A few weeks ago I managed to finish the story of Donkey Kong Banaza and my thoughts/impressions of the game from when I first got it compared to when the game was finished is vastly different.
Originally this was a game that I didn’t even plan on buying or playing. I’ve never actually played Super Mario Odyssey despite having a Switch1 since launch, there was just something that didn’t appeal to me about that 3D aspect to it. I had always enjoyed the 2D aspect of games like Super Mario or Donkey Kong so this game just seemed way too different from what I wanted to play.
The last of these types of games I played was Super Mario Bros Wonder which was an amazing game and my ideal type of Switch game being a 2D platformer. For the Donkey Kong series, the last title I remember playing was Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze which I was a bit more mixed on as the game itself was very good, but was just frustratingly hard. When you think of 2D platformers you don’t really think they’d be difficult but there’s just something about them that can be frustratingly hard. Most of the time you’re just jumping but they manage to make it in a way that if that jump is the tiniest bit mistimed, you’ll fall to your death and instantly lose.
So back to Donkey Kong Banaza, it had launched and I seen it getting multiple 10/10’s in reviews which definitely tempted me enough to give it a try. Lucky I had some old games to trade in which made it cheap to buy and so the journey began.
At first I honestly found the game boring. I’m not sure if it was a case that when you start in the mines it just isn’t interesting enough or I was too focused on finding every single thing that I burnt myself out too quick. There was a slight temptation there just to take the L and go back to EB Games to trade it in. Despite this I decided to keep playing and I’m glad I did.
Once you get further down to the more unique levels, the game is so enjoyable and I loved the special power up modes you could do. Some of them were more fun than others, I didn’t like the Snake mode as I felt it was too finicky to play as but the first gorilla one and the elephant were really fun and my favorites.
Although this wasn’t some deep story game, there was somewhat of a story to it which I felt was light and enjoyable, the ending was great and I can definitely see there being a sequel to this game with not only how it ended but how well it’s done for reviews. I’d say by the end of the game it had easily won a 10/10 rating for me too, at least in terms of platformers. Nintendo games aren’t cheap but I honestly feel they deliver so much value and are always enjoyable so end up well worth your money.