it's Donkey Kong December in July!!!

I can't wait!

It unlocks at midnight ET, right?

The wait for the library to get its copy and then send it out to the folks on the wait list is going to be painful, lol!

Ah well.

I've only played the very first bit but it's pretty awesome! Smashing stuff just feels good, although time will tell how the level design works around this kind of thing. I've reached the first "main" area (I presume?) so I'm eager to see what's in store. But first my kids get a turn each, so it'll be a bit...

I played a few hours. Good stuff. I'd have gotten further but I like smashing things and there are infinite things to smash.

Anyway, feels great to have another 3d platformer series from Nintendo that is great AND has its own feel. You would think there would be a lot of them but really it's what, a ton of Mario, 2 DK (and the first one sucked yeah I said it) and 1 Kirby?

I've played a bunch! It's wonderful. Smashing stuff is very fun, and the worlds are beautiful and fun to explore.

We'll see how much mechanical depth there ends up being. The first couple hours of adjusting to what this game even is were pretty magical in a way that Odyssey wasn't, being yet another Mario game (which isn't to say that Odyssey isn't magical in its own ways). Going forward though, I'm gonna need a little more than "ice cools down lava" puzzles.

I've gotten further now (reached the second "main" post-tutorial stage) and it's really feeling like it's hitting its stride. The destruction stuff is all fresh but it's grounded with a blend of Mario Odyssey along with some Zelda and a tiny splash of the best aspects of DK64. It's all compelling, distinctive, and fun!

I start to assume the worst when I see little RPG elements and upgrades creep into existing series--still not sure Pikmin 4 needed all that--but I won't lie, it kinda works for this game. I think it's because you have pretty much all the moves you need from the get-go (besides story-locked Bananza stuff) and the upgrades just stretch the parameters a little bit. But it's nice reaching those next benchmarks knowing I'll have an easier time exploring as a result.

Also for once, a chatty companion character adds to the experience. Who knew?? (especially after Tri bored me to tears last year) Maybe all those GCN General Board trolls were right and voice acting really is the future.

@TriforceBun

I've been really enjoying it up here on my Mario Kart World Free Roam Enjoyer high horse, but I do think the upgrades in DKB are classy enough. Extrinsically motivated players will be satisfied by leveling up their health to make the game easier, and intrinsically motivated players get some additional tutorialization for a few advanced moves. Beyond that, it's innocuous enough to ignore while probably boosting the game's MetaCritic score by a couple points.

I agree that the skill tree feels impure, but I have to admit it makes each banana feel a bit more special knowing it's also 20% of a new upgrade, which also smooths out the sorta overwhelming frequency of finding another one every five steps.

A clearer nitpick is that the combat challenge rooms end immediately upon beating the final enemy, which means you can't pick up any of the goodies they drop. I've lost out on like five music discs already this way!

The combat could maybe be a bit less straightforward? It's clearly not the focus of the game, which is good, but it does sorta deflate all the boss battles when they're little more complicated than, go up to the enemy and mash the punch button. But the core movement can be a bit finicky with all the complexity the game has to account for, so maybe more complicated enemy encounters would be too much for newer players.

All in all though, very fun sandbox platformer with its own wholly unique feel, which is exactly what I wanted.

This game definitely runs with the Mario Galaxy school of design: introduce a new idea, and then discard it after 5 minutes. I'm still not quite sure how I feel about this, but I think it might be peak. Are there any games as good as Mario Galaxy that don't do this? Are there actually a bunch of interesting unturned stones latent within the concept of, say, the seeds in the forest layer?

I do think I need to take nate's absolute media blackout approach next time. I've been really good about this for the past few years and so decided to indulge in just a couple trailers and bits of speculation this time to see if I'd regret it, and I do!

Roll credits! Overall, an incredible game and a worthy successor to Odyssey with a phenomenal ending sequence and plenty of standout moments throughout.

That said, I felt that a lot of its concepts were borrowed from Nintendo games past, and that even its more unique challenges were pretty easy for me to immediately parse and understand. I can't hold it against this game too much, since the execution is impeccable, and if you've played a thousand hours of Nintendo platformers then it's gonna take a lot to surprise you. I do question how much more mileage devs are going to be able to get out of this approach to game design though, and I'm ready for something totally different.

@Secret_Tunnel
I'm still taking my time with this one, 15+ hours and I just passed what my gut says is around the halfway point? I'm eager to play more.

The game design of this and Odyssey both feel like a natural evolution of Banjo-Kazooie, rather than the Mario 64/Sunshine/Galaxy progression. Something about the larger stages peppered with landmarks and various mini-puzzles and mini-challenges to tackle. It's a good formula, although I think it results in fewer standard platforming challenges and is more about turning over every stone. But I think it's really fine-tuned at this point where you're constantly getting rewarded and are rarely spending a lot of time trying to find a single hidden doodad. (except for those "find the four of us" challenges, geeeez)

@TriforceBun

It's interesting that you group 64 and Sunshine with Galaxy rather than the usual Odyssey. I think you're right, though. 64 and Sunshine have big levels, but the "missions" within them are typically very focused and linear.

Bowser's Fury was the best of both worlds for me: ultra-refined linear platforming challenges and the sense of place that comes from a huge open level. Odyssey and Bananza are more like playgrounds that you chill and mess around in.

Still, when Odyssey and Bananza do go for platforming challenges, they're awesome, way better than the ones you see in 64 and Sunshine. 64 especially feels extremely primitive in its level design, in comparison.

Our library started fulfilling reserves on this one today, so I'm hopeful by next weekend it should be in and ready to play! So looking forward to it.

I think this game is very good so far. I guess I’m at half of what you would call the third main area. There are certain parts of the game I think jive really well- notably when they need you to get to a thing, and you’re kind of like…how do I do that? I wish there were more of those moments.

I don’t know if I need a break from gaming or soemthing, but I will say I’ve found this game to feel repetitive in a way a Mario platformer usually isn’t. I think Mario requires you to be more on your game and mastering the controls, but so far, this game really is kind of a cakewalk. I’ve done a lot of the side stuff but I’m also like…I feel like I could’ve just gone to the next checkpoint without doing ANY of it. I feel like I could fire up another save file and cruise to where I’m at in only a couple of hours.

I know the game allegedly gets better but right now I would classify it as “very good,” mostly just due to a lack of “wow” moments that I think Mario Odyssey had in spades. The first half of the game so far has felt a little meandering. The Zebra transformation couldn’t have come at a better time. These levels all just feel a bit…samey?

I’m having fun with it because it’s so polished but maybe other people are just seeing something I’m not. I somehow find this game both incredibly overwhelming but also a little…I don’t want to say UNDERwhelming, but it’s a very conservative “one of those games.”

So far I’m hoping for what happened with me with Xenoblade 3. Honestly was not exactly feeling it for the first part, until THAT moment happens, and then the game wouldn’t let go.

I definitely see what you are saying, this feels like an open world game in that it has a lot of stuff but some of it is more interesting than others. Kind of gives me BOTW vibes at times. But I'm loving exploring, just basically being able to SMASH YOUR WAY ANYWHERE is so much fun. Things click with me and it's like "I'll just finish this area quick" but like BOTW finishing often means a lot more than you realize at first, a few hours later I'm still there.

I do wish it had more challenge. I don't need stuff to beat me down over and over but I don't need to walk through everything without much pressure either. I've just been avoiding leveling up my health but even then it's like, not hard.

Yeah I think for me I wish maybe that the things you found impacted the gameplay more. Like maybe they could go towards a bigger goal. Granted, I know I’m a ways away from the end so we’ll see if that changes.

Yeah. I think it just occured to me that I have no idea what, if anything, collecting all of these big bananas does for me. The other stuff seems to be various types of currency but the bananas? Who knows.

A) DK loves bananas
B) They upgrade his ability tree

I think that’s it, at least for now? It hasn’t been revealed why the villains need them, at least. I’m taking a break from it because I’m too worried I’m going to plow through the game in a week.

Oh yeah the ability tree, duh. The thing is, most of the ability tree feels kind of pointless to me. It's not really a game that pushes you so you don't really feel the need to upgrade.