With all the hubbub about Donkey Kong’s new look in Donkey Kong Bananza, one artist took it upon themselves to reimagine what the King of Swing might have looked like in the upcoming Switch 2 game if Nintendo had stuck with previous design.
“I don’t like how they portray DK in Bananza, so I edited some of his most weirder faces and made them more faithful to Rare’s design,” Felipe Valdés said in their initial X post from April 20 before asking folks for their feedback.
The edits seem to revolve around shrinking Donkey Kong’s new, giant mouth and making his soft brows more rigid.
Donkey Kong in Bananza is an expressive goofball, whereas Valdés’ attempts to recreate Donkey Kong’s look from Rare games like Donkey Kong Country gives him a tougher, old-school edge. I’m an old man afraid of change so, obviously, I prefer the latter, even if I appreciate Nintendo’s attempts to add more ape-like silliness to his Bananza animations.
It’s worth noting, of course, that these are still images. As nice as they look, it’s possible Donkey Kong’s old, Rare design simply didn’t work in the art style Nintendo wanted to use with Bananza. And while I love Valdés’ work and appreciate the time they put into this passion project, it’s important we don’t pull a “Nintendo, hire this man” over some pretty edits when the work that goes into making a video game is a much more involved and intricate process. Some of us may prefer Donkey Kong’s old look, but we shouldn’t dismiss the efforts of Bananza’s development team in the process. The game still looks very good.
