The Donkey Has Konged
Plus Fortnite's new mode, Castle Combo, and even more Donkey Kong
Howdy Friends!
Welcome to another week of Press Any Button!
This week I (Alice), shockingly, got into Fortnite’s new Blitz Royale mode in between Donkey Kong Bananza sessions, and played Castle Combo with friends. Meanwhile, Tim went all in on Donkey Kong. He went Bananzas. He also looked at which other games deserve the Donkey Kong and Pac-Man treatment. Plus we have game recs for you.
Enjoy!
Blitzing Through Life
By Alice
Fortnite has another new mode. Did it need a new mode? Debatable. But it has one now, and I think it love it, Or I’m at least addicted to it, which is close enough.
It’s called Blitz Royale, and it is the kind of mode that angry conservative columnists would have written about at length 7 years ago. It’s essentially the Zero Build Battle Royale mode, but condensed into 5 minute rounds for the TikTok attention span generation (or, more accurately, for the people who are playing on their phone or only have 5 minutes before their screen time allotment runs out.
It’s perfect for when you want to play something, but don’t have time to get into a proper match. It’s also good for when you don’t want to have to consider strategy beyond “gun goes boom”, which is sometimes all I have the mental capacity for at the end of a long day.
The other bonus is that the lobbies are either entirely filled with bot players, or small children playing on phones, and so it’s very easy to win. I got 9 crowned Victory Royales in a row the other night, before I encountered a JuiceWRLD player who lived up to the stereotype (most of the time when I am killed in a match, they are a sweat wearing a JuiceWRLD skin, and I don’t know why).
This makes it a really good starting point for players who are just starting out and don’t know if they want to commit. Sure, it’s much more frantic, but all the weapons are better than usual, the storm moves at great speed, the island is smaller, the bots are easier to take out, and it’s essentially 5 minutes of pure dopamine delivery.
Is this a net good for the world? Probably not. But I’m having a great time. Join me.
What to play
New to Game Pass this week is ultra-violent shooter Robocop: Rogue City, spooky puppet Freddy’s-like My Friendly Neighbourhood, furry prison escape RPG Back to the Dawn and survival crafter Abiotic Factor. Also keep an eye out late this week for day one releases Wheel World (an open world cycling game) and souls-like Wuchang: Fallen Feathers.
Currently free on the Epic Games store is Civilization VI: Platinum Edition, which is the fanciest version with all the DLCs and expansions. It’s regular price is $113.
DK is Nintendo at the height of its (still growing) power
By Tim
Donkey Kong Bananza is an unqualified hit, giving the big monkey a level of Nintendo-Japan attention the series hasn’t seen since the 80s, while also respecting the care it’s been given from Rare and Retro over the years.
But the games also something of a statement of intent for the Nintendo Switch, which to date has been the company’s most popular console. With Bananza, Nintendo is saying: we can do it all over again, but bigger and better.
It’s no secret that the game has its roots in Super Mario Odyssey, but pulling off the same level of satisfying handling and endless imagination of that game was never guaranteed when you also have to adapt it to a much more aggressive and kinetic character style.
Not only did the development team achieve that, but they transformed the entire tech stack to make the world and its inhabitants voxel-based and thus entirely, permanently destructible. And in the same way the best Mario games introduce idea after idea that uniquely exploit the core gimmicks and technology, DKB is filled with brilliant destruction.
But it’s not just an extension of Mario. The game has some of the climb-anywhere freedom of Breath of the Wild, and the design-subverting powers of Tears of the Kingdom. I even feel some ARMS and Splatoon DNA here in there, like in the big punches and the nonsense language vocal tracks.
But more than anything, Bananza is Nintendo showing it’s still serious about putting joyful gameplay first. The digging mechanics alone (which not only break the camera, but break the traditional idea of progression) would have stopped most developers in their tracks at an early stage.
Bricks, Boards and Beginnings
by Alice
Castle Combo is one of those great games that’s quick to learn, fun to play, but also doesn’t take very long if you’re not having a good time. It’s a tableau-building game that offers simplicity, but also a surprising amount of strategy. There are options for how you want to play to get the most out of your 9 cards.
There are two things to look out for - the first is that sometimes you’ll be locked into taking cards from the upper or lower city, which will trigger several strategic choices for whether you want to spend coins to move to a different row or switch your plans. The second is that once you place a card in your 3x3 tableau, it’s locked into that spot on that row. You can’t rearrange it, and there are cards that rely on the placement of other cards for points.
The win condition is pretty simple: once everyone has placed their nine characters, the winner is the person with the most points. However, there are so many different ways to earn those points, and so much relies on the luck of which cards are presented for drafting at which times, that there are a lot of different potential strategies to earn those points.
I had a really great time with this game, I enjoyed it a lot. The other players at the table had varying experiences, so it might not be universally loved. But it’s quick enough that if someone hates it, it won’t be long until you can move onto the next game. We played it with four players, and I think it might have been better with lower player numbers, but I haven’t gone back to confirm that yet.
All up, I really liked Castle Combo, it’s a great Sunday afternoon/post-dinner party game.
Retro Esoterica
by Tim
With Donkey Kong’s big return last week, and a similar but far smaller-in-scale revamp for Pac-man in Shadow Labyrinth, we must ask which other 80s and 90s icons are ripe for a weird comeback. Who remains recognizable and popular, but hasn’t had anything new and interesting to do for a quarter century or more?
Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon come immediately to mind. Both began as innovative 3D platformer trilogies in the late 90s, and both were made by studios that are currently in Sony’s A-tier stable; Naughty Dog and Insomniac. Of course it’s hard to imagine them moving from The Last of Us or Spider-Man to bother with ancient characters. And they couldn’t even if they wanted to, since they’re both now owned by Activision. But since Activision is owned by Microsoft, and Xbox publishes on all platforms now, the road could be paved for a big Crash or Spyro reimagining on PlayStation after all.
Most arcade-era franchises can be ruled out, as only Nintendo has had the consistent level of success to carry something like Donkey Kong through the ages and keep it somewhat relevant. I don’t think we’ll be seeing Frogger, Mappy, Mr Do or Q*bert in AAA revivals any time soon. But that doesn’t eliminate 80s characters entirely.
Sega is reviving a lot of its oldest properties, but is there a world in which Alex Kidd could see a serious new entry on the scale of the publisher’s current biggest efforts? Capcom’s currently riding high enough on its Resident Evil, Street Fighter and Monster Hunter franchises to be introducing some new IP, but what would it look like if it took a healthy swing at a AAA Mega Man?
It’s unfortunate, but I think it’s safe to say that only Nintendo would ever take this kind of swing.