Nintendo is actually bananas if it thought that charging practically $20 for nostalgia wouldn’t even flip the heads of hardcore Nintendo followers. Nonetheless, right here we’re, discussing the most recent Donkey Kong Bananza DLC that was launched late final week, and regardless of its gorgeous consideration to element, it’s left a fairly bitter style in my mouth.
To its credit score. The DLC provides a brand new DK Island space to the sport that permits you to stroll down reminiscence lane of lots of Donkey Kong’s earlier video games, from the DK 64 setting, to the Kremling Ship on the harbor, and a bunch of different areas that really introduced a tear to my eye as I seemed round every space and located secret after secret to DK previous. You may see a labor of affection that has gone into this space, however it doesn’t actually excuse a few of its obvious issues—and the value is only one of them.
And searching on-line, it seems like I’m not the one one who even felt a bit scammed by what we bought.
Shifting away from DK Island for a bit, the principle gameplay you’ll discover right here is Emerald Rush. Consider its like a rogue-like sport, the place you begin off with no talents and need to grind bananas, fossils, and extra, to achieve a sure quota of emerald (suppose the gold you see usually however extra inexperienced) on the finish, you’re given a rating, and by accumulating rating, you possibly can unlock new cosmetics, objects, and unlockables. It’s a enjoyable mode in concept, however it actually seems like one thing they might have added as free DLC akin to Luigi’s Balloon replace in Tremendous Mario Odyssey.
Moreover, my largest gripe with all of that is that DK Island lacks its personal collectibles. You have got all this labor of affection and element, however there aren’t new Banadium Gems to seek out round it or Fossils that offer you cool stuff; it exists as a sandbox to stroll round with nothing to see and uncover. It’s beautiful, don’t get me fallacious. Nonetheless, the truth that it’s so empty (outdoors of the brand new collectible statues you possibly can unlock at random for 100 Banadium Cash a bit) actually made me care much less about what I used to be exploring when there may be nothing to do after the preliminary “oh that’s neat” second.
I loaded into the DLC, ran round to take all of it in, began Emerald Rush, and haven’t been again to DK Island since, other than to purchase new statues to attempt to discover all of them. There isn’t a actual cause to be there, particularly when you’ve got different collectibles to seek out nonetheless within the totally different worlds. It seems like a obvious situation, one which had glorious execution however lacked substance.
All of it makes it really feel like a really tact-on micro-DLC akin to the assorted Nintendo Swap 2 version video games Nintendo has been releasing recently, the place you have got the bottom sport with a bit little bit of one thing new to warrant an additional buy. Hopefully, there may be extra stuff to come back sooner or later for the sport that may add one thing extra to DK Island, however for now, I feel I’m good placing this one to relaxation.
Disclaimer: A duplicate of Donkey Kong Bananza DK Island & Emerald Rush was offered to Destructoid by Nintendo
