One of the first video games I can remember playing as a young tyke was my dad's copy of Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest on the Super Nintendo. When I was old enough to get a Game Boy Pocket of my own, one of the first purchases ever made with my allowance was a copy of Donkey Kong Land that I put just as many hours into as Pokémon Yellow. When I got older and became more of a PlayStation and Xbox kid, I still made sure to nab a copy of Donkey Kong 64 as one of the only titles I played on my otherwise neglected Nintendo 64. The point is, even though I've never been much of a Mario fan, and platformers in general are a genre that I remained mostly ambivalent towards until relatively recently, Donkey Kong has been a reliable pal of mine since the moment I first picked up a controller. When Nintendo decided to break D.K. and the Kong Krew out of their 2D exile for the first time in decades to star in one of the Switch 2's premiere launch titles, The game's advertising seemed to point to a wild new direction that was equal parts Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild, which made sense given that this is the great ape's biggest first-party title developed by the mad lads and lasses at Nintendo since the days of Donkey Kong's arcade heyday. You can bet a whole palette of banana bunches that I was ready to dive into D.K.'s new adventure on day one.

Folks, let me tell you that I was not prepared for how much of a return to form this would be. I figured that Donkey Kong Bananza would be a great time, but it turned out to be a true, blue Nintendo masterpiece. It's the kind of game that proudly and loudly embodies the old cliche of making its players feel like kids again. So long as you can get behind the basic concept of “experiencing joy”, I can promise you that Donkey Kong Bananza will steal away hours of your life in the blink of an eye, and no matter how many banana gems and gold pieces you smash and grab, you'll just end up begging for more the next time you boot up your Switch 2.

True to form, Donkey Kong Bananza is built around the tried and true Nintendo philosophy of feeling perfect to play, first and foremost. You're dropped into Donkey Kong's britches within seconds of starting the game, and the intuitive controls and liquid-smooth movement make smashing up every single surface you can see feel like second nature before you've even finished the game's tutorial zone. The voxel-based level geometry combines with the Nintendo team's expert level-design skills to create all of the different “Layers” that D.K. and Pauline end up exploring throughout the adventure, and they somehow benefit from all of the advantages that come from hand-crafted levels while also exploiting the free-wheeling sense of exploration that comes from busting apart procedurally generated landscapes in games like Minecraft and Terraria.

While there are plenty of additional Bananza power-ups and new mechanics that get introduced as you descend deeper into the Layers of the Earth's core with Pauline, the genius of Donkey Kong Bananza lies in how perfect its most basic gameplay loop is. You run around each of the fairly open and complex zones of each Layer, smashing everything in your path, and the smashing always results in a tangible reward. You might earn gold to buy items and unlock shortcuts throughout the map; you might find banana chips and rare fossils to exchange for stat-boosting outfit rewards and other goodies; you might even find a cleverly hidden Banandium Gem, which is always good for unlocking new abilities on D.K.'s skill tree (nevermind how intrinsically satisfying it is to hear the audio sting of, “Ooh! Banana!” every time you bust up one of these gems. Even if you end up just wildly smashing and digging into directions that offer absolutely no benefit other than satisfying your curiosity, the game is smart enough to regularly generate chests that contain health pickups and waypoint markers that will direct you to any Banandium Gems or Fossils you may have missed. I cannot stress enough how this fiendishly addictive loop makes it virtually impossible to get bored playing Donkey Kong Bananza, even when you're not actively pursuing the story objectives or unique challenge maps.

When you do decide to steer D.K. and Pauline back on track to engage with the more structured content that the game has to offer, you'll find that Bananza works incredibly hard to deliver consistent twists and surprises to keep players engaged. The various Bananza transformations see Donkey Kong using Pauline's magical voice to transform into crazy variations of the animal friends that franchise fans will know well. His basic and buff Kong Bananza transformation will allow him to more easily wreck hard surfaces and dispatch enemies, while his Ostritch Bananza form will allow you to fly through the air and drop egg bombs on enemies. As the game piles on new enemy varieties and environmental hazards, you'll need to take advantage of all these powers to get D.K. and Pauline to the next Layer.

These powers also give Bananza a chance to show off some of those Zelda influences, specifically in regards to how much the game trusts its players to get weird and creative with how they exploit the increasingly complicated systems. Some of the most fun I had came from those “Eureka!” moments that resulted in me using D.K.'s moves and Banaza forms to overcome or sometimes completely bypass challenges in ways that almost felt like cheating. Some players may see an out of reach Banandium Gem and figure out ways to dig and tunnel their way around a bunch of thorny vines to get to it; others might uncover some nearby bombs to explode the vines directly; if you're like me, you might just transform into the Kong Bananza form and punch your way through an otherwise impassable wall and just ignore the vines completely. It's a freeform evolution of the classic platformer formula that helps ensure that no two players will have the same experience conquering Bananza's many optional challenges and secrets.

It speaks to how mind-bogglingly polished the gameplay experience of Donkey Kong Bananza is that I've gotten this far into the review just digging into the riches of its gameplay mechanics. I could spend even more time analyzing the finer points of its perfect level pacing and the design of some of its better puzzles, but at some point, I need to get around to singing the praises of everything else the game gets right. Take the audio and visuals, for example. The bright and colorful visuals of the game benefit greatly from the Switch 2's improved horsepower, and while more technically-minded players will notice some occasional framerate hitches - especially when things get really busy in the deepest Layers of the core - I am certain that 99% of players will be too busy reveling in how good the game looks and sounds to care all that much.

The soundtrack, especially, is an aspect that Nintendo simply could not afford to screw up. It would be embarrassing for a musically-themed adventure that features a future professional singer/Mayor/Kart Racer as one of its heroes to have a sub-par set of tunes. Also, the Donkey Kong games have garnered a reputation for having legendary musical accompaniment since back when Rare was in charge of the franchise. While I don't know if I'd say any track in this game is going to be as iconic as, say, “Aquatic Ambience,” the soundtrack still rules. If you aren't tapping your toes every time Pauline takes the stage, then you might want to get your pulse checked.

Everything about Donkey Kong Bananza works in perfect harmony to create a game that will not rest until every person playing it is grinning from ear to ear. Its gameplay has taken classic Donkey Kong tropes to an entirely new level of polish and creativity, and its surprisingly sweet and well-crafted story will have players laughing and singing along with D.K. and Pauline for dozens of hours. There are still so many cool Easter Eggs and franchise homages that I don't have time to get into, and did I mention that the game even comes with a fully-fledged sculpting mini-game that makes great use of the Joy-Con 2's new mouse-control feature? Don't even get me started on the photo mode, which is where a bunch of the screencaps you see here come from.

Half the reason it has taken me so long to get this review out is that I had to do my due diligence as a critic and account for criticisms. It's easy to get wrapped up in Donkey Kong Bananza's irresistible vibes, but I can't finish a review without mentioning something the game could have done better, right? Well, after so many hours of smashing, punching, barrel-blasting, and singing-along with Pauline's delightfully gibberish ditties, I have found exactly two nits to pick outside of the framerate issues I mentioned earlier:

1. Sometimes, the camera freaks out when D.K. is going wild with the smashing and digging. This does not affect how much fun the game is at all, but it happens sometimes.

2. The co-op mode, which has Player 2 using a Joy-Con Mouse to click all over the screen and help by clicking on enemies and pickups, is very clearly meant for parents to play with little kids. It ruins whatever minimal difficulty curve the game has, and it's not something I can see anyone getting much use out of if they don't have kids.

There you have it. I found a few incredibly minor and easily overlooked flaws in a game that otherwise brought me so many hours of pure, unadulterated fun, and there's still plenty left for me to do. Hopefully, anyone reading this can recognize how trivial these “issues” are in the grand scheme of things. There is no such thing as a perfect work of art, but Donkey Kong Bananza gets about as close to perfection as possible. Move over, Mario, because the original champion of Nintendo's platformer legacy has returned to steal back his crown. Long live the (King) Kong.