Donkey Kong Country - ★★★★ 4/4 stars,"Must play", and Donkey Kong Bananza - ★★☆☆ 2/4 stars, "Could play"

When Donkey Kong Country was released, there were some small amount of people, a minority for sure, who said that it was derivative of Super Mario World, or the entire Mario Bros. series, for a variety of superficial reasons. It's a platformer, you go left to right, you jump on enemies to defeat them, you walk around a world map to go from level to level. However few people there were that said that were missing the point.

Yeah, Donkey Kong Country does do those things, but it just does not to them the same. DKC's style was unmatched.

The game felt different. The kong's movement felt different than the bros', the way you bounced off enemies felt different. The way enemies leapt off screen when you beat them, you could almost chew on it. Like when the snakes would bite their tails and hiss their disdain at you as they spun off screen. Love it, it's awesome.

And that's nothing to speak of everything else. Super Mario World's art style is certainly... iconic, but it is simplistic and wanting for more. I cannot tell you the wonder and awe I felt as a kid playing the first snow level in Donkey Kong Country. It starts as a sunny crisp day that you could almost smell the snow through the cathode rays. As you progress through the (hard) level (especially for a seven year old), it would turn overcast. Then the snow would start way off in the background, just individual pixels. Then it would move closer to the plane of gameplay, and eventually, the blizzard truly envelopes you, and dodging the birds and landing on way too small of platforms and leaping for barrels felt so much more harrowing, despite nothing actually changing the way the kongs moved. There weren't even sound effects for the snow and the wind, but you could just feel it!! And then as you reached the end of the level, the blizzard would clear, and you didn't just win the level, you survived it. It was awesome.

That's the style of Donkey Kong Country, that's what made it timeless. It brings out the same feelings when a jungle level becomes rainy, or goes to a sunset, or even just when the cave levels have the beautiful, dripping, empty but also complete melodies. There has to be an obligatory mention of the soundtrack, truly timeless tracks, Aquatic Ambience belongs in actual aquariums, the jungle theme is an all-time jam, etc., it's all true. I want to make a special note that, yes, David Wise is awesome, but Eveline Novakovic (then Fischer) also crushed it and was a significant contributor to this game's soundtrack and to Donkey Kong Country 3's, which is criminally underrated and you should play it too!!!

Of course, DKC has issues, they've been ligitated plenty of other places, yes, the bosses are kinda flat and either not challenging or kinda unfair with patterns that now would be considered almost Kaizo-like, the save system is archaic and stifling, etc.

Even with those flaws, it's a classic for a reason, and you should play it. I have much more to say about DKC1 but I'll leave it here for the time being. ★★★★

Donkey Kong Bananza is Super Mario Odyssey Again.

In every way that Donkey Kong Country made itself stand out from Super Mario World, Bananza does not stand out from Odyssey. You could just take Kid Pauline and put her on Mario's shoulder and have him transform into an ostrich and have him fly around or whatever and it would fit. Those aspects of Bananza do not make it "a Donkey Kong game".

The issues with the game are about more than the gameplay, though that is certainly its own issue. In both games, you can progress the game by simply walking along the path that is set before you, but you can only do so for so long until you reach a roadblock. In Odyssey, the roadblock is an explicit number of moons for the ship, which encourages you to look around and explore, which reinforces the design of the large levels with moons scattered around all over for you to find. In Bananza, you get a skill point for every 5 bananas you find, so the only particular "roadblock" would be that you don't have enough points to get a certain upgrade (even if minor) that would let you progress (or just progress easier). While technically not hard stopped as in Odyssey, Bananza cheapens the value of exploring and finding other bananas, especially since you are given multiple bananas at a time as you defeat bosses. (That does happen in Odyssey as well, but those moons are not enough to revive the ship by themselves.)

For as much time and effort that they certainly put into creating the entire digging mechanic, it's goes effectively unused. They were very thoughtful of just how the camera would clip into the ground and follow DK through the tunnels that he digs (though the camera was a pain at times.) The way they would fade out the objects that are not in the tunnel that you're currently digging, to obscure clipping and seeing the inside hulls of objects that you shouldn't be seeing, is simple but effective. And using the regular normals for the tunnels that you dig so you can see them from the inside as you're digging them also worked pretty well. And that same technique let you see the insides of little caves nearby where you're digging, which gave you targets to dig towards. "Ooh a piece of candy." Those little moments were neat and made digging fun.

The problem is they put a lot of thought into those things but then made it that the paths that you travel to progress through the game are all above ground. There is a single world near the end of the game where you actually have to dig down and around to find where to go and progress through it, and it was a breath of fresh air, it actually felt like a new, different game! And then it ended up being a smaller world, with no ending boss, and you just moved on to the next Odyssey world.

The issues with Bananza are about more than the gameplay, though. Bananza feels like Odyssey. The way many characters, especially Pauline, look plasticy, the hard sheen on her hair; the way moving and jumping feel, like DK doesn't feel particularly heavier than Mario; the way you fight enemies and there's the little hitstun when you punch them. The way levels are laid out, the locations of bananas (which are all above ground!! None of them are just like in the middle of the ground!! Or at least I didn't find any, I dunno) and other collectibles (collecting fossils was more interesting to me than getting bananas), the little towns where you buy outfits and items, the way NPCs talk to you. All of it wasn't just copying off of Mario Odyssey's homework. If they changed the font of the text in the text boxes, it would just be Odyssey.

And maybe most disappointingly, as I'm writing this, I don't remember a single song from Bananza. Pauline sung one at the end. It was alright, though it felt like it wanted to be from Frozen. But it's actually Odyssey that has the soundtrack with big blasting themes with thick bass lines and catchy melodies that have stuck with me for years after playing it.

It's those little things, the style, the big themes, the weightiness, the charm, that Donkey Kong Country did that made Donkey Kong into a franchise of something more than just jumping over barrels and picking up umbrellas. Putting Rambi in there and letting me high five him is cool and all. The nostalgic moments they put in at the last like 10% of the game is cool and all. But ultimately this isn't a Donkey Kong game, at least not the same as what once was. Why is Donkey Kong digging? He's a gorilla.

Ultimately, Bananza is... fine. I'm giving it two stars on purpose, it's not an utter waste of time to play. I was mentally through with it at what ended up being the halfway mark. I pushed through and beat it cause I spent $575 on it and the console and hell if I'm gonna just drop it, but it wasn't really worth finishing. If you really loved Odyssey and the idea of more Odyssey sounds like enough for you, you'll love it! But without the style, without the charm, without the jams, you'd really just be better off playing Odyssey again. I feel like this game will be forgotten in three years. In between discussions of Trump's desiccated corpse being Weekend At Bernie's-ed by his Neo-Nazi sycophants into running for a third term, we'll go, "Hey, remember that Donkey Kong game? What was it, uh, Bazaar? No wait, bonanza!" And no one will spell it right. ★★☆☆