Where to find Bananas in Donkey Kong Bananza

Donkey Kong Bananza first Banandium gem — (Image credit: Nintendo)

Collecting Donkey Kong Bananza bananas is essential during your journey to the core, but they're often well-hidden, in hard-to-reach places, or locked behind devious puzzles and challenges. Since each one you get contributes towards granting a Skill Point to DK, you'll want to get as many as possible. With that in mind, there are plenty of bananas to get just from playing through DK Bananza's main objectives, but here are some tips for finding bananas in Donkey Kong Bananza, including all regular sources of these Banandium Gems to look out for in most sublayers.

How many bananas are there in Donkey Kong Bananza?

Donkey Kong Bananza lagoon layer bananas in collection — (Image credit: Nintendo)

There are 777 banana locations in Donkey Kong Bananza, although the number of individual Banandium Gems is a lot higher since some locations hold bunches of three or five.

When you factor in the Chip Exchange, which lets you swap Banandium Chips for bananas, the number is potentially infinite as there is no clear limit on how many bananas you can get from exchanges. The point is, there are a lot of bananas in Donkey Kong Bananza – more than enough to unlock not just the best Donkey Kong Bananza skills, but every skill in the game. And if you want to complete the Donkey Kong Bananza post-game story for the secret ending, you'll need to get at least 600 of them!

How to get Donkey Kong Bananza bananas

Donkey Kong Bananza Bananandium gem treasure map from stuff shop — (Image credit: Nintendo)

So, there are almost 800 banana locations to hit in Donkey Kong Bananza, but how do you go about finding them all? In general, you'll want to bear these four tips in mind for finding bananas:

Use DK's Hand Slap sonar: This can reveal bananas within a level, whether they're underground or behind some obstacle or puzzle mechanism. Make sure you unlock the Better Sonar skills as early as possible in Donkey Kong Bananza to help with this.
Buy Treasure maps: Visit a Stuff Shop in any layer to buy Banandium Gem Maps that reveal a banana's location in that layer. These locations will then be marked on your main map. Banana treasure maps start at 1,000 gold but the cost increases by 100 gold for each one you buy, so this can get quite expensive.
Find treasure maps: Treasure chests you find while digging have a chance of containing a treasure map and a smaller chance of that map being for a banana location. This isn't necessarily a reliable way of finding bananas, but it is at least free.
Get hints from NPCs: Any characters you see with a small banana icon next to their speech bubble will offer a hint towards a banana, marking its location on your map. As above, these are rare but are free hints.

Donkey Kong Bananza lagoon layer map Bananas — (Image credit: Nintendo)

Whenever a banana location is marked on your map, you can hover the cursor over the marker and press X to pin its location. This will cause that marker to appear whenever you hold L to get navigation help with music, directing you almost straight to the banana. You can also press L and R while looking at your map to change the filters, letting you see bananas only, fossils only, and more.

Now that you know the basic ways of finding bananas, here are all the sources you need to know about. Bear in mind that not all of these sources feature in all Donkey Kong Bananza sublayers:

Reaching new sublayers: You're guaranteed to get at a bunch of at least three bananas when you go to a new sublayer for the first time, which is also usually right after you defeat a boss. For major milestones, you'll get a massive bunch of five Bananas, which is an entire skill point's worth! Essentially, you'll get bananas just by playing through the game, even if you ignore everything else.
Buried underground or in a puzzle: Use DK's sonar to reveal bananas hidden in a level, whether they're in the ground or trapped behind some puzzle mechanism. Look for ways to forge an alternate path or get around an obstacle, perhaps using one of the Donkey Kong Bananza Bananzas. Furthermore, purple Void metal often coats bananas, so it's worth keeping an eye out for Banadium Gem-shaped objects in Void terrain.
Chip Exchange: Cash in some Banandium Chips and gold for a banana at a Chip Exchange shop – you'll find one of these in almost every level, and if you've built two or more getaways in a layer, you can also get the concierge to exchange chips too. The exchange rate starts at 10 Banadium Chips + 100 gold = 1 banana but escalates each time you exchange chips, capping out at 100 Chips + 300 gold = 1 banana, although you can exchange infinitely, so long as you have the necessary resources.
Challenge levels: Every challenge level (those are the ones you enter via a triangular portal) contains three bananas. In general, you'll find one about halfway through the challenge, one right at the end near the exit barrel cannon, and a third hidden off the main path, so be thorough. Look for secret nooks hidden in walls or off edges, climbable walls, and extra paths.
Combat challenges: Any circular portals you must punch down to travel through lead to a short combat encounter. Defeat all enemies within 30 seconds to get a banana.
Shifty Smash challenges: If you find a floating triangle/tetrahedron object, smash it and you'll start a challenge where you need to break enough of the fragile, silvery metal in a particular area. Do so before the 20-second timer runs out and you'll get a banana, and if you fail you can try again.
Find Cranky Kong: DK's grandfather is hidden in most levels. Find him and allow yourself to get lectured and chastized and he'll eventually give you a banana.

Donkey Kong Bananza Bananas from growtone — (Image credit: Nintendo)

Fractone requests:
- Rescue fragments for Fragmentones: Jigsaw-puzzle-piece-shaped Fragmentones will request that you find their missing pieces to make them a complete square again. Listen out for the little fragments' higher-pitched noises and, once you find them, carefully lead them back to the Fragmentone – they stop following you if you're too fast, so let them catch up when possible. Reunite all the pieces to get two bananas.
- Find Hiddentones: If you find and speak to a Seekertone, they'll challenge you to find four of their Hiddentone pals. You're essentially looking for the round shapes and bulging eyes of Fractones but made of a regular material and completely still. Break these shapes to hopefully reveal a Hiddentone until you've found all four, then you'll get a banana.
- Answer Quiztone quesitons: The hat-and-bowtie-wearing Quiztones each pose three trivia questions to you. Get them all three correct, and you'll be rewarded with a banana. If you get a question wrong, you can just start the quiz over from the beginning.
- Complete Smashintone requests: Smash a certain number of m³ of a particular material requested by the Smashintone, then speak to them to get an easy banana. You can monitor your destruction progress under your Smashin' Stats.
- Help Bloomintones: Destroy whatever is blocking direct light from hitting them and you'll get a banana for helping out.
- Feeding Growtones: Feed these rare pineapple-looking Fractones a portion of your gold (the amount varies per Growtone) and they'll sprout three bananas in total for you to smash.

Speaking of Fractones, you'll want to keep an eye out for the Collectone for Donkey Kong Bananza amiibo unlocks. You should also check out our Donkey Kong Bananza tips for more help with DK and Pauline's adventure.