Wait, don’t run! This isn’t a trick — there’s no baiting going on here. I truly like “Donkey Kong Bananza” a ton. It’s a great game, but I do have a number of issues with it. This may or may not be directly inspired by a certain outlet giving it a 10/10 score that I disagreed with, but do not get it twisted. This review will only be about the small things that irked me because otherwise everything good said about this game is correct.

It’s gorgeous, it’s innovative, it has a ton of fun surprises, and it’s addicting. But I don’t think it’s perfect, nor do I think it’s as good as 2017’s “Super Mario Odyssey.” And it’s not just because of the following nitpicks — nothing can top 3D platforming perfection. But I think this game is on par with the best of the DK games before it — namely “Tropical Freeze” and the first two “Country” games.

Let’s get into the myriad of complaints that don’t spoil a great game, but do diminish it from being considered one of the all-time greats. Let’s calm down, people! This is a fun GOTY contender, not the second coming of sliced bread.

Technical Issues

The most glaring problem that everybody can agree on is that there are occasional hiccups. Whether that be some frame drops, camera problems underground, or objects clipping through other things, “DK Bananza” is not 100 percent clean on the technical front.

Nintendo has signed off on some real crap on the Switch 1 (“Pokemon Scarlet and Violet,” I’m looking at you), but this is far from that level of garbage. It’s just a little frustrating here and there.

But it’s inescapable. Even when on the map screen, there can be some slowdown. The camera also manages to rear its ugly head up in tight spaces that it doesn’t belong in. You can be in the middle of a mountain, and just be completely lost, with total black darkness surrounding you, and it’s miserable to get out of.

And one last thing: Why did they make the A button jump when everybody would naturally go to B? It’s on the bottom of the controller. That has to be the jump button! Just swap them in the settings the moment you begin the game, and it’ll save you a headache or ten.

Questionable Design Decisions

Here is where my nitpicks get… questionable. If you will. Oh, banana.

The escort missions? The little challenges with the bits of that one puzzle piece dude? Those are bad. The three tiny ones barely follow you, and often just don’t feel like bothering. So there’s a lot of trial and error getting them to go back to where they need to, and that’s annoying.

It takes a while for the game to introduce all of the buttons to you, as well as what the collectibles are used for. It takes its sweet-ass time, and then will not shut up about them once you get going. The bottom right corner shows that video, and it makes my eyes roll behind my head.

When I pick up a rock with ZR, my body feels as though I should be aiming it with ZL, but no, you have to hold ZR again to throw it. Weird! My brain did not link that together for a while.

If I hit the sonar clap to find hidden things, I don’t necessarily want to slam the ground because sometimes it breaks through thin layers of things ,and I did die a few times in lava or poison due to the destruction. Especially when you become stronger, it’s not the most elegant way to collect all the gold. I love doing it, but it did get me in trouble a few times.

Half of the upgrades are useless to me, and are wholly unnecessary. You can ignore them if you want, and it doesn’t materially matter, whereas increasing health and strength is borderline mandatory later in the game. That strength, however, is not utilized in most of the boss fights, which often are WAY too easy and last for ten seconds. Just run over, spam the punch button, and that’s it. I appreciate there being health bars now but too many of them are just a total joke.

Why can’t I teeleport to different sublevels anytime I want? I have to go back to the gong to go from 300 to 101? No! Just let me use the menus! It’s fast travel, so who cares how big the teeleport eel is?

Finally, it’s nuts that the three main shops aren’t on every floor of every level. Nothing is worse than getting 10 fossils, and wanting to walk over to a shop and then it just isn’t there. You have to play the game of teeleporting somewhere else. It adds up, and it’s a time waster.

Oh, “Bananza!”

Other Miscellaneous Things That Confuse Me

At first, it’s weird that you go underground, and yet still see the sky. That reminds me of the incongruity found in “Dark Souls 2” or “The Shining.” Sometimes you go deeper, and then there’s lava but beneath that is a castle. Both games make me dizzy when it comes to how the world is laid out logically, and it makes me feel like I’m in the Overlook Hotel.

Cranky Kong got to ride Rambi the Rhino, so let me do it! Why show me Rambi if I can’t ride Rambi for most of the game? That’s unfair.

As I make my way to the end game, I can feel some fatigue in the core gameplay. It got repetitive far more quickly than other platformers because of the amount of work you sometimes have to do to progress. Jumping is the most fun you can have, and punching through rocks can get a wee bit grating. With “Super Mario Odyssey,” you got new enemies and hat transformations, so it never felt the same. Especially when the worlds varied so vastly when you traveled from planet to planet. Here, it’s just more things to punch.

My biggest gripe: The music. It’s fine. The best tracks are all from earlier games, many of them remixes, which says a lot.

That’s about it. In spite of the previous thousand words, those are not my primary thoughts surrounding “Donkey Kong Bananza.” They’re just things I noticed could be improved with patches or DLC. Instead, my main takeaway is “Yeah, this game kicks ass, and everyone should play it because it’s wonderful.”

---

Image credit: “Donkey Kong Bananza,” Nintendo