When you buy through links on our site, Press Start may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.
It’s time for our annual countdown to recognize the best games of the year. Over the next 10 days, we’ll be counting down the top 10 games of 2025.
As always, the votes of each member of the Press Start team were collated, weighted from 10th to 1st place, to compile the best results of the year. A game worthy of the top spot will be awarded a maximum of 10 points, and its value will go down to the 10th selection, which will be awarded 1 point.
If you had asked me at the beginning of this year if we were going to see an all-new mainline Donkey Kong platformer that would be Nintendo’s mainstay for the Nintendo Switch 2 launch, I would have been pissed. In fact, I’ve staked my entire year as a fantasy critic on this belief.
Little did I know that after finishing work on Super Mario Odyssey, the team would move on to the ape’s next big adventure, Donkey Kong Bananza. The game’s centerpiece environmental destruction is built around DK’s immense power, which is perfectly integrated into the game’s layered level structure, pushing you deeper and deeper underground.
Our own Shannon was baffled by Donkey Kong’s cake butt, but couldn’t get the game out of her mind for obvious reasons.
Donkey Kong Bananza is a reinvention of one of the earliest founding characters for a new generation, and is the perfect distillation of pure Nintendo fun. Nintendo also managed to combine everything we’ve always loved about him: the platform, the music, and the ground-pounding silliness that made me go, “Oh, bananas!” for a solid week. For almost everything.
Shannon says
“Donkey Kong Bananza was the standout game of the year for me. It gave one of my all-time favorite characters the treatment he deserved in an Odyssey-style game that truly showcased the power of Nintendo Switch 2.
It’s a lot of fun to play, oozes personality, and is exactly what I hope to see more of from Nintendo in the future. ”
In our review, James gave Donkey Kong Bananza a 10 out of 10 and said:
“With Donkey Kong Bananza, DK is back in a big way, blending new technology with classic Nintendo charm for an engrossing, addictive and destructive experience. Pauline’s story is underdeveloped, but this is without a doubt the best Donkey Kong yet.
Some blemishes aside, Donkey Kong Bananza deserves a place in any self-respecting Switch 2 owner’s library, and like Super Mario Odyssey before it, it sets an incredibly high bar for everything to come. ”
Donkey Kong Bananza Review — The Press Start Podcast
On review aggregation site Metacritic, Donkey Kong Bananza rests with an average score of 91.
Congratulations to Nintendo for making it to the top 10 of 2025!
2025 Game of the Year
#10 – Ghost of Yotei
#9 – Ball x Pit
#8 – Dispatch
#7 – silent hill f
#6 – Donkey Kong Bananza
