Donkey Kong Bananza review for Nintendo Switch 2

System: Switch 2
Release date: July 17, 2025
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

These days, Nintendo doesn’t often release new 3D platformers – but when they do, you know it’s going to be something special. On Switch, Nintendo published Super Mario Odyssey and Kirby and the Forgotten Land as the console’s flagship titles in that category. They were both met with critical acclaim, and now it’s Donkey Kong’s turn to give 3D platforming a go. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen DK in the spotlight like this – his last 3D adventure was Donkey Kong 64, which released over 25 years ago. After playing Donkey Kong Bananza, I wonder how we’ve survived so long without a 3D Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong Bananza is a brilliant masterwork of creativity, freedom, and whimsy – and it’s an absolute must-play for anyone even remotely interested in the genre.

Donkey Kong Bananza starts out simple: after hearing rumors that Ingot Isle is mining golden bananas, Donkey Kong leaves DK Island to set out on a new adventure. Once there, the main antagonist Void Kong reveals his plan to drill into the Earth and reach the Planet Core, which is said to grant wishes. Along the way, DK meets an Odd Rock, who is soon revealed to be a thirteen-year-old Pauline. It’s a simple premise, but in the same vein as the Mario series, Donkey Kong isn’t really focused on story. It’s focused on fun, and in that regard this game absolutely delivers and then some.

One of the best parts of Donkey Kong Bananza is the freedom it gives to players. If you so choose, you can simply follow along with the main story and dive from layer to layer, choosing to forgo extra collectibles. You aren’t at all punished if you want to rush through the story, but you’re also heavily rewarded if you do decide to stick around and explore. This game’s headlining feature is the ability to smash through terrain, and indeed, it’s incredibly satisfying to turn this beautifully-crafted world into a wreckage of rubble and dirt. If you think you’ll feel bad for destroying the environment, don’t be – when you leave a level and come back, all the terrain automatically regenerates. You can use terrain smashing as a shortcut to hidden Banadium Gems and fossil collectibles, and if you’re having trouble finding any of those collectibles, you can actually randomly smash up terrain for a chance to receive a map that tells you one of their locations. This makes full completion fairly straightforward – if you’re stuck, just destroy stuff until you’re not stuck any more.

Just like Super Mario Odyssey with its Power Moons, there are tons of Banandium Gems in Donkey Kong Bananza. In comparison, though, Banandium Gems wind up feeling a bit more worthwhile. Every time you collect five of them, DK gets one skill point. You can then use these skill points to enhance and unlock abilities – things like increasing your health, your punch power, and adding traits to your Bananza transformations. Speaking of which, DK unlocks several Bananza transformations over the course of the game, and they all grant him completely new abilities. One thing you’ll quickly notice is that Donkey Kong feels ridiculously overpowered, almost in a good way – you can smash and destroy almost any object or enemy, and the Bananza transformations add to the chaos with even stronger attacks. They’re easy to use, too, and for better or worse they’re essentially unlimited – you have to charge them up with gold ore, but it’s extremely common to the point where realistically you’ll never be in a situation where you run out of juice for your Bananza transformations. 

This leads into a minor issue that some players might have problems with: the game is rather easy, for the most part. Some of the side challenges can get pretty tough, but other than that, things are generally smooth sailing. Bosses are particularly easy, and some of the earlier ones are possible to smash up and destroy in less than a minute. On one hand, this does make you feel super-powerful, but on the other hand it does feel like Donkey Kong steamrolls over some opponents a bit too easily. Of course, as the game goes on, the bosses do get more difficult, but generally speaking you likely won’t have too much trouble. That being said, the difficulty really ramps up in the post-game content, so there are absolutely challenges waiting for those looking.

Gameplay isn’t the only thing Donkey Kong Bananza gets right: its visuals and audio are top-notch as well. Some outlets might describe Bananza as a “love letter” to DK’s past as well as the Donkey Kong Country games, but that’s actually a bit of an understatement in my opinion. Donkey Kong Bananza feels more like a Donkey Kong Country sequel directly translated to 3D, with the scope and ambition dialed up to eleven. There are so many subtle references to Donkey Kong’s history scattered throughout the game, and you can tell the developers absolutely loved the Rare-developed titles from the old days. If you’re a big fan of any of the Donkey Kong Country games, Donkey Kong Bananza was made for you. And even though there are plenty of references, the game doesn’t rely solely on DK’s past – there are tons of new characters, locations, and concepts to explore as well. It’s a perfect balance of new and old, and one that was an absolute delight to play through.

Donkey Kong Bananza’s level design feels fresh and lively, and even after dozens of hours playing it never feels stale or overstays its welcome. The game is divided into layers, of which there are about sixteen. You can equate these layers to kingdoms from Super Mario Odyssey, and each one looks completely different from the last and has a unique vibe. These levels are truly a joy to explore or speed through – whichever suits your fancy. You’ve got large layers like the Lagoon Layer, which means they have plenty of Banandium Gems as well as several types of fossils to collect, and then you have smaller layers like the Hilltop Layer in between that have relatively fewer collectibles and serve as a “break” of sorts. The game knows you might feel overwhelmed if you play a bunch of big levels in a row, so it spreads them out evenly.

For the most part, the game’s performance holds up just fine. It isn’t until the very end of the story where some bosses start to have noticeable frame rate drops. I noticed particularly big drops in the penultimate boss and the final boss, and to be fair, there was a lot happening on-screen. The performance also drops when you smash a large amount of gold since that creates tons of particle effects. The map also suffers from performance issues, but it makes up for it by being incredibly helpful and easy to use. Smashing lots of terrain generally goes over pretty well, and most of the time the game does maintain its 60 frames per second target. I’m not quite sure what to think about one of the first Nintendo Switch 2 exclusives having performance problems. Has the console reached its limit already? Or, perhaps more likely – Donkey Kong Bananza started as a Nintendo Switch 1 game, so maybe it wasn’t fully programmed with the Switch 2’s hardware capabilities in mind. The only other issue I noticed is that sometimes the camera is tough to follow when you’re digging tunnels underground. To be clear though, none of these problems significantly affected my enjoyment of the game. 

Donkey Kong Bananza has set DK’s big return in stone, and cements his position at the very top of the 3D platforming genre. As good as Mario Kart World is, I feel like Donkey Kong Bananza is the first truly must-play masterpiece on Nintendo Switch 2. It’s a fresh, joyous evolution of the Donkey Kong franchise and is sure to delight anyone who’s even a little bit interested in the game. And like we mentioned before, if you enjoyed any of the Donkey Kong Country games, this one was made for you – you’re absolutely sure to love Donkey Kong Bananza just as much.