"See that mountain? You can climb it," Todd Howard infamously said while promoting Skyrim in 2011. Despite my love for that game, that turned out to be an exaggeration. Fast-forward to 2017 and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild let us climb every mountain in the distance for real. Eight years later, Nintendo EPD 8 could've marketed Donkey Kong Bananza with "See that mountain? You can destroy it." That wouldn't be a lie.
As much as Bananza borrows from recent Nintendo hits such as the last two 3D Zeldas, Super Mario Odyssey (same dev team), and even Splatoon 3's campaign mode, its core design philosophy feels more attuned with that of sandboxes of old like The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, Prototype, and Mercenaries. Hell, in the absence of a new Hulk game that embraces the 'HULK SMASH' power fantasy, Donkey Kong Bananza might be the best unofficial Hulk game we've had so far.
