Topic: Donkey Kong Bananza

@CobaltFan
Oh yes. This is exactly how I did it in the stage where you unlock this power.

Got the game yesterday and got a few hours in last night and this morning. Just quick impressions:

• I'd totally agree with what DF said. The slowdowns are noticable and a bit surprising. Always seem to occur in the same situation: when you exit a scripted scene (like talking to a character) and the camera pulls out. It seems fixable. Same for the choppy map view.
• generally the game is a bit more messy and experimental than you expect from Nintendo. Digging looks like debug mode. And I can see why people get nauseous, IMO the jerky camera positioning zooms are to blame.
• But overall I think I'm going to enjoy it. Found it a bit overwhelming yesterday but liked it much better today. I'll go easy on the collecting though, am not the ADHD type.

How does the difficulty in this game, including the assist mode, compare with the difficulty of Donkey Kong Country games and Donkey Kong 64? I hope it’s much easier because I am really terrible at the Rareware and Wii/Wii U DK games. I lost count how many times I died in them.

I just realised that I can turn my Switch 2 to Russian language. Now I can learn Russian, while playing Bananza.

Got the last Bananza transformation.

@Don
So far, I would say Bananza is almost easy compared to the old games.

@Jhena
Thanks for the confirmation. Hopefully I can beat this game.

collected all the fossils finally in the hilltop and canyon layers and made my way to the Divide. man, what a place! the music and the two paths captivated me and almost reminded me a bit of Splatoon 3’s side order vibe. i chose the forest layer and loving the ostriches so far. cant wait to learn how to fly! but fifteen hours in and good god what a great game. every punch is a smile, and ive never so motivated to collect everything in a game before. i hope i can 100% it. 10/10 so far, and its metacritic remains steady at 91 gladly! the emotional bits with pauline in the getaways are so incredibly impacting yet simple loving everything!

Definitely easier than some of the DKC games. It's more about exploring and destroying rather than tight platforming. Plus you can buy a larger health bar and other upgrades. Some of the mini games are challenging so 100% is probably somewhat hard, but harder mini games can easily be skipped.

@FishyS I’m taking my time with the game and prioritizing fun over rushing through. The means trying to get difficult items that I see, or doing dumb things that kill me. The game so far is as easy as you want it to be. You can transform and destroy a boss in seconds, or try to defeat the boss in dk form, which is harder. It’s fantastic. But overall, 4or 5 sub layers deep, it’s generally on the easier side. Similar to Odyssey, but with options to make it easier. I can see that it will likely increase in difficulty as I get deeper into the game. But the gameplay loop is absolutely fantastic, most fun I’ve had in a long time.

@FishyS
That’s great to hear, especially additional health can be acquired. I’m glad the developers made this game with the difficulty balance in mind.

Reached layer 1400 today. Big game. Still fun.

Edit: Could we get a new Donkey Konga with Pauline?

A week has passed! I still haven’t been able to get my hands on the game or a Switch 2, but I believe I’ve nabbed this digital banana!

It's still 90 on metacritic. There are now almost as many reviews as Mario Kart World so likely only a few more will trickle in. So 90 seems like the final answer.

For what it's worth, opencritic which uses a slightly different scoring process gives it a 91.

Not going to spoil anything, but the ending to this game is absolutely bonkers on a whole other level.

@Bigmanfan Agreed. I was spoiled on THAT part, and lemme tell you, I never wanna see anyone say "Nintendo doesn't care" ever again.

Yesterday I ate the whole burger in Njam Park. I think I am in the last layer now.

I've reached the final boss, it definitely tests your skills. I've attempted to beat it twice and failed, so now I'm back searching for bananas and upgrading DK a bit.

just collected everything on the forest layer, there were a crazy amount of tricky bananas there. love the ostriches and the ostrich bananza !!! i think i played a little to much yesterday, i keep seeing bananadium gems out the corner of my eye and had a dream i was in the game last night 😾

Quick question. Do you have to keep pressing the punch buttons to dig through the environment, or can you hold them down? I'd prefer if it's the latter.

Although once you upgrade punching a single punch goes a long way