Donkey Kong Country, playable via Nintendo Switch Online on Switch 2, is just as hard now as it was 30 years ago. Here’s our re-review.
Don’t call it a comeback. While Nintendo has kept DK’s barrel in the air since his debut in 1981 — reissuing his modern classics, making him playable in multiplayer games, throwing him a supporting role in the Mario movie — his 2025 is more of a Kongaissance ripped from the Matthew McConaughey playbook. Donkey Kong got the final major release of the Switch era. He’s poised to land his own spinoff blockbuster. He got a theme park! And now he’s back leading his own 3D adventure game, Donkey Kong Bananza, a true test of the Switch 2’s capabilities.
Nintendo did not grant Polygon access to an early copy of Donkey Kong Bananza, so we’ll be playing right alongside the early Switch 2 adopters when it arrives on July 17. I couldn’t get too Cranky about it because (1) I’m more of a Funky and (2) by the time we heard the news, I was deep into a replay of where DK’s modern lineage really begins: 1994’s Donkey Kong Country, a great reminder that Donkey Kong has always been a star.
With very little to do on my Switch 2 besides getting owned in Mario Kart World Knockout Tour races by drivers coasting in 19th place, I turned to the Nintendo Switch Online service for instant Kong gratification in the annals of SNES history. It had been eons since I sat down to complete Donkey Kong Country, a game that Nintendo and its third-party partners have iterated on for 30 years. With roaming enemies, collectible hunts, destructible environments (hiding secrets, no doubt), Bananza stands to build on the formula that has defined Donkey Kong over those three decades. But I was thrilled to discover that the madcap 2D side-scroller developed by Rare, back when Nintendo had no clue what to do with the character, was a lean, mean test of platforming skillz. Forged in the fires of crude 3D modeling, the game plays smoother than ever — though relentless waves of obstacles shielded by imperfect hitboxes make it eternally frustrating. (In… a good way? I’d say yes, as long as you don’t hurl your Switch 2 into a wall.)
The Donkey Kong Country port on the SNES on NSO is the stripped original release without any of the mini-games or additional narrative beats packed into the Game Boy Advance port.
