Donkey Kong Bananzadoesn’t just bring back Diddy, Dixie, and Cranky, but it also has a cheeky little nod to a Kong we’ve not seen in a very long time.
Although a decent number of Nintendo fanswere hoping to see a new 3D Mario game launch with the Switch 2, Donkey Kong Bananza has proven to be a milestone moment in the big ape’s history. Not only is it his first starring role in a new game for more than a decade, butBananza acts as a nice celebration of everything Donkey Kong.
This is most obvious through all of the references to other Donkey Kong games,including Diddy and Dixie calling out Donkey Kong Country, and theappearance of characters like Rambi and Cranky Kong. That’s just scratching the surface too, as one long-forgotten Kong is also mentioned by name, even if they don’t actually show up.
Remember Candy Kong? Donkey Kong Bananza does
It’s been a long time, but we know that Candy is still about
As we previously highlighted,Donkey Kong can run into Diddy and Dixie at one point in Bananza. Beyond the pair referencing Donkey Kong Country a whole bunch and confirming Bananza takes place after those games, Dixie Kong also directly calls out Candy Kong when chatting to DK and Pauline.
In one of the lines of dialogue, Dixie notes that “Candy Kong is gonna be so jealous that the three of us met up”, confirming that she’s still around in the DK universe somewhere. Strangely, that also suggests that Candy Kong doesn’t see DK, Dixie, and Diddy all that much, and perhaps even that DK isn’t as present as he used to be.
So far, we’ve not seen any nods to the DK crew from Donkey Kong 64, but at least the DK Rap is basically canon…
Pondering about how good of a friend Donkey Kong really is to the rest of the crew aside, it’s a nice little reference considering how long it’s been since Candy Kong was mentioned.The most recent nod to Candy was her name appearing in Tropical Freeze’s leaderboards, and before that, she hosted the minigames in DK: Jungle Climber.
Even if Nintendo isn’t wheeling Candy Kong out properly in Donkey Kong Bananza, it’s nice to hear a little bit about one of the former main characters of Donkey Kong Country. Now we just need to hear about Funky Kong, and we’ll be all good.
