We tested … “Donkey Kong Bananza” on Switch 2, the game that strikes hard

When he appears for the first time, in the game Donkey Kong (1981), Mario can, to distinguish herself, count only on two characteristics: her proud mustache and her formidable leaps. Consequently, Almost half a century. In addition, hundreds of games later, the mustache is still there, and its beast but effective jump is now available in a palette of acrobatic techniques which gives the plumber the status of real mozart of salto. Therefore, In the rare episodes devoted to him. Consequently, his seesque rival Dongkey Kong has remained faithful to himself: gruff, muscular, closer to the deaf rhythms of a disco than to the Little night music.

The introduction of the 1981 game showed him. In addition, bending metal scaffolding under the assaults of his heavy steps, throwing imposing barrels and raising a we tested … “donkey kong threatening fist that we imagined being able to fall at any time. Furthermore, When we find him in 2025 on the poster of his own adventures (Donkey Kong BananzaAvailable on Switch 2. However, Thursday July 17) it is with, at its disposal, roughly the same arsenal.

Just “DK” has taken advantage of all these years to digest old bitterness: this cousin of. Similarly, the worrying King Kong has become a kind of four hands for a long time. Nevertheless, The proof: no more question here of kidnapping the young Pauline, now a playmate. However, It is together that the two hominids. Furthermore, hand in the paw, embark on a sort of “Center de la Terre” cartoone, in pursuit of villains who seek to join the heart of the planet for … Furthermore, for what exactly? Consequently, We no longer know very well and we don’t care.

Lice in the head

As Mario is very busy multiplying the track tours in Mario. Moreover, Kart Worldit is to Donkey Kong that the honor of being the star of the first platform game (of adventure?) Of the recent Switch 2. And therefore to Donkey Kong Bananza To demonstrate what the new Nintendo console has in the belly.

Vast environments, animation at the limit of the cartoon, profusion of elements on the screen … In this area, DK completed its office. We will hang. not to the artistic direction, in fluorescent we tested … “donkey kong colors, to the gallery of deliberately grotesque characters, but what is displayed on the screen, we have rarely seen it in a Nintendo game.

As in the intro of the 1981 game. each DK jump thus threatens to collapse the ground, while the earth opens under its footsteps and that the blocks of stone it sliced and explode on fireworks of rock. The enemies move in a teeming pack. climbing on the fleece of the powerful gorilla more surely (and more numerous) than lice on the head of a student of CE1.

As the slabs he generously distributes. DK pulverizes an almost fully destructible environment, digging trenches in the decor with the ease of a small spoon making a passage in a jar of Nutella. His destruction capacity is still multiplied when he enters a form of trance (the “bananza” of the title. a we tested … “donkey kong lably musical metaphor that crosses the title), turning into a giant gorilla capable of shaving a mountain in a few blows. Note that other animal transformations, rarely very interesting, exist: not the most successful aspect of the game.

We tested … "donkey kong – We tested … "donkey kong

Tel Picsou in his swimming pool

All this is fatally quite chaotic. It is not very serious. Donkey Kong Bananzaunless you will voluntarily rub shoulders with fully optional challenges. is a permissive game, the aim of which is not so much to show its skill in the controller as to explore, at a frantic pace, environments full of treasures.

We are thinking of a version under steroid of Super Mario Odyssey (2017). with which Nintendo had given up for good to design his levels as obstacle courses, to offer large sandboxes in the place filled with secrets. Here no longer. in addition to the we tested … “donkey kong pretext of its progress towards the center of the planet, DK does not have so many objectives, or rather he has so much that we end up filling them without realizing it.

More than 600 bananas to find, thousands of fossils to collect … Sometimes they are hidden. out of reach, ask to combine (never quite in the same way) its skills in a new way or are revealed that after a small obstacle path. But often. you just have to type in the smallest clod or to dig in the smallest hill to dig up a tammering reward or a tiny gratuity. We sink into the strata of the world of Donkey Kong Bananza As Picsou plunges into his silver swimming pool: until late in the game. you risk being hurt less by falling on an enemy than banging the little toe on a large heap we tested … “donkey kong of gold.

Returned to the end of the course, we are not very sure to know what we played. Platform game? Yes. sometimes, even if the address is really not, if not in the final stretch, the quality of the we tested … “donkey kong most requested player. Adventure game? A little – it is at least the impression that ends up giving this Vernian journey quite unusually scripted. for a Nintendo game. Action game? No doubt, given the astronomical quantity of phalanges sandwiches that are distributed, without necessarily worrying about who receives them.

Exploration game in fact. above all, since we take at least as much pleasure in moving forward, in a hurry to discover what will be made the next stratum of this planet which has more diapers than an onion, than going back to collect some of the thousand surprises that we necessarily missed on the way. The idea is not so much to find them (what good?) That to admire the thousand ways all more ingenious than the other of which Nintendo hid them.

We tested … "donkey kong – We tested … "donkey kong

The opinion of Pixels in short

We liked:

• the impression of being able to move forward, jump, dig in any direction, and find a new secret each time there
• The quality of animation, almost cartoon
• the extremely crazy and funny dimension of the whole

We liked it less:

• Animal transformations, often quite anecdotal
• the attempt to tell a story, which never really takes

It is rather for you if:

It is rather not for you if:

The pixel note:

57 Phalanges on 4 hands