4.5/5 ★ – Kalle_Deimos's review of Donkey Kong Bananza.

TLDR: Ooh, Banana Gameplay: Odyssey but you're a big banana loving monkey. Big worlds, collecting a bunch of random stuff throughout the world. Obviously the big change here is that Donkey Kong can smash through the entire level to uncover bananas and find objectives. Starting with the destruction, the terrain destruction is very impressive. Similar to how DRG does it but significantly more intelligent. And despite being able to brute force your way through most challenges, there is many instances where you must play by the rules of the challenge and surpass it properly. These come in the form of combat challenges, platforming challenges, destruction challenges, search challenges. All that good stuff. Unlike Mario Odyssey you do need to fufill a main objective in every world and can mainly ignore bananas, while in Odyssey you needed a specefic amount of moons while objectives were secondary. Bananas are actually used for upgrade points and upgrades involve your attributes and special abilities for your bananza powers. Your bananza powers are another point of intruge, allowing you to shift into several different forms with different abilities that suit different challenges. These are a lot of fun. The game is a lot of fun, it's Mario Odyssey in a different font. The core philosophy is there but it has a totally different approach. Is it better than Odyssey...? I don't think so. Bananza is really awesome but I do feel as if it is almost too free-form with how you can destroy everything. I believe a solid 1/3rd of the bananas I found were reached by just punching my way to them instead of engaging in a potentially more unique way. The boss battles are a total joke and could have been revised to have like 50% more health perhaps. Although the last boss battle is pretty crazy and fun. And another minor complaint is that some of the worlds are a bit derivative of Mario Odyssey. You'll know the ones. In the end however, I don't really have much to say about Bananza. It's an awesome game. Amazing even. But I'm not really gushing in any way. Maybe if Odyssey never happened, I would have freaked out when this came out. But Odyssey does exist, and frankly, I think it beats it out by just a bit. Story: The Hollow Earth theory is REAL. And MONKEYS LIVE UNDERGROUND. Suprisingly this game is more plot heavy than Odyssey. Lots of talk about the Golden Roots, Void Co. and Fractones lore. We even get a pretty cool plot-twist at the end that is pretty obvious once you know it. Pauline is a cute companion but I lowkey wish she stayed a rock. Graphics: Visually, the game looks like Odyssey. I thought it was Odyssey 2 when it was revealed (and it basically is) and the visuals reflect that. Big bright worlds in odd liminal spaces filled with funny creatures. Graphically of course, the game is much much better looking and at a crisp 60 fps (that fluctuates occasionally). I love the character designs of everyone, especially the Fractones. Speaking to a Fractone and immediately demolishing it only for it to come back is always funny. I also like the customization for Donkey Kong and glad they went all out with coloring for his fur. Sound: The dude voicing DK is SCREAMING constantly. When he's in his Kong Bananza he is scary. This game does have voice acting too. Pauline is fully voiced in English and everyone else gets some kind of animal-ese that seems like it took a lot of effort to get right. Big fan. A funny thing however is that Pauline's songs do not have real words and she will sing in the animal language and it's really funny. I think this was done to avoid getting tired of the same lyrics and it works. The soundtrack doesn't slap as hard as Odyssey but it does have a lot of memorable tunes here and there. In many areas it also goes for more of an ambient track. And one floor sounds like a track from a Nine Inch Nails album. I really liked it. Extra: It's like Odyssey. Everything is extra. Get all the bananas. Get all the fossils. Do all the challenges. Find all the secrets. Do it all. Do you have to? No. The fun is the search. Favorite Thing: "What did you have for lunch?" "Oil and salt." Not My Favorite Thing: When doing a combat challenge, if you don't get a disc before defeating all enemies you won't be able to grab it