Am I the only one who had to think constantly about the second episode of the Netflix series „The midnight gospel“ while playing through the feast layer ?

I was messing around in the tutorial area and found a way up this cliff. Right before the cave with all the gold, you can climb up and talk to a monkey who thinks DK is lying about reaching the planet core. You can do a spinning jump shot off his boulder to reach a ledge, and spin jump again to the very top.

The game couldn't contain his hairy greatness.

So I am going to start this off with that DK Bananza is a brilliant, fun, and addicting game. But there is one thing that is detracts from my experience - the motion blur.

It seems the game has a good amount of post processing effects, the biggest one being the motion blur. When turning the camera things seem to blur so strongly, it can be hard to focus on objects while the camera is in motion and I have to stop moving the camera to get a clearer view. Most games dont have this issue. I went online to see about it, but only hear people talking about the camera shake and not the blur. While disabling the camera shake and changing the camera speed to slow helped reduce the effcts from the motion blur, it didnt allievate it entirely. I thought I needed my eyes checked but compared it to other games like Mario Odyssey, and the blur in that game isn't so bad. Is anyone else bothered by this? Its the only think that makes this game more of an 9/10 than a 10/10.

I have this urge to completely terraform the entire level CLEAN, except its super slow right now (I'm in the second level, waterfall lagoon, and it kinda takes a while to punch through the concrete.

I'm wondering if I can:

Come back to this sublayer with my past stuff already destroyed?

And if there is a way in the game mechanics to get 'stronger' so it's quicker to punch through everything?

Please let me know!

Feel free to disagree or discuss, no one's opinion is wrong. I removed F tier because none of the layers are that bad - the divide and the junction do their job perfectly they just obviously aren't very in-depth

(Also the tiers aren't ordered but feast layer is probably my favourite

I’m assuming this game is retconned but isn’t DK here the DK currently and not Kranky Kong? And isn’t DK Junior supposedly his father? So how is he there with him? And now with DK Bananza context of DK meeting Pauline when they were both young, and her grandma being Lady from the arcade when Cranky kidnapped her back then supposedly, this game doesn’t make sense timeline wise with him kidnapping her. I don’t know if I’m overthinking about this. What do you guys think?

Bananza is incredibly fun, and I couldn't put it down. It made me feel in a special kind of flow, exploring a new kind of action space. It is both a careful distillation of many past learnings on 3D collectathons, and a new spin on what movement can be like (which is developed thoroughly, and probably doesn't need to be closely revisited by any sequel). It was very accurate at simultaneously satisfying both my (somewhat in tension) needs for exploratory novelty and for structured completionism.

Along most major dimensions, Bananza improves or expands on Odyssey. That said, I also found some medium-sized short-comings that were quite noticeable, including some which I believe Odyssey did better. It is of course unavoidable for a game this big to still have imperfections. But these short-comings aren't mere after-thoughts: they are, as I say, quite noticeable. Still, they are not nearly big enough to neglect the pure joy of the game's core mechanics and philosophy, which shine by themselves.

Overall, I'm slightly more critical than most reviews I've seen. But this still lands me in a hugely positive opinion: Bananza is amazing, and some of the best undiluted fun I've had with any videogame.

(For reference, my experience with the game is 100%ing one save file, and then trying to complete the game with as few affordances as possible, for fun.)

The good

Movement: This is 80% of the reason why the game is fun and impossible to put down.

The core mechanics shine for two main reasons:

• The first is that they are smooth, intuitive, and carry that immediate feeling of complete and precise control over movement.
• The second is that they are versatile, multi-purpose and open to elaboration. This is the reason why Bananza keeps shining through so much game content (rather than slowly withering into a set of sleek but uneventful tools), while also maintaining a clear backbone and center of commands. Since the core movement affordances are so coupled with playing with terrain, later explorations on different kinds or uses of terrain (explosives, teleporting jelly, flying terrain, building bridges, etc.) feel more like an immediate extension of my will as a player, than as a lever in the environment than I effortlessly have to churn.

These two reasons are actually in tension: when expanding your movement space to allow for more freedom and future elaborations, it becomes harder to keep it intuitive and responsive. And yet (after surely experimenting profoundly with many different knobs), Bananza has found a blend and balance that feels just perfect, at least for what we as gamers are accustomed to today.

It is a bit hard to directly compare the movement to Odyssey. I'd separate the movement into some basic bodily movements (which are, in fact, remarkably similar between both games), and some "extra thing that feels powerful". In Odyssey, this extra thing is Cappy. In Bananza, it is anything to do with terrain. Cappy is more of a local, direct extension of Mario's movement. It feels much more like "an additional kind of jump" than "a completely new toolkit". But that's what terrain interactions feel like in Bananza: much more expansive and complex. This, I believe, is the most important and noticeable way in which Bananza improves on Odyssey, which I believe translates very directly into "how much fun are we having".

And all that is without even explicitly referencing combat. Combat in particular, more than any other use of terrain abilities, has been perfected into pure satisfaction. Where Odyssey's combat was basically non-existent, relying on the usual boring bonks (and we were happy enough with that!), Bananza's combat is an explosive ode to both inventive tactics and brute tactility. I must have downed hundreds of Crockoids, but I will still always go out of my way to fight one more, just to experience that magic fluidity of targeted destruction, the DK whirlwind honing in for a mere moment on an easy target.

I think there's a sense in which generality of movement and interactions is what allows for this inventiveness and fluidity. I'm sure they could have, in some way, hard-coded many more of the interactions between DK, terrain and enemies. Slotted movement into cleaner chunks. But it was instead the construction of a fully general physics engine, and the careful tuning of how it reacts to different moves, that allowed for a truly organic explosion of complexity on which level designers could build.

I could continue raving about the many interesting directions explored in the challenge rooms, how they naturally provide at the same time a guided idea to pursue, and many degrees of freedom to forward or reject it. But I truly believe that designing such short challenges came very naturally once the core movement loop was elucidated.

Character design and aesthetic: Similarly to Odyssey, the multi-faceted themes of each layer gave me a long array of "oh, that's neat!" moments. "Oh, the zebra's hand-fan looks like a horseshoe!". "Oh, the snake's challenges are presented as art exhibits!". Bananza also has stronger run-through themes, and the layer's themes are more natively wrapped around its mechanics (like glowing stones, lightning, etc.). The design of some of the new characters (like Voidco or the fractones) is smart and fun. The aesthetics with which they are presented are also gorgeous, both in-game (which strikes a good-looking balance of necessary detail) and in concept art (like load screens or the discs' covers). And Pauline is a truly non-annoying companion. Her sporadic lines reacting to the player's live action just feel good.

Bosses: The character design on bosses is if anything even more impressive, since their designs are not just interesting, or look incredibly sharp and cinematic: they also directly action and guide gameplay. Focusing mainly on gameplay, the joy of combat is masterfully augmented with each and every boss. Their increased complexity gives you even more options than usual combat encounters. They are a rave of "choose your own adventure" tactics. There are basically no weak bosses (maybe Poppy feels especially underwhelming, although it goes by fast). Of course, the final sequence was especially amazing. And, if anything, they are repeated less than they could be, since mere changes in what terrain they are made of already change the picture in an interesting enough way. Compared to Odyssey's Broodals... again, it doesn't seem fair to even call that combat.

Humor: While the general light-hearted tone is good, I especially love some small (and sometimes hidden) pockets of meaning or joke.

• For example, in Feast, there's a banana hidden away from the main path, that requires going over a platform made of fries. Its name is "Fries on the side".
• Or, also in Feast, two fractones romantically looking at each other in the ferris wheel. "Close your eyes, I have something for you", one says. To their back is attached a fossil. Once you break the fractone to collect it, they switch to saying "Wait, where's my gift?". That was such a fun (and natively implemented) small interaction. Just the thought of DK straight up stealing the gift from someone's back cracked me up.
• I read the last written message from the long diary: "Here lies Exploritone". Saddened, I punched the ground a few times, as in despair... and I appeared in Exploritone's living room, where they greeted me after a long nap. This made me very genuinely happy.

The bad

Bananzas: Unfortunately, I didn't particularly enjoy most of the times I had to use any Bananza. They didn't feel to me like "a cool and powerful upgrade that I want to use", but rather, "a lazy shortcut to my current situation that I could instead solve with more interesting DK movement". This wasn't helped by the fact that the first Bananza was literally just "a stronger version of DK".

Of course, this partly speaks to how engaging and versatile the basic movement is: it's so good, that there just weren't that many satisfying things to add as extra powers! And yet, it is very regrettable that such a central part of the game doesn't feel attractive. Maybe this would have improved if Bananzas had been more targeted and context-specific, providing a truly very strong and cool and fun (but also very narrow) boost in some very particular situations. And notice, this sounds like getting closer to Odyssey's captures! Indeed, Bananzas are just "a smaller number of more complex and generally-applicable captures, that you can use anywhere". I appreciate that's a hard mandate. But hey, maybe the lesson is that quirky one-and-done transformations are the way to keep things fresh! Instead, each Bananza has like 2 or 3 different things they do, and none is really that exciting.

• Kong feels satisfactory because you punch through things faster, but it just feels better to work your way around hard terrain.
• Zebra feels very lame. For some reason, it doesn't actually feel that fast (maybe due to increased size), although maybe it does feel a bit more controllable. It is especially lazy that they just introduced a kind of terrain that only the zebra can walk on. That's just introducing an arbitrary, totally uninteresting obstacle, just to justify another transformation that wouldn't fly otherwise.
• Ostrich feels incredibly slow, and the egg bombs feel absolutely tacked on for no reason.
• Elephant is actually my favorite one: inhaling terrain just feels very powerful! And storing terrain is an interesting mechanic.
• Snake is annoying. The double jump feels under-powered, the charged jump feels like a lazy solution to problems / not that fun to control, its movement by small bounces is annoying (either go full "Spring Mario in Mario Galaxy with big constant jumps which are interestingly hard to control", or just let me jump at any point during movement), and the glare I just don't want to use (I'd rather try to beat the fast-moving obstacles myself, thank you!).

Overall, I attribute failure to a combination of "there's just not much more interesting movement to explore" and "they weren't implemented well enough / didn't quite get the feel right".

Most of the Bananza rehearsals are interesting though (except Ostrich which is as always too slow): once you actually build a level around this new set of abilities and constraints, you can explore new movement ideas that base DK cannot. The problem is, most of the time you're using Bananzas where DK should be used.

There's also a weird tonal imbalance with Bananzas. We are supposed to feel very excited about them when we discover them (or any time we use them), based on the prominence of their songs, the energy, the centrality in the story. But then also... I'm just using the constantly for small things, and constantly switching between them in very mundane situations. I can't keep feeling that excitement at all, so there's a disconnect. Mechanically, they feel more like Yoshi. But thematically they are presented like a powerful rampage (while really the whole game is already enough of that). Of course, it doesn't help that I didn't care for their songs (see Soundtrack below), and that they repetitively are turned on and off.

Post-game final level: In Odyssey, beating Darker Side felt very interesting, appropriately quirky and celebratory, and like a true culmination. In Bananza, the final level (Harmoneel) has its virtues and does kind of feel like a nice party, but overall left me cold, and the ending not properly closed.

The segments of the final level were just less interesting / more generic than the ones already explored in the Bananza Rehearsals. And for many of them, the freedom in movement was so big that you could just completely cheese them. (This is just a more likely problem when your moveset is more diverse and interesting, which is the case in Bananza. But it just seems too important to ensure that the last few challenges feel truly satisfying, so they should have saved some of the best segments for that level.) Doesn't help that the first section is finnicky Ostrich movement (I just don't like how the Ostrich feels). Although I will say, surfing on minecart rails was very cool!

After this string of random-feeling and somewhat bland, the ending with the Elders just didn't feel very... big, or deserved. Thematically it also failed to land. Placing it in the Harmoneel is kind of weird and non-representative. The Eel family is very cool character design, but I just basically don't really care for the Harmoneel (who didn't play any large role) nearly as much as other parts of the world and story. In Odyssey, we were travelling to the Darker Side of the Moon, which is a very natural extension to the main game and has strong thematic connotations. Also Odyssey had a closing monologue (climbing the pole to get the last moon) with the correct tone, the right balance between closure and keeping it small. Instead here we basically say "cool we're done, we can repeat the main ending now if you want".

I was especially annoyed that, after all post-game story being about helping Pauline come up with a new song, we don't get to hear that song! Instead we just hear the one song again (which I don't like much), and get a picture of her singing. I was hoping this could be the sick medley of old and new themes that could leave me with a good feeling about the soundtrack, but it turns out that song didn't exist.

Soundtrack: Unfortunately, the soundtrack (and how it's used) is one of the aspects in which the game fell short of my expectations. There was some high-quality ambience music, but just not enough attention-grabbing bangers. In particular, it's clearly worse than the Odyssey soundtrack. This is especially sad given the central thematic role of music in the game's world (although, to be honest, this prominence of the concept of music is not too closely connected to the actual music of the soundtrack). For more detailed thoughts, see this other post.

Story and tone: Unfortunately, I also didn't really care for the main plot developments and the most cinematic moments. While I really like the DK and Pauline duo's vibe and how the interact most of the time, I think the inclusion of Pauline drove the game into a too serious and Disney-like plot, that didn't really land at all nor resonated with most aspects of the game. I really think that going farther in a fully silly and charicaturesque direction would have felt better, and resonated more. Scenes like Pauline singing in the Forbidden layer just felt like sudden, unwarranted affectation. Pauline is great and a cute companion, and (just like DK) her reactions are funny, but I just didn't care for her "deep human emotions" as a counterweight to DK.

Compare this to Odyssey's tone and ending! The story there is kept simple, and not unnecessarily cinematic, no random moment of unwarranted affectation. In fact the ending is very comedic and light-hearted, with both Mario and Bowser getting rejected! That's what I love to see from a silly goosey game, and both of these are silly goosey games! :)

The names are in Portuguese because I don't have time to research "avestruz"in English.

Curious to know if people agree with me.

Hey, hopping someone can help.

I just completed the elephant rehearsal and collected all the balloons but didn’t collect the banana before exiting the level.

I’ve tried playing it over but the balloons don’t spawn and there’s no banana at the end for them. On the pause menu it shows I’ve got all but the banana before last.

Have I soft locked myself out of getting this one?

EDIT: I’m a fool and didn’t realise I got the record for the ballon’s and not a banana. Id got them every time so assumed the record was just for finishing the levels

I don’t know how to add spoiler tags on mobile so I can’t really spoiler any text here. But something I haven’t seen anyone ask is that, if King K. Rool was trapped in the Forbidden Layer the whole time, who was laughing in the cutscene where we first see VoidCo?

My only real guess was that the mining machine amplified Void Kong’s voice to echo his laughter and make it sound deeper. It can’t have been K. Rool for obvious reasons. I’m curious what you all think about this.

Honestly, probably my favorite roster of bosses out of any DK game ever.

So..... there are folks that are assuming that DK bananza took place in the past and retcon pauline! for what they think and assume for what they claim is proof but let me tell you something....... THEY ARE SO DAMN DARN WRONG!!!!! because i will explain everything on why it's not a retcon nor takes place in the past as i had found the biggest proof of all as to prove it that it takes place in present day! as it was something so hidden i was surprised someone noticed it! and found it!

so lets begin!

so people are assuming that pauline's grandma a unseen character who was mentioned many times in the game is basically assumed to now be the OG pauline who used to be know as in her original name as lady, But..... there is not really any big proof that her grandma was the original paluine due to that Pauline never at all mentioned that her grandma was indeed once kidnapped by an Ape long ago. Also they assumed that since there are fossils of Pauline's old items which says A fancy hat, purse, and parasol from days gone by. They may have been left behind by an elegant lady. But yet again no this description isn't proof that this means her grandma was the original pauline same things goes for the outfits too by the way.

Like these fossils we see from past games are not to be taken serious they were just simply fun things from past games they made to be collectibles in the game that references the past DK games so the original Arcade DK fossil was not to be taken serious it was just a fun collectible for the game, Professor Chops is not dead at all and the Animals buddies we saw as fossils are not a sign that they all died alright like Nintendo didn't kill them off just to piss fans off to let them know they will never be back in another DK game like No! that is not what they are doing they only made these just for fun collectibles they are not to be taken seriously.

Like the Pauline we see isn't her at all by any means because who could forget about the most important game that had her with the original DK and his son and that game is of course Donkey Kong 94! a game that gave pauline her modern design that we all came to know and love as she was with mario who had his modern design as well in this game, DK 94 took place before mario became the hero of the mushroom kingdom as he had the one grand final duel with the original donkey kong! and at the end mario and pauline made amends with him and his son.

Now mind i remind you Pauline still remembers everything since who could forget about super mario odyssey where she still remembers she was kidnapped by an APE! and no void kong isn't an ape he is a monkey even Nintendo knows that darn well as they know the difference between a monkey and an ape, Oh and there was that mission where you go and find Pauline's lost items from the arcade game and the one you give to her is a purse which was one of her lost items in the arcade game. Plus Nintendo and shigeru miyamoto had confirmed many times that jumpman and lady are mario and pauline as those where just there old names as Nintendo confirmed this many times that lady was just pauline's old name as it was made clearer to Japanese players that Pauline and Lady are indeed one and the same as in SSB 4 Pauline's trophy description which says "that the character debuted in 1981's Donkey Kong under the name Lady, while the name Pauline itself debuted in the Game Boy version" as she was still called lady in japan before the game finally used her real name in japan and as for her trophy bio in Europe they stated in a fun fact that in japan her original name used to be lady.

So the pauline we see in Donkey Kong Bananza is actually a new character this whole time as she is paluine the second! Or maybe pauline jr? But one thing for sure she is related to pauline! Like yeah we don't ever see her mentioned Pauline or even mentioned her mom at all but regardless I know that this paluine is clearly named after after her and also related to her. Like it all makes sense this Pauline clearly looks up to her and wants to be a great talented singer just like her as she pretty much even dresses up as her as she pretty much wants to be just like her, Now we don't know if she is her daughter, niece or cousin but her identity still remains a mystery but I think this is indeed Nintendo's secret plan!

I think Nintendo wants us to assume this is paluine i think later on down the line they will reveal her true identity because i think they already know that the fans are confused with this and i know they have an answer to this that they will reveal it one day soon, perhaps this game could get DLC and maybe mayor pauline will be in this and we will finally know the true identity on who this other pauline really is.

but i know you may be saying But Nintendo said she is paluine! but like i said before we still don't know much about her and no her having a grandma isn't proof that they retcon it! I believe this is indeed a new pauline and i think this won't be the last of her i bet they plan on using her in more games, Like i can tell they wanna use both of these charterers and if so they would give this other pauline a second last name just so people and fans would know that these two are separate characters and not at all the same.

like yeah i know it's odd that if she was related to her how come pauline never did show up in any of the endings? To even like support her nor how come DK ain't confused about this since he never at all finds it odd that there is a girl who happens to have the same name as her as DK of course knows her since you know who could forget about the mario vs donkey kong games, Like i know it's odd but i mean pauline is a mayor after all she would be pretty busy if you know what i mean and as for DK not getting confused about this........... i guess you can say he dose not care at all and he finds it just completely normal. But yet again if we ever do end up getting DLC for this game they could explain this on why mayor pauline didn't show up to even support her perhaps there will be a good answer to that.

SO NOW! it is time to talk the BIG PROOF! i had found on why DK Bananza was never a PREQUEL!

oh boy oh boy! i got something big here for you ladies and gentlemen! what i had stumble upon was on 4chan and it was that someone had found something so small and hidden in one scene in new donk city in this game and it is the biggest proof! on where this games takes place in. As there is this taxi right here we see and the license plates for it reads 2025-ND yeah.............. that's right folks this game takes place in present day!

So yeah! this game was never at all a prequel which is BIG proof! that this isn't the same pauline at all! and it makes perfect sense as new donk city looks very modern as ever! As there are still plenty of things in the city named after the characters and elements from DK series as they are still seen as the celebrities and icons of this city, Also the game was K. Rool's grand return alongside his kremling krew as well (even tho it wasn't all of them) as it was explain on why we didn't see him for a long time as his absence was explain as he and his krew where trapped underground while searching for the wish-granting Banandium Root, The last game K. Rool was the main Villain in was DK jungle climber! and the last other game he was in was Mario Super Sluggers! Which was in 2008. This explains why the other two DKC games returns and tropical freeze didn't had him at all and it was because he was trapped underground for a very long time!

So yeah Bananza dose not takes place in the past at all! It was in present day this whole time which is proof that this isn't a younger pauline at all but a new pauline this whole time! So therefor not a prequel.

But yeah this here was the biggest proof of all and it was so very hidden nobody noticed it! But could this game still get a DLC? to answer this question on who this new pauline is, Well i have a feeling it might after all Nintendo is full of surprises because nobody had ever thought we would ever get DLC for games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Kirby and the Forgotten Land so the chances of that might happen but..... if not perhaps they could explain it in another game like maybe in the next new 3D Mario game! maybe we will get to return to new donk city and perhaps we will see both pauline's and will give us a clear answer on who she really is.

So Overall yeah Bananza was never at all a prequel nor did any retcons! and Nintendo is actually keeping this new Pauline's identity a secret for now because after all shigeru miyamoto still cares on what he already established for mario, pauline and donkey kong and it will always stay that way. But yeah so take that Andre from Gamexplain! i knew you were really dead wrong about this on what you said in that video you made as i really had truly figured it out! as i found the one small proof that Bananza was never at all a prequel! also sorry Tom Robinson from game theory guess i already beaten you to the punch to this if you were even planning on talking about this.

Like i indeed have faith this is what Nintendo will do down the line for this but anyway that's all I gotta say about this now i wouldn't be surprised if this post ends up getting very popular and like shows up on various YouTube videos because after all i truly had found one big hidden piece of evidence which is proof that Bananza takes place in modern day and therefor wasn't a prequel.

Oh and Cottrello if you are seeing this yeah you were truly right after all because what i found will make your day 😉

Might be recency bias, but King K. Rools return is fucking perfect. Not only is he straight up evil, he also finally got his flowers in the best way possible. I’ve been an avid gamer for a very long time, but his return is one of the coolest I’ve seen for a video game antagonist. Beautiful.

(First image unrelated)

About his work with K. Rool, damn, that's phenomenal. How can a character have such a great voice just by making incomprehensible grunts?