Donkey Kong Bananza's director replayed every game in the series when he was assigned to the Switch 2 game: "That motivated me to incorporate past memories along with new ideas"

Donkey Kong Bananza's director has revealed he replayed all of the games in the series once he was assigned to the game.

It took a while, but we finally found out Donkey Kong Bananza is being made by the Super Mario Odyssey team. Since then, we've found out the game's director is Kazuya Takahashi, a newcomer at Nintendo after working for the likes of Sega and Square Enix since the early 2000s, according to MobyGames. Speaking to Spanish outlet La Vanguardia (thanks, VGC), Takahashi spoke about his history with the series.

"I do have very fond memories of playing Donkey Kong Jr. and later Donkey Kong Country," Takahashi says, adding, "After I learned I’d been assigned to the Donkey Kong Bananza team, I replayed all the games in the franchise."

Donkey Kong has had a fair amount of directional changes in the almost-45 year history of the series, but the most significant had to be Rare's Donkey Kong Country games, which Takahashi singled out when speaking about his series replay, "In particular, Donkey Kong Country introduced unique mechanics like barrel cannons and minecarts. I wanted to revisit those elements and add a sense of destruction. That motivated me to incorporate past memories along with new ideas.”

So far, Donkey Kong Bananza seems to be a departure from what we've seen in the series. Even though it's the second 3D platformer from the series, the core of each game is drastically different (namely, that DK 64 is slow, clunky, and a bloated nightmare). However, trailers have shown off elements like Minecarts and Rambi the rhino in the world, and 2D side-scrolling levels adapting elements from the Donkey Kong Country trilogy in Zelda-like shrines.

Let's just hope King K. Rool is among the things they bring back.