Donkey Kong Bananza's Chaotic Co-Op Mode Is Engineered to Make Kids Happy and Parents Upset
It might not be the "ideal" way to play the game, nor will it teach them how to play, but you're sure to be laughing the entire time.
If last week was defined by my children tasking me with finding Pauline in Donkey Kong Bananza, this weekend was defined by the ups and downs of trying co-op in Nintendo’s (largely excellent) new 3D platformer for Switch 2 that I haven’t been able to stop playing. But my adventures in co-op were completely different with each child, to the point that I’m not sure one of them will, sadly, even try co-op with me again.
Here’s how co-op works in Donkey Kong Bananza.
A few hours into the game, you unlock Pauline, a companion character special abilities to unlock secrets for Donkey Kong and allows him to transform. When you’re playing the game solo, you don’t really control her, you just have a few more options on the controller. But if you add another player into the mix, they do control Pauline.
Pauline can’t do much, but she’s powerful and chaotic. (More on that in a second!) She can “shout” at the screen, which rips apart enemies and the game’s destructible environments. It’s also possible for the co-op player to “sing” and unlock secrets.
Playing co-op can happen in a few different ways.
Same screen, controlling Pauline with a Joy-con
GameShare, controlling Pauline with another Switch or Switch 2
My five-year-old was the first one to ask permission to try co-op. It went poorly.
For one, the GameShare connection between her Switch and my Switch 2, which was docked on the TV, was fuzzy. Her screen was constantly blurring. My Switch 2 wasn’t far—think couch to TV distance. The other times we’ve used GameShare have involved us being in the car or on the couch next to one another, so maybe this was my fault? You can’t use motion controls to “point” at the screen via GameShare, and instead rely on moving a reticle with an analog stick. My five-year-old couldn’t do it.
This is where we discovered another weird quirk, too.
The co-op player can, for whatever reason, manipulate the camera. Co-op mode is not two separate screens, it’s one single screen. I wonder what a child might do with this, especially once they discover that moving the screen around might cause you to fail?
With my five-year-old, it caused confusion and frustration. She kept trying to move the reticle and ended up moving the camera by accident. With my eight-year-old, it was a source of great joy to mess with me. But, uh, you should be able to turn this off.
Somewhere, my eight-year-old is shaking her head in disagreement.
Upset at her dream being shattered—we’d talked about this moment for months—my five-year-old put the Joy-con down and walked away. Sigh. I want to try with her again, and this time, I’ll have her join the game while I’m playing on the TV. We’ll also play exclusively on the Switch 2, which means she can use motion controls to point.
Trying co-op out with my eight-year-old was a much different (and more fun) story. If Nintendo’s goal was to create a wonderful bonding moment with my daughter, they succeeded. If Nintendo’s goal was to make a satisfying co-operative experience between players, maybe not. You can listen to us giggling hard in the video below:
There is no cooldown on the co-op player’s actions. They can simply spam screen-filling attacks that chip away at the world in explosive fashion as fast as their fingers can mash the buttons. I cannot believe the game works this way. They can whip the camera around to distract you from a jump. There are no safeguards in place to ensure everyone acts according to their role. If anything, it happily encourages troll behavior.
It also completely breaks the game’s difficulty curve! Look at how this boss fight goes:
lol, honestly.
To be fair, Donkey Kong Bananza is not challenging in the traditional sense. The platformers that Nintendo makes these days emphasize puzzles and exploration over nimble jumps. Your brain is taxed more than your fingers. It’s one reason I’m so grateful a game like Astro Bot exists, because while both are “platformers,” Astro Bot is far more concerned with having the player deal with, you know, actual “platforms.”
I’m not sure what Nintendo’s goal was with this co-op mode. But I know we had fun!
Adding co-op to a largely single-player platformer is not new for Nintendo. It’s clearly a priority, and they’ve been trying a version of this since Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii.
In both Super Mario Galaxy games, another player could hold a Wiimote and toss “star bits” to disarm enemies, press jump at the same time as the main player to jump higher, and more. Former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata made this idea a mandate:
“During the development process, my message "from the age of 5 to 95" must have been a challenge for everyone among the staff. I believe that many of the games created in the past have overcome this exact hurdle, and at the same time, I understand that this was a difficult challenge upon developing Super Mario Galaxy. But the Co-Star feature was born as a result of this struggle, and in that sense, I feel a firm conviction that the game will help greatly expand the range of the gaming audience.”
Nintendo has played with platforming co-op longer than that, but it’s only recently the company has really experimented beyond “pass the controller and let another person play,” which was a feature all the way back in the original Super Mario Bros.
One new wrinkle these days is what Nintendo calls “assist mode”:
“If you’re a new player (or just want a more mellow experience), try out Assist Mode. Get aim assist, path guidance, reduced damage, and regenerating health to help you make it through your journey.”
That’s nice, but it’d also be nice to, say, turn off damage entirely!
Donkey Kong Bananza is less about developing a set of skills over time. But Nintendo, as a company, has not greatly embraced “accessibility” in the same way others have. The amount of customization options players are given to tailor the experience towards their style of play, or how they’re able to play, is limited to Nintendo’s whims.
(This is how you end up with a young child upset because they have to be Nabbit.)
We’re a little off the beaten path now. Let’s put on Crossplay’s own “assist” mode.
Donkey Kong Bananza is a game whose most successful moments come amidst chaos. You spend a lot of time bashing through objects without knowing if anything is on the other side, but it doesn’t matter, because smashing is fun. (Also, more times than not, there really is something hiding on the other side.) It makes sense such a game’s co-op mode would also lean into the same thing. It’s probably tilted a bit too far in the direction of utter nonsense, but when you’re winding down a Sunday evening, can you really ask for much more than a family room entirely filled with bellyaching laughter?
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Also:
Seriously, I cannot stop playing this game. I finally (briefly) put it down last night and returned to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, another game I’m really enjoying, because I need to finish Clair Obscure before my European vacation next week.
Bananza tickles many parts of my brain, but I have to admit the lack of pure platforming present is—I’m not sure if it’s disappointing? It’s just worth noting.
I don’t think either kid is going to end up playing this solo. The game feels above where they’re both at. But I am excited for Mario Party’s Switch 2 update.
Definitely agree about how the co-op mode breaks the difficulty curve. My son and I found a timed challenge that tasks you with demolishing a building. You get an extra banana if you can destroy it with 20 seconds left on the clock. The clock doesn't start counting down until you cross a perimeter around the building. But we discovered that, in co-op, he could just spam the Pauline shout-attack button before we crossed that perimeter. We demolished half the building before we even started the clock!
One thing I will say, there is NO way to use motion controls to aim from my knowledge. You have to use the joycon's mouse mode or the joystick