BlooMoon's review of Donkey Kong Bananza.

Dylan's Games Finished 2025 Donkey Kong Bananza (Switch 2) Play Time: 22 hours Start Date: 7/17/2025 Finish Date: 8/2/2025 This game really feels like the Mario Odyssey team spent 8 years refining their gameplay design. It's Rare to find a game that does exactly what it sets out to do so thoroughly and completely. The destruction mechanics are incredible. Like many of Nintendo's modern offerings, this freedom of gameplay seems to directly oppose traditional level design and linear platforming challenges. However, this game pulls off the impossible balance better than Mario or Zelda have. The world and level design serve this style of gameplay exceptionally well. And countless challenge rooms in every level offer plenty of more linear, tightly designed challenges. They thoroughly improved the Odyssey "too many moons" complaint. Odyssey took 6 hours to beat the story and then 50 hours to collect every other moon just to do it (which to be fair, I was ok with, but a lot of other people weren't). DK Bananza paces out the story much better, it feels like a sufficiently lengthy campaign. And every banana contributing toward skill points is an amazing system - it feels like you need to do a decent amount of exploring in each area before moving on to adequately prepare yourself (the end of the main story is significantly harder than Odyssey as well which is another welcome change). That being said, the choice is ultimately yours if you want to just beeline for the finish line and make things significantly harder for yourself. In fact, you don't need to pick up a single banana in this game, ever. I cannot wait to watch DK Bananza banana-less speedruns on Youtube. Between the skill tree, fossils to unlock and level up clothing with special properties, and a handful of other collectibles, this is some of the most engaging moment to moment gameplay I've ever experienced. DK sets himself apart from Mario with less fancy platforming and more raw strength. But there is still tons of really fun movement tech very much in the vein of Odyssey that make it feel incredibly satisfying just to move around in this game and pull off wacky maneuvers to reach new heights. Pauline is the standout here. She gives the whole journey an emotional throughline that elevates the entire package. My favorite part was the home bases you could construct throughout the levels, with every one having a short, fully voice acted conversation with Pauline. They go so far to endear you to her character and relationship with DK. The Bananza songs with their varied styles and gibberish lyrics are very fun, even if I do wish there were more songs in english. But the credits song we did get is a beautiful capstone to this journey and tops Jump Up Superstar from Odyssey (Pauline has beat the one-hit wonder allegations). Honestly, this deserved to be the Switch 2 launch title more than Mario Kart. This right here is your generation-defining system seller.