So far, I think Nintendo has been mostly killing it with the Switch 2's first-party lineup, to the point where some of them have caused me to re-evaluate their Switch 1 predecessors in a harsher light. Mario Kart World is the biggest example, as it's so deep and freeform that it made 8 Deluxe feel too restrictive by comparison. But another case of this has been Donkey Kong Bananza, the spiritual followup to Super Mario Odyssey that has pretty much entirely eclipsed it for me. While I still think Super Mario Odyssey is a top-notch platformer with stellar movement, a strong sense of adventure, memorable locals, solid boss fights, and an impressive postgame, it does have a lot of little issues that start to get on my nerves the more I play it. This is especially notable with the release of Bananza which not only fixes pretty much all of my issues with Odyssey, but actively improves with every playthrough for me. So I wanted to try and dig into what about Bananza I find so compelling and where I think Odyssey has begun to fall a bit short by comparison.
Platforming And Gimmicks: Odyssey and Bananza are both structured fairly similar on the surface. They each have roughly 15-20 major areas each focusing on a main mechanic that it proceeds to flesh out before moving onto the next one. However, the types of mechanics each game chooses to develop is where things really differ. Super Mario Odyssey doesn't really have many standout platforming gimmicks, it's a lot of the kinds of stuff you've already seen before like moving and disappearing platforms. Instead, each Odyssey kingdom primarily focuses on developing a Capture. The Wooded Kingdom has the Uproots, the Seaside Kingdom has the Gushens, the Bowser Kingdom has the Pokios, and so on and so forth. The captures in Odyssey are certainly fun to mess around with, but they don't really build on Mario's base movement like I would want. Instead each capture has their own unique moveset that's usually simpler than Mario's complex platforming movekit, meaning that Odyssey aims more for gameplay variety than platforming variety. That's not inherently bad, some people really like this variety, but I personally tend to like my platformers more focused on the actual platforming rather than radical gameplay shifts.
Donkey Kong Bananza doesn't have captures. It does have the Bananza forms which do change up your moveset, but each Bananza form is more developed than your average capture and the fact that you can swap to them at any time means they feel more like an extension of Donkey Kong's moveset rather than an entirely unique form of gameplay. Since there are no captures, each layer in Bananza instead aims to introduce and develop a new type of terrain to mess around with. From the Switcheroo Goo in the Divide, to the acorns that grow vine platforms in the Forest, to Liftoff Ore in Resort, to the muck/salt combo in Feast, to the Forbidden Layer's weird Fractonium bridges. Of course, some layers also introduce harmful terrain like the Forest Layer's poison and the Tempest Layer's lava rain and lightning. As a result, it feels like every layer in Bananza is able to add another inventive way to utilize Donkey Kong's moveset, your perception of what this big ape is capable of expands as the game goes on. It makes for a more focused experience that's no less varied, and I personally find the unique terrain types to be more innovative and interesting than most of the captures.
Linearity And Progression: One of my biggest issues with Super Mario Odyssey has always been its progression and critical path. In theory, each kingdom having a central story path set in a big open area filled with collectibles would be the perfect way to satisfying fans of both linear 3D platformers and collectathons. However, the main story paths in Odyssey are often simple to a fault, completable in just a few minutes and rarely fleshing out its concepts past the surface level. But even worse is the fact that you don't even need to do them, pretty much any player can just as easily skip the story by collecting enough moons. While I'm all for sequence breaking, it shouldn't feel this easy to just ignore the problems each of the kingdoms are dealing with, and it all makes a casual A to B playthrough of Odyssey feel unrewarding and unfulfilling. If you want the absolute best experience with Odyssey, you gotta go for a 100%, but even that has its issues as I'll go into later.
Donkey Kong Bananza, despite technically being a more open game, actually fixes these progression issues. For starters, the Banandium Gems don't actually progress the story, they're entirely optional and mostly just used for upgrading Donkey Kong. The only thing you need to do in Bananza is complete the story route for each layer, but you're encouraged to go for Banandium Gems so you can stand more of a chance. As a result, it feels like both casual players and completionists feel catered to with Bananza, you can even try not collecting any Banandium Gems for a genuinely tough challenge run. What further helps is that the story paths in Bananza are a lot more interesting and developed than in Odyssey. This is partly due to the layers themselves being larger, often containing multiple sub layers that allow for more varied vistas. Many layers such as the Canyon and Forest Layers even like to have the first sublayer be more open like a traditional Odyssey kingdom, and the deeper sublayers be more linear and challenging. I never leave a layer feeling like I got the short end of the stick, every mechanic feels fully explored. As a result, I can totally see myself replaying Bananza and just ignoring most of the Banadium Gems because simply completing the story is a fun, engaging experience on its own. Not to mention, Bananza still offers plenty of sequence breaks for speedrunners, they just require more advanced movement tech and a greater understanding of Donkey Kong's physics which I think is the preferred way to implement sequence breaks.
Exploration And Rewards: Mario Odyssey's exploration is pretty solid all around. There's plenty of hidden nooks and crannies in each kingdom and lots of moons to find scattered all over the place. However, I do have some gripes still. First off, Odyssey gets off to a very slow start. The first two kingdoms in Odyssey essentially block off most of the collectibles until you complete the prologue stuff which makes them feel a bit dull on replays. This is something Bananza instantly fixes by letting you collect your first Banandium Gem right at the start. But more importantly, Odyssey's exploration doesn't feel rewarding enough. There are three major collectibles here: The coins, the purple coins, and the moons. As mentioned, the moons pretty much only progress the story. Past a certain quota, the only reason you really have left to collect all the moons is just for the 100% reward. The purple coins unlocks souvenirs and costumes for Mario, but the costumes often don't do much outside of allowing you to get a few moons that require them. And the coins mostly let you buy the free DLC costumes and not much else. If you're not really into cosmetics or 100%, going out of your way for collectibles just doesn't do much in Odyssey.
Once again, Donkey Kong Bananza is a big improvement. Right from the start, this game is constantly drawing your eye with fragile walls, hidden nooks, and enticing tunnels to explore each leading to a collectible reward. The sheer complexity of each layer is a site to behold, I'm constantly discovering new hidden areas and gold spots with every playthrough and I'll probably keep finding more for the next decade. As someone who adores exploring spaces in games, Bananza is an absolute dream come true. But of course, exploration for the sake of it isn't always enough, which is why Bananza is also incredibly rewarding. All of Bananza's collectibles feel important. Banandium Gems let you upgrade your skill tree and improve DK's abilities. Fossils let you buy costumes, but this time the costumes actually have gameplay perks so there's a mechanical reason to wear them. The tokens... are admittedly the least important, they just let you buy more Banandium Gems to get the super powerful postgame upgrades. But then there's gold, arguably the most important collectible. Even the story path is constantly asking you to cough up gold, and it's also used for shortcuts, getaways, support items, and several Banadium Gems. It's in your best interest to mine out as much gold as you possible can, which in turn creates this addictive feedback loop where you're constantly getting rewarded for your exploration. It's the collectathon genre in its ultimate form.
Length And Filler: Despite containing the same number of areas both Odyssey and Bananza have pretty vastly different runtimes. Mario Odyssey's main campaign takes me around 10 hours if I take my time, and it took me a little over 20 hours to 100%. Bananza's campaign, on the other hand, takes me around 30 hours to beat and 40 hours to 100%. Just from the numbers, you'd think that this makes Bananza the more padded out game but it's actually the complete opposite. Despite Odyssey being the much shorter game, I found it has a lot of frustrating bits of filler. Tons of moons force you to backtrack to other kingdoms and partake in various fetch quests, there's a few more gimmicky moons like the jump rope and volleyball that are just obnoxious and repetitive on their own, and then there's the postgame itself. Upon beating the game, you'll unlock around 10-20 moons in each kingdom meaning you'll especially have to go back and sweep every kingdom a second time if you want to get 100%. It's kind of exhausting and it doesn't help that a good chunk of these postgame moons are placed far more lazily than the campaign moons.
Donkey Kong Bananza, on the other hand, allows you to collect like 90% of the Banandium Gems on your first go. On one hand, this does mean the postgame isn't as impressive, Bananza doesn't even have any additional layers which I will concede is a bit of a shame. However, it also means Bananza doesn't feel like it has any fluff. All of the Banandium Gems feel like they contribute something, and while some are just placed in tunnels, most of them feel rewarding to discover through paying attention to the environment. Compared to some of the "in plain sight" moons of Odyssey, I at least feel like I have to try to look for most of Bananza's collectibles. There also aren't really any annoying or tedious gems either, no frustrating minigames or rock-kicking or backtracking across layers. There's just no fluff here which makes it all the more impressive that Bananza is that much lengthier than Odyssey. The simple fact is, Bananza just has more content. All of its layers are much bigger and have more to offer than Odyssey's kingdoms, and the levels of interactivity, hidden flavor text, and side objectives like the Smashin Stats and DK Artist give you even more reason to mess around in each layer. It's rare to play a game this lengthy that doesn't feel like it's padding out its runtime at all, Bananza feels fresh and engaging all the way to the end.
Story And Worldbuilding: While I don't think Mario's games ever need a story, there is a reason why Super Mario Galaxy is my favorite one. Putting extra emphasis on the worldbuilding and character writing can turn a great game into an emotionally resonant one. And unfortunately, I don't find Odyssey especially resonant. Super Mario Odyssey's "story" is incredibly barebones and surface level. The Broodals as side antagonists are an absolute void of personality, the world of Odyssey feels like it's lacking in cohesion due to the various artstyles, and the tone is all over the place. By that point, I didn't really mind since it was clear Nintendo had stopped caring about giving Mario even a decent story, but Bananza absolutely proved me wrong.
Donkey Kong Bananza's story is similarly simple, but it works so much more effectively. DK and Pauline have a strong dynamic that shows in their interactions and Pauline's dialogue, and they have clear goals, motivations, and arcs. The Void Co are also genuinely well-written characters with Grumpy and Poppy have a believable redemption arc. There's plenty of signs containing lore about the underground world and how it all connects, and there's a surprising amount of wit that goes into their writing that feels right in-line with Rareware's typical cheeky style of humor. There's even an optional sidestory about a Fractone exploring the world and recording his discoveries, the first EPD 8 gave to have a legitimately compelling subplot since Rosalina's backstory. I'm not saying Donkey Kong Bananza's story is high art by any means, but it actually makes an effort into emotionally investing the player and I think the game is so much better for it.
Look, I know I was pretty harsh on Super Mario Odyssey. I swear, it's a really good game, I literally made a blog post about how it was one of my favorite games. But ultimately, it was the first of its kind. It was Nintendo's first 3D collectathon platformer since Sunshine that established a whole new formula for the genre, it makes sense that it wasn't going to be as refined as later attempts. Donkey Kong Bananza takes the groundwork that Odyssey laid out and made an game that I find to be one of Nintendo's most well-crafted experiences in years, and one of my new favorite games ever made.
