Exciting news has emerged about the highly anticipated Donkey Kong Bananza, which took shape when Nintendo's own Yoshiaki Koizumi reached out to the Super Mario Odyssey development team. He sparked the idea of exploring a 3D adventure featuring our beloved ape. The Super Mario Odyssey crew quickly turned to the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto for inspiration, given his pivotal role in creating the original Donkey Kong. This collaboration set the stage for shaping Donkey Kong Bananza’s unique gameplay.
“For him, a lot of things that came up were the unique actions that a really strong character like Donkey Kong can engage in, things like the hand slap or blowing his breath,” Motokura explained.
“I also spoke to Mr. Koizumi, who directed Jungle Beat. He highlighted that one key difference between Donkey Kong and characters like Mario is Donkey Kong's longer, stronger arms. We wanted to integrate these unique traits into the new game.”
“Once we recognized how Donkey Kong's distinctive abilities and the potential of voxel technology aligned, it became evident that destruction would serve as the central gameplay mechanic in this title.”