Donkey Kong Bananza

This is the best Donkey Kong game I've ever played. To be fair, I either don't love most of the other DK games or I haven't even given them a proper chance, except the DK Country games on the SNES, which are still very good. Even so, this one surprised me in a good way and was fun from start to finish.

I played the game in parallel with my son (he's 9 years old). We had to alternate because the game is single-player only, which is something to know before buying, especially on a Nintendo console. We pretty much finished the game at the same time, which was really fun because we could share tricks and secrets during our play sessions.

One (small) aspect I liked was that some parts of the game are in 2D. I actually wish there were more sections like that. These moments, and some other parts of the the game design, reminded me a bit of Mario Odyssey, which is a big compliment in my opinion. The game also lets you keep playing after you finish the main story, which is great. I know this is expected in an open-world game, but it's still nice to have. There are also some interesting (and sometimes hard) challenges to do after the ending, which gave me more reasons to continue playing.

Not everything is perfect, of course. The background in many areas feels a bit empty. Honestly, it wouldn't take much to make it better (I know, easier said than done). Something simple, like what Astro Bot does with its backgrounds, would already help a lot. Still, this didn't really stop me from enjoying the game. Another thing that bothered me is that when you die in some parts, the game makes you go back further than I'd like. That can be a bit frustrating.

I also saw some negative reviews about the DLC, and since it costs around A$30, I decided not to try it. Even without the DLC, I had a good time with the base game :)