200 words about Donkey Kong Bananza

There is an idea of “game feel” — the specific way that mechanics, animation, sound, and the tactile experience of holding a controller intersect. It is unique to the medium of games, an area of serious, ongoing inquiry. I believe that Donkey Kong Bananza is an irresponsible exploration of this concept and should not have been released to the public. You begin in a cavern full of punchable rocks, and so you punch. This is good, your brain thinks. Gold nuggets geyser out of the rocks. Time passes; you punch through crunchy ice, blocky mountainsides, big pillowy piles of sand. Punch good. Donkey Kong punch for banana. They hide everywhere, and you wallop them open. You punch glass blocks and buildings and dinosaurs. Everything shatters! The punch turns you into monkey, into Donkey — for banana. Almost every dialogue option in the game includes the option to respond “banana” and shockingly quickly this seems logical, because why else punch but for banana? It’s already too late. Delirium spreads: here you are riding a rollercoaster to build a giant cheeseburger. You eventually punch straight through the earth. Bananza is the best-feeling game Nintendo has ever made, and quite possibly the most surreal. Children should not be exposed to it.