Driving Me Bananza

While illness derailed my chance to play Donkey Kong Bananza with my five-year old son, watching him figure it out on his own has been a delight

Seven-year-old me loved Donkey Kong Country for the Super Nintendo. Hell, thirty-seven-year-old me loves it, too. Aside from a few pulls on the arcade classic, Donkey Kong Country was, for many millennials of a certain age, the true introduction to DK and his friends. And what an introduction it was. The gorgeous graphics blew my mind, looking unlike anything else I had seen on the console (except for maybe Super Mario RPG, another beautiful testament to the SNES). Throw in tricky gameplay mechanics and music that still sounds amazing, and it’s fair to say developer Rare simply ate. We all did! The game is an all-time classic, even if we get diminishing returns with two sequels on the console – for real, why do Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3 look like that?

While I was still a fan of Donkey Kong 64, I prefer the straightforward and linear platforming of the earlier games. I just find myself a touch overwhelmed when it comes to the sprawling maps and dozens of hidden collectibles strewn about in DK 64. While Donkey Kong Country would return nearly twenty years later with DKC: Tropical Freeze, it didn’t feel as slick or polished as that 1994 debut.

This box art broke my brain during the Clinton admin

The feeling of being slightly overwhelmed is one I share with the 3D Super Mario games, starting with Super Mario 64. It was an eye-popping game, but keeping track of stars, locked doors, and all the collectibles just doesn’t do it for me. I really enjoyed Super Mario Odyssey when it came out in 2017. I promptly played through the story, finished the game, and landed in the Mushroom Kingdom sometime in October 2017. Feels like a lifetime ago – and in some ways it was, as I was trying to finish the game before the arrival of my first child the following month. I beat the game and just kinda…left it at that. At least until 2023 when my son, fresh off the Super Mario movie, decided to give the game a whirl.

Suddenly, we’d be collecting power moons in 2024 and watching them appear on the in-game list, just next to the ones I collected three kids and seven years before in 2017. But for the imposition of screen time limits, he’d be willing to spend hours running around as Mario, throwing his hat on anything that moves in the quest to find more moons. I’m pretty sure he has collected more than I have – and in 2025, we still aren’t finished. This is probably a good time to acknowledge I’ve never gotten a 100% completion trophy in a single video game in my life. It just doesn’t appeal to me.

When the Switch 2 was announced, my son joined me in my thirst for the console, despite its sparse initial game offerings. After the excitement of Mario Kart World wore off him on June 7^th, he went back to playing Minecraft and Luigi’s Mansion. But when Donkey Kong Bananza was announced, he salivated at the announcement trailer. It wasn’t what I was expecting yet was entirely in his lane. Having secured a Switch 2, I preordered both the game and the amiibo for him once rumblings came about the Super Mario Odyssey team played an integral role in developing this game. I knew it would be a special game for him, and that alone was something I cherished as a father of a budding gamer.

Promo still for Donkey Kong Bananza

Since I’m a responsible parent, my son missed out on the midnight launch of the Switch 2. To make amends, I offered to take him to Best Buy on DKB launch day to pick up the game together. It was something we both looked forward to, marking it on the calendar in my office and giving him periodic updates as to how many days left until the new Donkey Kong game came out. A week or so before launch however, I was hospitalized with Osteomyelitis of the thoracic spine. I was optimistic I would be out in time to still take him, until my projected four-day stay was extended to nine.

My initial dismay at missing the promised launch day party quickly gave way to excitement when my wife dutifully took my son to Best Buy to pick up our preorder, sending me a photo of my pajama-clad son in the car. We Facetimed a bit on launch day, and I was able to watch him, slightly puzzled, as he began navigating the gameplay mechanics. When I was eventually discharged home to begin a six-to-eight-week course of IV antibiotics, I was frankly too weak or in too much pain to plop down on the couch next to him to play the game or even attempt to negotiate the destruction-based gameplay loop. To my great surprise, my about-to-be-Kindergartener had mostly figured it out!

I’ve maybe played about an hour of the game over the last two weeks, but I’ve spent hours watching and helping him play through the game as he reached sublayer 700. I have no idea how far he has gotten in the overall game or how many layers are left, but it does not matter. Sure, the game is wonderful and deserving of the accolades lauded upon it. My true joy, though, has come from watching him negotiate the gameplay and world. Yes, destroying the environment is fun in a not-climate-changey way. Yet seeing my son’s developing coordination, problem solving, and even his map reading skills grow while playing has moved me to proud dad tears more than once.

Screenshot from Donkey Kong Bananza

Even a year ago, playing a game with him mostly meant playing it for him. He doesn’t necessarily need me for that anymore, even if he still needs me to do most of the reading for him. Yet he still wants me there, on the couch with my IV bag, either playing with or just watching him as Donkey Kong and Pauline burrow themselves closer to the planet’s core.

It reminds me of a book we read together, I Can Open It For You by Shinsuke Yoshitake, about a young boy who needs his parents to open everyday items for himself. He laments his inability to do so and imagines a world where he can open literally anything for anyone. For now, though, he has to rely on his mom. When she’s unable to open something, he turns to his father who is practically giddy at the request. He explains that he’s happy to do it because the day will come when his son no longer needs his help. I relate to it with my three children, all in different stages of development. Try reading it to your young child without crying, I dare you.

This book perfectly captures the bittersweet feeling of watching your child grow

One day, my beautiful boy won’t need me to read dialogue or perform a double jump for him. Hell, he probably will recoil when I ask if I can sit next to him on the couch. I know it’s normal and all well and good. I can still hate the thought of him being a smelly teenager who rolls his eyes at me. But for now at least, we have each other – and Donkey Kong.