When I sat down for a few hours of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Donkey Kong Bananza last week, I expected to play a gorilla-flavoured version of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Mario Odyssey. And that's kind of what I got. But it's also kind of nothing like that. Donkey Kong Bananza is a lot more open, a lot less direct, and a lot more driven by your desire to simply go someplace and smash something. Believe it not, it felt a lot more like a gorilla-flavoured 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Grand Theft Auto than anything Mario has done recently.

Not the real GTA, of course. Not the GTA where you take part in long narrative campaigns built around 168澳洲幸𓆏运5开奖网:satirically sharp takedowns of American excess, not the GTA where you experience fully lived in cit🎶ies that reflects the wa🅺rts and all vision of its people, not the GTA where you follow the damn train (now that's a timely gaming reference!).

It's the GTA you throw on when you're bored and want some carnage, the GTA you play at a friend's house with a book full of cheat codes, the GTA where you have 20 hours in the game and you've done nothing yet. That style of gaming, while not unique to GTA, is nev🐠ertheless quintessentially GTA, and it's this energy that Donkey Kong Bananza channels, mostly to great success.

Donkey Kong Bananza Builds On Zelda In The Best Way Possible

A lot of this stems from Bananza’s destructible environments. Because almost all of the explorable maps can be destroyed, you get to carve new pathways, where randomly spawning treasure chests full of gold will appear. This invites constant exploration, and means there's always something new to find. While each map does have its fair share of actual challenges to earn bananas (from obstacle courses and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:DK Country inspired side-scrolling to min🎃i bosses and treasure hunts), there are tons of bananas and fossil collectibles hidden everywhere else too. It might feel a🍃 bit overwhelming for completionists, but casual players will never be short of activities and discoveries.

It's not just simple breakable terrain, either - itself impressive when you consider how much internal mapping is required, as well as providing pathways to new areas. As you descend deeper through the planet where Bananza is s♍et (we played the first, third, and sixth layers), the terrain gets tougher and more varied. The dirt of the early levels gives way to thick wood, meaning more hits are required to tunnel each time. Pockets of poison are also introduced, tasking you with finding your way cautiously, or relying on your powers to evade danger at the last second.

It reminded me a lot of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tears of the Kingdom, or more accurately, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:what we all saꦬid about Tears of the Kingdom. The way the physics engine worked in Zelda's last major Switch outing was miraculous. A machine like the Switch shouldn't have been able to support it. But it was all a trick - assets disappeared the second you turned your back, the frame rate and overall graphical quality was poor. Loading times were significantly longer than its 2023 peers, despite improving on 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Breath of the Wild.

With Donkey Kong Bananza, I'm not sure there is a trick. It may be actual magic. It holds 60fps, can run in 4K, has more detailed and rounded assets that don't fade away if you take your eyes off them, and it supports all the destructible burrowing. There's perhaps nothing quite as inventively complex as the likes of Ultrahand here, but it feels like Nintendo stepping away from the smoke and mirrors to reveal it has always been capable of pulling a rabbit from a hat - it just needed 𓆉a better hat.

Is Donkey Kong Bananza A Game Of The Year Contender?

Whether or not this magic produces miracles remains to be seen, however. Being technically impressive is all well and good, but this is a Nintendo game - gameplay needs to deliver. Not just any Nintendo game, either - it's the first exclusive platformer on the Switch 2, long the company's modus operandi, and is seen as stepping into Mario's spotlight. Do Donkey Kong's feet fill the plumber's shoes, or through some anatomical anomaly, is tꦓhere wiggle room where the toes should be?

After about three hours with🌠 the game, it's hard to say. The nature of the session, with clear progression roadblocks that pushed us into the GTA-style 'just do whatever for a while' approach, makes it hard to gauge pacing or see much of how the game is meant to be played. What glimpse we did get, however, showed a lot of personality, with Donkey Kജong far more charming that Mario's bland everyman approach, and Pauline being actually voiced offers a more human touch. Despite not following the story (partly because we chopped around across levels, partly because it's nonsense about a big gorilla searching for, and this is true, Bananadium), I was rooting for Donkey Kong and Pauline's friendship.

The 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:coไ-op mode, where one player controls Pauline, is fun but will get old quickl♓y. Pauline can absorb materials and throw them in comic book style onomatopoeia, but this isn't very useful or engaging.

I don't think this is a new evolution for platformers, but it's maybe a new strain of evolution. It's not better than the great platformers of the last few years - 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Astro Bot, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:It Takes Two, and of course, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Mario Odyssey - but it is different. Being less goal oriented and more open zone feels like going back to the platforming family tree and sprouting off in a new 🧸direction.

Despite this divergence, it cannot escape all the quirks of modern gaming as a fresh untouched sapling. The skill tree feels like unnecessary clutter, there to give the collectibles a purpose more than anything else. The power-up transformations too, while useful in situations they're d🐻esigned for, end up f🔯eeling (rather obviously) situational - it walks like a zebra but is actually a horse, a thing considering itself grander and more interesting than the reality. I can become an ostrich and kinda sorta fly. Cool. Why?

We were told that a later section we couldn't play made 🐼better use of the ostrich flight, which really backs up my point that their usefulness comes and gꦆoes. Mostly goes.

There's no doubt that Donkey Kong Bananza will be one of the best made games this year, and also a delight to pick up and tunnel through aimlessly. As for whether it all holds together as an entire experience, especially as well as Super Mario Odyssey did? The jury is still out on whether this banana republic is a legitimate heavyweight. Fantastic to⭕ play and full of charm, it just needs to sustain that energy across its story as it burrows deeper and deeper into hopefully fresh mechanics. We'll find out if it does when Donkey Kong🦄 Bananza launches on July 17.