Donkey Kong Bananza shows Nintendo has become fully Zelda-brained

Here it is: The first 3D Nintendo platform game conceived and produced after The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild did the unthinkable and outsold that generation’s marquee Mario game, Super Mario Odyssey. The first since Breath of the Wild ensured it was Zelda, not Mario, that defined the Switch. The first since Breath of the Wild upended everyone’s expectations, not just of the Zelda series, but of the core design principles of Nintendo games.

Donkey Kong Bananza was made by the Super Mario Odyssey team, and produced by that game’s director Kenta Motokura. Right from the start — I’ve played the game for a few hours, and reached its second main area — it’s clear that the developers have accepted the Zelda team’s challenge, and adopted many of their ideas. Although it’s fair to note that they’ve done so in a game that strikes a very different attitude from both Zelda and Mario; this is a Donkey Kong game through and through.

In fact, that last part might be the most exciting thing about Donkey Kong Bananza. Nintendo is extremely character-focused in the way it understands its games, crafts their controls, and designs their environments, and this is the first time it has made a Donkey Kong game in-house in Japan in 20 years. The result is a gloriously impactful symphony of destruction, as the lovable oaf strong-arms his way through the fabric of the game itself, punching through walls and tearing up the ground. Every detail of the game channels both DK’s physical strength and his charmingly blunt personality, from the one-word dialogue options to the way menu buttons shatter when you select them with a thwacking sound. It’s a delightful new flavor from Nintendo: violent, heedless, and joyously dumb.

Bananza is far from unsophisticated in the way it goes about all this material carnage, though — and this is one of the signs of a sea-change in Nintendo’s thinking. Post-Breath of the Wild, the developer has become much less afraid of complication. DK has a broad moveset reflected in quite an elaborate control scheme that can take a little getting used to. And although Bananza takes care to introduce his moves one by one, they’re all available right from the start.

This is another key tenet of Breath of the Wild and, even more so, its sequel Tears of the Kingdom: An anti-unlock decree that the player should be given all the tools they need right at the start. Player freedom to improvise and find solutions is venerated, even within the intricate confines of Nintendo’s typically careful design. Bananza follows through on this, up to a point. Just like the Zeldas, Bananza allows you to climb virtually any surface — tantamount to heresy in a platform game. DK’s destructive skills also grant a lot of flexibility when it comes to exploration and finding secrets. But when charging along the game’s critical path, they’re played more for impact than for player-first problem solving (so far, in my limited experience). Switches, structures, and materials fit with particular punches and slams like locks to their keys.

Nor has Bananza rejected all the structural customs of the platform game. DK’s Bananza transformations are still doled out by unlocks; you get the super-strong Kong Bananza at the end of the first main area, Lagoon Layer. The game is also divided into subterranean Layers that you descend through on your way to the planet’s core. These Layers are free-roaming but relatively compact, more like Odyssey’s discrete pocket universes than Zelda’s giant, contiguous world, even if their hazy, organic, pastel-colored appearance owes a big debt to the most recent incarnation of Hyrule.

I kept noticing tiny influences from the last two Zelda games, from Donkey Kong’s heart meter — extended with temporary yellow hearts after a good rest — to the wardrobe of collectable outfits with stat boosts. DK skydives between Layers and surfs on chunks of rock, like Link on his shield. I was quite surprised to find a skill tree, a literalization of character progression that Nintendo tends to avoid — you get one skill point for every five of the game’s giant, crystal bananas that you find. It’s nice to have a gameplay reward for collecting the bananas, this game’s equivalent of Super Mario Odyssey’s Power Moons. But the infectious, thumping jingle with a rumbling voice crooning “Oh, Banana!” every time you pick one up is reward enough, really.

There are three Nintendos present in Donkey Kong Bananza, sometimes fighting for prominence, sometimes singing in unison. The first is the Nintendo of every 3D Mario game from Super Mario 64 to Odyssey, the perfectionist craftsman. You survey its little worlds with delight and confidence, knowing they’ll be stuffed with ingenious secrets, random slapstick, and tricky challenges. The second is the new Nintendo of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, a Nintendo that dares to put player freedom and showy programming tech on a par with craftsmanlike design — and if the frame rate can’t quite keep up, so be it.

The third is an ancient Nintendo, a 1980s Nintendo — more roguish, mischievous, and brutal than the well-mannered entertainer it became. This Nintendo is embodied in Donkey Kong himself, tongue lolling, eyes popping, fists crashing, a cartoon on the loose. It’s good to have him back.