- Publisher: Nintendo
- Release Date: Jul 17, 2025
- Summary:
Buy Now
- Developer: Nintendo
- Genre(s): Action, Platformer, 3D
- # of players: No Online Multiplayer
- Cheats: On GameFAQs
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
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Positive: 143 out of 143
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Mixed: 0 out of 143
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Negative: 0 out of 143
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Aug 27, 2025Donkey Kong Bananza is nothing short of a revelation and revolution about what DK can be as a character and how his games can be different from Mario’s, Kirby’s, and others of his platforming ilk. He and Pauline are the epic “dynamic duo” that Nintendo can rally around to start the Switch 2 age, and you’ll love this game from start to finish…then go back for even more.
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Jul 16, 2025Donkey Kong Bananza is one of Nintendo's funniest games ever, capable of bringing smiles to children's faces and energizing adults' love of video games. The 3D levels are playgrounds that you can almost completely destroy, in a design that uses simplicity as a launch pad for a huge amount of fun.
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Jul 16, 2025If Super Mario Odyssey were a music album, it would be a top-tier Art Pop record. Donkey Kong Bananza, on the other hand, leans more towards baroque Progressive Rock. The game starts off slowly, but it's a continuous crescendo leading to a masterful finale, with unique, deep, and often brilliant mechanics. It's one of the best 3D platformers ever made - deeply respectful of the character's past, yet entirely forward-looking.
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Jul 16, 2025Donkey Kong Bananza is just the best Switch 2 exclusive so far. The destruction system alone offers so much fun and is rounded out by world exploring, a cool combat system, nice puzzles and a high variety of motivating challenges. The bosses could have been a little harder, but ultimately that's just a minor weak spot in a fantastic 3D platformer.
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Jul 21, 2025It’s a little messy and definitely has a few missed opportunities, but the core gameplay is so much fun that I couldn’t put it down. It captures the thrill of exploration that made Odyssey so compelling while taking the gameplay mechanics in a completely unique direction that kept developing in ways I didn’t see coming, and that’s exactly why I love Nintendo’s fun-first approach to design so much. If you’ve been waiting for a reason to buy a Switch 2, it’s just arrived.
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Jul 16, 2025With only a few technical flaws, Donkey Kong Bananza is a game that gets almost everything right in what it set out to do and deliver to fans of the gorilla. It's refreshing to see the character getting a brand-new game—especially in a different formula from what we’ve been used to seeing since the 1990s.
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Jul 16, 2025Donkey Kong Bananza is a great adventure and a good 3D platformer, not always great, but it makes up for it with the ambition and originality of the ideas it proposes. Conveying the spirit of the last chapters, made of extreme precision and endless attempts, would not have been easy within a completely destructible 3D world. Maybe that's why a softer path was chosen, which sometimes leaves you bewildered, just like being inside a mountain digging your fists in without knowing where to go. Perhaps, more simply, Donkey Kong Bananza is a good game, but not the epoch-making platformer that is expected at the launch of a new Nintendo console.