Donkey Kong Bananzais a knockout critical success, and its high ratings and praise from players keep rolling in despite Nintendo straying a bit from several of the tried-and-true development methods that have kept the company atop the gaming world for so long. While the lovable protagonist ofDonkey Kong Bananzais no stranger to video game fans, he isn’t one of the two giants whose games have built Nintendo’s empire, and the new game’s success could herald a welcome new dawn.
Releasing exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2 on July 17,Donkey Kong Bananzais already one of the top-rated games of 2025. The title holds a Top Critic average of 91 onOpenCritic, with a staggering 100 percent recommendation rate. That’s even higher thanMario Kart World’s 97 percent rate, and whileDonkey Kong Bananzadidn’t quite arrive in time for the Switch 2’s launch on June 5, it could easily go down in players' memories as the console’s first smash success.
Part of what makesDonkey Kong Bananza’s performanceand reception early in the Switch 2’s life cycle so surprising is that it’s not aMarioorLegend of Zeldagame. There were 16 launch games for the NES in 1985, andSuper Mario Bros.was the obvious standout success. Since then, every Nintendo home console launch has been hyped up by eitherThe Legend of Zeldaaction-adventure series' Link or a Mario brother — Luigi, in the case of the GameCube. WhileMario Kart Worldtechnically filled that role on the Switch 2, the racing game series was an odd choice for the flagship game among some fans, and DK’s emergence as the first big first-party star in an open-world Switch 2 game adds some diversity to the peak echelon of Nintendo-brand characters.
Donkey Kong Bananza’s Popularity Means More Than Some Players May Realize
Of course, the game didn’t reach the summit just because of the inclusion of DK and his diminutive sidekick, Pauline. Nintendo has a storied history of putting out high-quality action-adventure titles starring its numerous first-party characters, and DK’s name has been on the hero list since the arrival ofDonkey Kong Countryon the SNES. With that character and genre combination’s past successes, the new platformer’s popularity may seem par for the course. However, the heavy reliance onDonkey Kong Bananza’s destruction mechanicprovides a unique experience for Nintendo fans, and it shows that the developers at Nintendo EPD weren’t too scared to think outside the box and deliver something entirely new.
Perhaps what’s most surprising is how long Nintendo was able to keep this blockbuster game under wraps. Producer Kenta Motokura recently revealed thatDonkey Kong Bananza’s development spanned nearly eight years. While Nintendo had no way of knowing how well it would be received, hints like a redesign based on the Seth Rogen-voiced character show DK’s ascendance may have been coming for a long time, and if longtime fans are lucky, the trend could bring other fan-favorites to the top of the heap.
