It’s a big moment for Donkey Kong.
The iconic Nintendo gorilla is about to headline Donkey Kong Bananza, his first brand-new 3D game since 1999’s Donkey Kong 64. On top of that, Bananza serves as the second major Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive after Mario Kart World. But perhaps most exciting of all is the fact that Bananza was developed by the same team behind Super Mario Odyssey, which is widely regarded as one of the greatest 3D platformers of all time.
Therefore, there’s been a lot of anticipation regarding how those talented developers would incorporate all of that — the lineage of decades of Donkey Kong games and Odyssey itself alongside new hardware — into a bold new experience for one of Nintendo’s oldest characters.
For the development team, that meant going back to the very beginning.
“Donkey Kong is a character with a very long history, so one of the first things we did was put a lot of research into his appearance in previous games,” Kenta Motokura, Donkey Kong Bananza producer and the director of Super Mario Odyssey, tells MobileSyrup in a group interview.
“One of the things we did was talk to Mr. [Shigeru] Miyamoto, the original creator of the character, about his image of Donkey Kong. And one of the things that came out that we thought was interesting was that Donkey Kong lives in the human world. Then, when it comes to his appearances in games, like in the Donkey Kong Country series, you see him living and exploring alongside animal companions, and he’s showing kind of a cool and wild side through those.”
Those elements come together in a pretty unique way in Bananza. At the start of the game, DK is working with fellow primate miners in the Ingot Isle to dig up special Banandium Gems. However, an underground group of villainous apes known as VoidCo steals the Gems, leading DK to travel deeper in the planet’s core to retrieve them. It’s a literal earth-shattering adventure for gaming’s greatest gorilla.
“And so once we felt like we had a good grasp on each of these different creators’ images of the character of Donkey Kong through his appearances in these various games, we then started to think about, ‘Okay, what kind of gameplay would fit the best for Donkey Kong Bananza that draws from each of those?’” added Motokura. “And one thing we tried to keep in mind was that we didn’t simply want to rely on nostalgia alone, but also consider, ‘How do we find the new experiences and connect the character to those?’”
What the team settled on was a central gameplay mechanic wherein DK can destroy almost everything in the environment. With his mighty fists, DK can punch and slam his way through entire mountains, unlocking all kinds of new paths to reveal hidden goods, including many collectible Banandium Gems. (Think the Power Moons in Odyssey, except they give you skill points that can be used to unlock new upgrades and abilities for DK, like a spin jump or a more powerful punch.)
That’s where the Switch 2 came in. Motokura notes that Bananza started development for the original Switch, and at the time, the team was using voxel technology — which allow for larger 3D objects — to realize this vision for destructibility within the limitations of that older system. But with Switch 2, the team could fully realize the scale of the world.
It also helps that the creative minds behind Super Mario Odyssey were fuelling all of this. According to Kazuya Takahashi, one of the directors of Donkey Kong Bananza, the team wanted the new game to expand upon Odyssey‘s inventive sandboxes in a number of key ways.
“If I were to pull another commonality with Super Mario Odyssey, it would be the kinds of interactions with objects and the numbers of interactions you can have and how you initiate those interactions. I think a lot of our thinking carried over and applied to this project as well,” says Takahashi. “But in this case, the interactions you can have are not just with objects alone, but really with all of the voxels in the terrain as well. That was, I think, an important new step.”
One example of this, which he says is empowered by the Switch 2, is the ability for different kinds of terrain to mix and match for unique results. “We also discovered a lot of interesting interactions that would require the power of the new hardware, in terms of how these voxels might interact with one another. If you have lava and ice together, you can cool it down and create lots of interesting changes, for example.”
Indeed, as you go through the earth’s sublayers, you’ll come across a variety of locales, including tropical, frigid and volcanic ones. “We wanted to make sure that we had worlds that focused on each of those as a biome, but also, we had ideas for lots of different kinds of damaging voxels, and so that led to new ideas for layers based on those as well,” added Motokura. “We even had a lot of interesting experiments with water voxels, which I don’t think you see very often, but really did make for some interesting experiments that led to some unique stage design as well.”
Naturally, Nintendo also wanted to reimagine Donkey Kong staples in this new 3D experience.
“One game that I particularly spent a lot of time researching in preparation for this project was Donkey Kong Country. I think that Donkey Kong Country brought a lot of interesting innovations as a game, and two of those that really stood out to me are the barrel cannons and the mine carts,” says Takahashi. While Bananza does have some 2D sequences that directly throw back to the likes of Country, Takahashi says the team also wanted to recontextualize them from the 3D perspective.
“And so when it comes to Donkey Kong Bananza, where we are taking this destruction core gameplay with voxel technology, we had to think about, ‘How can we adapt for this kind of game those interesting innovations like the barrel cannon and the mine carts?’ And I think we came up with some very interesting applications that I hope fans of the series will really enjoy.” This includes using the barrel cannons to launch yourself through entire pieces of solid terrain or riding a mine cart while lobbing explosive objects at targets.
Another classic part of Donkey Kong that makes a grand appearance in Bananza is Pauline. In the very first 1981 Donkey Kong game that debuted both the titular gorilla and Mario himself, Pauline was just a damsel in distress. However, Odyssey dramatically expanded her character by making her a fabulous jazz singer and the mayor of New Donk City, and she quickly became a fan-favourite.
Pauline is DK’s main companion in Bananza, but perhaps not in the way you might think. This time around, she’s a more timid but nonetheless plucky 13-year-old who rides around on DK’s back. Her voice is essential for unlocking strange purple seals in the environment, and a second player can even fire concentrated blasts of her singing with the Switch 2 Joy-Con’s mouse functionality.
Interestingly, Nintendo says her inclusion in the game came about in a rather roundabout way.
“From a very early period in development, we were discussing with the team about what sort of character would accompany Donkey Kong on his travels, based on the kind of character that Donkey Kong is. And at that time, I do recall someone saying, ‘Hey, Pauline, might be good!’” explains Motokura. “But it wasn’t until we really felt like a character like Pauline was called for specifically by this game spec that we actually implemented this.”
He says it was actually the team’s desire to enhance DK’s abilities through powerful animal transformations into creatures like a larger Kong, zebra and even ostrich that ultimately brought them back to Pauline.
“I think that moment was when we had one artist who created some concept art of the zebra transformation for Donkey Kong. And we thought the image was really fun, so we immediately prototyped it into the game to try it out. And when our composers saw this, they decided to create background music to accompany the zebra transformation in the game,” says Motokura. “And we liked the music so much that we thought, ‘You know, we could really build on this and even turn it into a song with vocals. And if we’re going to do that, I think Pauline would be a really good fit to sing.”
Pauline’s presence adds a lot of charm to the game, as she contrasts DK’s wordless brawn with a youthful energy and musicality. Longtime Donkey Kong and Mario fans will also no doubt be interested to see how she goes from this up-and-coming child singer to the confident and successful adult musician in Odyssey. But the developers say her role in Bananaza also has practical gameplay benefits.
“One of the most helpful characteristics of Pauline in this story in particular, is that she’s human, and so she speaks a language that players understand. This means we have an opportunity for communication with the player as they explore this new underground world for the first time, which is quite strange in a lot of ways, to have the opportunity for Pauline to react to it and call out certain elements, or even to give hints to Donkey Kong, and, by extension, to the player,” says Takahashi.
“And because we’re taking destruction as core gameplay and so many of the elements that you will discover through destruction are initially hidden, it’s really helpful to have someone kind of whispering in your ear with useful information like that to show you where things are.”
All in all, it’s that mix of classic Donkey Kong elements like Pauline with such fresh ideas as the ever-changing destructive environments that makes Bananza so promising. Fans also won’t have to wait long to play it, either, as the game launches exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2 on July 17.
Image credit: Nintendo
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