Gamers are chomping at the bit to get their hands on Donkey Kong Bananza. It arrives this Thursday on Nintendo Switch 2, and The Big N has continued its tradition of “asking the developers” about what went into making the game. The first part of the interview on Nintendo’s website highlighted the origins of the game, which we’ve covered before. The Super Mario Odyssey team was asked by a key exec to expand Donkey Kong’s franchise in a meaningful way, and that led to the idea of using DK’s strength to destroy the environment around him.
Enter Producer Kenta Motokura, who stated that after what they’ve done with Donkey Kong Bananza, he feels that the franchise could go into routes that expand upon what the team has done, while also doing what Rare and Retro Studios did with the Donkey Kong Country titles:
In a long-running series, novelty and continuity are both important, but we wanted this title to fully convey the appeal of Donkey Kong as a character. Meanwhile, we thought that by creating something new, leveraging our experience developing 3D Mario games, we’d have the opportunity to create two separate branches – 2D Donkey Kong and 3D Donkey Kong – just as we did with Mario games. So, keeping in mind that this game will come to symbolize 3D Donkey Kong, and with the theme of bringing Donkey Kong’s strengths and new actions to the forefront, we thought the concept of “destruction” would be a good fit.
We’ve seen this work not just with Mario, but with Samus Aran via the Metroid games, and even with Link via the open-world titles like Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom juxtaposed against the top-down stylings of Echoes of Wisdom.
In that same portion of the interview, Art Director Daisuke Watanabe noted that another goal was to make Donkey Kong more “known” for his personality and not just his looks.
People’s impressions of Donkey Kong actually vary quite significantly from person to person. Donkey Kong began life in the arcades as Mario’s nemesis, but since then he’s had many guises depending on the game, be that a cool, rugged king of the jungle or a lovable goofball. So, rather than just giving him a simple design update, we strove for a design that would get to the core of what makes Donkey Kong who he is, bringing out his unique characteristics and appeal.
Donkey Kong Bananza will go far to hopefully boost the ape’s status in Nintendo and amongst the fanbase. We’ll find out soon how well it goes!
