Released back in July for the Switch 2, Donkey Kong Bananza lets you go bananas as Nintendo’s giant ape character Donkey Kong. Players can explore and find goodies by freely punching, smashing and digging their way through bizarre and colorful open-world levels. The game’s quirkiness and fruit-obsession extends to the varied sound effects — many of which were made by the staff themselves. Apparently, a lot of biting and eating was involved…
In a recently published interview with Famitsu, Donkey Kong Bananza’s producer Kenta Motokura explained: “The noise you hear when digging is actually the sound of someone eating watermelon. The sound team actually bought watermelons and recorded those sounds.”
However, apparently this was not exactly a relaxing snack break: “Since they couldn’t do many takes, the recording sessions were apparently very tense,” one of the game’s directors, Wataru Tanaka, revealed.
In an interview with Nintendo Dream Web, sound director Naoto Kubo went into even more detail about the level of dedication that went into capturing and manipulating foley sounds to create Donkey Kong Bananza’s satisfying noises.
He noted that the team “recorded a huge variety of (real-life) sounds,” which were then adjusted and readjusted before being added into the game. “We spent years creating things like rock destruction sounds, investing that much time and effort in meticulous adjustments,” Kubo explained, adding that the in-house sound team created all the effects you hear in the game.
Donkey Kong Bananza employs a variety of sound effects depending on what you are making Donkey Kong interact with. The sound when you punch watermelons in-game was actually made by smashing actual watermelons. However, Kubo recalled that this was a tough one to get right.
“By the time I got around to recording them, summer was already over,” he explained. “There just weren’t any good watermelons left,” adding that he was able to capture the watermelon smashing sound the following year.
For the sound effect when you interact with an apple, the team “kept biting into all sorts of things and recording it,” Kubo explained. This included apples, cookies, celery and even hard candies (ouch!). However, in the end they decided that the sound of biting into a real apple was the best. On the other hand, the sound effects for the in-game gold were produced by experimenting with metals brought from a DIY store.
Other effects were created using a mixture of sounds. The team mixed some of the watermelon-smashing recordings into the sound that plays when you break a hamburger patty in Donkey Kong Bananza, because, as Kubo said, “You don’t get a very good sound when you actually bite into a hamburger patty.” The satisfying “boing” sound that rocks make when you smash through them was likewise created by mixing in a cicada chirp.
For more in-depth insider info about Donkey Kong Banaza’s development, check out our interview with Motokura and Takahashi, and find out why the game scored 10/10 in our review.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
