Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Donkey Kong Bananza Spoilercast - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

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What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Donkast for Friday, August 8th, 2025. Of course, I am your host, Tim Gettys. I'm joined today by my Donkey Kong brothers bear Courtney. Hi, Tim. I forgot that we were doing this this morning. And I was like, damn it, I look more like shit than usual. Like, I usually look like shit. But like before I get on content, I like to shave the head.

I like to shave the scruff. And like, I just totally blanked on that. And as I got into the studio, I was like, fuck, I'm on camera today. You look good, I don't know. You look good, first of all, and then you didn't wear your signature hat? I wasn't feeling the hat today. Weirdly enough. What do you think is my signature hat?

No, you just mean hats in general. What is the signature one? Yeah, a beanie. The beanie? The beanie. Yeah, you know the one. Yeah, okay. It's the one.

Okay. I feel like I'd like to see you in bigger hats if I could make a request. No. Because I've seen you in small hats. Yeah. But how big can we go? You know? Well, there's that big one in the left.

Yeah. He had to you like an Xavier Woods hat. Yeah, do you see his head? Yeah, do you see Xavier Woods? No. He's in mourning. Him and Coffey lost the tag team championship and they're very upset about it. So they've been dressing in like funeral garb the last couple weeks.

And he came out with a very, very large hat. Roger, if you could somehow find the thank you very much. There you go, Barrett. What the fuck? So I'd like to see Barrett in that hat. But we'll have to wait for that. You look so good. Blessing out of you, Jr.

Good day, Tim. Good day to you. you still thinking about those little guys I'm thinking about all those little guys man yeah what's the little guy gonna be in the next dK bananza game because I hope it's ditty I want pauline I want dK and ditty reunited

Diddy is the ultimate little guy yeah he is fucking man I love ditty Kong as well yeah yeah I'll clarify that this is the kind of funny games cast each every weekday

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for you. We're an 11-person business, all about live talk shows. After games or after for this, we did games daily. It was me and blessed. It was a fun episode that was completely rational and no one got upset. And then after this is going to be an amazing episode of Nick Scarpino's Games Showdown. The big finale. The big finale.

It's been a tournament the last couple weeks. All of the winners will face off against each other for a life-changing prize, a $25 gift certificate to Outback Steakhouse. Who will win? Tune in to find out. Then after that, the stream is going to be more Battlefield 6. If you're a kind of funny, Remember, today's Gregway is coming to you from Roger.

Roger, what's it about? It's Roger and Mike. We're going to do an extra long one because Mike forgot to do it yesterday, so we're going to do an extra long one. I like that. Okay. Y'all are going to hang out and collude some more. All right. We also got some ideas for fantasy critic.

I'm going to pitch that to my team. We got some ideas. We got some ideas. We got some other trades. We got some other trades that we want to ban both of them from the next season. We got to, oh, okay. The two funnest people on the fucking league you're trying to ban? Didn't know you didn't know you didn't like fun.

We're going to work together for the entirety of this thing. Roger, what happened to you? What happened to you? Also, you dropped Ninja Guide in Ford. Mitchell Saltman said it's the best game ever made. How do you feel now? I don't even know that man. I don't even know.

The men we do know. Of course, our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney, the Somme, Twainty. Thank you so much. Today we're brought to you by Kind of Funny in review, but we'll tell you all about that later. For now and start with the topic of the show. Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tats.

Donkey Kong Bonanza has been out about three weeks. Obviously, we have reviewed it. We have talked about it extensively, but there are many things that we have not been able to talk about because we didn't want to spoil it for anybody. We wanted you to have your experience with the game. But here we are now taking all that back, and we're about to spoil everything.

If you do not want to hear about Donkey Kong Bonanza, leave. This is not the place for you. Go play the game and then come back. You might be like, how is there going to be spoilers in Donkey Kong Bananza? I've seen a lot of that this morning. They're just are. They're just are.

Okay. It's crazy. It's, and you just need to know that. And we're about to talk about all of them. So that is your warning from here on out. It is full spoilers if we want to about every single element about Donkey Kong Bonanza. And if I'm being honest,

all Nintendo games. You're about to get spoiled. Damn. I mean, like, you have to beat every single Nintendo game. We're not going to spoil. If you haven't beat arms, get the fuck out of here.

I imagine we will be, to some extent, spoiling Mario Odyssey and Donkey Kong Country game. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know what I mean. You're here. We're about to have a good time. But we're going to start that off with

Barrett Courtney's review of Donkey Kong Bonanza. He's the only person at this table that has not yet given a score to this game or really given many thoughts. You've kind of talked here and there. Yeah, it was, I think it came out well, obviously like we got the one review code and then I didn't

beat it until like the night before I left for Denver. So I've just been, it was like unfortunate timing for me. But yeah, as someone who grew up loving and adoring Donkey Kong 64 and has been waiting for another like 3D Donkey Kong entry in the series for a majority of my life, like the idea of Bonanza was so like I was so hot on. I was I was so excited for, especially after Mario Odyssey, right? like you like even back when that game came out uh blessed like you and i were going back on forth

on like how much influence in terms of like mobility uh we felt like dk 64 had on like what odyssey does yeah and then the excitement of like oh it's the odyssey team doing donkey Kong like this is just it's going to weirdly come full circle in like a weird way right um and then after getting to play it and going through it and having a lot of a lot of highs and then a lot of a lot of kind of not lows but feeling kind of just eventually going through the motions especially in like kind of the middle part of the game I think this this game has really fun gameplay feel

I think in terms of gameplay design as you're playing through the game I think it does get a little bit samie for a little too long but then it ends with incredible payoff as someone who's a big Donkey Kong fan in terms of all of the goofy, like, lore and, like, a history of Donkey Kong. And so I think at the end of the day, after beating it, after doing the, like, kind of main post-game thing and re-rolling credits with that, I think I would give Donkey Kong Bonanza an 8.5. I think it's a great game. I think it is a worthy kind of successor to

Mario Odyssey and Donkey Kong 65. for in a weird way if that makes sense in terms of collectathon and how big of a collectathon it is and can be and all this stuff. So I had a really great time with it. Definitely a contender for me, but yeah.

Hell yeah. Bless now that you are a couple of weeks removed, you first played the game and I don't think you gave it a score and then because you didn't beat it yet. And then when you beat it, you did give it a score, which was. I believe they gave it a 10 out of 10. Wow. And now where, I don't think.

Oh, yeah, you weren't on that. It was me and Greg and I think Roger. Yes. Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's the secondary review run of the game. Where are you at with it now, reflecting on that 10 and have you played it since? I've not played much more of it, which is not like, it's not an indictment on the game.

It's not like a, oh, damn, it didn't keep me. I do want to play more. I was very into what they presented as the post game after finishing and then them being like, all right, here's an additional challenge that actually does require you. to have the golden bananas, the bin, the Indian gems. You're going to have to get a certain amount so you can do these rehearsals and help Pauline rehearse this song or whatever, right? Like, I really like that as an additional challenge as like a postgame kind of thing. I just haven't had the time to like go back and like really dedicate myself because I've

been trying to play some other games at the same time too. That said, like I think my feelings remain. I think they remain even more so after sitting with it. just for the sense of I like how bold the direction of Bonanza is, mainly for having it revolve around the smashability of everything, and then also the properties of different types of services and materials and what that does in terms of solving different kind of puzzles, what that does as far as making unique materials, right?

I love the one where I love the name of the Switcherugu, and I love what it does, right, where you punch one thing and then it goes into like a different kind of mold. I think ideas like that are genius The one that you pick up And then you float into the sky The one that you fucking punch And then it creates like

An arching surface that goes far Like there are so many cool ideas In this game that I love And since this spoiler cast We can not talk about the finale And this finale I think is Maybe I would have to think hard about it

Even though I can't think of anything else That I'll say compares I think it's the best Nintendo finale Of any Nintendo game I remember playing Platformers perhaps Yeah. Tears the Kingdom.

I think I put this above Tears the Kingdom finale. Yeah. I think I put Kirby's ending over this one. Kirby's ending was fucking weird. Yeah. I like, so anime. It's so fucking awesome.

For me, the ending for this one, it was like, we'll show some clips later, but it was one of those, it felt like an incredible high that immediately got flattened out because I remember your initial review,

you were saying, like, they went places, and they could have gone farther. And I felt that, like, over and over, like, oh, my God, I can't believe we're getting this, but then it was like a, oh, but we're only, like, you're going to evoke this thing from, you're going to evoke the boxing ring, right? But we're not going to, like, go full tilts into that.

Like, there were decisions that felt like they didn't want to fully commit to fan service. And so, in my mind, I'm like, well, then why do it at all kind of thing? And so, yeah, that was like a weird thing for me. Now, when we say the tiers of the kingdom finale, do we include the last tier that you pick up that, like, has the big reveal and all that shit? Yeah.

Tim is saying yes. I mean, well, yeah, even if you don't, like, that, what the end is follows up on that. Yeah. Yeah, no, do you get in a diving after Zelda and you do the hand thing again. And it's the same exact shot from when he let her go accidentally, but now he actually grabs her and they fall into the water

and they're totally fine. Don't ignore science for a second. King K rule, King of Rot. I don't, I think I have to go bananas. I'm not going to argue with you. I got to go bananas. I didn't, but I'm, I have a scientific mind. Yeah.

I want to do this. I want to make sure that when I make this claim, I can say it with confidence. And I think I can still say it with confidence. Yeah, I think D.K. bananas. And I think the thing that I love about it, and this goes back to the full game, right?

I don't know. We're DK. 64 weirdos. Like, we love this game. And, like, obviously, game was popular when it came out, sold many copies. plenty of people played DK64, right?

So it's not like Nintendo doesn't know that a lot of people have memories of this game but they also treat it like it doesn't exist and so like But then treat it like it does

sell that well though Are you sure? Yeah, I thought it was expansion pack required like Yeah That was they limited that The

availability of that game Like pretty intensely Well there's a video I say that lied to me But there's a I think there is a A lot of follow-up In terms of like

what what DK 64 is as a platformer and what DK Bonanza is as a platformer that have like a lot of parallels. I don't think they're necessarily purposeful, but they are cool to see as far as how grand it is and how much those games go for it. DK64 probably its biggest Achilles heel is how much it goes for it to the place to the place where it's like, okay, this is excessive. And I think that excessiveness kind of shuts it down a little bit. But DK. Bonanza, however, in its finale, in its final like two and a half to three levels, it's it builds on on top of itself so much to where that game could have ended five different times. What I've been like, all right, cool, that was a great, that was a great finish. But he just kept doing that over and over and over again in a way that made me so impressed

by where Nintendo was gone just like narratively. And I know it's weird to talk about Dicuminza narratively, but it does way more than usually when you get out of a Nintendo 3D platformer in that regard. And so the more I sit with it, the more I continue to think about it. And the more I continue to love it. Yeah. Tim, what about you? I mean, I am, I'm right there with you.

it a 10. I stand by that 10. The more I play it, the more I firmly believe that it is a 10 at 10 Nintendo game, video game period, 3D platformer mascot. Like, so many things about this. I think that this game is a masterpiece. I specifically have not been able to talk about the end and I am

obsessed with it. Like to your point, it's up there for me. I am a Donkey Kong country sicko. Love those games dearly. And the Kremlings and Keral are a big part of that. The music surrounding those characters is a big part of that. The look of the Donkey Kong country games, the shadows on the trees and the way the dirt looks and the animal buddies and all of that is so well reflected and represented in this game to a degree that I didn't know was possible.

Like I love the retro games dearly, specifically tropical freeze. And I think that their art style is incredible and the games look fantastic. They don't look like the old Donkey Kong country games. and the nostalgia-based levels in Bonanza look like Donkey Kong country and that is so impressive to me because it's not just the look, it's the sounds,

it's the feel, it's the energy. And when you get towards the end of this game and you get onto that mind cart and there's not many mind-carts in this game, I'd say surprising lack of mind cards. Yeah, I was surprised how much they pulled back, which I think was a smart thing

for when you actually did like a sequence in a mind card, it fucking, hit. And there's, there are some mind card sections in this game for sure, but I feel like most of them are more getting you from one area of a world to another area. It's more like transportation as opposed to like challenge. Yeah. I think there's only like two challenge levels that are mind card based in the whole game. Um, but anyways, towards the end of the game when you're getting through all the layers, right? You get in this mind cart and it starts going down like a roller coaster style long ass drop. And they start giving hints of the Kremlin's music. in the background. And they just start playing the notes subtly. And I'm like, oh, I'm getting chills right now. You can say it this. I was like, they're doing it.

Like, there's been so many hints throughout the game that the crocks are here. They're all crock looking. Like, there's, those skeletons look like, uh, you know, crocodiles. And we were, we're getting rid of Void Co one by one in a way that I'm like, there has to be another big bad. There has to be something. And I would have been very let down if there wasn't,

but I didn't need to because you get down to that layer after the music hints at playing. Then the music starts playing and you start to see the bad guys and it's like it's the Kremlinks. Yeah. Yeah. It's them. It's the B.

It's the freaking armadillo. It's all of the different gators. It's all of the different one. They're making the exact same sounds. When you hit them. Bliss. Like absolute bliss wrapped in this new donkey con experience. Like this is not just a nostalgia play of hey, it's the old stuff.

It is. But they're nailing. the old stuff with gameplay mechanics that are super fun that I feel like those layers were really using all of the different you need this substance to beat that substance like playing with that stuff more than they did in most of the

game and I was just thrilled with all of that by the time you keep going then there's the thing of like wait a minute is that K-Rule's belly is the root his big old belly and it is and then you face off against him and music's playing that sounds cool but it sounds very Mario Odyssey

it's very I'd say not Donkey Kong or not King King King Roll and I was like what a missed opportunity Like you gotta use his theme song What are we doing here? I was a silly silly fool Silly fool of course Ten minutes later

The credits have a fake out Just like they always do In Donkey Kong games You get all the Kremlin's setting credited And then he fucking opens his eyes As gang-gly galion He always has to open his eyes back up You know?

I can't believe How hype this was When that song kicks in The fucking guitar And then you fight him on his stupid little jet pack with a propeller. And then you end up in New Dog City. He takes it over. You go to the fucking fighting ring.

This is magic, man. Yeah. This is pure magic. Yeah. I couldn't. What's funny is I think my expectations just weren't that high for landing, not landing the end. I thought they were going to land the end, right? But I guess I didn't expect them to go over the top with it.

As we were getting to that through the forbidden layer and like the final fight, Void Kong and all that stuff, right? I saw the metal or the gold like tummy thing. I didn't even think King Carol. I was just like, okay, what's the fuck is this root thing? It was like, it was all weird vibes when you get down there. Like, it's not a lot of happy music. The rock dudes are all fucking weird and they're like,

turn back and stuff like that. And for a second, like I kept saying, we both streamed the ending of the game. And when I got down there, I was like, this is going to turn into some weird, neon genesis Evangelian shit and I saw that gold belly and I was like they're going they're going somewhere weird with it I thought

when uh void Kong had DK covered in like the Voidco stuff like the Voidco purple stuff I thought that it was gonna be because I knew someone was coming because I've heard enough people be like oh man this finale finale's crazy oh man you're gonna love it as a fan I was like okay maybe Void Kong

makes like a copy of Donkey Kong and there's an evil Kong and then that it kidnaps Pauline and then that's how we get a clone. So that way the original arcade Donkey Kong is actually a clone. I was like coming up with so many theories just because I was like, we're this late in the game.

This would be such a crazy thing to introduce like Kremlins and shit. So if you, and I don't know this is the time for the first reaction of watching my reaction to fucking King King King. I mean, let's do it. I feel like yeah, we might as well. Yeah, like Roger, I think it's the first.

Yeah, there we go. I was, I really did not expect this. So this is a genuine reaction. Oh shit Fucking genuine Holy shit That's fucking awesome Yeah that's a crazy way to reveal King K rule

And you can probably stop it there I don't know if there's much more Like I legitimately was I did not fucking expect it Oh my God the fucking he look and he looks so good He looks so good He looks so good That's the thing is the the Kremlin's and the in King King King Rule specifically,

they have this like 90s CG plastic quality to them? Yes. That they lean into that gives them such an identifiable and they seem boring. They always look like their toys. Yeah.

Yeah. It's so fucking cool, man. Yeah. Yeah. I kept calling it because before you knew it was King K rule when you just saw the tummy, I kept looking at it. I was like, it's a weird titty. I was like, why he's got a nipple? Like what the fuck is going on?

If we want to go over to to mine, Raj. for me when you go there I kept looking at it being like it's a weird belly button man but not like totally completely forgetting that like King Kroll's whole thing

and so I was like it's gonna be something weird so like we're gonna get into some weird trippy shit with whatever this weird belly button thing it is and yeah I also just like completely kind of forgot because I will say it's like the Voico I thought were like strong enough villains that carried it

much better than the brudels, you know? And so, yeah. That's my thing is I was like, okay, cool, we were doing something new, we're introducing new villains. And I liked Voico. Like, there was a point where I was like, oh, they're not doing the thing. And I think the only times I was kind of disappointed was Poppy Kong's

boss fights that I thought were basic. Yeah, well, I think a lot of, besides the final King K rule fight, I think all of them were kind of basic and disappointing. See, I liked a lot of the boss fights. But Poppy's was so bad, right? Where I, like, I would just keep tapping attack. And because she does the thing where she turns invisible and then comes at you, As long as you're attacking, you're going to hit her.

Yeah. As long as you're tapping the attack button, you're going to fucking knock her out of the thing. Yeah. I just can't stress how important it is to me that K Rule is back. Oh, that they did it this way. Like, this isn't for people that don't know about Donkey Kong or care. I know that just sounds like, oh, the bad guy from the games is here. Like, why is that a big deal?

It really felt like he was written out of history. Yeah. Like him coming back to Smash Brothers really felt like banjo of just like, we'll give him a bone. Yeah. You know, these people want this. but like, and even that was nuts. But for them to bring back the entire crew and for them to make it a story thing,

like throughout the game, when you were talking to cranky Kong, he's telling you, he's like, yo, there's a banana napper. Like he, his whole journey is chasing down K rule.

But it's funny to you because like every time, because it was the same, before we show my reaction, it was the same rant every time you ran into cranky. And I was like, I would have loved more like him doing rant about every level. having a complaint about the fruit level for some reason. It was like, we're doing the same rant for every time you find him to get a golden banana.

And so because of that, I was just so dulled of like, yeah, I guess he's talking about the Void co-president or whatever. But then it's like, when you think back to all of those ranch, you're like, oh, he was talking about King K. K. Rule. All right. Audio up on this one. It's not going to be what you think it is. Oh, God. It was a belly button.

It was fucking King K. Rolls belly button. Fuck yeah. Holy shit. Oh, they haven't been here the entire game. Let's go.

Hey, you can stop it there, but yeah, I was, again, even putting together the belly button thing, but still having that disconnect

was like, ah, it was such a moment. Did they play the music? Like, when did they play the, the, like the DK-64,

King K-Rule theme? That was right before. is right here? Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. Because I think, I forget what my reaction was,

but I think that was another one where I was like, oh my God, they're fucking doing it. They're fucking doing it. I mean, it's crazy too. God,

even his anime, like how jerky he is and his animations, it's so good. It's so perfect. But even seeing the other bad guys, like the B. Yeah.

The quality of that. Yeah. Like, it looks like the box art from Donkey Kong country. I know. And it was one of the, like,

the, uh, skeletons for the, uh, Kremlings very early on. Like, we were streaming it together and I'd said that and having that and then having that payoff

but then not putting together of like oh my god all of all of the enemies we've been fighting the entire time have been the iconic classic Donkey Kong country like enemies and shit it was like so cool and like the bees it was so good that part of me was upset to then go back up through other levels and not see them replaced

by the Kremlin versions the post game needed to have them be all of their classic things that was a huge letdown for me. Yeah. And so that's the thing is I was hinting at this in my review of just like, I wish they went a little further. I am so spoiled because like I can't believe they did this. I can't believe they're back and all of it's so great.

And I really love how they presented it. I think the post game of this game is fantastic. I think that what you get at the end of it is a huge letdown. So like, again, here we are in the spoiler cast. Like when you beat this game, there's so much for you to do because one, you want to go back and collect things. Collecting things in this game is fun.

Two, they're incentivizing you with a clear, post game of where there's like levels to it where you go back to each of the elder animals and they issue you a challenge but you need to have a certain amount of bananas to be able to do that challenge. Which is like weirdly where the game

finally becomes a collectathon. Like Janet brought this up on Blue Sky I think the other day of because I don't think she's beaten the game but she's like can we really call this a collectathon when they don't kind of gate you to do anything? Yeah, it was kind of weird that they saved that for post game because even Odyssey did that.

Like you had to collect a certain amount of moons to keep going. And I threw up the game was collecting a lot. Like I had a lot. So like by the time I got to this post game, it was never too big of a struggle for me to. I think when I beat it, I already had access to what three out of five of them. I think when, yeah, when I think the last one is 600 or something or maybe even 5.50. I remember by the time I beat the game and I saw like, oh, you start at 300. I was like, okay, it's probably going to be 50 every time.

And I already had like 630 or something like that. So yeah, so I went back and I had to get a bunch, which I had a blast doing. And I loved those levels. Not all equally. Like I do the snake is just not a power by like. Yeah. So that snake level was a- I like the bounds.

I don't like how the slowdown thing feels. Yeah. It always feels weird and off. But anyways, doing all these things, I was like, this is awesome. I love that there's a lot of this great content. You get the final level, which I thought was a blast, a perfect, perfect example of a Nintendo final gauntler level

where it is vastly more challenging than the rest of the game, but doable in a way that's not just like fuck you hard for no reason and shows off what the whole experience of the game was. I love them putting your abilities to the test in all the different ways. It just feels like it has a really nice sense of progression. But then you beat it and all of the post game was doing rehearsals with the elders to like learn a new song that Pauline's going to sing. And then she doesn't sing a new song.

The game ends with the screenshot. Oh, fuck off. Yeah, so it's it, you know, you do the final one and it's all the elder DJs like jamming out. And then she's like, oh, I think I have like a little melody. And then she goes, do, do, do do do do. And it's like, oh, that's cute. And then credits roll again. And so I'm expecting, oh, we're going to hear this song.

Yeah. In the credits. And it's just the same credits. And then you get that that screenshot. is like the big payoff. And that was like, that was a big like, oh, like I don't,

I don't think it's a strong post game. I think it's a really disappointing post game. Really? For me. Oh, yeah. Why so? Because of this pay,

like what you do. Like, I think the reward, but in terms of the game, like, I mean, I think the gameplay, I think the gameplay is,

you know, I don't think it's, I think it's fun, but it also reminds me of like, I wanted more of this level of challenge in the main game. And so it's one of those, like, I think it's a high,

but I wanted, I guess I wanted the main game to match that and for the post game to be higher in terms of gameplay and design and stuff like that because again my biggest gripe with this game is that like the kind of middle section of this game going into the last act or whatever a lot of the game design started to wear thin for me for sure

yeah I mean I'm excited to get back to the post game I that's crazy that's how that ends I and I think what if the new song is Jump Up Superstar to then play didn't use Jump Up Superstar in the fucking credits. And I would have totally been down for you at like a remix or a remix. I don't know what you call. Like a demo,

a demo of Jump Up Superstar. Yeah, like a little demo, acoustic version. I don't know of Jump Up Superstar. Because I like the musical numbers in this game. I like all the Bonanza Forum songs. But I think this game might have missed like a central Pauline music number. Like I think this game might have needed like a Jump Up Superstar moment. It should have been here.

And that should have been. Yeah. Because I think I still, I would still say I like Jump Up Superstar more than any of the Bonanza Form songs, even though I like those songs. God, they're jams. Yeah. I fucking love them. Yeah, I don't know.

I agree with that. I'm not, oh, really? Jump Up Superstar, I fuck with, but like, not heavy. Really? Oh, I fuck with it. I will say the better song is the anime song at the end when you play as Bowser. No, man. I'm still, I mean, I do like that song.

I like that's, I prefer jump up over that. There's just something about the lyrics and all these things that, like, I get it's just not the style of thing I'm going to want. But, like, it's a little too literal for what. what's happening and in ways that I feel like they're, they're not having enough fun with the lyrics. And it's just a little bit like, this guy's jumping and that's a mushroom.

And I'm not exaggerating that much. You know what I mean? Yeah. Or literally zebra, zebra, zebra, which again, I'm not talking shit. But it, less for me the lyrics of it or whatever. It's just the musicality of it, the song itself where I'm actually jamming to where it's like, whenever she has like a lyrical, like actual number in like a cut scene or whatever,

those were, that's where I'm snoozing. Yeah, that's where I'm like, okay. I loved, when she does sing a little bit of the Donkey Kong intro song, there's hints of it, like when he gets turned to stone, and he fucking fights out of it. Which, like, how does that work? Who cares? You know what I mean?

He's frozen. How is he doing this when he's frozen like this? It doesn't make sense. But yeah, I feel that the postgame stuff to me, like I am still having fun going in and getting all the fossils and the bananas. I have quite a bit left to do, but I got to a point where I bought all the maps from every single layer.

So I now have everything spelled out for me. So I can just like pop in and actually go do it. And, oh, man, it's just like so, so fun to clear everything out and explore the levels. And I feel like one of the things that I see a lot of people criticize this game with is that none of the levels are memorable and that everything looks the same. And like, to an extent, I kind of get that.

But I also think you can't say that about a game with an ostrich hotel. There's so many things that I'm going to remember about this game and like, it's funny because I feel like

a lot of people compare it against Odyssey and I fucking love I adore Odyssey but like I don't think Odyssey has that many like, I mean,

the lunch, memorable things. The lunch level I remember from Odyssey and that's just because it like, it has a unique art style in that world.

I think the main thing is that like because you know, every level has to kind of be the same materials that you're breaking through. A lot of it does start to feel samey in terms of art style. Not so much of like world design because, yeah, the Oster's Hotel as an idea is really cool.

But in terms of art style, it does all start to feel a little bit the same. But I still like some of the designs of those worlds and the creativities of what, like what some of those were. Like I loved the fruit level. The fruit level is really fun and weird, you know. Was that the feast layer? I assume so.

No, no, no, no, no. The resort layer was the first one. Oh, yes. Yes. And that's why that one stood out because the mechanics of those, like, what you're busing through was actual, like, food.

And because of that, it didn't feel like the same stuff that you're always interacting with throughout the game. And that's why the burger, the carnival level was also a huge standout as well because it actually felt different. Yeah, I mean, as I'm looking at the list of levels here, right? And I think I had the thing in the first half of the game

where I was kind of, I'm like, okay, a lot of these feel like standard 3D platformer levels. And like, I think I felt that until I got to the divide. And like, even after the divide, right, you get the freezer layer and you get the forest layer. But I think forest is where they have the ostrich hotel. And like the freezer one, I honestly can't even think that hard about like what you're doing in there.

I know that was another one where you're doing like a... We did that on stream that I think that was the... It was some elder. It was the zebra one. And so it was, what is it? what is it like you're using ice and then also there's like the lava segment of it so you're using a lot of like oh you know what that was tight i like that's yeah no i fuck with these levels i think i but i under a sense is i needed more from the racing layer i agree yes huge let's see that to be the ditty and dixie level it's like come on guys the racing layer was the ruined kingdom of this game amen oh we're like you get there and you're like let's fucking go and then it finishes and you're like what the fuck yeah we should have been here way longer this is the coolest thing yeah there are so many moments Like that is like where I wanted them to go further with it

Yeah like having Diddy and Dixie in this and kind of just be it for that one level and it feeling like Hey here's a fun little idea that's inspired by a game that got canceled for the GameCube right But let's we're not gonna like fully flesh it out I felt was a little bit disappointed Especially because the race mechanics I thought were really cool. Yeah they're really fun the fact that like yeah you're like going through the materials to then kind of collect like a I forget you're collecting a thing to them throw and then turn into a ramp or no you boost off of something and even I forget our you're creating a boost ramp

you're creating a boost ramp yeah yes and then that makes it go yeah I like that design of like all right like let's do set up in you know lap one to pay off in lap two and three like I thought that was really that's like such a cool it was so good that I was like yo this could be a multiplayer segment yeah like I would be down if not maybe not an entire game but if I could like play just this mode with friends or something there could have been something here the bander essence says that should have been where all the conks were hanging out and Tunderboy says

I needed Diddy and Dixie in that final fight. Also, cranky. Yeah, that was like the other thing is that, like, you're building, and this is where my kind of, like, disappointment a little bit comes with, like, the, the finale and some of the big moments, is that, like, you're building up cranky, like, going down, he's on a mission because D.K.

doesn't even understand what he's getting into. And you're setting up cranky because he knows what's up. And then he never really shows up for that final sequence. I was like, oh, man, that was, like, a lot of setup for, like, no payoff. and eventually Pauline is like talking a lot about her grandma all of a sudden I'm like we're going to get the retroactive DK the arcade game was really cranky and Pauline's grandma who also conveniently named Pauline. Which I still buy.

I still buy but I would have liked to see like not like a recreation or just a bit more acknowledgement that that's what they were trying to imply or whatever. I don't know. I think there could have been more fun in that. And then the big one for me. Bless. You can't evoke the boxing ring and not give King K.Rule boxing gloves.

You can't evoke the boxing ring and not bring back the other Kongs, man. That's such a... We got the Lanky reference. We got the Lanky reference. Sure, fine. And I do love, like, in my... Like, I'm going to put up my play-through of the ending tomorrow

for people to watch. And in that first King K Rule fight, it's just that, like, kind of gold. golden dome or whatever. And when you hit him against the wall, I was thinking to myself, I was like, this is satisfying, but it could use a boxing ring.

And so it was fucking hilarious, like 15 minutes later, you get the boxing ring. But in my mind, when I was going through and you're using all of the different bonanza forms to fight King K. Rule and all this stuff, I was thinking myself of like, man, like, they even show like the same angle

of showing the lights that you use to drop on King K.Rool's head as Diddy and all the stuff. And I was just thinking of like, man, wouldn't have been great? You know, you're using all of these different powers. as the Bonanza forms. What if they had translated those powers

to the different Kongs so that mechanically it still feels the same but now it's like the high jump one is Diddy Kong because he uses his tail to jump high? The ostrich flying around that's tiny because she uses her hair to spin. Chunky would obviously be the one sucking in elements and all this stuff.

And is this just payoff for like, you know, dorks like us? Yes. But like, I don't know. I feel like there could have been some fun setup up in there. I'm with you, but also, for me, it's a beggars can be choosers situation. Sure, but again, given us so much. But again, why do it all then? Because it's fucking dope. I don't see. My thing is like, I think the MMA arena octagon situation they got for me was a

nod. Like, I'm surprised we got any nod whatsoever. That's fair. That's fair. And so for them to do it in that way, for me, I was like, oh, let's fucking go. And then I think if you put the Kong, Kongs in there, I think it just confuses people. No, and that's totally fair. And that's totally Fair. Like I've had the real Kongs and then there's the DK 64 Kongs and I understand what I'm doing you. I understand what I'm doing. What I said it and I can't take it back.

Fuck you. That's crazy. I'm just saying all of the power ups. Dixie supremacy. I'm just saying all the power ups conveniently translated to the rest of the like the DK crew, which I found really funny. Those from the animal buddies from Donkey Kong country. Oh my God.

Wow. This is allegedly people might mod it on PC anyway. Yeah. I know people are going to take me way too seriously in what I wanted and it's mainly just like I think it would have been fun type of thing I don't think it actually would have been made the game better or be paid off

in any sort of way but there was a moment of like oh man I would have loved to see them go a bit further with this it's just another example in my brain you would have had to sow the seeds of like funky and all this shit but that's like you know where Diddy and Dixie are hanging out have the rest of them hanging out

and like the minimum I wanted like, okay, you know, maybe we don't get the other Kongs. The cranky setup, I felt like it was disappointing. I disagree. And I'll tell you why, after a word from our sponsors. This episode's brought to you by our own show, kind of funny in review. It is our movie review show,

and it is the best place to get all of our thoughts and all the latest in entertainment, Greg. And how has it been this year? It's been awesome because I came back. Alien versus Predator in Review. Man in Review. Fantastic Four currently happening in review. It's been a great time and I've been

crazier than ever. You really have. It's been banger after banger after banger of episodes of in review. Doesn't mean the movies necessarily work. Sometimes we're talking about some all-time greats. Sometimes we're talking about some of the worst movies ever made. But no matter what, Greg is drinking his coax and having a good time and saying some

of the craziest things you've said on kind of funny content ever. That's right. If you're unfamiliar, of course, in review is us picking a movie series, watching them all been ranking and reviewing them all while meticulously recapping the plot and not screwing anything up. But here's the thing. I know a lot of you are watching live probably on Kind of Funny Games Daily or Kind of Funny Games cast. We cover video games, but we also cover movies and we have a great time doing it. Just best friends hanging out. So don't worry. We're getting back to Alien versus Predator everybody right after we get through some of the big summer movies.

But Fantastic Four, Superman, Alien versus Predator. It's been a great time. The good times are just starting. That's right. So right now, like, subscribe, share on your favorite podcast feed or YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. And we'll see you at the movies. That was good. Thank you. I mean, we stole it. It's, you know, I think Siskel and Iber's line. It's nothing crazy. But to me, the cranky stuff, I liked how bare bones it was.

Because it's like, this is not, don't turn this into this massive story thing, unless you're going to like bring the goods with that. I don't think it needed to be a massive story thing. I just, you know, he's going on his own little journey to also get down there. And I just thought it was weird that he just wasn't down there at this. He kind of sucks. To me, it's like, it's all about Donkey Kong, right? It's not, donkey is the one that's out there doing the journey, like actually getting things done. Yeah.

But I don't know. To me, the biggest letdown was in the post game, not getting to D.K. Island. And I feel very similarly to how I did about Odyssey. And this is the Baker's Campi Chusers thing. What we got here was amazing. I gave this game a 10. I am, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't let down by the fact that we don't. actually go to the island. They talk about it so much. With how good the nostalgia levels look,

let us actually just have even just one layer of it. Like in the same way that Mushroom Kingdom made the appearance in Odyssey, right? Which was freaking awesome. I was let down by that too. Like I wanted the castle to actually have paintings you can jump into. Right. I'm not saying remake all of Mario 64 in Mario Odyssey. But if you're going to vote that. I'm saying why not? You don't know what I mean? Because we've gotten games like Metal Gear Solid 4 where it's like you're going to go back, you know? And like if, and that game came out in 2009 or whatever. 2008, sure. Like we've gotten that level of reverence for an original title where it brings something back into a full circle thing.

So when you're going to evoke a big thing like that, like the castle, like talking about D.K. Isle for so much throughout this game and not actually going through it. Nintendo was like originally the ones to do that with gold and silver, right? going back to Canto type stuff, right? And, you know, would that be sick if we do, if we could do that? I think so. But even like just a, let me go to the aisle and just search around. Let me, you know, it could be an inspired level of, hey, this is DKL, but it's not, it's not straight up DK64 kind of thing.

And with all that, I said this in the review, but there's something about this game that really reminds me of Mario Galaxy in the sense of I wouldn't be surprised if we get a sequel expanding on the ideas. I feel there's so much of this game, like I don't disagree with Barrett that the middle portion of this game is easily its weakest section and does start to get a little bit Ben there done that mechanically

and it's still fun and I think especially as you still satisfying you know yeah and to Jen it's point of like you don't need to be a collect at them you can just like keep going it's like if you're not vibing just go to the next one someone in earlier said that Logan Planton did a no banana run

and just the bosses which is crazy yeah so cool that sounds fun it allows you to do that but I feel like there are certain bits with the I forget what you called it but when you smash one thing and it makes something else appear somewhere else. Oh, the Switcherugu. Yeah, Switcherugu. Is that what it's called?

Yeah, that's awesome. That is so Mario team-coded. That is so Mario Galaxy, every time you jump the platforms of pink and blue change. Like, that's their shit. And I loved that. And I wanted more of that type of shit. When you shoot some of the surfaces

and it kind of creates those arcs that then create platforms that you can run on and all of that stuff. There's so many great examples in this game of it like just singing. That fucking in the forest layer, right? There's like a big seed that you throw and like once it lands on his thing,

it creates like a fucking big platform. Yeah, it's for you to. That and I think to me specifically one thing that when they introduced it, I was like, oh my God, we're about to get some sick ass puzzles with this and we just never did was, I guess in some of the challenge levels you get a little bit of it. But it's where you need to, there's a ton of

balls rolling down a hill and then you need to break a hole to get the balls to like settle into that hole so that they're not hitting you and like you can redirect things yeah there's so much cool opportunity there that we got a hint at and we get a little bit of but i think there's only like three or four other puzzles i thought we're going to go full bore into that in a game that is all about destroying the environment but like now you got to figure out how to destroy it in a certain way exactly like that type of stuff i'm like oh galaxy two did that for galaxy one and I really think that we can get a bonanza two that maybe that's when we get to I could see a banana two being like a 10 for me like and that's where like because someone else in

the chat was like oh barrett just wanted DK 64 too and that's why he's disappointed it's like no we all we all want that especially Tim um for me I was like you know I'm I kind of joke talk about the DK 64 of it all but for me it was more so thinking of this as a follow up to Odyssey and I feel like I had more fun going throughout Odyssey the first time than I did Bonanza just in terms of like mechanics and the platforming of it all and like I know this game is less focus on the platformy type of stuff but there is some of that in there and that's like some of my favorite stuff in this game so I just kind of wanted more of that so yeah I think also to the thing of you know

having the balls that like will land in the thing right and like more unique bespoke mechanics like that. The reason why I also would love to see it too is that I think there are so many of those systems and mechanics in this game where it's almost, the game is too ambitious for its own good. So once you add one small thing, it might just fucking break the game. I was like when Roger was showing the racing gameplay, there was like a part where the person essentially boosted the ramp to like cut halfway through the thing. And I never even thought to do that. And I'm sure I'm sure these videos

are already probably circulating right? But it's that here's the kingdom thing of when you can do anything you want it's so fucking hard to make a game that restricts people

to be able to play it the way that you kind of want them to play it. That is, we obviously talk about Nintendo Magic a lot and we have for decades. Yeah.

We're in a new era of Nintendo Magic where it can mean many things and does mean many things but I think specifically now it means we're playing with physics in a way that is just

a sheer joy. Yes. Like you look at the Breath of the Wild and Tears the Kingdom systems and you look at Donkey Kong and Anza, it's like these Nintendo devs are just finding game tool sets that are fun

to play with and creating games around them and having the creativity to come up with puzzles supporting just being able to do everything and solve things in different ways. I've been seeing a ton of videos of people picking up the rocks and like doing these insane jumps even without the ostrich form. Jesus.

I'm just like double jumping and turning it into like triple jumping quadruple. jumping and just like going nuts and it's like that's fucking cool because if you don't do this is where the game finally becomes a collectathon and I think it's interesting that it's about the gold you collect and not like the bananas that was like an interesting moment for me

well as I was streaming it chat taught me about how you can skip all the giving them gold stuff oh yeah because I didn't have enough gold to get through the last segment and there was a person in chat that was like let me just tell you how to skip it and I was like oh of course okay cool I need to use the skill tree more is basically the answer. So yeah, honestly, it kind of becomes about the bananas

if you just upgrade your skill tree, which is what the bananas do, funny enough. But I think this game, this is going way back to talking about the levels and the pace of it, but it hits such a stride in those last few levels, because it goes from the resort layer to, and this is like post-junction,

right, resort layer, tempest, landfill, racing, radiance, groove, feast, forbidden. God damn. What a run. That's what a run. It's like when you get to like an album that just has hit after hit after hit after hit. That is like what I want to see out of a banana two.

That is what I want to see more out of Nintendo platforms. Because yeah, like you talk about the racing layer being so brief. I feel like Nintendo sometimes will hit on gold or maybe this specific Nintendo EPD, EPMD. They'll hit on gold and then they'll either save it for like those last levels or it'll be a brief thing. And I'm like, brother, I didn't need to be in the fucking hilltop layer for that long. We could have, we could have, you know, maybe shorten that up and gave me some of these hits. And that was still a pretty small level, though. It was pretty small. You're right. But even still, it's like, I could have skipped it. Like, give me to the racing layer. We could have cut the landfill

layer. It was a fun idea. I don't think it needed to be that. Yeah. I just like when people, I just like when you break up the structure or you try something different. Yeah. I think that's why I like landfill. But you're right. The landfill mostly was just me, just fucking, I shouldn't that motion. This is just fucking me breaking the ground over and over again. We got a time of the super chat. Spando Sends says Nintendo Cementi K rule as DK's Bowser was awesome

and that the enemies you've been fighting are all Kremlings. Holy shit. Did any of you follow the Exploratone story? It has a great payoff. Like I've been saying, I love the K rule stuff. I think that this game did. This game is such a re-coming-out story for Donkey Kong and like redefining it for a new generation.

I think it's awesome. They really succeeded in that. I expect that we'll see Kroll constantly from now on. That's great. The Exploratone story, no, I don't really know what you're referring to. There were signs that you would read. Basically, every level would have one. It'd be like the documents of Explorer tone. It's like an explorer that's going from level to level.

And it will tell you a bit of more about that level. I read them all, but I don't know about the payoff. I don't know about the payoff either. I read probably maybe like 70% of them. Yeah. But I don't, I didn't recall the day off. Getting to the racing layer one was really tough, but I got it. Do you remember what it said?

No. That's my thing is I don't remember what most of them said. I view them more as kind of filling you in on some story around the level you're in as opposed to like some kind of narrative through line. But now I might go back and check that out. Mr. Knight says you find out what happened to him at the end. Bender Senn, and who super chat in says you find his grave at the end, but if you grave in quotes, but if you dig down at the end, you just find him hanging out in a cool room. No way.

That's cool. Good for him. Alex Fraser says Snake DK is some cursed shit Yeah I do appreciate They try to get his buns In like all of them

Yeah You know Snake was snake the only one We were all like kind of like Just because the snakes are Have arms Like they don't have arms And it's weird that he has arms

For me just the way he moves The in terms of the power of It feels slower Snake and zebra I didn't really like Like zebra in theory I liked the ability But there's something about the feel of it That wasn't my favorite

It never felt right yeah I wanted Zeebara to run faster. Yeah. Because like his whole thing was running like fast enough to avoid like crumbling under the surfaces. But it always felt just normal It felt normal speed. It felt normal speed. Yeah.

Yeah. Zebra does have the best song, I will say. I agree. A pixelated soul. Yeah. I am firmly in the camp. That a game war. It's going to be the Kong Bonanza song. Because the Kong Bonanza song, it's the main theme

of the game. It's what they play. the credits. I don't recall how it goes. I'm just saying that like, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, I don't think they'll do it. I mean, fun. It'll be that

or the first level. Superstar last time. They didn't do the Mario Odyssey thing. That's fair. Oh, so they like to have fun with Nintendo.

They do. Give me the ostrich song. Fuck yeah. Give me ostrich. If they did zebra, that's the true non-cowards. Cobra says

is a King K rule, Maine, and smash. I thought the ending was dumb and unrealistic, actually. King K.Role would not lose to DK. Ah, I was

That took me on a jury. It was the unrealistic word that took me on a journey. I like that. About to be pissed off. What the fuck are you talking about? Shane Wright's insane. I 100% of the game took me 75 hours. Sequel in the sky where K.R.

G.R. gets punched a la Tars of the kingdom. Maybe he gets to the Odyssey Moon where we last saw Bowser. Whoa. Yeah, man, there's a lot of fun that they could have if they do a sequel to this one. I know the rule with Nintendo and, lore is to not think about it. That said, I love what this does for like just everything. Bless the fact that the Earth, the surface is Mario's world.

Theoretically, right? It's New Dock City. It's the Luncheon Mushroom Kingdom. It's Marry, Mushroom King. Luncheon Mushroom Kingdom, all that shit. And then you dig a little bit further and all the layers of the earth are just fucking different things going on as well. But here's my question.

Where's D.K. I. I mean, it must be on the surface. Is it on the surface of this planet? Yes. I would think it's on the surface, yeah. Because they do confirm in this game that DK64 did already happen, did already take place. It's in the fruit level. And when you take the quiz with the quiz tone, he does mention that like, oh, what fruit won't you find on this level?

and I think it's like oranges or some shit like that and then he goes like oh at least they don't explode this time and he does talk about like you know that event or whatever so it's like ah see and that's all I need I'm like just just tell me that it exists just tell me Nintendo that you acknowledge it's existence

yeah yeah can I show my reaction to Linky Kong yes yeah and then after that I want to show my just because I know that you know I wanted to go further with the boxing ring but I still did freak the fuck out at the boxing ring because basically it's I believe it's the second time code Roger you do the whole segment it might be the third time code you know it's the third time code sorry

oh let me tell you I'm a dumb dumb because like I didn't see the Kinky rule thing coming and when I tell you this is what I realized I don't think I've beaten like a don't con country game because I didn't see this credit thing this is good news this is exciting for Dongtober aside from tropical that's what this is why Dongtober because I I was doing this and at first I was like damn, okay, that's crazy. And then I was like, wait. Like, can I get this with sound?

There we go. So good. What the fuck is happening? Hold on. Hold on. What the fuck is about to happen? Like, genuinely. The logo was King K. Rule, man.

You think they were going to end with that? I don't know. I thought it was a cool nod to like, guess what? The Kremlin's are back. And I was like, oh, cool. I can't explain to you guys what this does to me. I went back and I did watch the endings of like the Donkey Kong country. And so I went, I experienced it.

God. But yeah, that shit was fucking cool. But yeah, the third time code is actually the one that I want you bring up here. Because you then do that segment. You fight King K.Role up through the thing. Yeah. And then you land in New Donk City. If I can get sound here.

Lenky! Jungle James, baby. Oh, my God. This shit means something to me, y'all. Candy music. Yeah, like the more you look around in just this area, the more shit you will see. Because there's, Linky's kind of everywhere. Because he's right ahead of us.

On the top right corner right there, there's another Linky ad. No style, no grace, funny face. Yeah. And then like as I turn around, I see even more Funkies flight right there in the top, in the bottom right. Yeah. This is the DK64 acknowledgement I was looking for. And you can see, I'm reeling throughout this whole thing. My hands are on my head.

I'm like, I can't believe the fucking universe. we live in that they're actually acknowledging Linky's existence. I do love that we love New Dog City stuff. I mean, yeah. That was definitely more than I was expecting for sure. So many in chat says there's a tiny Kong bank, I think. Oh, hell yeah. Come on.

That's fucking, man. And then, yeah, I think I don't know which time code. I think I only sent two, Roger. I think that second one is the me realizing what's happening in this final phase of the King K rule fight. Which... Jumping.

Takes me a second. Shit blocks. It's the boxing ring. It's the boxing ring. No fucking shot. No fucking. God, we're such nerds. Oh, my God.

I think I was also two beers in at this point. A couple bananas in as well. Good. Interjet stream, Super Chat saying, just popping in for my future self. So excited to listen to this later. Super excited to hear what y'all think of that killer finale. It's certainly my favorite in some time. Thanks for all you do.

Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Mello Fellow says, what do you guys think of the visuals of the levels? For me, I think the digging mechanic brought down the visuals, making a lot of levels look like mush slash dirt, like the theme park level and food level. I, my take on this is that the game all does kind of look the same.

And because you're just breaking everything, everything does have that mushy kind of vibe to it. I think over time that's going to make this game memorable. If every 3D platformer and every Donkey Kong game and every Mario game going forward looked like this, it'd be a problem. I don't think they're going to use Super Mario Bros. This one, though. Like, I feel like this is going, this is an art style choice for this game.

That sure is not my favorite. It's not. But I think it does a really good job of allowing the concept of texture to be played with. Like, when you are punching through snow, it feels different than punching through a watermelon. And punching through a burger. Yeah. And all of that, I think they do a, when you see the giant trophy in the rain. lace layer.

And you're like, if I get to that, I'm going to get so much gold. And then you punch through it and you're like, oh, this was really thin. The elephant like sucking it all of and followed it. But like, I think that that stuff is like, that is hopefully something unique to this game. That I do think that it works. And I think that there's something special here that they like went for that. Yeah, not my favorite, but I think it was a good call.

I agree. I think at first I didn't love it. It was a bit of an acquired taste of an art style. I ended up, yeah, viving with it more. I think what I would want to see from the future are more levels like the groove layer, which I think takes that art style, but then it adds an additional extra level of style with what that level was doing to make it feel like, okay, cool, like this is in conjunction with this, right?

Like, I think having levels that kind of reel that stuff in a little bit, I know it's like, it's totally anti to what the ethos of this game and what tears the kingdom breath of the wild do, right? Which is more about the freedom. And, you know, when you can't smash everything, then maybe you're taking away from it a little bit. But I do like the groove layer. I think the groove layer did a really great job of giving you the smash, but then also giving you the guidance, but then also like having a unique look because you're in, you're not in an entirely smashable

environment. I think a couple of those sprinkled and more could help with it. another thought I had that I posted on Blue Sky I think a week or two ago was that Donkey Kong 64 inspired a lot of what Nintendo is today

and I will not expound on what that means I will expound on it now you know a lot of Donkey Kong and chat corrects me if I'm wrong with maybe Banto Kazui because I forget how like a lot of that game design works a lot of DK64 bless if you remember you like yeah you're collecting

golden bananas like fighting enemies or stuff like that finding them throughout the world. But there was a lot of challenge rooms, a lot of, you know, like you go into a barrel and then you do like a little mini thing where you fight enemies

or you do a puzzle or you go through a maze in a certain amount of time, right? I was thinking about like, man, all of the new Nintendo games just kind of do that. You know, Breath of Wild, Tears of the Kingdom,

Mario Odyssey, Donkey Kong Bonanza. Even the things that you smash down on kind of look like the coins that you'll like zip off of in Donkey Kong. 64. Yeah.

And so I was the same. We don't talk about sunshine. We don't talk about sunshine. But yeah, no, there's like the specific, it's funny because I always wonder why they didn't have more of these in DK 64,

but when you, yeah, have like a little platform with I think King K. Reel's face on it that then transport you to like a battle. Yeah, you would have to fight like rounds

of like enemies and stuff like that. Like the ones in Bananza are like exactly the same. They look exactly like that. Yeah. And so I was just thinking about that. It was like interesting. We all,

we always, everybody in the industry wants to shit on this game but I think it's more influential than people are giving it credit for me. Can I tell you? I see Weiner says you shouldn't expound you should apologize. Sorry, love less. I've seen so many DK64 video essays pop up my timeline in the last week. You're so

algorithm. And I keep watching them. I keep watching them and they're all like regrettably they're all the same video essay. They're all like, why do people hate DK64? I'm good. I really. I replayed the game to form my own opinion or whatever and then they talk about like it's all the same right of like oh man you know i have nostalgia for this game this game had a great um like tone

and you know had like a great theme to it and all this stuff uh a lot of collectibles and they're like that's pretty much every single fucking me i say about uh about the game but yeah like i think to the dk 64 thing right i think really it is rare like really and the bonus level thing specifically i think is 64 but then also just platform country and stuff you might be able to reach that back to Super Mario Brothers of going down a pipe in that leading you to a special place. But I think it's just the format of it. I'm with Barrett here like just in the sense of it's not about bonus levels. It's about challenging levels.

And that's like part of the game, not just like, oh, extra things you can do. But like the understanding. This is a core part and core loop of. Yeah. And like in the same way that I was bringing up sunshine of just like the, they take away flood. And this is a pure platform challenge level. And I think that the way Bonanza does it is one of my favorites so far is,

in these games where it functions like just every level of Astrobot does, where there's the three bananas in it and you know you're going to get them in order. So if you have one in three and the second one is great out, you know it's going to be in the middle somewhere and being able to go back in and have them be way more just platform challenge focus. Like I do think that that is great game design and it had to come from somewhere. I'm not going to credit Donkey Kong 64. I will. I will. I will too. But I also think I think beyond the challenge stuff, right? I think Rare had like such a

profound impact on everything. It's funny because, yeah, like, Super Mario 64 obviously did the damn thing. But like, what Rare did and like developed with Benjo going into DK, going into 2E, going into, even though I didn't play 2E, I should get around to play in Tui someday, going into Conquer, going into all these things.

Actually, take Conquer out of that. I don't like the gameplay to conquer. I like the riding and like the energy of Conquer. I never enjoyed like actual like the gameplay. That's fair. But like, Mario Odyssey, DK Bonanza, like Astro, like any modern platformer,

Banjo and Mario 64 kind of like created at all. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? Like they're the fucking, they're the ones. Shout out to rare. Also, shout out to Nintendo also adopting the rare thing. Let's just put Googly eyes on things and call that a character. Googley eyes, yeah. Those little freaks. A little, whoa. Whoa. Whoa. You're the one who said it first. I don't know you're talking about. There's proof of it. Go look at the

first on October tree. Someone says there's a mod for DK64 where you can switch switch Kongs whenever you want. The game feels a lot better. Benanza taking that lesson was huge. And that's just where like, I don't want Donkey Kong turn into weird animals. Just bring back the Kongs. But then narratively, how would it, would it be a thing of we'll workshop it,

right? Void Kong, Voidco is back. And instead of like trapping things into void Kong fucking tape, now they have in the same way. They've trapped other Kongs. Yes. Five Kongs, one body.

they've trapped them all so now yes the Kong family D-K Ditty Kong Funky No sorry not funky Lanky Lanky

Chunky chunky tiny Y'all need to move on Never Like dude I want you know Y'all are arguing For the brutals of the Kong Universe

Okay you calm down Fuck you Tim I'm sorry I'm so sorry Name one brutal I can't And we can Everybody knows Lanky Kong

Bear I think Lanky Con can come back. But you, like, let's just be real. Let's compare tiny and lanky and chunky and chunky to, two, Kitty. Where's Kitty bin? And Dixie?

Cranky and Funky. Oh, no, we like funky here. We like candy. Cool, but he's ours. No, Funky. Funky? Where did he start? Where's he first given flights?

Y'all pop it up. Oh, funky flights. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, that's not from 64. No, no, that's not from 64. No, he was a gun salesman in 60s. for and again, he can be yours because where was he on January 6th? I'll be honest

Holy shit. Miss Redfunky is chunky in the video when I was looking at the video. In my brain, I said funky, but in my brain I was picturing chunky, it makes sense. What the fuck are you all talking? I have no, like, this is horrible. This is great content, Roger.

Costa chat saying, hey Tim, going to the Lincoln Park concert tonight. Have you heard the new album and deluxe tracks? Have fun, man. I have heard the album. Enjoy it a lot. It's, you know, it's, I'd say, mid-tier Lincoln Park albums, but still into it. Tender Boy says, is the OG game, Pauline's grandma, and Prime Cranky. I simultaneously could not give less of a fuck, and I've never cared more about anything

of my life. You know what I mean? And that's where I want to be with Nintendo War. She kept bringing up her grandma, and, you know, everybody's been obsessed with the whole timeline. How does this all work? If D.K. has already taken Pauline and all this stuff.

That is kind of where I draw the line is I just can't care about the timeline. Because I, Nintendo was proven time. and time again. It's a more important timeline than the Zelda Nintendo was proven, especially with Zelda, Nintendo was proven they don't give a fuck about time lines. So I'm just like, I refuse to think about the Kong timeline. But yeah, here we are. What about the great

Kong war? Well, that I kind of fuck with. That's part of the timeline. Yeah, why did Funky Kong take that turn in his character? That's where I kind of care. But outside of that, I'm like, listen, DK, the arcade game happened, guys. All right, we just got to all accept it.

DG-2580. Could he use a jump-up superstar level mid-game set piece? To Barron's point about the same-y-level design, it's never more evident to me that this was a smaller game and Mario 3-D is coming soon. Smaller game. I wouldn't say this is a smaller game. That is a pretty big game.

Might have been a... I won't say bigger, but this is like, this is Odyssey-sized. Yeah, there were reports, I forget who I was listening to, probably Grub and Manati at some point saying that, like, they were thinking about releasing this for Switch 1, and, like, there were those rumors of, like, Switch Pro a few years ago, and then the pivot to switch two. So I could see that this game might have been ready for a hot minute.

And I could see another Mario coming sooner than we expect because of that. But like I wouldn't quantify this as a small game. I don't agree with anything said here except that this game could have used to jump up superstar level midgame. Yes. A midgame set piece. And also overall, like I loved the beginning of this game like setting up D.K. And Pauline's relationship, it just stays one note the entire game. And what do you want?

I wanted it was just a little more. You want DK to respond? No, they just set it up as like this Pixar like adventure and it just doesn't ever get there. And there's there's emotional moments. There's hype things that happen. Like him busting out on stuff. I'm like, I'm feeling feelings. I could have been feeling a lot more.

Just with literally just one more set piece moment in the middle of the game to like have some level of character arc. I'm not looking for the deepest shit ever. I'm just looking for something. I mean, I feel you. I guess when the way, the moment where. the monster swallows up Pauline Yeah that was like kind of the moment

Should have been more Emotional than it was I guess but like I just I can't I think because of the history of DK It feels nigh impossible I said nine I feel nearly impossible

To like have that Have DK be a character in my head That like has feelings Or cares Doesn't need to just give Pauline more things To do and say and feel I feel like that's tough In the opening scene of her as a human and she's like scared to sing and then there's like the brilliant comedic beat of you hitting A and she just keeps jumping and like kind of like jump cutting between different like poses and stuff.

There's a personality there. Yeah. I want more personality. I guess that's all that I need. That's fair. Growth and personality and some like ebbs and flows and her getting more comfortable with D.K. She gets comfortable with him and then it's just comfortable with him. I feel like we could have done something where it's like throughout the game she's getting more and more comfortable with them.

It just, it never has any dynamics from that initial. Yeah. Yeah. But I understand what we're talking about. I like the check-ins at the, anytime you take a nap. Yeah. I love those. That stuff is amazing.

Yeah. Some of my favorites are all over black screens. Which is fine. I'm cool with that. Yeah. Jossy says, did the D.K. fossil confuse anyone on the timeline. Again, I've simultaneously never cared more or less about something. But yeah, it is weird that there's a fossil.

I, yeah. There was an early on. point where I started noticing the designs on the fossils and I was like hold on is this them like actually doing something here and yeah I've I cared about it for like one level and then the next level collecting more fossils and I was like okay I don't care there's none of this there's no one reason to that that was another theory that we had early on too that this was all going to lead to them recreating like the dK arcade game and mario was going to show up but I'm still kind of surprised they didn't yeah I'm surprised they didn't do either they do kind of the like kind of last

segment of like the rehearsals or whatever kind of has you doing a side scrolling barrel thing but that's like the most that they do and that was another bumer I was like oh we could have we could have gone a little farther here in terms of spectacle and having it be like a full fun thing but yeah

so that's been our spoiler cast donkey Kong bonanza thank you boys for joining me today thank you all for watching listening getting ready for game showdown thank you for humoring our nonsense yes and also I'm going to end this episode saying something that's going to piss people off.

Oh, no. The jump-up superstar set piece moment, it's overrated. Oh, get the fuck out of here. Bye. I'm off. I'm out of here. You're wrong.

He's right. He's right.