2.5/5 ★ – DarkDrawer's review of Donkey Kong Bananza.

This is my 2 player review of the game as well as my impression on the game as I experienced it. The 2 player experience in the game is the player acting as Pauline on DK's shoulder yelling out words that are spit out like material DK can pick up and throw. She can "copy" some material for limited ammo. The pluses of this: Boom Stone and gold explode and have interesting interactions with surrounding area, reduces tedium with certain materials being needed for DK to pickup and throw at something, etc. The downsides: The 2nd player can control the camera for some reason, control of where to aim is dependent on where Pauline is facing in accordance to the camera angle, not where you're shooting on screen. This can cause some confusion on when to shoot. It frequently is useful during bosses as Pauline can damage enemies, but it is definitely overtuned. Felt like I was stronger than DK the entire time minus the final boss. Speaking of the final boss... spoilers ahead. It's the KING, K Rool! Which, while cool is easily one of the most disappointing final bosses I've seen. The Rot or whatever that K rool shot out cannot be copied nor can anything from the arena, so there's nothing for me to interact with unless Dk Bananzas as Elephant and gives gold. This is the fight that really shows off the Bananza abilities, but im not sure in the way they should've. It made base DK and the 2 player very inconsequential, especially in the 3rd phase. Thought on the game itself outside of 2 player: Pauline feels like the supposed emotional core of the game which feel very tacked on to the gameplay. Nothing really serves her in this story. The song stuff doesn't fit DK too much and the times it comes up is merely to unlock challenge spaces. Additionally, its a very odyssey level design of allowing players to collect something just because. Doesn't feel as impactful as it should be. Camera is pretty buggy and the plot doesn't have much complexity to it. The good: If you like visceral gameplay, this has it. You can punch everything which while tedious, is satisfying in some respects. It's pretty beginner friendly all the way through. Game is colorful and animated. The bad: Felt like the enemies didn't have a cohesive design and it fell into the Kremlings adopting the mob design. K Rool, in a twist out of Super Mario 3d World, has his own Bananza mode and it is.... sooooo inferior to the original K Rool design. He cartoonishly becomes a pile of muck as he plunges the world into brain rot. Also, he commits genocide at the end lol. I think Pauline as a whole should've been set up better throughout the game. She's mostly a background character aside from routinely getting stagefright during the bananzas (until she doesn't). The payoff didn't have as much as an impact as she really didn't have much baring on the game plot whatsoever. It was just a DK journey Feat. Pauline stuff which takes me out of the game. Would've rather a DK Diddy duo game which had a more interesting system than the Bananzas, AKA the companion animals from the country games. TLDR: A game filled with spectacle, but not really emphasizing the points I'd rather in a DK game. I don't especially find this system fun even with the little I handled player 1 controls.