{"id":11398,"date":"2025-12-25T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/?p=11398"},"modified":"2025-12-26T15:48:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T21:48:28","slug":"top-25-of-25-donkey-kong-bananza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/?p=11398","title":{"rendered":"Top 25 of &#8217;25: Donkey Kong Bananza"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you&#8217;ve read all the entries thus far, this one shouldn&#8217;t surprise you. I mean, what was the high-profile Nintendo release that I hadn&#8217;t written about yet?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Release year: 2025<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Developer: Nintendo<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Platform: Switch2<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Top 25 of &#039;25: Donkey Kong Bananza\" width=\"660\" height=\"371\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5aiMiGLuHxM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While it was somewhat visible from the initial reveal and the marketing that came afterwards, I didn\u2019t really realize until I started playing the game myself that <strong>Donkey Kong Bananza<\/strong> is effectively a spiritual sequel to <strong>Super Mario Odyssey<\/strong>. It\u2019s got the same look, similar gameplay (at least at a very high level), and a surprisingly similar feel, considering how different Mario and Donkey Kong play. But it a very welcome surprise, and that\u2019s a huge part of the game\u2019s appeal, at least to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Donkey Kong Bananza opens with DK arriving at Ingot Isle, where a bunch of monkeys have started a large gold mining operation. Why DK is suddenly interested in gold is beyond me, but it might have something to do with the banandium gems that are also being excavated. Before long, a huge, ominous orb-thing appears in the sky and sinks Ingot Isle into the earth, sucking DK down along with it. Deep in the newly-formed crater, DK meets a small, purple rock creature, whose singing seems like it\u2019ll come in handy for dispelling mysterious barriers that have appeared all around. And so the journey deep into the earth, to find out what\u2019s going on and collect as many banandium gems as possible begins\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Though a lot of DK Bananza is structured much like Super Mario Odyssey, the main gameplay is definitely more akin to <strong>The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction<\/strong>, as DK\u2019s main method of doing just about anything is to punch. He can punch forwards, upwards, and downwards to destroy terrain, objects, and enemies, as well as perform his patented ground-slap that collects any nearby items. DK can tear chunks out of the ground (or walls, or ceilings), which he can then either throw, or simply use as a bat to destroy ever-more effectively. As a gorilla, DK is also able to scale just about any surface, so if punching isn\u2019t getting you somewhere, you can just climb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Very early on in the game, the purple rock character I mentioned before is revealed to actually be a cursed Pauline &#8211; you know, the woman that gets kidnapped in the original Donkey Kong arcade game? Except she\u2019s a teen girl here, and she tags along with DK throughout the journey, using her ability to sing to unlock the path forward and special bonus challenge rooms. Eventually, her singing also allows DK to mega-evolve into multiple different animal forms, each with their own unique set of abilities. Having not paid attention to basically any of the pre-release hype, I had no idea about these transformations, and they were a wonderful surprise. So, sorry I spoiled them for you, I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DK and Pauline will travel through plenty of different worlds throughout their journey, from a pleasant meadow, to a scenic chain of islands, to a fast-food theme park,and along the way they\u2019ll meet plenty of other characters. Most of those characters will be fractones, a race of gem-people that can form into different colours and shapes, but you\u2019ll also meet a bunch of animal tribes who\u2019ve adapted to life underground, as well as some new simian antagonists and even a handful of familiar faces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Playing this game, I think, would be roughly comparable to injecting pure joy directly into your brainy parts. Running around and smashing everything in sight feels wonderful, and while not every stage is massive, they\u2019re all extremely fun to explore, with secrets and collectibles hidden literally everywhere. Exploring the worlds is generally pretty breezy, and bonus rooms that feel a lot like shrines from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, are where most of the game\u2019s challenge lives, though some of the bosses can be surprisingly difficult. Possibly the most shocking thing of all is that collecting banandium gems is not required at all, and rather than gating progression, they\u2019re used to power up DK\u2019s abilities and grant him new ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ve heard people online complain that the Switch 2\u2019s first big 3D platformer isn\u2019t a Mario game, but man, I could not care less. DK Bananza ended up being so much more fun than I ever expected, and thinking about it does nothing but bring me joy. The goofy, expressive characters, the colourful worlds, the god-tier soundtrack, and the focus on pure fun make this unquestionably my favourite video game of 2025. And that\u2019s not even mentioning the last two hours of the game, which are nothing but pure, amazing, fanservice. I felt it would be too hard to actually rate all of my top 25 against each other, which is why I didn\u2019t officially number any of the other entries, but I\u2019ve known in my heart all along that Donkey Kong Bananza was going to come out on top.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;ve read all the entries thus far, this one shouldn&#8217;t surprise you. I mean, what was the high-profile Nintendo release that I hadn&#8217;t written about yet? While it was somewhat visible from the initial reveal and the marketing that came afterwards, I didn\u2019t really realize until I started playing the game myself that Donkey &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/?p=11398\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Top 25 of &#8217;25: Donkey Kong Bananza<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11398"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11413,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11398\/revisions\/11413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}