It has been a long time since we last got a 3D Donkey Kong game, 26 years in fact, as Donkey Kong 64 released back in 1999. While the character has had a number of 2D platforms in that time and a few bongo games, the 3D genre has been left behind, until now. With Donkey Kong Bananza, I figured it would be fun, but smashing through everything was way more enjoyable than I thought possible.

There is a story to the game, but for the purposes of the build that I had access to it, it didn’t matter. The setup for the game though is that a new land has seen an incredible discover, Golden Bananas and as we know DK goes ape for a banana. Sadly, while he is enjoying the discover, a mysterious group arrives and makes off with the new horde. While DK loves bananas, he hates when folks steal banana hordes, so he dives in after them. My saying dive in is not hyperbole, as the game world is under your feet and each time you make progress you go deeper into the world, finding all new things along the way.

Jumping into the game I knew that you could punch your way through almost anything and it is just as satisfying as you might think. What you can also do is punch downward and punch up, letting you dig up. You can also rip up the world and then hurl those chunks at your enemies, or other parts of the world and use the destruction to find more secrets. The parts of the world that you tear up, you can also ride along like Goku in Dragon Ball, though its less flying nimbus and more rotating concrete. Those varying methods of breaking the world mean that no two runs will be the same and that is what I think is exciting about the game.

In my time with the game, I did find a host of bananas, but I was also more curious about getting into fights. There were a small number of enemies around in the second part of the world, one of them were flying things that threw rocks at me. You can avoid them and likely should if you are as unprepared as I was, but if you are ready, you can catch what they throw at you and then send it on back to them. If you are not comfortable with catching you simply rip up the world and throw what you have collected, but there is a catch, just be aware of what you pick up. If you rip up dirt and then throw it against stone, it won’t do anything except splat against what you hit. Sort of how if you picked up some mud and threw it at a brick wall, you won’t cause it to break. Back in the game though, if you pick up concrete and throw it at dirt, you can do some damage. Because every material has its own unique density, you will have to be able to know what the right course of action is when you encounter them.

This came in handy for me when I discovered a challenge room, which put 60 seconds on the clock and asked me to defeat three enemies. The enemies in question were Crockoid, skeletal creatures that encase themselves in harder materials for protection, in the case of this challenge, one concrete and two gold. Now gold is a soft metal, so it was easy enough to punch and locate the true enemy with in, but the concrete required some thought. I actually failed the first time, because I was just punching it a lot and not doing any damage, on the second time through, I ripped up the ground and started throwing it like I was a Baseball pitcher. My success that time rewarded me with bananas.

After my victory in defeating the Crockoid, I found another one guarding a giant glass jar filled with water, a quick defeat of them and I was rewarded with a key. The key unlocked that jar and with that open, the water flowed down and that was the end of my time with the game.

I said at the start that I knew it would be fun, but honestly just smashing through the world and finding little nooks and what nots all over the place was so satisfying. Being able to literally rip the world up and then throw it at anything I wanted was great and making use of the explosive mineral Boom Rock, made it even more so. I really want to see more of the game though, because if each world is just about smashing things up, it could get tiring, maybe, so I hope there is more going on. There is around 2 months until the game releases, so they could really show off something truly fun, and I hope they do, because the game is a barrel of fun right now, but I want it to be a real blast.

Donkey Kong Bananza is set to release on July 17 for Nintendo Switch 2