Donkey Kong Bananza lit up the Switch 2 sales charts last year, and Nintendo's modern classic is still being celebrated. Folks are bound to have their quibbles, and truly, there's no such thing as a universally beloved video game. But, by and large, it's near enough to it. Except, perhaps, for that Elephant Bananza transformation. Which is simultaneously excellent and kind of too ridiculous for the game's own good, maybe.
Reflecting on Bananza on the whole, producer Kenta Motokura and lead programmer Tatsuya Kurihara have plenty of nifty words to say. The latter spared the chance, however, to look back on the elephant in the room (sorry) with a mixture of enthusiasm and... something like lamentation?
Let's first set the tempo: this wasn't the voice of a crestfallen developer who believes himself to have committed some cardinal sin. In an interview with Game Informer, Tatsuya Kurihara blended hindsight's acceptance with the customary Nintendo-esque good cheer of somebody who's just glad he helped make something fun.
The Bananza Transformations go together with the core destruction, often taking it to new levels – even beyond what Donkey Kong can accomplish in his normal form. How did you go about prototyping and...
