Donkey Kong Bananza’s chaotic co-op gives your kid way too much power

Donkey Kong Bananaza is a classic Nintendo game through and through. It’s a throwback to the likes of Super Mario Sunshine and Wario World, pulled from an era of 3D platformers where Nintendo was reaching new creative heights in the GameCube era. But it’s also vintage Nintendo thanks to its co-op gameplay. Like Super Mario Odyssey, Bowser’s Fury, and even The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker before it, Donkey Kong Bananza features a multiplayer mode built primarily for parents who want to play with kids who can’t quite control a full 3D character yet.

And it’s total chaos.

At any point, players can flip on co-op mode from the main menu. Once activated, a second player gains control of Pauline as she sits on Donkey Kong’s shoulders. Their job? Simply point a cursor using mouse controls and blast rocks to help DK defeat enemies and blast through the environment. It’s a simple helper mode that’s not too far off from Super Mario Galaxy’s Luma-shooting mode, just using a mouse instead of a pointer. It’s a great idea for younger kids who can simply play an on-rails shooter while an adult handles the tough stuff.

But because this is Donkey Kong Bananza, a game about the joy of destruction, it was not enough to simply give player two a pea shooter. So instead, they get a bazooka. Every time player two fires a stone, or any other material they can copy by holding down the Joy-con’s trigger, they shoot an enormous blast that’s seemingly 10x stronger than DK’s punch. Each shot is accompanied by a giant word like “Yeah!” that pops up on screen. There is no set amount of ammo and no cooldown between shots.

If you give your child a Joy-Con, be warned that you are handing them a weapon of mass destruction. Player two has all the power in that situation, as they can completely blast the floor out from under DK and drill them into a hole. The ape loses all control, forced to punch his way out of whatever hell player two has placed them in. Nintendo may have built the mode for kids, but its true calling is as the greatest griefing tool ever put into a video game. It surpasses Wind Waker’s bomb-dropping Game Boy Advance integration on the scale of “games that will make you hate your friends.”

Of course, player two can also be a force of good if they choose to be (they will not). I played through Sublayer 101 with my girlfriend and found that her assistance unlocked some serious speedrun potential as she could snipe giant fossils from across the map and toss boom rocks at pipes to quickly raise the map’s water level with less puzzle platforming. Bosses and challenge ruins can also be finished in an instant with player two’s help. If you see Bananza at a Games Done Quick event come January, expect co-op to be the meta.

Just a word of advice if you’re curious about trying it: Do not, under any circumstances, try to play with two single Joy-Cons. Because there simply aren’t enough buttons on a Joy-Con half, the controls essentially get split between both players. That means that player two ends up having control of the camera and the ability to pop the map open. It caused some drama in my household last night, as trying to coordinate camera placement with another person requires a level of synchronicity only known by Pacific Rim pilots. I don’t care how talented your child is; they are not up to the task.

Even if it’s a total mess, I’m all for this as a co-op mode. Sometimes multiplayer is about working together to achieve a goal. More often, it’s about getting a good laugh at a loved one’s expense. Bonanza is a barrel of the latter.