Nintendo isn’t really known for making difficult games. Given that the vast majority of Nintendo’s first-party output is designed to target younger gamers, the company’s biggest games usually have a very low barrier to entry in terms of difficulty. Enemies can often be taken down in just one or two hits, the controls are usually streamlined, and the general gameplay loop remains straightforward throughout. But Donkey Kong Bananza subverts this tradition ever so slightly.
Donkey Kong Bananza is far from a difficult game. Enemy health is low, the cost of player-death is minimal, and the majority of boss fights are absurdly easy. That said, Donkey Kong Bananza features a surprisingly steep learning curve within its first hour or so, and while that might put some players off, it should only reaffirm Nintendo’s future plans.
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Donkey Kong Bananza Has a Surprising and Unsung Hero
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Future Nintendo Games Should Embrace Donkey Kong Bananza’s Learning Curve
Donkey Kong Bananza Throws a Lot at New Players
The first hour of Donkey Kong Bananza can be a surprisingly overwhelming one for some players. To begin with, Donkey Kong Bananza presents players with a fairly novel control scheme, where the face buttons on the right Joy-Con correspond to a unique directional attack. These directional inputs aren’t quite as intuitive as they should be, and matters aren’t helped by the jump button being assigned to the ‘A’ button as opposed to ‘B’.
While players are still wrapping their heads around this slightly quirky control scheme, Donkey Kong Bananza piles a mountain of interweaving mechanics and gameplay systems on top of them. Within half an hour, players are taught about Donkey Kong Bananza‘s destruction mechanics, the game’s multiple currencies, the various types of collectibles hidden in its levels, the ability to use terrain as a weapon and traversal method, and its unexpectedly extensive skill tree.
And while players are trying to get to grips with the game’s control scheme and everything they’ve learned, they’re presented with Donkey Kong Bananza‘s open-ended level design, where players are thrown into a large area and tasked with exploring it however they see fit using all of the game’s overlapping mechanics and systems. It’s a lot for new players to take on board and put into practice right away. But with just a little patience, Donkey Kong Bananza‘s complexity soon becomes its best strength.
Donkey Kong Bananza’s Complexity Is The Key to its Success
After an hour or two, Donkey Kong Bananza‘s gameplay loop starts to make a lot more sense, its control scheme becomes much more intuitive, and its mechanical complexity becomes a highlight of the experience, with the game’s great level of player-freedom paving the way for engaging experimentation when it comes to traversal methods and completing the game’s various puzzles and bonus stages.
As players progress through Donkey Kong Bananza‘s main story, they’ll continue to unlock new abilities that add fascinating new layers to the already-dense gameplay loop. It’s this continually evolving depth that keeps players hooked throughout Donkey Kong Bananza‘s 20-hour runtime and beyond, and it should convince Nintendo that it doesn’t need to shy away from delivering more mechanically-complex games like this in the near future.
Donkey Kong Bananza
- Released
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July 17, 2025
- ESRB
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Everyone 10+ // Fantasy Violence
- Developer(s)
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Nintendo
- Publisher(s)
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Nintendo
- Number of Players
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Single-player
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