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Donkey Kong Bananza: breaking everything

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When I first heard of Bananza, I was concerned about the way in which DK could smash pretty much everything, I was worried that it would mean you could just brute force your way through the levels, that there would be little innovation throughout the game, relying only on the destruction mechanic.

I needn’t have worried, of course – it’s a Nintendo game, and in the hour I’ve played so far I’ve come across loads of game mechanics which substantially expand the moveset and ways that the levels work. You can’t just break everything and hope; there are different strengths of materials, there are bombs to break harder ones, there are enemies that provide you with stones to throw at others, there are floating islands that you don’t want to drop off the side of.

I purposefully didn’t read too much about the game before release, but my son Edward did – he’s watched countless videos and read articles and listened to podcasts – and he was incredibly hyped to see the giant monkey king thing and water raising a bridge and the little stone companion. I don’t get to play with him watching enough.

There have been some laugh-out-loud moments. Try and hit one of the other apes, and you’ll high-five them instead. You come across an ape who’s proud of the house he’s built, and then one hit of the walls means that the next time you talk to him he’s wistful he didn’t buy insurance against you. There is a joy to the destruction, and it’s rewarding as well, uncovering hidden banana chips and even hidden crystal bananas.

I’ve finished for the evening just after DK lost his stone companion and gained a different one. More on that some other time.

Wreckfest: a bit squeezed

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I’m not sure I’m going to be able to get a lot from the shops in my Supervan any more.

I am stuck on an event in Wreckfest where I have to drive a Robin Reliant, and everyone else has four wheel cars which can actually take a corner. It’s a four-race series and I’ve managed to come third on the first race, and then get completely wrecked on the second. I’m sure I’m missing something; this isn’t even that far through the game.

Flock: completed!

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I haven’t written about it for a while, but I had been playing Flock in small chunks since I started it back in December, until I reached a bit where I couldn’t quite parse the instructions. Having identified and charmed the Emperor Cosmot and the Cloaked Rustic, the forests were unveiled and I explored, including the giant mushrooms of the Skyfish Caverns. There weren’t many skyfish there, save the occasional Barbeled, but there was a large cave with ominous noises coming from within.

My aunt hinted, after a while, that the occupant of the cave needed an audience, and so I should find five crystal sprugs – but searching the nearby pools with crystals surrounding them gave me only two. Frustrated, I decided to explore the world more and try to find other species that I hadn’t yet found – leading to a male painted skyfish, a dappled baffin, and a slumbering rustic – and eventually I noticed more crystal pools in the swamp area in the middle of the map. Three more crystal pools, in fact, each holding another crystal sprug.

Sprugs collected, I went back to the cave and a giant skyfish emerged, which I named as the Encrusted Skyfish as it was covered with (what look like) barnacles. This then meant the final areas of the map opened, and I went exploring again. I found a fifth sheep, the final family of animals (the burbots hiding on the ground), and realised that I didn’t yet have the drupe whistle so started to search the meadows for it. I found it, charmed a few drupes, and then on grazing another meadow I found a burgling bewl who had stolen my aunt’s feeding bag. I had to chase it down and charm it, then on returning the feeding bag to the starting area the credits rolled. Game completed.

Not quite, though. Up to this point I had played for about 10 hours, and I hadn’t grown tired of the game mechanics, so I decided to fill out the creature guide and become a master of as many different families as I could. I’d already charmed quite a few cosmets, and that bar filled up quite quickly. I loved exploring, listening to hints from the researchers on where to find the last few creatures, and then tracking another male painted skyfish through the landscape until he met a female. The ability to fill feeding stations to attract some of the last few entries was very useful – and I’m glad I didn’t try to fill this out before rolling the credits.

At the very very end, when I was going back and forth finding the last few skyfish to charm, it started to wear a little thin. But the flowing movement still charmed me, and I was spurred on by the fact that the game is leaving Game Pass in a few days so I didn’t want to leave it incomplete. By all measures, that’s not the case now. Credits rolled, creature guide complete, mastery of everything, all achievements unlocked.

Mario Smash Football: a forgotten gem

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Recently added to the Switch Online service, Mario Smash Football is a five-a-side game with … adjusted … rules. You play in an arena with an electric barrier around, meaning the ball can’t go out. You can, and are encouraged to, barge your opponents out the way, or knock them over with powerful shots, or knock them out of action temporarily with Mario-Kart-type items. Your team consists of the main character (from a roster of nine) plus a crocodile in goal and three identical helpers (such as three toads, or three birdos), and while any of them can pass and shoot, if you are controlling the main character and hold the shoot button for long enough, you can do a special move which has more of a chance of going in.

I had this on the GameCube and enjoyed it; I had the followup on the Wii (Mario Strikers Charged Football) but never played that too much, probably due to the plethora of Wii and Xbox 360 games I acquired around that time. It still plays very well, if a little rough around the edges, and I’ve completed the first two cups (coming in first place, but not winning every game). I am much more likely to play this on the Switch (2) than on the GameCube, though, simply because it’ll always be available when I want it.

Mario Kart World: completed!

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Hah. As if. And yet, I’ve seen the credits, unlocked the special cup, and have gold trophies displayed for all grands prix and knockout tours. This was done on the medium difficulty. By all my usual metrics, I’ve completed the game.

But Mario Kart’s not like that, and Mario Kart World is doubly not like that. The real game in Mario Kart appears at 150cc, the hardest difficulty level, when not only does your kart travel faster (to the extent that you might, shock, need to use the brake sometimes) but enemies are much more unfair, both in terms of driving ability and item use. In 150cc, I’ve completed four of the grands prix in first place, but never with three stars (which are awarded for being first in each of the four races) – I’ve come close, but a combination of blue shell, red shell and lightning on the final stretch meant I was overtaken by a couple of opponents before crossing the line. The controller survived, just.

See, credits.

The course design is superb. I was wondering how they would build on the last few iterations – which introduced the jump boosts in Wii, flying in 7, and anti-gravity in 8 – since having to include all those elements would get a bit restrictive. Anti-gravity has gone (except in one specific case), and in its place they’ve put in rail grinding and wall riding, allowing for some clever alternative routes and reimagining of older tracks. I’ve noted tracks from the SNES, Gamecube, DS, Wii, and 3DS games, though some are quite different; however, you don’t get to lap around the tracks that much since the races in the grand prix mode include a race to get to the stadium. There are a few occasions where, in order for this to be a single coherent world, the roads to the courses are a bit straight and – almost – boring, but at higher difficulties the threat of blue shells means you never relax.

After the 96 courses of the Switch game (with the booster pack), this game could end up feeling small, but the variety of courses should keep me going for a while yet. I’ve hardly done anything in the free roam mode, where you find challenges and medallions and can experiment with alternative routes, and I’ve only spent one evening online (where my best position was 3rd, and my worst was … 22nd). And I haven’t even worked out how time trial really works in terms of ghosts and friends.

Spoilers: there is a rainbow road

And, finally, multiplayer. On Fathers’ Day I spent two hours playing with Nicholas and Edward, through a number of grands prix and knockout tours. We unlocked loads of costumes, and I won, most of the time. Mario Kart n00bs.