[EXPRESSO] Donkey Kong Bananza NSWITCH2 | Potassium Primus

Holy banana Batman, this is some primo 3D platformers with some bonkers mesh of a Red Faction style terrain-enviroment destructibility, an 3D DK platformer (with some stylings taken from both Mario Odyssey and Bowser Fury) that plays with the open world idea without being one for the sake of it, and often feels like the recent Zelda mainline games, with climbing, falling down and how it handles challenge rooms/levels.

The plot sees DK going on a island where they’re mining a new kind of banana-gem, encountering an odd talking rock, that (in a reverse Jojolion twist) turns out to be a very young Pauline, whom DK then travels with – Wreck It Ralph style – by exploring the many layes of an abyss leading to the planet core, where a special vein of “Banandium” is located, apparently able to grant any wish, which is why the greedy Void Kong and his underlings are also after it and want Pauline for unknown reasons..

Gameplay it’s a mesh of lot of things from DK games, Mario, other Nintendo games, and a lot more, but done in a way that is original, fresh, and unique, managing to feel and play new even when old time fans might see some crazy ideas as “remixes” of old DK staples (especially from the Country series), it looks great, runs mostly well, and it’s a treasure trove of stuff to find, all fun and constantly rewarding, it’s a massive world full of secrets to find, that is also constantly fun simply indulging how you can break almost everything in a level, even more with the weird “Bananza” transformations that go from “DK SSJ4” to weird hybrids.

I will have a proper review for it down the line, let’s just say this is a Switch 2 MUST HAVE.

Halfway (?) through Donkey Kong Bananza

So this is just a quick post, not gonna get into any detail since i would love to feature this into a Platformation Time Again big ass review, and i’m gonna do a quick EXPRESSO review once i beat the game…. which i apparently i’m just barely halfway through, from have i’ve been told, and that already is telling this maybe should have been the launch game, this is stuff that sells you on the console, that good.

(i’ve played platformers that were about the same lenght- can’t specify because the game doesn’t keep an internal playtimer – and nowhere as good AND dense of fun stuff to do)

It’s an impressive game, it’s basically a modern 3D DK game done by most of the core Super Mario Odissey team at Nintendo (which you can tell by how it handles costumes and special collectibles), with the main new mechanic being the ability to basically destroy and burrows almost everything in the level, almost mixing a touch of Red Faction destructible enviroment but done in a “sandbox” way, despite the game not being open world, the approach is that you’re encouraged, rewarded and if not required you might find unthordox ways to reach a certain collectable by digging in certain ways or tearing and throwing different types of terrains around.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] A Minecraft Movie (2025) | Yearning For

We all saw that horrendous first trailer for the Minecraft live action film, so i guess that lowered expectations for it, not that it made sense to make a Minecraft film, even less so in live-action, but instead of lamenting about Jack Black career moves, let’s cut the shit for the sake of brevity.

I do not care nor know much about Minecraft, aside from the stuff even gamers not invested in it will simply have learned via osmosis, and let’s be real, even i could tell you this is a stupid concept, borne of a decadent big budget film industry that is now riding on videogames’ everincreasing popularity (instead of the other way around) to sell tickets for whatever.

So imagine my surprise in finding out it’s not utter trash, even if there’s obvious irony of making a movie about a game thriving on creativity when it’s just Jumanji, again (couldn’t wait for the next one of the reboot series, could you, Jack?), just this time the guy wanted to actually go there, and there’s a washed up, John Romero-esque videogame champ of the 80s still stuck on the past, played by Jason Momoa, and we have stuff from Minecraft reworked into the plot of a fairly generic (and a bit unfocused) kids/family film fantasy adventure romp.

Still, there’s actual energy put into it, especially thanks to Black and Momoa going super hammy and clearly having fun with the silly material of a script, which isn’t good but isn’t atrocious, it’s nowhere near as cynical as one would expect, there are some solid performances (Jennifer Coolridge as the lonesome oversharing school principal for example), the effects are mostly up to snuff (which i didn’t expect from that awful trailer), even if the art style feels weird in live action.