Sweep it away immediately: Danky Kong "spoke" Russian for the first time

Gorilla in a tie, one of the symbols of Nintendo along with Mario and Zelda, Dunky Kong received the first full-fledged game since 2014. This is the mainline release for the just-released Switch 2 console. Just a few days after the global launch, Donkey Kong Bananza became officially available in Russia with subtitles and audio in Russian. Izvestia played a novelty and was amazed at how little it resembles the past "Dunky Kong" and how many pleasant surprises it contains in a game that has been waiting for too long. Here, of course, as before, you need to jump, run and collect bananas, but more importantly, you also need to sing, dance and destroy everything that comes into view. It's just a monkey crash test.

Advantages and disadvantages of Donkey Kong Bananza

Gianni Rodari has collected at least a few brilliant parables in his "Tales on the Phone". One of them was "A palace that can be broken." It said that things had gone very badly in one town and there was nowhere to go from collective and individual aggression. And then one accountant came up with the idea to build a palace in which you can destroy anything — and thus relieve stress. First, the palace was given to the children who were the most disorderly, and then the adults came with sledgehammers and also took their souls away. After that, absolute happy peace reigned in the city.

The creators of the new "Danky Kong", the first in 11 years, clearly read Gianni Rodari and knew what nervous and nervous people needed today. Therefore, they made it so that the main point of the game was not to pass it, but to break everything, everything, everything that the huge paws of Dunky Kong could reach - quarrelsome, aggressive, very stupid (Donkey is a "donkey"), but deep down a kind and brave gorilla.

Indeed, the player's first reaction is that nothing is clear. And you can't see it, especially on the street, where the Switch 2 screen gives a very pale picture even in the shade. All that's clear is that we're running a Dunky Kong that's sunk into the ground. And you need to literally punch your way through. However, it turns out later that in order to get out, you need to go deeper and deeper, to the earth's core, but this does not change the case.

Each level is something like a movie pavilion or a hangar with decorations. There is soil, stones, buildings, a bunch of objects — and almost everything can be broken. Even things that are usually impossible to break, such as muddy puddles. And if you go up to the pillar and demolish the base, the rest will continue to hang in the air. It's clear that you can get in there and break the rest. It is also allowed to tear off pieces from anything and throw them or roll on these pieces like on a skateboard.

The authors of the game strongly encourage bursts of crushing energy. The levels are overflowing with treasures, useful secrets and secret locations that you are sure to stumble upon during the monkey rampage. And when Danky Kong can no longer destroy the location, because he has lost his mind, it's enough for him to whistle — and the flying notes will lead him to the next level. Where everything will happen again. The main thing is not to fall into the abyss where the boundaries of the "hangar" end, this sometimes happens.

In addition to normal human fatigue, the player is limited by the technical features of the Switch 2. In about an hour and a half, the console's battery runs out, it takes a long time to charge, but that's not a big deal: the allotted time is just more than enough to relieve tension before and/or after a working day. The game doesn't have time to get bored, because Dunky Kong is constantly discovering new abilities, including turning into other animals, which can also tear a lot of things to shreds if they strain themselves.

Russian in Donkey Kong Bananza

Of course, Donkey Kong Bananza, the first full-fledged gorilla-in-a-tie game in 11 years, is somewhat discouraging for fans of the series. It's nothing like the Super Nintendo platformers that made Donkey Kong one of the most recognizable brands in the gaming industry in the 90s. Perhaps, on that console, they were generally the best platformers, cooler than Mario. Or maybe it's just the best platformers in history — Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2. Once they tried to transfer the action to 3D on the Nintendo 64 console, the creators of the game achieved great success with the public, but for some reason they never returned to this format.

Bananza, to be honest, is not immediately perceived as a continuation of those "Dunky Congas". Rather, it's like a sequel to one of the best Switch Super Mario Odyssey games of 2017, a flawless, masterpiece 3D adventure. There were also hangar-like levels, and the gameplay mechanics were similar. Mario had a talking magic hat as a partner there, and Dunky Kong wanders in the company of a girl singer in the new release. In the Russian translation, her name is Polina. With her magical voice, she transforms Dunky Kong into different creatures, together they are not only a pop duo, but also an invincible team.

Speaking of Pauline. For the first time in the adventures of Dunky Kong, we hear Russian. It's clear that the main character can't speak any language, he's a gorilla, and he's also very dim-witted! He communicates with inarticulate interjections, but no one requires rhetorical skills from him. The rest of the characters are translated by subtitles, but they also speak gibberish. But Polina, the only person in this magical kingdom, always uses the same human language. And in Russia, she speaks Russian without an accent.

This is very rare for major console game releases in recent years. And this is also a pretty strong argument for domestic users to spend quite decent money for a game that the distributor "Achivka" officially brought to the country (this company also provided a copy for review to Izvestia). The price of almost 9 thousand rubles is twice as expensive as the average cost of new products for other platforms. But in the case of Bananza, that's unlikely to stop Danky Kong fans. First of all, they waited too long for him. Secondly, this is actually the second big release for Switch 2, and the next one will have to wait, but I want to play, because many rushed to buy the main console of this year, without waiting for a collection of new products. Third, it is a full support for the Russian language.

But the main advantage of the game still remains that it allows you to let off steam. It is clear that in the history of video games there have been many examples when it was possible to destroy everything around during the passage. But there probably weren't any such funny and cleverly made ones, unless you can recall the glorious Worms timekiller from thirty years ago. This is where worms hung with weapons stood in one field and it was possible to smash this field to smithereens along with all its "inhabitants". There was also the glorious spirit of Gianni Rodari's parable, but in the new "Danky Kong" the scale and technique of destruction are much more extensive, and all this, most importantly, also happens in the most relaxed mode. At least at the first levels, but even this is extremely uncharacteristic for the series, which for many gamers is associated with joysticks broken from impotence, because these are complex platformers that require one hundred percent accuracy and reaction. That's not the case here. You just have to hit, break and smash, whistling with pleasure and receiving exclusively positive emotions.