Topic: Donkey Kong Bananza

Smashing my way through this game. I'm just exploring and collecting bananas at the moment, I'm not so focused on moving through it.

Hehe, little Pauline is a little worrywart, but according to the game this a sign of intelligence. I enjoy listening to her at every resting place.

This is my best attempt at making a pikmin. (Yes, those are ears.)

@CobaltFan
Simply beautiful. Now I want to try the artist mode too.

Anyone know what the heck pauline is saying during the transformation songs? Is it Japanese or gibberish? I can't figure it out.

...Me right now...

Hi everyone! I’m playing Donkey Kong Bananza on Switch 2 and I have a question about difficulty.
You start with 3 hearts, but it turns out you can unlock permanent extra hearts via skill upgrades, and you can also gain a temporary yellow heart by resting at designated Getaway Points

Do you think it’s best to avoid these upgrades to keep the challenge high, or does the game remain balanced even if you use them?
I’m aiming for a slightly tougher run, but without arbitrarily limiting myself.

Thanks so much if anyone can share their experience 😊

@Ultra128
I am in the snow region and only upgraded life once, I think. No problems so far. I do not think that Bananza is difficult. Bananza mode makes every encounter easy. Even bosses went down very easily.

Edit: You probably should not upgrade it, but so far it is hard to get challenged anyway.

@Ultra128
I prioritised punch and radar strength, I've only done one heart upgrade so far but I do use the rest stops whenever I encounter one. The early game is definitely on the easy side but it does scale somewhat. Honestly, I don't think avoiding hearts is going to make a huge difference to the difficulty

@Truegamer79 pretty sure it’s gibberish

@Ultra128 I've only done one heart upgrade because some of the other upgrades are more fun. I use the beds just to refresh and then see how long I can keep the extra yellow heart.

There is challenge in the game but more in a few of the harder mini games rather than actual monsters so hearts don't feel too relevant to me. Certainly in the early game falling off a cliff is much more of a danger than running out of hearts.

I played Breath of the Wild the same way. Movement and other abilities always seem more fun to me than hearts.

@SplatRay001
Okay so it's like splatoon. Not sure why pauline doesn't just sing in plain English but whatever I'm having fun.

@Truegamer79 Gibberish. Likely the same reason the monkeys/kongs all speak in gibberish aside from a few words. Saves on having to have voice actors in every region. if she sung real music they would have to record it for every language. It’s supposed to be background tracks. Something for you to hum or get hyped up but still focus on the game. Cheapest and easiest way to make global voice acting is gibberish. Also means that lyrics doesn’t get retooled to shove it into the music (Biggest offender: Hikari vs Simple and Clean…and that is considering Utada is a native English Speaker since she is American).

@Ryu_Niiyama
Makes sense i guess. I'll just make up my own words LOL.

Would probably make translation more annoying.

@Ryu_Niiyama
Oh, I never thought about it, but it sure saves money. And it sounds fun.

Anyone know if there are banana gems that can only be obtained later like the moons in Mario odyssey? My OCD is making me want to collect every banana in a world before moving on to the next but there's a few i just couldn't find so i went ahead with the main quest.

@Truegamer79 I got 100% of them at the first couple layers so I assume it continues to be possible but I gave up eventually because the fossils are so hard to find. Easy enough to go back later for 100% though.

@Truegamer79
I am in the snow world and so far nothing has been missable. Of course, it could change in the next worlds.

@FishyS
When I can not find the last fossils, I just smash the ground until a chest with the map appears. Wearing clothes, which increase the spawn rate of chests, helps a lot.

It works pretty much the same with the bananas.