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Donkey Kong: Bananza is a triumph, earning a rare IGN 10/10 and prompting our reviewer to call it “a brilliant successor to Super Mario Odyssey and a smashing return for a classic Nintendo character.” It’s high praise for a brand new Donkey Kong game, and one made seemingly without much input at all from original Donkey Kong creator Shigeru Miyamoto. But Miyamoto did still share some feedback on Bananza with the development team, and now we know a bit about what exactly that was.
We’ve already learned from past interviews that Miyamoto couldn’t stop digging around whenever he played the game in development. But now, thanks to a new interview with Nintendo Dream Web (independently translated by IGN), we also know a bit about what he thought about how digging worked. According to game director Kazuya Takahashi, it was Miyamoto who suggested that “B” prompt Donkey Kong to dig downwards, as opposed to being a jump button like in Super Mario Odyssey. As he puts it:
Takahashi: Mr Miyamoto also suggested the button assignments. Since the game was an extension of Mario, we initially had you jump with the B button. But Miyamoto pointed out, “If you’re digging down, wouldn’t B be more intuitive?” Indeed, when I tried it out, the key assignment felt intuitive, so that was based on Mr Miyamoto’s opinion.
Interviewer: I see. The Y button is to the side and the X button is to the top, which is in line with the Switch 2’s button layout, so even people who aren’t familiar with action games will find it easier to play if they keep that in mind.
Takahashi: Of course, there are people who are used to using B to jump with Mario, so for those people, we’ve made it possible to change this in the options.
But that’s not all. Miyamoto also apparently influenced a small but crucial element of the sound design, as related by producer Kenta Motokura and sound director Naoto Kubo:
Motokura: During development, both Mr Miyamoto and Mr Koizumi were constantly destroying the ground and the surrounding area. There were lots of options in the field to play with, so I thought that felt good. He made some adjustments to the sound, right?
Kubo: Yes. Miyamoto-san said something like, “Donkey Kong’s movements look a little light. Maybe his footsteps are a little too light as well.” When it comes to sound, footsteps are something you hear all the time, so we thought that if we made them too loud and heavy, the impact of the destruction sounds might feel weaker, so we had kept them quite subtle. We turned up the volume a little and had Mr Miyamoto listen to it, and we repeated this several times. In the end, I think we were able to strike a good balance that gives a sense of weight without losing the satisfying feeling of destruction.
So it’s also thanks to Miyamoto that Donkey Kong’s footsteps sound juuuuust right in comparison to all the digging and smashing sounds he’s making. Thanks, Mr. Miyamoto!
We’ve learned all sorts of interesting behind-the-scenes tidbits about Bananza in the last few months. We did a big interview ourselves with Motokura and Takahashi, in which we learned how and why the game was conceived, the game’s place in the Donkey Kong “canon” and the necessity of releasing on the Nintendo Switch 2.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
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