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Marvel Snap: Beginner’s Guide and Top Tips to Get Cards and Win Games

Just starting out with Marvel’s new mobile card game? Here’s what you need to begin.

On the surface, Marvel Snap is a mobile card game with simple mechanics. But with hundreds of different heroes to play with, the game can get complex. Our Marvel Snap beginner’s guide will get you started and take you through higher competitive tiers.

Developed by Second Dinner, a studio filled with veterans from Blizzard’s successful digital card game Hearthstone, Marvel Snap is a refreshingly streamlined game that’s built to play well on smartphones. It plays in a vertical orientation and its quick match times typically last as long as a pop song. The mechanics are easy to learn, but there’s enough variability to keep things fresh.

Marvel Snap is downloadable from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, or on PC via Steam if you prefer. (To make it easier to port your collection between phone and desktop, sign up with your Google login when making an account.) It’s free to play, with microtransactions, but you can’t buy your way to the top in this game — everyone has to play a lot to grow their collection of cards.

Snapping superheroes down to card size

Each card represents one hero, and most of them have a special ability. In addition to snazzy comic book art, cards have an energy cost in the top-left corner and a power level in the top-right corner. Each deck you bring into a match must have 12 cards, and outside of rare cases, matches last six rounds. You start matches with one energy point per round and gain another each turn, with more powerful cards costing more energy. The goal is simple: Play your cards into three locations (each with four card slots), and the winner is whoever controls at least two locations at the end of the match.

Plenty of factors can complicate a match. Locations are randomly assigned and each has special rules, while unique hero abilities change how the match plays. Players start with three cards and draw another every turn, so you won’t get to play your whole deck by the end of the match. This randomness keeps the game fresh and can occasionally hand you victories, though it can also ruin your chances to win.

Bluffing with cubes

This uncertainty raises the stakes for the final mechanic, a pokerlike betting system around cubes (of the Cosmic variety). Marvel Snap pits players against each other as they climb the competitive ranks and earn rewards; to climb, you need cubes, which are awarded to the winner of each match and subtracted from the loser. If a match isn’t going well, you can retreat early and lose only one cube to avoid the two-cube toll when you’re defeated. But you can manually raise the stakes by tapping the cube icon at the top — now the game is worth four cubes, and your opponent can tap it again to raise it up to an eight-cube game. Yikes!

Much like in poker, you can aggressively tap the cubes (called Snapping in a reference to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s big baddie Thanos’ famous act, hence Marvel Snap). This can intimidate opposing players into retreating, though some will call your bluff. You may be confident in your hand of cards, but you have to wait to see which cards opponents play (and where) to understand their strategy and estimate whether you’ve got a winning chance. That’s the risk and the thrill — but don’t worry if you take a hard loss, as matches last only three to five minutes, making it easy to shake off losing and breeze right into the next potential win.

First steps for Snap

Don’t worry about knowing all these rules up front, as Marvel Snap has a generous tutorial. The first matches are against computer opponents who aren’t too tough to beat, offering space to learn the ins and outs of the match flow before going up against human players.

You’ll start with some basic cards, and playing matches (win, lose or tie) earns boosters, which are a currency to enhance the appearance of cards, making them look even more like they’ve sprung out of a comic book. While boosting a hero grants purely cosmetic upgrades like moving backgrounds and shiny hero names, it also ratchets up your overall collection level — which is the way you get more cards.

For the first several collection levels, you’ll get a preset series of cards that are key to simple yet powerful strategies; like silver-age hero Ka-Zar, who powers up your smallest one-energy cards, or Wolfsbane, who gains power based on how many cards are already at her location. These early cards fit into a handful of different deck strategies, from empowering minions to repeating the «on reveal» abilities with the late-game Odin card for a dramatic finish.

On reaching collection level 18, you’ll move on from the beginner slate of preset cards to a wider set. At higher collection levels, you’ll be rewarded with a random card from the first pool and face opponents with access to the same card group. You’ll enter the second card pool at collection level 222, and the third pool at 486. As time goes on, even more cards will be added to this last pool, with newer cards showing up more rarely.

Upgrading cards requires spending the in-game currency credits (which are different than boosters), gained through daily missions that typically involve playing cards of a certain cost, earning wins, or drawing cards. You can either wait to earn enough boosters for cards or head to the in-game shop and pay extra credits to upgrade cards early. Later on, you’ll also be able to gain ‘collector tokens’ to buy single cards showcased one at a time in the in-game shop.

What’s the fastest way to get more cards?

Marvel Snap is geared toward granting players new cards as rewards for playing, though the rate of new cards slows in higher collection levels. There are only a couple of ways to buy new cards with real money: buying very pricey seasonal bundles that include specific cards, or paying for in-game currency to indirectly boost your collection level.

The latter is a slightly complicated sequence. You can pay real money for gold, a secondary in-game currency mostly used for buying variant versions of cards you already own, but that can also be used to buy credits. As previously mentioned, credits can be spent in the in-game store to rapidly upgrade cards to bypass boosters and climb the collection level, which earns you new cards. It’s a hassle, and you don’t get much currency for your hard-earned real money — best to save it for bundles that offer more value.

It may be disappointing to hear, but simply playing more matches is the best way to get cards.

Tips for winning matches

Winning in Marvel Snap seems simple — just secure two out of the three locations — but wild swings can happen in any of the six turns (or seven, on rare occasions). As you play, you’ll get a feel for what kind of decks you’ll face and the best strategies to counter them.

But there are several basic things about the game that aren’t immediately obvious. In a match, see whether your player handle or an opponent’s is ringed with light — that’s who’ll flip cards first next turn, which can matter if an «on reveal» effect relies on opponents having certain cards in play. Also, tapping your or your opponent’s player portraits opens up a dropdown status menu showing how many cards each has in hand and in the deck, along with how many have been destroyed or discarded during the game — key info for certain card abilities.

To win matches, you want to control locations. You probably won’t have enough power to win all three, so you’ll want to focus on the two you’re most likely to win. This might change as location abilities are revealed and your opponent plays cards, so remain flexible for the first few turns to see how the board plays out. You can even deceive your opponent by looking like you’re going to invest in one location and abandon it for the two others in later turns.

Keep refining your decks. If you’re losing, go back to the collection and see whether different cards might fit your strategy better, especially new ones that haven’t been tested yet. Remember, the worst that can happen is losing cubes and rank progress — but you can gain that back later with strategic Snapping.

Speaking of, the last tip is to know when to Snap and when to retreat. There’s no shame in ducking out if it looks like you’re not going to win. A good rule of thumb is that if you aren’t winning at least two of the locations going into the sixth and/or final turn, you might want to back out — it’s going to take too much power to flip multiple locations.

On the other hand, if you have more power in two or three locations and have a strong final play, you might want to Snap to increase your winnings, which could scare the opponent off to retreat. Like in poker, a win is a win, whether you’re bluffing with weaker cards or the opponent is too intimidated to play cards that actually would’ve beaten yours.

That’s it for now, so get out there and start building your collection. If you’re struggling, look online for guides on popular decks made of cards in your collection. And don’t be afraid to experiment, as there are many, many interactions that aren’t clear until you slam down your cards — just look at this recent combo that skyrockets a single card from four to over 600,000 power. Excelsior!

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Technologies

These Continuous Glucose Monitors Have Been Recalled Due to Faulty Speakers. What You Need to Do to Stay Safe

There have been 56 serious injuries reported related to this Class I recall. If you use Dexcom’s continuous glucose monitoring systems, this is what you need to know.

Dexcom customers, listen up: Certain continuous glucose monitoring receivers have been recalled due to speaker malfunctions, which can cause you to miss alerts or alarms for dangerous blood sugar levels. Since May 2025, there have been 112 complaints globally, with 56 reported injuries. 

Missing an alert from your continuous glucose monitor may result in health consequences like vomiting, seizures, loss of consciousness and hypoglycemic or hyperglycemic symptoms. 

Certain Dexcom G6, G7, One and One Plus receivers are included in this recall. The One and One Plus receivers are available outside of the US. 

Dexcom is one of the most popular continuous glucose monitor brands, and many people with diabetes use Dexcom devices to track their glucose levels in real time.

According to Dexcom’s update, even without the audio output from the speaker, your receiver will still alert you through vibration and visual prompts. However, that’s only so helpful when many people keep their receivers in their pockets or bags. People who use the mobile app for glucose values, alerts and alarms will still be able to do so without interruption.

What you should do right now

A continuous glucose monitoring system has three parts: the glucose sensor you wear, a transmitter and the small receiver you keep for alerts. The receiver is being recalled, not the sensor you wear, so you shouldn’t expect the readings you get from your device to be inaccurate.

If you use a Dexcom continuous glucose monitor, check the complete list of affected devices for the model and serial number. You can also go to Dexcom’s website to see if your device is affected. These numbers are on the back of your receiver.

If your device is affected, contact Dexcom immediately for a free replacement. Continuous glucose monitors aren’t something you can just stop using, so it’s essential to get in your replacement order as soon as possible. Remember, while you wait, that there’s a chance your receiver speaker isn’t working correctly and you will not be alerted with a sound to spikes or drops in your blood sugar.

You should regularly test the speakers each time you charge your receiver. When you plug the receiver in, the Speaker Test screen will appear for a few seconds. To test your sound, follow the directions on the screen. If it doesn’t beep, then it’s time to contact Dexcom. Remember that it’s important to continue testing your speaker over time. Checking it once doesn’t mean it can’t fail in the future. Even if your device isn’t under recall, this is a good habit to have.

You can also test your receiver’s speaker at any time through the device’s menu. For support during this recall, contact Dexcom technical support at 1-844-478-1600.

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Technologies

Tariff Inflation Is Looking Real, So I’m Tracking 11 Key Products for Price Moves

A new report found inflation on the rise in June, another indicator of the affect Donald Trump’s tariffs are having on the US economy.

Throughout the second Trump administration, tariffs have become the defining aspect of the president’s economic agenda, and while they might have been an obscure subject before, now consumers and businesses alike are worrying: will they cause prices to increase? It’s a question more relevant than ever, as President Donald Trump punts another major deadline down the road and a new Consumer Price Index summary showing that inflation was 2.7% in June, the biggest jump since February.

Amid those worries, I’ve been tracking prices every day for 11 key products likely to be hit by tariff-induced price increases, and the answer I’ve come to so far is this: Not so much, at least not yet. The winding road of tariff inflation still stretches before us into an uncertain future, so the threat of price hikes continues to cloud the horizon.

To date, I’ve seen two noteworthy price increases, one for the Xbox Series X and the other for a popular budget-friendly 4K TV. Some other products — including Apple’s popular AirPods — have gone on sale for brief periods. 

CNET Tariff Tracker Index

Above, you can check out a chart with the average price of the 11 products included in this piece over the course of 2025. This will help give you a sense of the overall price changes and fluctuations going on. Further down, you’ll be able to check out charts for each individual product being tracked. Based on the numbers so far, the average has gone up noticeably since the start of the year, but this has been driven mostly be a big shifts for a few products, as most price are still stable.

We’ll be updating this article regularly as prices change. It’s all in the name of helping you make sense of things, so be sure to check back every so often. For more, check out CNET’s guide to whether you should wait to make big purchases or buy them now and get expert tips about how to prepare for a recession.

Methodology

We’re checking prices daily and will update the article and the relevant charts right away to reflect any changes. The following charts show a single bullet point for each month, with the most recent one labeled «Now» and showing the current price. For the past months, we’ve gone with what was the most common price for each item in the given month. 

In most cases, the price stats used in these graphs were pulled from Amazon using the historical price-tracker tool Keepa. For the iPhones, the prices come from Apple’s official materials and are based on the 128-gigabyte base model of the latest offering of the iPhone 16. For the Xbox Series X, the prices were sourced from Best Buy using the tool PriceTracker. If any of these products happen to be on sale at a given time, we’ll be sure to let you know and explain how those price drops differ from longer-term pricing trends that tariffs can cause.

The 11 products we’re tracking

Mostly what we’re tracking in this article are electronic devices and digital items that CNET covers in depth, like iPhones and affordable 4K TVs — along with a typical bag of coffee, a more humble product that isn’t produced in the US to any significant degree. 

The products featured were chosen for a few reasons: Some of them are popular and/or affordable representatives for major consumer tech categories, like smartphones, TVs and game consoles. Others are meant to represent things that consumers might buy more frequently, like printer ink or coffee beans. Some products were chosen over others because they are likely more susceptible to tariffs. Some of these products have been reviewed by CNET or have been featured in some of our best lists.

Below, we’ll get into more about each individual product, and stick around till the end for a rundown of some other products worth noting.

iPhone 16

The iPhone is the most popular smartphone brand in the US, so this was a clear priority for price tracking. The iPhone has also emerged as a major focal point for conversations about tariffs, given its popularity and its susceptibility to import taxes because of its overseas production, largely in China. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the idea that the iPhone can and should be manufactured in the US, an idea that experts have dismissed as a fantasy. Estimates have also suggested that a US-made iPhone would cost as much as $3,500.

Something to note about this graph: The price listed is the one you’ll see if you buy your phone through a major carrier. If you, say, buy direct from Apple or Best Buy without a carrier involved, you’ll be charged an extra $30, so in some places, you might see the list price of the standard iPhone 16 listed as $830.

Apple’s been taking a few steps to protect its prices in the face of these tariffs, flying in bulk shipments of product before they took effect and planning to move production for the US market from China to India. A new Reuters report found that a staggering 97% of iPhones imported from the latter country, March through May, were bound for the US. This latter move drew the anger of Trump again, threatening the company with a 25% tariff if they didn’t move production to the US, an idea CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly shot down in the past. This came after Trump gave a tariff exemption to electronic devices including smartphones, so the future of that move seems in doubt now.

Duracell AA batteries

A lot of the tech products in your home might boast a rechargeable energy source but individual batteries are still an everyday essential and I can tell you from experience that as soon as you forget about them, you’ll be needing to restock. The Duracell AAs we’re tracking are some of the bestselling batteries on Amazon.

Samsung DU7200 TV

Alongside smartphones, televisions are some of the most popular tech products out there, even if they’re an infrequent purchase. This particular product is a popular entry-level 4K TV and was CNET’s pick for best overall budget TV for 2025. Unlike a lot of tech products that have key supply lines in China, Samsung is a South Korean company, so it might have some measure of tariff resistance. 

After spending most of 2025 hovering around $400, this item has now seen some notable upticks on Amazon, most recently sitting around $450. This could potentially be in reaction to Trump’s announcement of 25% tariffs against South Korea this week.

Xbox Series X

Video game software and hardware are a market segment expected to be hit hard by the Trump tariffs. Microsoft’s Xbox is the first console brand to see price hikes — the company cited «market conditions» along with the rising cost of development. Most notably, this included an increase in the price of the flagship Xbox Series X, up from $500 to $600. Numerous Xbox accessories also were affected and the company also said that «certain» games will eventually see a price hike from $70 to $80.

Initially, we were tracking the price of the much more popular Nintendo Switch as a representative of the gaming market. Nintendo has not yet hiked the price of its handheld-console hybrid and stressed that the $450 price tag of the upcoming Switch 2 has not yet been inflated because of tariffs. Sony, meanwhile, has so far only increased prices on its PlayStation hardware in markets outside the US.

AirPods Pro 2

The latest iteration of Apple’s wildly popular true-wireless earbuds are here to represent the headphone market. Much to the chagrin of the audiophiles out there, a quick look at sales charts on Amazon shows you just how much the brand dominates all headphone sales. While Prime Day might be in the rearview mirror at this point, you can grab a pair of these earbuds for $169, a $30 discount from where they’ve been most of the year.

HP 962 CMY printer ink

This HP printer ink includes cyan, magenta and yellow all in one product and recently saw its price jump from around $72 — where it stayed for most of 2025 — to $80, which is around its highest price over the last five years. We will be keeping tabs to see if this is a long-term change or a brief uptick. 

This product replaced Overture PLA Filament for 3D printers in this piece, but we’re still tracking that item.

Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank

Anker’s accessories are perennially popular in the tech space and the company has already announced that some of its products will get more expensive as a direct result of tariffs. This specific product has also been featured in some of CNET’s lists of the best portable chargers. 

Bose TV speaker

Soundbars have become important purchases, given the often iffy quality of the speakers built into TVs. While not the biggest or the best offering in the space, the Bose TV Speaker is one of the more affordable soundbar options out there, especially hailing from a brand as popular as Bose. 

Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush

They might be a lot more expensive than their traditional counterparts but electric toothbrushes remain a popular choice for consumers because of how well they get the job done. I know my dentist won’t let up on how much I need one. This particular Oral-B offering was CNET’s overall choice for the best electric toothbrush for 2025.

This product hasn’t seen its price budge one way or another most of the year, but while Prime Day might have come and gone, there’s still a $10 coupon listed on Amazon right now, letting you save a little bit of money for the time being.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook

Lenovo is notable among the big laptop manufacturers for being a Chinese company making its products especially susceptible to Trump’s tariffs.

For now, its price has been largely unchanged in the last few months. You can, however, grab it on Amazon right now at a $20 discount, but we’ll have to see how long that actually lasts.

Starbucks Ground Coffee (28-ounce bag)

Coffee is included in this tracker because of its ubiquity —I’m certainly drinking too much of it these days —and because it’s uniquely susceptible to Trump’s tariff agenda. Famously, coffee beans can only be grown within a certain distance from Earth’s equator, a tropical span largely outside the US and known as the «Coffee Belt.» 

Hawaii is the only part of the US that can produce coffee beans, with data from USAFacts showing that 11.5 million pounds were harvested there in the 2022-23 season — little more than a drop in the mug, as the US consumed 282 times that amount of coffee during that period. Making matters worse, Hawaiian coffee production has declined in the past few years.

All that to say: Americans get almost all of their coffee from overseas, making it one of the most likely products to see price hikes from tariffs. While this particular bag of beans from Starbucks hasn’t seen its price budge for most of the year, in recent days it ticked up by less than a dollar on Amazon, which could be a sign of further increases to come.

Other products

As mentioned, we occasionally swap out products with different ones that undergo notable price shifts. Here are some things no longer featured above, but that we’re still keeping an eye on:

  • Nintendo Switch: The baseline handheld-console hybrid has held steady around $299 most places — including Amazon — since it released in 2017. Whether that price will be affected by tariffs or the release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X.
  • Overture PLA 3D printer filament: This is a popular choice on Amazon for the material needed to run 3D printers. It has held steady around $15 on Amazon all year. This product was replaced above by the HP 962 printer ink.

Here are some products we also wanted to single out that haven’t been featured with a graph yet:

  • Razer Blade 18 (2025), 5070 Ti edition: The latest revision of Razer’s largest gaming laptop saw a $300 price bump recently, with the base model featured an RTX 5070 Ti graphics card now priced at $3,500 ahead of launch, compared to the $3,200 price announced in February. While Razer has stayed mum about the reasoning, it did previously suspend direct sales to the US as Trump’s tariff plans were ramping up in April.
  • Asus ROG Ally X: The premium version of Asus’s Steam Deck competitor handheld gaming PC recently saw a price hike from $799 to $899, coinciding with the announcement of the company’s upcoming Xbox-branded Ally handhelds.
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Technologies

Donkey Kong Bananza Review: Like Mario And Zelda Smashed Together on Switch 2

DK is turning the Switch 2 into a must-have right out of the gate.

Summers are about big, fun, mind-numbing movies. Great escapes in the best of ways. I need that right now, and maybe you do too. I’m happy to say that Donkey Kong Bananza is here to whisk you off to multilevel worlds of satisfyingly smashing madness, to cheer you up and give you an excuse to punch the heck out of things. It’s a game my 12-year-old son has loved playing along with me, although I’ve had to find ways to wrestle the game back to play for myself.

I was wowed by Bananza during an early preview a few weeks ago, but after a few weeks of play at home, it’s even better. This is my favorite Switch game since… I have no idea when. Maybe since Super Mario Odyssey.

The catch is that you need the new Nintendo Switch 2 console to play it. Donkey Kong Bananza won’t work on the original Switch — or on any other gaming device. Of course, that’s the whole idea.

Nintendo needed home run games for its new Switch 2 console, and it hit a grand slam with the new Donkey Kong. I still haven’t finished the game, but I already know it’s the best reason to buy a Switch 2 yet. 

Donkey Kong Bananza is available for $70 from Nintendo.com and other retailers. We’re also keeping track of Nintendo Switch 2 restocks if you’re still seeking a console.

Smashing story with co-op options

In a lot of ways, Bananza feels like Zelda and Mario met in the middle. 

The story’s weird, but what Mario (or Nintendo) game isn’t? Donkey Kong’s world has been threatened by a sinister bunch of apes, after a large meteor knocks a mining company deep into the planet’s core. The adventure involves diving down into those sublevels — it’s Donkey Kong Hollow Earth, or Journey to the Center of the Kongiverse. The big difference in this game is that you can destroy just about anything, burrowing and tunneling throughout the game’s large 3D maps.

Technically, this isn’t a true collaborative co-op game, but there’s a mode where Pauline — a young girl who mysteriously fell from the sky and becomes Donkey Kong’s friend — can throw her voice, literally, at things to destroy them. A second player takes over as Pauline and aims and shoots words at enemies, and can absorb material powers from nearby rocks and objects. It’s more engaging than the hat-throwing co-op in Odyssey. 

You can Game Share Bananza with a local Switch 2 or Switch 1 in co-op mode to play on two screens, or just play on one. For this review, I wasn’t allowed to Game Share to a second Switch.

The Mario mojo

Bananza is made by the Super Mario Odyssey team, and its 3D platforming feels like a Mario sequel. You can wander through large but still self-contained sublevels that remind me of the Kingdoms in Super Mario Odyssey. As you descend to new levels, the characters you meet and the level’s game mechanics shift up a bit. The levels aren’t as drastically different or quite as weirdly whimsical as the ones in Odyssey, but they feel a lot busier.

Jumping and punching are the main ways to control things, but there are plenty of other moves. There’s also a skill tree of abilities to unlock and power up, which uses points you accumulate by collecting giant, crystal bananas (just go with it). Donkey Kong can also buy new outfits, much like Mario Odyssey, but these outfits (or pieces of outfits) give extra perks, like cold resistance or faster energy recovery.

Each of the levels has goals and sub-bosses to fight, but also secret subchallenges to discover — some of them 3D, some 2D side-scrolling. There are other things to find, in every direction, on any potential hillside or surface, if you just pummel your fists and dig. The free-digging usually involves either finding more crystal bananas or various-sized fossils, which can be collected and redeemed for costumes. There’s gold to accumulate, too, which acts as general currency. But even as I rush to the next goal on any level, I’m equally tempted to just start digging around and see what’s going on somewhere else.

The Zelda zeitgeist

Here’s where Bananza really starts to feel like a lower-key Zelda game, especially when it comes to finding characters and following sub-missions. You can talk to lots of the strange characters in each sublevel, and some share important news. You’ll get directed to a particular goal, and on a 3D map, you can track your progress or warp to other spots. But as the game’s progress starts to wind up and down through sublevels, it begins to feel a lot more quest-y than any Mario game. 

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom kept coming to mind for me. That game’s vast overworld and underworld — and its various ways of finding passages between — is very much like Bananza. Also, like recent Zelda games, you can climb just about anywhere (or surf chunks of rock you rip out of the ground). The outfit perks feel Zelda-like, and so does the game’s sense of real-time, chaotic physics. Some puzzles involve understanding the environment and manipulating it, much like I did many times in Tears.

There’s also a sense of persistence in Bananza. You can create little home bases that let you rest up and change outfits. You’ll meander off and come back to locations. Mario Odyssey had some of this too, but Bananza feels more lived in.

Unlike recent Zeldas, though, this game’s challenges are relatively contained. You won’t have long lists of subquests or stories to lose track of. After spending months away from Zelda, and coming back not remembering what I was meant to do next, I appreciate Bananza’s simpler vibe.

A whole new yet familiar feel

Most importantly, Bananza just feels fresh. I get a little tired, sometimes, of diving back into new Zeldas and Marios that layer legends on top of legends. Donkey Kong’s universe is different from previous Kong games, especially the giant, wrinkled Elders who preside over subworlds like spirits, granting extra transformation powers. This is where the «Bananza» name comes in.

Accumulating enough gold triggers a chance to become a spirit animal. There’s a Bananza version of Kong that has stronger punches, an ostrich that can fly and drop egg bombs, and a zebra that can run fast over ice and water. (I haven’t unlocked any others yet.) 

After a week-plus of playing, I’m still consistently surprised by what I’m encountering. But I’m also finding it familiar and comfortable, just like a big summer movie. And that’s what this is: Nintendo’s big blockbuster summer game, one of the best I can remember. Something I don’t want to end, and I’m glad to have more to explore.

I’m also surprised by other things: there’s no online mode, which I don’t mind but feels surprising after Super Mario Wonder’s clever additions. The game download size is only 8GB, shockingly small compared to Switch 2 launch games like Cyberpunk 2077, which were nearly 60GB. I was getting worried about how much storage space I’d have on the Switch 2 over time, but if more games are like Bananza, things will be OK.

My youngest son was instantly interested in Bananza, so much so that he didn’t want me playing without him. I had to, though, so I could carve enough time out to play. We’re going to backtrack and play again, and he’ll start playing, too. Will Bananza feel as replayable and infinitely fun as many of Nintendo’s best? I can’t entirely tell yet, but there’s already so much I’ve skipped over in so many levels, I don’t doubt it. There’s also a 3D art mode thrown in as a bonus where you use the Joy-Cons to sculpt and paint ape heads and bunches of bananas.

Donkey Kong makes it worth buying a Switch 2

Bananza is a great sign for where Nintendo’s heading with the Switch 2. It feels like a more evolved version of many Switch games of the past, but just like Mario Kart World, the other major Switch 2 exclusive, it takes the good ideas even further. Bananza is also an extension of Nintendo’s universe, including the Super Mario Movie, which has a Donkey Kong that looks like this one, and Super Nintendo World, which has a Donkey Kong land, too. And yes, Super Nintendo World’s Donkey Kong Power-Up bands even work like Amiibo with this game. 

This is a game as vibrant and kinetic as Sony’s fantastic Astro Bot and similarly full of things to search for and do. In comparison, Super Mario Odyssey now seems surprisingly quiet and chill. 

And yes, this game is worth getting a Switch 2 for — that was the idea all along. It’s nice to see that Nintendo really pulled it off, though. Combined with Mario Kart World, this is a heck of a one-two punch. I’d still love a proper 3D Mario sequel someday, but Bananza is practically that right now.

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