Note. This article contains minor, non-narrative spoilers (specifically, Bananza forms and mid-game layers).
Did you know there was a U-turn jump in Bananza? I just realised this morning! He does a roll jump (that can be chained into another air roll) and lands with a sonar splash. I'm not exactly sure how useful it is but it's an expressive delight just to discover and do, and really that's the whole game?
Other things I’ve only realised in the post-game: Kong Bananza's charge punch sends a shockwave projectile that tunnels through stone with Dragon Ball-ish delight; You get more airtime with the spin jump when holding a chunk in hand, helicoptering down like a sycamore seed; You can turn off Pauline's singing for the Bananzas in the settings, which I'm a little torn on - it's a relief to maintain Level Vibes Unbroken without those noisy earworms, but I do also love getting to get to the elephant’s middle eight (shake your, shake your body!).
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Also, it turns out you can be so Bananza-pilled that you get oddly excited by the wet clumps of sand in the construction site next to your gym?
And now that we’ve all had a chance to bed into Bananza, shall we stop with the Odyssey comparisons? Now we have both! The poise and solidity of Odyssey and the freeform painterly pulverising of DK. Both games revel in the music of movement - and how brilliant this new instrument is.
Sometimes I think the game is like eating. For Donkey Kong it literally is, as he munches through ever more crystal Banandium. But also for us, as we punch through the world just for the tactile pleasure of it. It feels less like depleting the environment so much as tasting its textures, like the just-so powdery snow or the thwunk of cracking through coloured concrete to sapphire glinting beneath. I’m a big fan of the light plectrum twang in the pad as you climb metallic surfaces, and surely everyone loves the summer squelch of tunnelling through watermelons in the Resort Layer.
The game just says 'Yes' to everything! Bejewelled Zebras happily carry on chatting in a pit you’ve carved below the village they were just in. A fractone butler’s pieces punch away with xylophone notes. And of all the sounds in the game, that thwack of the slap as you high-five one of the burrowing eels? It’s practically physical. Surely no other game has doubled down so much on breaks and cracks and grabbing and grasping as a sort of mode of engagement? Like that unthinking pinching as you walk through TK Maxx just testing the feel of the fabrics. Like ICO’s Yorda hand-hold, but the whole darn level. And with more punching.
Then you combine this with ridiculous flow and fluidity. The roll jump leads into that big lolopping leap, the ground-grab happens seamlessly without missing a beat, and the plunging plummet punch can be released into a featherlight landing. For a big boy, DK can be outstandingly nimble, making for a brilliantly unique gameflow where the whole game becomes DK Artist, moving and doodling through the environments leaving scuffs and patches in your wake. Then punching a purple shark that curves away in a rainbow arc.
Anyway, back to Odyssey. I get all the comparisons, it’s from the same team after all. And it's a useful way to compare and contrast to better see what Bananza is doing differently - an understood lingua franca (because basically everyone loves Odyssey).
But Bananza takes longer to hit its stride, then sprints, then flies. I thought it was peaking with a dig-down shanty town, but then there were sunlight fights in shatter-glass corridors (you’ll know it when you get to it). And it turns out it hadn’t even gotten crazy crazy. And now I’m loving the post-game and all its teachings about moves and Bananzas I thought I knew.
But even that’s not the point. Like Odyssey before it, I'll probably have Bananza installed for most of my Switch 2's life, even having gobbled through the outrageously moreish campaign (well done Nintendo for the enjambment of chucking my Bananas down the next hole!), even when I’ve rinsed the post-game for all its trinkets. Because I really love the post-post game, where the game’s earned your affection and now all the play and messing about is just doing reps of delight. When it’s just a texture of play that you have at hand for when you fancy.
Sometimes I’ll fancy Odyssey’s move-chaining and pinpoint precision, the spring off a car in New Donk City or the squeak of an Uproot jump in Wooded Kingdom - its very definite gamefeel in general. Other times, I’ll load up Super Mario 64 for that weightier momentum and rocketing triple jump. And now I’ve got Bananza for when I want this mad, Dubai-Chocolate game of gaudiness and gold and crunch and chunks, where walls and floors aren’t obstacles but just the sea in which DK swims (punches).
Which is the level I’ll most come back to in Bananza, I wonder? At first I thought it’d be the Jungle Layer with its dark-green and jungle drums, Donkey Kong Country vibes, and that brilliant feeling of throwing a seed and jumping early just as air turns to vine.
But then it just got better.
