Topic: Donkey Kong Bananza

So far exactly 90 on metacritic with 62 reviews in. As predicted, lots of people (including Nintendo Life!) docked a point for mild performance issues

Still a week to go, but I’m currently feeling pretty good about my chances of getting the Metacritic 🍌

10/10 from IGN was a surprise though!

Lol you were spot on! Some reviewers just can’t give a game that doesn’t run perfectly a 10/10 (unless that game happens to be BOTW or something like that)

Can't wait to get my greasy mitts on this one. It seems like everything I'd want from a 3d DK game.

I’m not really sure that the frame rate is being consistently held up as justification for ‘docking points’. I haven’t read every review, naturally, but two of the 80% (4/5) reviews I’ve read either don’t mention it (The Guardian) or say that any drops are “instantly forgiven” (Eurogamer).

There are other valid reasons someone might not give the game a maximum score (as are detailed in those two reviews) and I feel like the narrative that it’s really a 10/10 but game reviewers are allergic to a dropped frame is over-simplistic.

That said, 90 is a really solid score and I’m really looking forward to playing it… whenever I can actually get my hands on a Switch 2.

@Maxz One of the reviews complains about the plot being bad which I find a pretty hilarious complaint for a Donkey Kong game.

@DaGoldenBoo In the end it's just an opinion and they aren't super consistent. They've given old remasters 10/10 which always seems a little questionable from the criteria you quoted.

@DaGoldenBoo This was my impression, too.

Like, a game has to earn a 10/10 score to begin with — by doing something quite outstanding — even before we start factoring in potential flaws that could take that shine off.

I’ve never been able to get my head around the notion that every game is a 10/10 by default and then has points subtracted from it one by one for each of its flaws.

Of course, each publication and each reviewer will have a different approach to their scoring system, but to me, 10 is something you count up to not down from. And if you get all the way to 10, you’re really doing something magical. Not necessarily flawless, but really remarkable.

@FishyS Yeah, remasters are difficult, and I don’t really envy anyone who has to review one.

Do you judge the game my modern standards, or the standards of the time? How much emphasis do you put on the quality of the remastering versus the original gameplay. Is it right to expect modern conveniences and quality of life upgrades? To what degree should the price/value be factored into things given that these games are no longer at the cutting edge of technology. What if it’s a collection of old games and some of them hold up much better than others.

I suppose you just have to trust the reviewer to come to some conclusion about how the whole thing holds up and hope they can put their thoughts across in a way they helps you to decide whether to buy it. Because ultimately, that’s the main purpose of a review.

@Maxz I feel like counting up and counting down are kind of equivalent. For my personal scoring method I have 20 possible points based on various criteria and a game gets what they deserve (in my own biased opinion). It doesn't matter if I subtract those points they don't get from 20 or add the ones they do get from zero.

@FishyS While mathematically they’re equivalent, I feel the assumption of counting down easily leads to the narrative of “reviewer X docked a point because of Y”, when than narrative is not necessarily applicable.

The whole notion of ‘docking points’ assumes a fundamentally punitive position; it is the language of penalty. Each point ‘docked’ demands a justification as to ‘where’ it went. It’s not enough for a game to simply be “Excellent, though not quite able to ascend the same lofty heights as Odyssey”. You can’t just give a game 9/10 because you enjoyed it 9/10 much. You have to explain why it wasn’t a 10/10 game, despite most 10/10 games being awarded 10/10 because they possess a particular magic for which there is no universal blueprint. 9 is not seen as 9 — the mark of a genuinely excellent game — but as -1, the mark of a flawed product.

I feel this is a shame, as a 9/10 game is something to be celebrated, and a video game site using more-or-less the full scope of its scoring system system is laudable.

Anyway. DK Bananza looks like a blast, and I’m looking forward to unpeeling it as soon as I can get my hands on a console!

I'm glad they included an option to swap Jump/Punch downward around. Immediately felt way more natural to me with B as jump.

Well the reviews are here and have all been positive so far from what I've seen apart from some minor graphical anomalies, hopefully those can be patched out in the future. I have mine on digital pre-order but think I'll leave it a couple of days before I play, by then I'll have worked myself up into a punching wreckfest!

Welp, I may have to eat crow here. Sounds like the frame drops are waaaaaaaaaay worse than I thought, if some boss battles just straight-up run at 30fps.

EDIT: Hopefully the 1.1.0 patch that just dropped helps the performance.

still 90 on metacritic, hopefully it goes up!
strangely polygon didnt gegt a review copy from nintendo, thought that was weird

@OctolingKing13 Probably good to not give Polygon review copies anymore. They recently got bought out by a less than reputable company, so better to not associate with them.

@OctolingKing13 Polygon didn’t review? Honestly that’s a good step for Nintendo, that website didn’t seem like a credible source

@PikminMarioKirby @Bigmanfan interesting, i havent heard those things about polygon i only occasionally use them for walkthroughs. shame that it got bought out. NL forever!! 😸

I'm starting to be convinced that most of the people who are being negative in the DK review comments are just doing so to hate on the game at this point. People are complaining that the game is unoptimized, I told them why and backed it up with a part of the article explaining voxels and how voxels work. They refuse to listen to me, and instead say "Oh, but the consumers expect product to work, so the product should work without questions being asked," even though the product DOES work! It's just that the frame dips are unavoidable- as they're bound to be with a game like this. These same people probably don't get onto Square Enix for games like XVI barely running on the PS5- and yet get onto Nintendo for a game that literally runs rough in high-intensity moments because of the actual gameplay elements introduced.

They don't understand that the game would have to lose 90% of the mechanical appeal for them to get the optimization they desire, because that would mean less destructible terrain as a whole.

It feels like I'm losing my mind at times because I'm not a game dev, and yet I'm explaining concepts to these people that even people who don't develop games could understand and wrap their heads around pretty easily.

91/100 with 82 reviews. Judging by other major recent Nintendo games there will be 30-40 ish more reviewers who didn't get an early copy or are just slower to review. None of the reviews have been lower than 8/10 so far but I bet one outlet will randomly give them a 6. At this point, that 91 will likely end up 90-92 but could be 89 or 93 if there is a strong but plausible tilt in the later reviewers.