Donkey Kong Bananza |OT| Red Faction Gorilla

Forth said:
I'm absolutely loving this but the difficulty really lets it down.
It's impossible to enjoy the boss battles and the levels because they are so easy, this would be my favourite platformer if they'd raised the difficulty.
I know it's for kids but everything is so easy that it ruins the flow and game for me, if they had raised the challenge then this would have been on my top five of all time.
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How far are you? Do what I did. Don't upgrade the hearts and lay off Bananza transformations unless the boss battle absolutely demands it. Before long you'll get fed up with dying lol.
Celcius said:
I'm on the fence. Is this game a 10/10? The last DK games I played were DKC 1-3 on SNES.
Convince me guys
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11/10

3 Donks Up.

Those talking about it being in their dreams? They aren't kidding. I wake up early to beat my kids to the Switch2, I go to bed last on the Switch2. Almost every night since launch I've had dreams about the game. That speaks leagues about the game, but I gives me a chilling thought about how someday a game could somehow brainwash me into a villainous monster.

The game is good. Feels good on the eyes, feels good in the hands and feels good on the soul.
 
Gotta admit......getting a bit burned out on finding bananas. Just got past resort layer and looking at another 60+ list. Going to bypass that stuff for a while and focus on story. Will come back later if I get hungry.
 
Topher said:
Gotta admit......getting a bit burned out on finding bananas. Just got past resort layer and looking at another 60+ list. Going to bypass that stuff for a while and focus on story. Will come back later if I get hungry.
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I'd advise everyone to do that. Fossils and Bananas combined often are in the hundreds for each layer. You'll see so many just on the layers playthrough, plus you'll naturally remember the areas you didn't visit to find more later.

I completed it, am currently getting the fossils, then i'll go get all the bananas.
 
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Looks and plays great in handheld mode. Some of the challenges are getting a bit tough (on SL1201) or maybe I'm missing something or easier in docked. Either way, I'm going to come back to each for missed and hard ones, I haven't 100%'d any level. Don't want to waste too much gold. Sometimes I get hit with -500 when I die and sometimes it's less. Anyone know what the deal is with that?
 
Topher said:
Gotta admit......getting a bit burned out on finding bananas. Just got past resort layer and looking at another 60+ list. Going to bypass that stuff for a while and focus on story. Will come back later if I get hungry.
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Im just playing, if that makes sense. Fuck around on a layer until I feel like moving on. I'll come back to the game at a later date if I fancy the 100%.
 
Completed the story the other night with 450 bananas. Very, very good game although I'd say for me personally it doesn't quite knock the two Mario Galaxy games and Astrobot off their thrown as the top three 3D platformers ever. Maybe top 5 (the other two from my top 5 are Mario 64 and Banjo - Kazooie). I will have to play more and let it settle for a while to decide.
 
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Topher said:
Pretty much what I'm doing now. Game is more fun just going with the flow.
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I'm just after the Tempest layer which apparently is just over half way. I'd definitely burn out and not finish it if I was going for everything on every layer (if true).
 
Im up to the ice/zebra level and the difficulty is ramping up thank goodness.
I honestly don't know how Nintendo follows up with this with another 3D platformer, it invokes feelings of nostalgia and excitement I've never felt in any other platformer.
This game is confirmation that Nintendo definitely have psychiatric help to create moments in their games that create feelings like these.
It also confirms that something went wrong with Mario Kart Worlds development in that all three types of collectibles give the same reward, the P-switches, p such coins and ? Tiles should have copied the banana, fossils and gold solutions.
 
This game has been pure joy to play with my 7 year old son! he was/is absolutely obsessed with Astrobot. I told him Donkey Kong Bananza is Nintendo telling Sony and Asobi to hold my beer. All jokes aside it warms my heart to have back to back years of top tier platformers.
 
Feast Layer is like peak n64 Rare/Nintendo 3d platformer level design. Was about to call it quits for the day and just had to keep playing til I was done with it. What a joy. I'm not done with the game yet but I feel like this will be the highlight of the game for me.
 
Jsisto said:
Feast Layer is like peak n64 Rare/Nintendo 3d platformer level design. Was about to call it quits for the day and just had to keep playing til I was done with it. What a joy. I'm not done with the game yet but I feel like this will be the highlight of the game for me.
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I saw concept art of this stage during the developer interview. I just thought ok here we go with Nintendo's love of food based worlds. No this place is the best and the aesthetics are really awesome. It's the 3D successor to one particular world in Donkey Kong Country 2.
 
Post-game is kicking my ass a bit. Great stuff.
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Well I've thought this game was good until I got to the end. I feel like it turned into absolute garbage and it's certainly not fun. Kinda shocked.
 
Went through the second area this afternoon and the game keeps getting better. My fur is white, my punch is maxed, and I'm coming to grips with the controls scheme and mechanics. The deeper you go, the better it gets.
 
I finished the main game but that whole last two or three hours feels bizarrely out of nowhere in terms of the difficulty ramp up. It's all doable but the lack of polish and balance brings the game down imo. Oh well. It was mostly great.
 
Pretty late in the thread but I thought I'd post this PSA;

PSA: In the Options settings, make sure to Change the Rumble strength to "Strong". It's a small change that makes a HUGE difference (imo).
 
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Finally got to play it. I couldn't believe how well the controls and mechanics were clicking together by the end of the first real sublayer.

After getting a dose of SL200 I had to stop and look up how many there are, because I spent as much time in the first level as I have in Odyssey's since 2017. This is insane.
 
Dr Bass said:
Any opinions on if it's worth doing the post game content?
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I thought the entire main game was extremely easy, including the finale (although I had upgraded pretty much every single skill by the end). So I'm not sure you'll like it.

Post-game is similar to most of the Mario games from what I've played thus far, i.e. challenges are more difficult.

I'm enjoying it a lot.
 
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Robb said:
I thought the entire main game was extremely easy, including the finale (although I had upgraded pretty much every single skill by the end).

Post-game is similar to most of the Mario games from what I've played thus far, i.e. challenges are more difficult.

I'm enjoying it a lot.
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Would have preferred the challenges be more difficult during the initial playthrough. Don't see myself playing again.
 
Robb said:
I thought the entire main game was extremely easy, including the finale (although I had upgraded pretty much every single skill by the end).

Post-game is similar to most of the Mario games from what I've played thus far, i.e. challenges are more difficult.

I'm enjoying it a lot.
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Yeah I didn't do most of the health upgrades since there was no need during the game. Once I learned the patterns of the last few tougher bosses they were totally doable but they also took a long time IMO. And of course you have to play it mostly perfectly because a few mistakes and you're out quick. There was just no ramp up, and I thought that was annoying.

Post game comments:

I already did the first rehearsal. I honestly thought it was going to be some music mini game like guitar hero or something, not just more fighting haha.
 
Topher said:
Would have preferred the challenges be more difficult during the initial playthrough. Don't see myself playing again.
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Same, whenever I do a replay I'll likely just go through the story, break stuff for fun, and skip most challenge levels.

Would've been nice to see a lot of this post game stuff within the challenges of the main game imo. But I'd say the same about most Mario games.
Dr Bass said:
There was just no ramp up, and I thought that was annoying.
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Ah, yeah. I beat it all in my first go, but I also had all heart upgrades. It was definitely harder than the rest of the bosses who die in like 5 seconds though.
 
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I liked the post game stuff, I thought it was challenging but not too much.

I do wonder if they are going to do DLC, like maybe in New Donk City.
 
K' Dash said:
Every collectible enables you to do advance on something, they're not just checkboxes:

Bananas help you gain skill points to navigate the skill tree
Fossils help you buy clothes which increase stats, they're also upgradable
Gold lets you buy stuff like maps, 1ups, safe houses and even bananas
Coins let you buy bananas

Everything you collect makes you advance in the game, also they're VERY fun to collect, finding each thing is like a dopamine hit.
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I did buy it on the recommendation of this forum, I'm in the 700 level now. Think I'm getting too old for these games, either that or Nintendo needs to freshen up their formula more as I've been playing them since the 80's. I literally knew zero about it, watched no videos, so I was a little surprised that you literally transform into something else just like the mario games...like seriously could we not think of a different mechanic that isn't photocopying Mario, lol. It's fun but for $70 I start to expect better production levels than a gamecube game of gibberish voices and clicking through text boxes like an SNES game, lol.

It's fun but pretty questionable whether it's $70 fun. I feel like it's more of a $50 game rated around an 8. I think it's worth playing and buying, just would be better on sale.
 
I'm still in the triple-digit layers but so far the hardest thing for me is finding those friggin' four hide-and-seek guys in each of the stages. The most recent one took me a good 30 minutes of absolutely demolishing the place (and then he was tucked away on some ledge somewhere).
 
taylor34 said:
It's fun but for $70 I start to expect better production levels than a gamecube game of gibberish voices and clicking
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Well then I guess with that logic games like Shadow of colossus and Gravity Rush are not worth the price just because they speak made up language.

The game is worth $70 because its super fun and to me one of the best games I played this year, so I definitely think the game is worth very penny.
 
This game is so good that I actually play less because I am completely satisfied after 1-2hrs. Only the very best games have that effect on me.
 
Topher said:
Would have preferred the challenges be more difficult during the initial playthrough. Don't see myself playing again.
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On one hand yeah, that would of been cool. On the other they want a game a 7 year old can roll the credits on. Hence why the hard stuff comes after.
 
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Still on 1202, but is the post game difficult? Odyssey postgame had some hard stuff for me but Astrobot had only one hard level for me.
 
MSduderino said:
Still on 1202, but is the post game difficult? Odyssey postgame had some hard stuff for me but Astrobot had only one hard level for me.
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It is, at least to 100% it

I'm 75% through it and there were a few times I had to do many attempts on something

I'm glad I waited until the post game to finish collecting everything because the rewards you get for clearing the post game are fun to use in the game
 
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Danjin44 said:
Well then I guess with that logic games like Shadow of colossus and Gravity Rush are not worth the price just because they speak made up language.

The game is worth $70 because its super fun and to me one of the best games I played this year, so I definitely think the game is worth very penny.
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Did you just defend the low production values of a 2025 game with a 2005 ps2 game and a 2012 ps vita portable game, lol? Like you just reinforced my point for me.

I've been playing Final Fantasy 7 (the old one from the playstation) and it literally has the same text box mechanic as this game, 28 years later. It's just my opinion that for $70 they could put a little more effort into that, especially since we don't have cartridges anymore which were the supposed 'problem' before with storage. I don't think that's asking too much.
 
taylor34 said:
Did you just defend the low production values of a 2025 game with a 2005 ps2 game and a 2012 ps vita portable game, lol? Like you just reinforced my point for me.

I've been playing Final Fantasy 7 (the old one from the playstation) and it literally has the same text box mechanic as this game, 28 years later. It's just my opinion that for $70 they could put a little more effort into that, especially since we don't have cartridges anymore which were the supposed 'problem' before with storage. I don't think that's asking too much.
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You think this game has low production values?
 
taylor34 said:
Did you just defend the low production values of a 2025 game with a 2005 ps2 game and a 2012 ps vita portable game, lol? Like you just reinforced my point for me.

I've been playing Final Fantasy 7 (the old one from the playstation) and it literally has the same text box mechanic as this game, 28 years later. It's just my opinion that for $70 they could put a little more effort into that, especially since we don't have cartridges anymore which were the supposed 'problem' before with storage. I don't think that's asking too much.
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What are you wanting, exactly? Full voice acting with cutscenes for the smaller interactions or... what exactly? I'm not sure that would add anything to this particular game, at least for me.
 
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