trying to try it 100% then Donkey Kong Kong Bananza will cover you.
These levels themselves are not as extensive as Odysseys, but this is mainly because of their structural differences. They are layered with each other, and everyone will be roughly the size of Super Mario Sunshine. Once you reach the end of what Sublayer calls “main missions”, you can fall to the next Sublayer, which is basically part of the same level. A particular challenge even brought me back to my previous sublayer so that I could cross a path which allowed me to reach other inaccessible parts of the Sublayer I currently live in. As someone who has always loved smaller games like Mario 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy, but still really likes the sense of exploration and discovery in the Odyssey Kingdom, which feels like a compromise between two horizontal design styles. You can also easily travel quickly between checkpoints in each sub-layer, just like you would in the Odyssey.
The next two parts are from a deeper (again) entry into the game. The first one led me to explore a mining town with plenty of rides and plenty of opportunities to throw explosive rocks and make things flourish, while the final level is jungle-themed with familiar purple poison lakes. However, the big thing I have to check in these two final areas is Bananza’s transformation. By collecting gold, I can fill a meter in the lower left of the screen and then put R and L together to activate the limited time Bananza conversion. Kong Bananza's conversion is basically like DK on steroids. He is also bigger, faster, stronger, and can slam through walls and enemies that are usually too difficult for a regular DK.
On the other hand, the Ostrich Banana conversion allows DK to float in air and cross gaps that he usually can't do. It is also worth mentioning at this point that there is a skill tree, and players will get a skill point for every five bananas. This isn't the most exciting skill tree in the world, most skills seem to just make the skills and stats already present in DK, but there is a couple adding new abilities to his tracks, such as double jumping while holding a rock, or the ability to drop enemies from the ostrich form above.
I also had to look at Bananza's two player modes, which was fun, this is the second player to control Pauline in a way that is very similar to Mario Galaxy's co-star mode. Just like in Galaxy's Coop mode, the second player is able to fire projectiles at the enemy, and this time only her literals stand out. You can change the functions and properties of these words by hovering the cursor over a specific type of material and holding the button to absorb that material. As you might have guessed, you can take advantage of the Switch 2 JoyCon's unique mouse pointer feature to add some precision to your shot. This pattern seems obviously intended to have parents play with their toddlers, or to have someone who doesn't like video games, and I think it's successful, but it's not a pattern I interact with with any other ability.
It was common for me to walk away from the preview of hunger, but after two hours with Bananza, I left the strongest desire. As someone whose favorite Nintendo mascot is the donkey, it seems to be becoming the 3D donkey game I've been waiting for for decades. For Mario fans who are still waiting for Nintendo to announce their next big 3D Mario game, Bananza looks like it will be worth a replacement.
Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @jurassicrabbit