Donkey Kong Bananza will add even more chaos to the confusing timeline of Donkey Kong games, which for the past 40 years has been a tangled mess of contradictions and confusion.
But Nintendo’s revelations about Pauline and her shyness about her age —she’s only 13 in this game—play into the story of Donkey Kong Bananza. They offer a glimmer of hope that the Switch 2 exclusive might help shed some light. And that’s great news for Donkey Kong timeline geeks.
Of course, this is Nintendo, after all, a company that has gone to great lengths to explain the divergent timelines of the Legend of Zelda franchise, but also loves a paradox in which baby Mario and adult Mario exist in the same time period and race karts against each other. The company is here to make fun games and put smiles on faces, even if that means giving the franchise to people trying to dissect whether Cranky Kong is Donkey Kong’s father, grandfather, or an older version of Donkey Kong himself.
To understand (or try to understand) the Donkey Kong timeline, we need to start at the beginning: 1981’s Donkey Kong .
Who is Donkey Kong, anyway?
Nintendo’s original arcade platformer has Mario (aka Jumpman) rescue Donkey Kong’s kidnapper, Pauline (aka Lady). It wasn’t established at the time why Donkey Kong wants to secure Pauline—love? Hate Mario?—because 1980s arcade games didn’t have room to waste on things like “narrative.”
Later games would establish events in the Donkey Kong timeline that take place before the events of Donkey Kong . 2006’s Yoshi’s Island DS confirmed the existence of Baby DK, a child version of Donkey Kong roughly the same age as Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, and Baby Peach, which would certainly place that game in the distant past. Remember: Mario is canonically (permanently?) around 25 years old, meaning the Yoshi’s Island game takes place decades before Donkey Kong . In any case, Baby DK wears a red bib with the initials “DK” in yellow, similar to how adult Donkey Kong wears a monogrammed red tie. (I’ll also note here that Baby DK and Adult Donkey Kong exist in the same timeframe, as established in the 2005 baseball game Mario Super Sluggers .)
Baby DK’s connection to the Baby Mario Bros. and other Mushroom Kingdom babies is fleeting, and he presumably returned to his monkey troop after the events of Yoshi’s Island DS .
Image: Artoon/Nintendo
Em algum momento entre os eventos de Ilha de Yoshi DS e Donkey KongMario e Donkey Kong cruzam caminhos novamente em Donkey Kong Circusum jogo de jogo e vigilância de 1984, no qual Donkey Kong é forçado a se apresentar enquanto está em cativeiro, fazendo malabarismos com abacaxi (e evitando bolas de fogo) enquanto entra em um barril. Se DK falhar em sua tarefa, Mario passa a rir de sua bunda com o infortúnio do macaco.
Donkey Kong Circus Parece proporcionar justificativa adequada para Donkey Kong buscar vingança em Mario, a saber, sequestrando Pauline e jogando barris e bolas de fogo sencientes em seu possível salvador.
Donkey Kong Jr.que apresenta o conceito de Donkey Kong como pai e apresenta Mario como um pau enorme, segue Donkey Kong. Junior deve recuperar seu pai, que foi sequestrado por um Mario que usava chicote após a violência de seu antecessor. Em jogos definidos após os eventos de Donkey Kong Jr.o Donkey Kong sênior entra em Stanley The Bugman’s Greenhouse – da Game & Watch Game Estufa – e tendo escapado constante de Mario e Stanley, faz uma pausa para ensinar aritmética básica júnior (ver Donkey Kong Jr. Matemática).
Neste ponto, a linha do tempo do Donkey Kong se despedaça.
Imagem: Rare/Nintendo
Donkey Kong Country for Old Men
Depois de mais de uma década fora dos holofotes, de 1994 Donkey Kong Country estabelece que o Donkey Kong visto em Donkey Kong E os jogos subsequentes de Arcade e NES envelheceram consideravelmente e agora são conhecidos como Cranky Kong. O Donkey Kong que estrela e é jogável em Donkey Kong Country é neto de Cranky Kong (o Donkey Kong original) e o filho de Donkey Kong Jr.
Adicionando à confusão é que, apenas alguns meses antes Donkey Kong CountryA estréia em Super NES, Nintendo lançada Donkey Kongum garoto de jogo reimaginando o Donkey Kong original que expande a busca de Mario para resgatar Pauline em uma aventura de quebra -cabeça globetrotting. Então, dois macacos totalmente separados conhecidos como Donkey Kong recebem jogos naquele ano.
Donkey Kong Country Construa a base para uma longa lista de Kongs, incluindo o “novo” Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong e Wrinkly Kong – a falecida esposa de Kong e, portanto, a avó de Donkey Kong, que também é um fantasma. Jogos posteriores na franquia Donkey Kong, construindo o novo cânone estabelecido pelo desenvolvedor Rare, acrescentam ainda mais kongs, mas mantenha grande parte da ação centrada na ilha de Kong e nas terras vizinhas e no novo Donkey Kong.
Despite Rare’s intention to transform the original Donkey Kong into Angry Kong and establish a new identity for Donkey Kong, it seems that Nintendo, Rare, and other developers behind games like Super Smash Bros. and Mario vs. Donkey Kong can’t agree with the entire Kong lineage of the Crank. Older games claim that the Donkey Kong that appeared in the original arcade game is the Donkey Kong we know and play as today. Some recent games, like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate , however, assert the idea that Cranky Kong is Donkey Kong’s grandfather, but the recent Super Mario Bros. movie makes it quite clear that Cranky is Donkey Kong’s father , not his grandfather. In some Rare-developed games, the Donkey is annoyingly referred to as “son.”
Suffice it to say, the Donkey Kong family tree and timeline are confusing, and one should probably resign oneself to the canon established by the rare games, in which the original Donkey Kong seen in 1981’s Donkey Kong is now Cranky Kong.
Image: Nintendo
However! Donkey Kong Bananza appears to take place between the events of Yoshi’s Island DS and the original Donkey Kong , based on Pauline’s era. She is only 13 years old in the Switch 2 game, much younger than her appearance in Donkey Kong and subsequent games like Mario vs. Donkey Kong and Super Mario Odyssey . Exactly how Nintendo plans to explain this is unclear, especially since Cranky Kong, Diddy Kong, and Dixie Kong from Donkey Kong Country Games, set generations after the original Donkey Kong, also appear in Bananza !
Given Nintendo’s liberal use of time travel shenanigans in the Super Mario Universe and a general “Do you guys really care about this shit?” attitude when it comes to decades of canon, don’t expect a satisfactory answer to how teenage Pauline fits into the larger Donkey Kong timeline. Or why Donkey Kong in Bananza was slightly redesigned to match his classic look. Whatever the explanation, it’s compelling enough to make you care about digging through Donkey Kong Bananza’s story and discovering what lies beneath the game’s deep layers.
