Analytic Dreamz: Notorious Mass Effect - "DONKEY KONG BANAZA SALES & REVIEW ROUND-UP"

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/Analytic⁠Become A Patron Of The Notorious Mass Effect Podcast For Additional Bonus Audio And Visual Content For All Things Nme! Join Our Patreon Here: ⁠https://ow.ly/oPsc50VBOuH⁠Notorious Mass Effect: Donkey Kong Bonanza BreakdownJoin Analytic Dreamz in this segment of Notorious Mass Effect, diving into Donkey Kong Bonanza, a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive. Explore its 3D sandbox platforming, destructible environments, and animal transformations like Ostrich and Zebra. Discover co-op with Pauline, 100+ collectible songs, and biomes from lava zones to icy caverns. With 3M+ units sold and a 91/100 Metacritic score, it’s a critical hit despite minor camera and story critiques. Learn how to snag it for under £50 via TopCashback. Tune in for insights, stats, and gameplay highlights with Analytic Dreamz!Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Split fiction, clear, obscure, Expedition 33, Elder Ring, Night Rain, Blueprints, Mario Kart World, and then, of course, Donkey Kong, Bonanza. What do all of these games have in common? Well, I'm glad you ask. As when it comes to the reviews for these specific games, I just mentioned, they're nines and tens across the board, as, of course, I think this game. being compared to Super Mario Odyssey is very interesting because of course Nintendo EPD is the same developers behind Super Mario Odyssey but that that does not mean that the level of quality will be

the same or even similar but safe the same when it comes to the review roundups that we're about to get into they are indeed the same if not better because people are saying this may be the best game that Nintendo has put out in quite some time. on. Shepard. Just look at the state of gaming. Like, what is going on? Sometimes I think to myself that same thing, because what is going on when Donkey Kong

Bonanza comes out of nowhere? Because everybody was kind of thinking, like, Expedition 33 definitely has game of the year wrapped up. I mean, for me personally, my favorite game of the year is split fiction, which, you know, shameless plug. My entire gameplay walkthrough is out on analytic dreams video on Spotify. But as far as that, gameplay walkthrough. of split fiction and me playing with my cousin, I think that added to me having split fiction

and putting it on that pedestal as far as my favorite game of the year. But when it comes to that, I do want to talk about how Donkey Kong Bonanza being compared to Super Mario Odyssey is very interesting from a sales perspective because of course over here at notorious mass effect, We try to get into things that notoriously impact the masses and infect the masses, you know, pun intended. So I wanted to talk about sales for a little bit because, of course, if what people are saying is true and is one of the better games than Nintendo has ever put out. But now we got to look at it from a sales perspective as with Super Mario Odyssey, the sales are already solidified. We already know how successful it was for Donkey Kong Bonanza. it literally just came out.

Literally just came out. So with that being said, let's try to look over the Super Mario Odyssey sales and try to compare on what we could see from Donkey Kong Bonanza in the foreseeable future. As of March 31st, 2025, Super Mario Odyssey sold around 29.28 million units worldwide, making it the fifth best-selling Nintendo Switch title overall, which is a huge accomplishment, of course. you go on to realize the Animal Crossing, Super Smash Bros, the Legend of Zelda, and then Mario Kart 8 are all above it in Lifetime sales, and you realize.

Donkey Kong is nowhere in that list. So are we saying that Donkey Kong is making a return and Donkey Kong Bonanza? Are we saying that this may be the definitive game for how people look at the character of Donkey Kong going forward? Because, of course, I'm not saying Donkey Kong. as a niche character by any stretch of their imagination i mean y'all saw the mario movie just like me i enjoyed it for other people i mean they may they might not have but ultimately i think a lot of people enjoyed the movie donkey cong was in that so when it comes to that style and him having his own game

and then now you look at the sales as mario and zelda with with a little animal crossing throwing in there is ultimately the top selling ipes for nintendo if somehow Nintendo EPD found a way to make Donkey Kong a A1, like an A-lister as far as sales-wise. Because of course there's a character. We already know who Donkey Kong is. But as far as sales, specifically in the past four to five years, as this is the first 3D Donkey Kong adventure and 25 years. So somebody was looking at the bottom line and saying to themselves, you know what?

Let's hold off on that Donkey Kong game. Five years past. You know what? Let's hold off on that Donkey Kong game. game let's put out the next Mario cart installment let's put out the next installment of Mario in space let's put out the next installment of Mario playing tennis like ultimately Donkey Kong I'm not gonna say he was getting disrespected because Mario saved saving so he he deserves all the preferential treatment that he gets but donkey Kong being put out for 25 years since the

dk adventure game as far as donkey Kong 64 um 25 years is a long time. I don't think anybody's going to, you know, try to dispute that fact. So 25 years since a 3D adventure from Donkey Kong. And now that it's came back, it's shaping up to be not only the one of the better games in Nintendo history, but of all time. I think, um, looking at the sales of Mario Odyssey, Donkey Kong, Bonanza could end up becoming one of the better selling games that Nintendo has ever put out. It may be up there with the animal crossing of the world, the Mario Car Ace of the world. So you kind of understand why I'm going with that when it comes from a sales perspective.

So because Donkey Kong just came out, we can't really talk about the sales right now. A lot of people is seeing, the hype is through the roof as far as everybody waiting to play the game. So I think it's going to sell well, but obviously only time will tell. So getting into the overall game for people who are not as familiar, just know that this latest installment of the Donkey Kong. adventure is a 3D sandbox platforming with near total destructible environments, meaning that you could destroy everything.

As you can see right now, analytic dreams video on Spotify to see the video along with the audio. Apparently, everything in the game can be destroyed. Reminds me, I know this may be a throwback to some people, but it reminds me of, I think it was cracked down two or three. It was whenever the zombies came in. Whenever you got to certain areas, you could, like, destroy certain areas, like, completely. apparently with Donkey Kong

that's like entirely the game that's the whole premise to showcase how strong Donkey Kong actually is and then when it comes to the transformations there's three transformations as far as animal theme powers there's the gliding

I think you're seeing that right now the rapid dash which is the zebra the terrain destruction which is giant a giant decay and then your currency in the game is called Banandium

What in the world? Bonandium gems. Banana banana deem. Yo, what is this? I ain't going to lie. I'm keeping that in there too. I don't know how to pronounce that. Banana deem gems.

Those are the collectible currency for the skill trees and ability upgrades. And of course, you have transversial tools like surfboards, flying my amounts, mine carts, with rainbow smoke and then it does support co-op as far as arranged vocal attacks that's co-op with Pauline or Broadway style busts as far as solo so you can drop in drop out co-op using switch two's joycon enhancements and then ultimately when it comes to the design and side

content a lot of people are probably going to be wondering how long is the game how much of my life am i going to put into this game to complete it fully well for completion is out there just know it's going to run you about 30 to 40 hours to beat the game completely as far as completing everything and the side content as far as the main story it could be a little under 20 hours if you just run through the main story so ultimately i'm not going to say it's a short game by any stretch of the imagination because if you can get 40 plus hours out of a game, including all of the side content. That's definitely enough as far as the dollar amount. When it comes to the main story, if you can run through the game in under 20 hours,

safe to say, either you're a speed runner or you're just not trying to take in the environment. Because apparently the environment is one of the biggest charming things about the game, especially the attention and detail. A lot of people didn't bring this game up. I don't know if that's on purpose. I want to be surprised with Nintendo when they sent out like press copies of the game if they would have said to the reviewers

hey hey if y'all bring up Astrobot we're going to take your tongue we're going to cut it out your mouth and we're just going to keep it in the jar so ultimately I think when it comes to reviewers I want to be surprised if they had a

oh don't talk about don't bring up don't mention Astrobat or we're going to find you because if you don't know, when he comes to AstroBai, it's a lot of ex-Nintendo developers that made that game. And we already know how tremendously, how tremendous that game turned out.

I think that's still one of the better games of last year because it came out last year, right? Let me see. Let me see. Astrobot release date. Yeah, so Astrobot came out September 6, 2024. Now, of course, you probably won't hear Astrobot being brought up in a lot of these conversations because I'm not going to lie to you.

I feel like Nintendo really hates Astrobot because if there's X Nintendo developers and they actually made a quality platformer over at PlayStation that's exclusively for PlayStation titled Astrobat. Like you know how much confidence you have to have in a game to making your overall mascot and give it not one but two games. Like don't forget, when PS4 came out, they've been hinting at Astrobot in this world. And then when Astrobyt actually came out, as far as last year, people realized how great of a game it actually was. Now, when it comes to this game,

I think ultimately Donkey Kong may showcase why you can maybe emulate at certain factors as far as mechanics, but Nintendo is the cream of the crop when it comes to platforming and putting out an infectious game and a very enjoyable game. And, ultimately unique because they've set the boundary. They've set the bar for how we look at platforms, especially with Mario. You already know my praise for Mario. So I don't have to go over that time and time again.

But the way that Mario saved gaming from people just looking at it like a kid hobby, like, oh, if you play games, you just don't do anything in life or something like that. And people just was looking down on gamers and then Mario came out. And then all of a sudden, everybody was a gamer now. I'll be like, oh, I love Mario, you know? So, you know, the way that Mario save gaming is really underrated, I think, at certain points in time because people forget, especially nowadays before Night and things that nature. A lot of games are going crazy into the mainstream. So a lot of the unique factors of Donkey Kong bananas is also, well, I already talked about the destructible environment, the co-op play.

There's an underground gold rush theme with banana diem. mine i'm probably butchering that but i'm trying my best i ain't gonna cap to you that banana dm is messing me up so minding that as a game play slash narrative driver there's customization depth as far as outfits and fur unlocks tied to exploration so you know you explore you unlock certain things in the game the standard price is uh i think it's sixty five dollars let me see con Bonanza I believe it's I don't think it's $80

I think that was only for Mario Kart World because they probably already they probably didn't want to make any more people upset as far as raising the prices for no reason so yeah Donkey Kong Bonanza is $69 so technically $70 that's a regular

regular price that's usually for an Nintendo platform Mario Kart was like $80 and that made everybody and their mama upset. So I'm glad they're not keeping that a trend when it comes to flagship IPs for the consoles. So ultimately, the other thing I wanted to get into

was people reviewing the game because, of course, this is also, is the sales and review roundup. So when it comes to that, people who have reviewed the game, as far as Tom's guy gave it a 4.5 out of 5, saying absolute joy distinctive visuals a few camera issues but abundant collectibles and then let me see IGN gave it a nine a nine at a ten saying a tremendous reinvention for

decay Metacritic is sitting at a 91 out of a hundred and that's like a conglomerate so of course you know a lot of people have input when it comes to that screen rent gave it a 4.5 at a 5 saying quote old school charm with true freedom and then you have uh let's see there's another one i was was a c o g it was one of them oh dextero that's one uh dextero that's one uh dextero gave it a four out of five saying blast from start to finish collect athon fun minor frame rate hiccups and docked mode. Now, of course, I've heard that. I've heard that the developers literally came out, which, you know, to be fair,

when I first saw this, I was thinking to myself, hold up. Did a developing studio just come out and say that their exclusive hardware is maybe not up to snuff for their game? Shepard, just look at the state of gaming. Like, what is going on? Sometimes I look at, you know,

certain PR teams. And I just look at the social media posts. And I'm just thinking to myself. Shepard, just look at the state of gaming. Like, what is going on? Like, what is going on when companies are hourly saying that the hardware that we can only put this game on, the exclusive hardware that we have to use for this game may not be compatible enough to run this game effectively?

like what in the world who says that you know what i mean it's like if astrobate developers came out it was like you know what i'm not going to lie to y'all that playstation 5 ps5 pro like uh it just it's just it's really uh it's struggling they're struggling to run our game man we tried our best you know what i'm saying they like held up we tried our best you know what i'm saying if our developing uh powers can't get over the unoptimized console then i'm sorry but like who says that so as far as nintendo EPD to come out to say that because actually let me see if I can find that because y'all going think I'm making that out because that sounds so blasphemous right why with somebody who only has one console come out and kind of trash the console uh let me see donkey

donkey Kong switch to I can't I can't put problems because I don't know if I'll pop up because I think they'll say um see I guess I will get into Pauline at some point. Should I say problems? Frame rate? I don't know. Problems. I'm trying to see if I can't pull this up,

now I'm just going to leave it along. But let's see. I'm a possible switch one. Okay. So the developers came out. They said they couldn't include all the ideas they wanted because of memory usage. All the baseline features, including the transformations and Pauline,

were fully programmed as far as, as far back as 20, 21. So basically, they would say with the move to switch two, so they're talking about switch one, right? So the switch one wasn't up to snuff, which is still crazy to say about the exclusive platform. They came out and said, with the move to switch two, we gained not only more memory,

but also greater processing capacity that gave us the freedom to incorporate gameplay ideas we previously abandoned because they were too demanding. When we got down to trying it, we discovered that not only could it handle the heavy processing requirements, but it also ran at 60 frames per second. Things we've given up on like explosives. So they was really just trashing the switch one. So yeah, I stand corrected with that one. It was just trashing the switch one.

See, this is why I, you know what I mean? The main thing I'll be, I'll be trying to, I don't try to get fake news. So if I pull up a quote, that's the main reason. I don't want to make it. So this is the quote from them. i know it's just a it's just a text in the white background but you just got to believe me this is from nintendo so so um you'll see if i could find this right quick let me see so y'all can read this okay analytic dreams video on spotify to see the video along with the audio so here right here

they say they move to switch two and then basically uh right right here it talks about it handling the processing requirements so move they moved to switch two and then they say said it could handle the processing requirements. So that's interesting. They said it was having issues on the Switch 1, but ultimately the Switch 2 is still a phenomenal platform for it to run on. But of course, a lot of people coming out saying, oh, hold on, pull myself back, a lot of people are saying that Donkey Kong Bonanza is having some performance issues such as frame rate

drops on the Switch 2, but the director says that they're aware of the performance. issues and they can dip during certain sequences however however what however what however the game is smooth overall that's like me going to a restaurant being like hold up um you know some of some of my food is cold right now you know what I mean the fries came out the chicken nuggets came out you know I'm saying my burger came out but half of my fries is kind of cold. And then the chef looking at you, looking at your food and looking back at you,

and being like, well, what about the rest of the meal? Like, hold up now. Hold up now. Like, you guys. See, that's the problem. Nah, see, that's the problem right there. Kizuya Takashi came out and said that they're aware of performance dipping during certain sequences. However, the game is smooth overall.

Yeah, sometimes I'd be thinking, like, what do you? like what goes through their mind when they when they say stuff like that like they think like that's okay like if you know like if you're a reviewer if you're a game reviewer you can say you can say stuff like oh this was a minor nipick of mine but overall the game is fine if you're a developer of the game that can actually fix it that has the code to fix it and you're like ah the rest of the game is fine it's like what y'all the most profitable the most profitable gaming company in the world and y'all talking to y'all players like that which you know

it's whatever i guess you know at some point i guess that's why they're the most profitable which if you don't know nintendo has a hundred and nine billion as far as uh july 2025 and that's far that's far ahead of any other company the closest when it comes to gaming companies not like companies in general but that that's probably up there too as far as companies in general but as far as gaming they are by far in the way number one uh roblocks is the second closest with uh 76 billion but nintendo by far in the way it's the most profitable gaming company in the world so um yeah man them coming out and saying this is this you know i guess they're just like hey deal with it man overall is the the game is fine and people are going to deal with it because you know like i've even on social media

people have been commenting on the on the clip i put out as far as me talking about how the drop the price movement is the worst movement in gaming history people say we're not going to support mario car world mario car world is is out there they're almost selling as much as the Nintendo Switch 2. There's 3.5 million Nintendo Switches out in the world currently. Mario Kart World has 3 million sales. Shepard. Just look at the state of gaming.

Like, what is going on? Sometimes I think to myself, what is going on when they have a whole movement title, drop the price, and Nintendo Switch 2 right after that becomes the best-selling console of all time. Ladies and gentlemen, that is some interesting work. I ain't going to cap to you. So that's the review roundup. Those are the cell roundups.

When it comes to the game, I do think the destructible aspect is its main claim, the fame as he's always been a strong character. He's always been that's how he's been depicted. And even the Mario universe. So now, when you're looking at Donkey Kong, acting like this, breaking everything in his path, having totally destructible environments and it actually running on the Nintendo Switch 2 which is another thing because a lot of games that were third parties of Nintendo Switch 2 had a lot to say about its performance issues to the point where I think we're going to run into the same situation as then that the Nintendo Switch ran into as far as certain games

not being able to be on the Switch platform because because the hardware is just not optimized enough because every single time a game developer will be, will get asked, oh, is your game coming to Nintendo Switch? And they look dead in the camera. And be like, we have no plans for our game coming to Nintendo Switch. Or they say, oh, we don't have any plans on porting our game to Nintendo Switch. Like they say, then the nicest way possible. And then time and time again, every developer is out here saying the same thing.

So it's not a good look as far as Nintendo. though. Some would say, why not just make a whole flagship console, like a, as powerful as the PS5 and the Xbox? Because obviously they have the money, right? But when it comes to Nintendo, I think the graphics model that they go with is to literally recoup off of the consoles. Because if you don't know, when it comes to the PlayStation 5, even though it's selling like 5 to 1 now, it used to be 4 to 1. But now it's selling 5 to 1 as far as 1. For every Xbox series X or as sold, does 5 PS5 sold? As far as the, the race, right? So they've lapped Xbox and then some, which is why some people argue Xbox is

going to the console list route. But ultimately, the high graphics such as cyberpunk, such as some other games, Alast of Us, such as God of War, Spider-Man, takes a lot of money to develop those type of games, and it makes it hard to recoup off of that, let alone, PlayStation and Microsoft don't even try to recoup. coop off the consoles and I think that's one of the reasons so Nintendo notoriously always recoups off of the consoles that sold simply due to the fact that their games are lower budget as far as to make now still a lot of money of course but as far as a graphically intensive process is not as intense as a god of war as a last of us so that it makes it easier to get to obtain that ROI so

hopefully it makes sense but um when it comes to donkey Kong bonanza that is my sales and review round up so with that being said clicking my link to my bio let me know on one of my social medias what do you think about donkey Kong bonanza what do you think about it being compared to super mario odyssey in in the year of 2025 do you believe that this may end up being game of the year