I have to admit, before the recent Donkey Kong Bananza Direct, I wasn't massively enthusiastic about Nintendo's upcoming Switch 2 platformer.
I played about 20 minutes of it at one of the Switch 2 Experience events back in April, and although I was charmed by the aesthetics and the ability to smash up pieces of the environment, I couldn't help but wonder if there was something more - that Nintendo was holding back a little bit.
It turns out I was wrong. It held back a lot.
This Direct was simply magnificent and my excitement has gone from about 45/100 bananas all the way up to about 98. That's a lot of bananas! Where are the remaining two, you ask? Well, King K. Rool isn't there, but we can't have everything now, can we?
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My concern around the playable demo was that the game would amount to little more than smashing through the terrain to find collectibles ('Banandium Gems'). Surely there was more to it, right? Well, yes.
For starters, let's just touch on the wonderful bait and switch regarding Odd Rock and Pauline. We kinda knew something like this was in the works following a rather unfortunate leak, but it's still an incredible move. I honestly couldn't click with Odd Rock from the earlier promotional material, so to learn that DK will instead spend his time with a young Pauline was an absolute delight.
You can keep your depressing father/daughter dynamic, The Last of Us – this is much more up my street.
Pauline's not just there for show, either. With special Bananza Powers, she can burst into song and enable DK to transform into completely new forms. Kong Bananza looks absolutely awesome, but I'm sorry, Zebra Bananza? Ostrich Bananza..?! I'm gonna need plushies of those right now, thank you very much.
The transformations grant you extra strength, speed, and the ability to fly, and just these alone make the gameplay look infinitely more varied and compelling than what I saw in the early demo. I've a feeling there might be a few more transformations Nintendo hasn't revealed just yet too. How about Sloth Bananza? Anyone..?
Quick glimpses of other gameplay features — including the Challenge Course Ruins, the skill tree, and collectible costumes — did a lot to boost my excitement too. Side-scrolling levels are back! Rambi is back! And I simply can't wait to experiment with the different clothing and colour options. Who knew that an ice-themed Donkey Kong would look so cool?
And of course, I have to give a shoutout to the new DK Artist mode. As someone who messed around with the 3D menu-screen Mario in Super Mario 64 longer than I care to admit, being able to chip chunks off DK's face or Bowser's hair and create some truly terrifying monstrosities makes me more excited than DK gobbling up a Banandium Gem. It looks absolutely wonderful.
It wasn't all for me, admittedly. Chances are I won't go into photo mode too much or jump into the co-op multiplayer, and there's not a hope in hell I'm buying another amiibo, but I appreciate their inclusion regardless.
I've got to be honest, though: after the incredibly disappointing Mario Kart World Direct in April, which basically just went over everything we already knew and did very little to move my excitement beyond about 70 blue shells out of 100, the DK Direct totally 180-ed me.
I was mildly excited before, but now it's my most anticipated game of the year. Bravo, Nintendo. Just don't tell Samus.
What are your thoughts on Donkey Kong Bananza after watching the recent Direct presentation? Has your excitement increased, or is it about the same as before? Give me a banana number! (Or check out the poll in our round-up article, if you like.)