The Nintendo Switch 2 and Mario Kart World are just around the corner, and I could not be more excited. But just a little farther away, gleaming on the horizon, is Donkey Kong Bonanza. You may have watched my previous videos where I took a look at some cool details about the game and even did a deep dive on the materials and how they work.
And in the time since then, I've taken an even closer look and I have discovered new clues and bits of information that we're going to cover in this video. But I'm not the only one who has found some new things. In my previous videos, I asked you guys to leave a comment if you had any cool theories or discoveries about the game.
But I also asked you to let me know if you had any ideas for any material properties we might see in this game. And I got to say, you guys delivered. I got hundreds of comments from y'all, and I have distilled it down to my favorite few.
So, this video is going to be a three-parter. Number one, you guys had some really fascinating theories and ideas about what might be in this game, and we're going to take a look at my 11 favorites. Number two, you guys also had some really great ideas for what materials and material properties might show up in this game.
So, we're going to look at my nine favorite comments from that list. And third, we're going to look at a whole bunch of new details that I've discovered over the past couple of weeks just re-watching and re-watching all this gameplay footage and trailer footage. Honestly, I'm a bit surprised at how much I missed, and I can't wait to jump in and tell you guys all about it.
The last thing I'll say is these weeks of deep diving and pixel studying I've done has caused me to come up with a pretty wild theory about what the Banandia might be doing to Donkey Kong. There's no way I'm right about this, but I really want to talk about it with you guys and see what you think. So, without further ado, let's get into parrot mode.
Let's kick things off with a correction on something I said in one of my previous videos when I was theorizing about how physics might work in this game. I was pretty confident that we would see structural collapse as part of that. But then I read this comment from Poke Freak 2112.
And honestly, I think they might be on to something. When you pull a rock out of the terrain, you're basically just changing the hitbox on the static terrain object and spawning a new physics object from thin air that happens to look like the chunk of terrain that was removed. So, I read that comment and I went back and watched the gameplay footage again.
And I got to say, I think Poke Freak is on to something here. If you watch this moment where he breaks this terrain and a chunk of rock comes out, you can see it actually does spawn out of thin air just like Poke Freak says. So, way to go Poke Freak.
Thank you so much for commenting and correcting me on that. In a similar vein, let's read this comment from Richie Plays12. I think the sturdy material is dynamic in how strong it is.
three times terrain strength because I'm pretty sure in the first gameplay video they destroy the sturdy materials in three hits and in the second six hits which correlates to the terrain strength of one and two. And once again upon reviewing the footage more closely I think they're on to something here. It looks like DK is punching fewer times in this clip to break sturdy terrain than he is in this later clip here.
So yeah, it looks like the terrain does get stronger as DK digs deeper. But what if DK also got stronger? That's what Nintendis's ultra 58 thinks.
They say in between worlds, you'll find a new kind of material that DK can't break yet. So DK has to get stronger to break it so he can then go to the next world. And for DK to get stronger, he needs to collect those benandiums, which will be the equivalent of the moons in Mario Odyssey.
I think this is quite plausible, and it would also explain something that had confused me up until now. If you recall in a previous video, I mentioned that I was frustrated because as DK collects these bananium gems, there's no counter on the screen anywhere indicating how many he's collected. And that seems like a pretty important thing.
But what if instead of a counter, it's actually a strength meter like Nintendo's Ultra is saying here? That would explain why Nintendo is hiding it from us. And I bet we'll learn more about this in June.
And by the way, it was this comment that started the gears turning for my crazy theory I'll be discussing at the end of the video. So, let's put a pin in this one for now. Moving on to this comment from Jack Black8424.
This may be the most obvious thing that I missed when you talked about rare NPCs. I'm surprised you didn't mention the fact that there are objects with googly eyes, which is something Rare used to do. Jack Black, you are right.
Of course, I cannot believe I missed this, but yes, I had mentioned earlier that I think there's a touch of rare here in the way some of the characters speak gibberish, but this is an even bigger nod to rare. There are googly eyes everywhere. So, yeah, I think this is pretty awesome.
Great catch, Jack Black. Thank you. This is a pretty simple one.
In the last video, I had noticed this giant apple and wonder what that might be for. Smirking Samurai is thinking that'll just be a health upgrade. And honestly, I agree with this.
It's a solid theory. It seems pretty obvious. It makes sense in hindsight, but I think there actually might be other giant food in this game, but we'll talk about that in part three.
Zagber the Great says, "I know this may seem weird, but hear me out. Since Mario Odyssey had a balloon world side mode, could we possibly see a side mode for Bonanza as well? I suggest the name Banana Blitz or some other unique and fun online mode.
" So, yeah, a side mode just like Odyssey had with Luigi's Balloon World would be cool with players being able to like hide bananas from each other and hunt them down, all that kind of thing. I like this idea. I think it's a great idea.
I'd love to see it. Sticking with the idea of bonus game modes for just a minute, Nevolord says, "Achievement-wise, it would be interesting if there were speedruns which allowed you to prepare the terrain beforehand. Get through a layer/ level as fast as possible after already having paved the way.
It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that they would do something like this. And I think it could be cool. I think that could make for some really fascinating speedruns.
" Gaming fanf fan 3789 says, "Hopefully Diddy and Dixie are playable in the game. And beside Rambi, also animal buddies. Now, I theorized in my last video that I don't think Diddy is going to make an appearance in this game.
And the reason I think that is because Donkey Kong, his whole thing is strength and punching through rocks and things. I don't see Diddy or Dixie really doing that. Well, one of the reasons I'm mentioning this comment is because just recently Nintendo released a new updated design for Diddy Kong that is unfortunately not without its faults.
This might hint at the fact that Diddy Kong is going to be in Bonanza. Time will tell. We'll find out soon.
In the last video, I theorized that the Cranky Kong we see in DK Bonanza might be the rare era Donkey Kong from before and not the arcade era Donkey Kong. Well, press star to play says, "I do feel like mentioning there's a line where Cranky says, "In my day, rivals had charisma even in overalls. " And he's definitely referring to Mario.
So, this is probably the same Cranky as usual. Now, before I give you my thoughts on this, let's read another comment from Wendyo Koopa. People say Cranky has to be the original Donkey Kong 1981 because he talks about his rivalry with Mario, but they seem to forget the entire Mario versus Donkey Kong series.
Mario versus DK was essentially the rare DK, even though it was after they left Nintendo. I would love to see Cranky Kong be the rare DK because to me, that would feel like a great sendoff for the character. But if we've learned anything from the Zelda timeline, it's that Nintendo will do anything for any reason, regardless of chronology.
So fingers crossed. Here's hoping that Cranky is the rare DK. All right, this next one is another thing I'm surprised I missed.
Matt Dog 1 Million says, "Really had to count those zeros. " Four of the worlds we've seen: lagoon, Jungle, Cliff, and Snow. These four worlds are all themed around a different African animal species with their architecture, their plant life, and even their NPCs.
And again, I rewatched the trailer and sure enough, he's exactly right. They really went all out with the theming in each world being very much after a specific animal species, and I love that. I even noticed an additional detail about the animal theming, but we'll get to that in part three.
Continuing on with this comment from Matt Dog 1 Million, the rock people seem to be everywhere in these lands in addition to the animal NPCs. And in the brief second we see the zebra NPCs, we see that they're wearing rock bracelets. Now, right here, he briefly mentions the big leak around this game.
I'm not going to cover that leak in this video. I feel like if somehow you've been following all the Bonanza news and you've missed that, I don't want to be the one that spoils it for you. But continuing on, are these other rock people NPCs also transformed characters from rock bracelets?
So, an early theory was that the rock people in this game are actually the transformed local species. But if that were the case, why are some of them still just their normal animal selves? It makes you wonder if they have changed back and forth or maybe some have been affected and some haven't.
But we're going to talk more about this later in the video. Let's theorize about the sub layers and how they might work. I got three different comments on this topic, each with a slightly different theory about how the sub layers are going to be laid out and how they progress.
Let's take a look. Evans says, "Honestly, it seems as if each suble has around 3 to five gold bananas each from what we've seen. Would it be too crazy to assume that there are really hundreds of sub levels?
I I think this is an unlikely theory mainly because in the gameplay demos we saw they collected far more than three to five golden bananas in a single area. So I I don't personally think we're going to see 100 individual layers. But let's look at the next comment.
Chug Iron says, "I think the sub layers start at 100 just to represent how low you are underground. I think when you get to the actual new areas in the game with unique visuals and enemies, it'll jump to the next 100th layer. " So this theory kind of goes the other way entirely.
We've got layer 100, 200, 300, and so on and so forth. The problem with this theory is that we actually do see a sub layer 101 in the gameplay demos. So, does that mean that Evan Sy is actually correct?
Let's read this third comment. Julian Kush29048, I hope I got that right, says, "I think I know what the deal with the sublevel convention is, and it actually feels quite obvious when you think about it. Sublevel 100, world 10.
Sublevel 101, world 11, so on and so forth. " And this is the theory I personally agree with. So here's what's going on.
I think each new area does go by 100s, but then each area has a differing number of smaller areas within it. So for example, you have sub layer 100 and then you might have like 101, 102, 103, 104. Then you move down to level 200 and it has 2011 and 202.
Then you move to 300 and it has a handful of small levels and so on and so forth. So, I think the major areas go by hundreds, but there's individual sub layers under each one, and there will be a different number depending on the size of the area. Thank you all so much for sending in those comments.
I love reading your ideas. Now, let's talk about materials. I asked you guys to give me some ideas for what materials or material properties might appear in this game, and once again, you delivered.
First up, Harrison Taylor 779 says, "Given the snowy themed layer, it'll be interesting to see if they have any special properties for ice. Besides just slippery, there's a lot of room for puzzles involving a material that would melt over time or when close to a heat source. I like this idea, and we definitely saw this in Breath of the Wild.
It would be neat if there were challenges around transporting blocks of ice before they melt, like Harrison talks about. Great idea. I love it, and I think it's pretty likely based on what we've seen.
" Now, here's a fun idea. I love this one. Tear the roof off says, "I think bouncy material will be cool.
You could use it for some more classic platforming sections, plus perhaps situations where you need to aim the throw so the object ricochets at the right trajectory to hit something out of direct sight. " Very clever idea, and honestly, it makes a ton of sense. Throwing objects is a big part of the gameplay, and if you're bouncing them off walls, how cool would that be?
I'd love this idea. Spoic actually has a few great ideas, but we'll take them one at a time. Maybe for extra sturdy explosive materials, it could maybe be like a time bomb instead of exploding right away.
They could even use it for interesting timing/platform challenges. A great idea with lots of applications. But imagine if we combined this with the bouncy property from the last comment.
Something that you would pick up, it starts to countdown, then you throw and bounce it off a wall to blow something up out of sight. I think that might be really cool. Sticking with Spino Pic here, they wrote, "I think maybe some materials could be buoyant and heavy.
Buoyant materials would float on water, being able to act as a temporary platform for DK, and heavy would sink to the bottom of water. And from what I can tell in the treehouse gameplay, it doesn't look like DK can dive underwater in this game. So, if he holds one of these rocks, jumps into the water, he will well sink like a stone.
" As for the sinking part, my guess is the sturdy materials could be used to do that. I don't know if that really applies here, but I do love the buoyancy idea, and I think they could do a lot with that. Tom Ran says, "The spike pink glass-like material is likely hazardous and glass.
DK can't smash it with his hands. He needs to use objects from the environment to destroy those. " And yes, we do see this enemy here covered in this pink spiked glassy like material, it seems.
I think you're right, Tom. I think there's lots of potential here. Great call.
Tom may just be great says, "My bet is we get some sticky materials. I remember seeing that when you throw dirt at a sturdy material, it just sticks to it. So, I'm imagining like sticking tar that you could throw at stuff and then throw a rock with ignition properties like lava rock, metal, or something electric and create explosions/fire.
Really cool idea here. We have already seen the idea of weighing down enemies by sticking mud to them. But this might be a hint at a larger system of sticking a variety of materials to different enemies and then perhaps even adding a sticky material like Tom talks about to cause explosions, fire, or who knows what.
Really cool idea. I love this one. Back over to Spopic for one last pretty funny idea.
So smelly materials, depending on their strength, would also correlate to the smell they give off. So soft materials would be pleasant smells like a bunch of flowers, while sturdy would be quite stinky like a glob of rubbish. They could be used for missions where you either have to scare away enemies without defeating them or attract animals to a certain location depending on their smell.
Kind of like the Strobrero sheep moons from Odyssey. I'm with you, Spinoic, that this is a little on the unlikely side, but I personally love it. I think it's a really fun idea and who knows, it could show up.
Very clever. Thanks for the comment. Now, what if we took the sticky idea and the smelly idea and put them together?
Fouse Crazy says, "My idea for new material would be honey being a soft material and it slows DK when walking/climbing. I love this because it has all the potential of the two we just talked about, sticky and smelly. We've seen honey in previous DK games, so I think there's actually real potential here.
Thank you all so much for all your comments and awesome ideas. It's really fun to dream and imagine what might be in this game and how it might work. So, I really appreciate you guys jumping in there with me and just having some fun with this.
Let's round this all out by going through several cool new details I've discovered since my last video, and we'll cap it off with my crazy bananium theory. DK Bonanza definitely has a style shop, as confirmed by this little text box here in the game. Initially, I had assumed the banana coins would be used for purchasing things in some kind of a shop, but this confirms it is the fossils you use to purchase things from the style shop.
I'm hoping this means there's going to be a wide variety of styles for DK to try just like there were in Mario Odyssey, but we definitely know he's at least getting jeans and suspenders. Honestly, I can't even think of what other style options might be. He had there's no precedents for this.
So, if you guys have ideas for what DK might wear in this game, put it in the comments. I'd love to know. Let's talk about this little blue house NPC.
He seems to be a peaceful NPC you can talk to, and I can only think of three purposes he might have. Number one, maybe he lets you warp back home. And I'm assuming home in this case would be Ingot Isle.
It seems to be some kind of a central hub where you do shopping and talk to NPCs and things like that. Maybe there's safe points there. Maybe DK has some kind of a house there.
And it could be that by talking to this blue house guy, you warp home. The second option, and I guess one that kind of builds off of the first idea, is I wonder if the home that DK has back on Ingot Isle, is something that you can decorate and buy things for, like Mario Odyssey with the stickers and the decorations in that game. I wonder if as you progress through worlds, there's things you can purchase to add to your home, and maybe you talk to this guy in each world to buy those things.
Option three, and the one that I think is the least likely, is maybe you can build a home of sorts in each world. Maybe there's a main home you go to in Ingot Isle, but each world as you go down has a little home you can retreat to. I kind of doubt this, but it's possible.
Regardless, I think this is a pretty strong hint that DK has some kind of home to return to, and I love that. Remember Matt Dog 1 Million's comment about each of the areas being themed after an animal? Well, they really committed hard to that theme.
Obviously, you can see signs of each animal if you look closely at each world. You can see the ostrich head here or the zebra head there. But the details get even finer than that.
Let's start with a snowy area. Do you see those snowflakes blowing by? Let's zoom in on one of those.
That is a horse hoof or a zebra hoof. How about the jungle area where the ostriches live? What's falling out of the sky there?
Feathers. We've already seen that the grass in the lagoon area is shaped like monkey tails, and the grass in whatever area this is is shaped like bananas. As with the cliff area though, I really can't tell if there's any direct correlation with anything blowing through the air.
Maybe it has a different detail I missed. If you've noticed something, I would love to know in the comments. Otherwise, for now, we'll just call it giraffe dandruff.
You see this box here? Let's take a closer look. What's written on the box?
It says NDC. Now, what does NDC stand for? I am 99.
9% sure that's New Donk City. Now, I cannot be the only person who's noticed this, but it is something I noticed scrolling through the videos not long after I posted my original video. Now, it might be this is just a fun little nod to Mario Odyssey, and that's the end of it.
But, I would love to see something more. I would love to see New Donk City make some kind of a cameo or maybe Donkey Kong visits there briefly. I don't know.
We'll see. I'm very excited to see that crocodiles seem to be a prominent enemy here. I'm really hoping these are Kremlings.
I think they probably are. Why they're all seemingly undead skeletons encased in stone, I don't know. I I'm sure there's a story explanation.
Are these all the Kremlings that DK has killed over the years come back to life? I I have no idea. Either way, it's great to see the Kremlings are here, and I'm really hope.
My wish is that King K Rule is the final boss. There's two reasons I think this. Number one, the eyeballs on these characters, some of them just look too K- Rule like with one being larger and one being smaller.
It just hearkens back to his look and I I think there has to be a connection here. The second reason though is this weird purple monkeyish antagonist that's all over the trailer. There's no way this guy's the final boss.
He absolutely strikes me as the mentally unstable hired hand. If you've played Twilight Princess, I feel like this guy is Zant. Zant is supposedly the final boss, but then you find out he's completely unhinged and he's just working for Ganondorf.
I hope it's the same setup here. I think this guy has been hired to do some dirty work. He'll eventually fail.
DK will defeat him and then K Rule will come out of the shadows as the actual boss. We can only hope. So, this is a cool little gameplay detail.
In the jungle world, you can see this seed sitting here and nearby there's a target on this wall here that looks exactly like that seed. My guess is DK can grab the seed, throw it into the target, and some kind of vine or bridge will pop out and give DK access to cross over and collect whatever's over there. It's a small thing, but again, I feel like it's indicative of a lot of variety of gameplay that isn't just digging through dirt.
Earlier, we talked about how the giant apple might be a health upgrade. And if that's true, then what is this? This looks to me like a giant carrot in the ground, and it's found very early in the game.
A carrot seems like an odd fit for a Donkey Kong game. I tend to think it's not a health upgrade, especially so early in the game, but who knows? Maybe it restores a bunch of health at once or something like that.
Thought I'd mention it. Let's keep going. I mentioned before that magnet fishing seemed like it would be a thing based on these paintings here.
Well, upon re-watching, there's a much more obvious sign of magnet fishing here. This monkeyy's literally sitting here magnet fishing, and he's complaining that he won't be able to catch any bananas. Now, to me, that implies that catching golden bananas is the point of magnet fishing, and DK will be doing that at some point in the game.
How will this work mechanically? I don't know. It might be kind of like Link's Awakening, where once you catch whatever you're after, as you reel it in, you're dodging underwater enemies trying to reel it up to safety.
Can't wait to find out what that's about. Last time, we talked about these triangle doors that were self-contained challenges and how the doormat outside indicated how many bananas you had collected and how many you had left to go. Well, now I've noticed these circular raised platforms in more than one place have a similar triangular pattern around the edges.
And if you look on top, there's a single banana symbol that seems like it might light up whenever you collect the related golden banana. Now, at first I thought these were connected to the magnet fishing challenges. And some of them might be, but it seems like others might not be.
These could just be one-off random challenges around the different worlds that let you get a single golden banana, though. Why that has to be a raised platform and what that's about, I'm not sure, but I thought I'd point those out. Now, this one is interesting.
As this guy's playing through the demo, he uncovers this green pipe entrance and it seems like he does it by accident because in the clip, his friend says, "Oh," and then he very quickly turns away from it like he wasn't supposed to uncover that and he changes the topic quickly and focuses on something else. You just keep going here. You can really wreak havoc.
You can really punch your way through so much of this terrain. So, what the heck is going on here? Why were they so careful to shy away from this?
And what are they hiding? The first thing that hits me is maybe these are some kind of fast travel like Mario pipes, but we already have fast travel in the form of the tuning forks, so we wouldn't need another one, right? So, what are these things?
I've given it some thought and I frankly have no idea. So, if you have an idea, let me know. We've seen that DK can swim, but he can't dive down under the water.
The reason I think that is because in this puzzle here, the banana is in the water, not very far down, and it would be super easy for DK to just dive down there and collect it if he could do so. Instead, he has to solve this balloon puzzle to collect it. So, that tells me that this is going to be a lot like Breath of the Wild where underwater traversal just isn't going to happen.
It also gives more credence to Spopic's idea from earlier about DK perhaps being weighed down by heavy objects to help him dive deep and collect things underwater. I'm personally bummed to see there's no swimming. But first of all, everyone hates water levels, so there's that.
But second of all, while DK Country Returns didn't have any swimming, DK Country Tropical Freeze did add it. So maybe we'll see swimming in the sequel. All right, so last time I mentioned these boxes with coiled rope inside and propellers on top, and I had said that I had no idea what these might be for.
Well, now I do have one theory, and I'd love to know what you think about it. In Donkey Kong 64, many of the vines that DK swings from are literally hanging in midair by spinning propellers. So, what if DK can punch these boxes, the propellers fly up into the air and uncoil a rope that falls down, and then DK can swing from that?
One thing I noticed is that in this area and in this area, there are propeller boxes in both cases. And it looks like they're both hanging in front of a very similar drop off area where DK can traverse it by swinging from underneath. I feel like I haven't quite connected all the dots here, but I do feel like the suspended swinging vine isn't a half bad theory.
All right, we're down to the last four here, and all four of these tie into this wild theory I have. So, let's just start going through them. First of all, I missed it before, but they mention explicitly that benandium gold and benandium gems are not the same thing.
This guy literally says, and a little more about benandium gold. Don't mix them up. Do not mix up gold and bananium gold.
One is edible, the other's not. So, what's the difference? Why is benandium gold not edible, but manandium gems are?
They made that distinction and then just moved on from that. So, that's that's a little weird. So, I feel like the hint here is not just that this is inedible, but that it's actually dangerous.
Furthermore, if you look at the way the benandium is spread around these different worlds, it looks organic. It looks like a plant or even a tree. Look at how it seems to be growing and sprouting from wherever it is.
And look in the backdrop of some of these worlds. There are enormous benandium trees, we'll call them, growing up everywhere. So, it seems like this isn't just a simple rock or ore.
It seems to be alive or have some kind of organic property, which would be doubly backed up by the fact that DK can eat this stuff. So, it's dangerous. It's alive.
Now, let's get a little more crazy. Let's take a look at Ingot Isle. It looks like this thing that just got dropped into the middle of nowhere.
And look at the texture on it. To me, this texture reminds me of an asteroid or a meteorite. So, again, I know I'm crazy, but just just go with me on this.
What if this giant banana-ashaped meteorite fell from space, landed in the middle of nowhere, and then infected the land with this golden banandium stuff, and then word got around this golden stuff had a lot of power in it. So, everyone came running to a gold rush to mine this weird space rock and get its energy. To me, this would explain why it's growing everywhere.
I mean, I I feel like it's it's weird that in all these different varied worlds and areas, the same golden material is growing through everything. That doesn't make any sense to me. What would make sense, though, is if something fell from space and hit and infected everything, it's growing through everything.
I feel like that's plausible. Okay, so here's the final piece that might actually be the big endgame twist. What if the primary reason this benandium is dangerous is that if you eat too much of it, you transform into a rock person and that's why everyone is turning into rock people.
Now, the only issue I have with this theory is that if some people are turning into rock people, word would have gotten out and DK would know not to eat this stuff. But hey, maybe he's new to the scene. Maybe it's a really well-kept secret.
Maybe everyone that's been hired to work in these mines has been explicitly told not to eat this stuff so the secret is kept. And the reason DK is being attacked is because he is violating that rule and eating the gems they're trying to mine. We talked earlier in the video about the idea this benandium is making DK stronger as he eats it so he can break through harder and harder material as he digs down deeper.
What if he keeps digging down, he keeps eating benandium gems, he keeps getting stronger, and then he eats too much and actually transforms into a stone DK or some kind of stone creature. And in fact, I wonder if this little cut scene here is DK about to transform to a rock person from the inside out. I warned you it was a wild theory, but I think it's at least somewhat plausible.
So, I would love to know, do you think I'm crazy, or do you think I'm on to something? or do you have a theory of your own about this? And if you do, please leave a comment.
I read every single comment I get, and I love going back and forth with you guys about this stuff. It's super fun. So, there you have it.
A whole slew of new information and speculation on Donkey Kong Bonanza. I know that you could spend your time doing many other things, so I'm very grateful that you chose to spend some of it here with me. If you have thoughts on anything discussed here, please leave a comment below.
And if you have ideas or requests for something you'd like me to talk about in the future, let me know. I really do read every single comment and I will take yours into consideration. So, if there's a game that you're really eager to hear me talk about, put in the comments.
I'll see what I can do. Thank you for watching. Have a wonderful day.
[Music] Heat. Heat.
