Play Donkey Kong Bananza at Vocari Hub

The next meeting will take place on July 26th at Vocari Hub. It starts at 1 PM and ends at 10 PM, but you don’t have to stay the whole time and can come and go as you please. The featured game Donkey Kong Bananza is the second major release for the Nintendo Switch 2. It is a 3D collectathon in the same vain as Banjo Kazooie or Super Mario Odyssey, and is even from the same development team as the later. Bananza sort of has a two player mode where one player controls Donkey Kong and the other as Pauline can aim a cursor at the screen to target enemies or make platforms for DK to climb on. I don’t think player two can take damage, and it seems similar to how co-op worked in Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii. I will have Donkey Kong Bananza setup on three different systems at the party, but you could also play whatever I have installed on the PlayStation or Xbox instead if you prefer. I will also provide four pizzas, cola, and bottled water for guests to eat at the party.

The story of Donkey Kong Bananza is very strange. There’s some kind of golden banana gold rush and monkeys are starting elaborate mining operations like the Void Company to harvest the presumably inedible fruit from the ground. Donkey Kong becomes a prospector but then falls into a chasm and discovers an underground world. He meets Pauline who is for some reason deaged and is now about ten years old. The two embark on journey to the center of the Earth where some kind of genie will grant them one wish. There wish however is to return to the surface, so it seems counter intuitive to keep burrowing further into the Earth’s core instead of just digging upward.

Digging is the main mechanic in the game. Donkey Kong can jump, climb, roll, and clap, but he can also punch in three directions; forward, up, down. What direction DK throws a punch in will determine what part of the environment will get destroyed in it’s wake. You can remove walls, divert river streams, and bypass obstacles by either punching them away or burrowing into the ground. If you destroy and clear cut too much of the level however there is a way to reset everything, have Pauline make new rocks, or just warp to another level and then warp back and everything will return to its natural default state. You also collect find golden bananas, banana coins, and fossils in the ground which can be sold for new outfits for Donkey Kong and Pauline to wear.

Right now we know that there are at least six levels in the game, possibly more, and each level has an elder animal guru that will teach Donkey Kong a transformation called bananza powers. Pauline sings something that will turn Donkey Kong into a Zebra, Ostrich, or even bigger gorilla which are all the banza powers that are currently known. The Zebra runs on water, the Ostrich flies and drops eggs and the super gorilla can punch through steel walls which normally are imperious to the attacks of a mere normal Donkey Kong.

In all the previews I’ve seen people who have played the game early complained that it was too easy. However apparently there are challenge rooms with barrel mazes, mine karts and even side scrolling sections. There are also appearances from other Kong family members like Diddy Kong, Cranky Kong, and Dixie Kong, but I haven’t seen any Kremlings.