I was getting kind of tired with the game by Radiance and Feast. Not feeling negative but just kinda worn out. I never cared about Void Kong or his whole deal. I'm glad you liked it so much! It felt similar to Odyssey a game I don't really enjoy at all despite it feeling great to control.
Bananza mimicked my issues with Odyssey, the worlds just don't feel like they really fit in? And I was 50/50 on the fractones. I'm really weird and particular about world building stuff in platformers I cherish lol. I also don't like the Bananza forms very much?
I get it, at first I was skeptical about the world/environment design itself; it seemed really garish and to not fit the ideal tone of the DK series. It really grew on me though. Still somewhat fantastical, but I think it's great for the Underground to have surreal vibes
Actually between the whimsical levels and the transformations, it feels like a long-lost Banjo-Kazooie adventure to me just as much as a DK one. They definitely brought in some tangential DNA from DK64's (better) siblings, BK/BT. The ostrich glide is just solo Kazooie but available at any time lol
And I do think Void (and Poppy and Grumpy) are fantastic, I love them, I'm glad we get to have both old and new villains... I'm glad Void got an actual satisfying arc and didn't just get unceremoniously villain-jacked, but dispatched in a way that was satisfying both in-game and metatextually!!!
But yeah the K Rool fight literally made me cry in joy. Especially when gangplank kicked in. Oh my fucking god. I hope he sticks around. I'd say Bananza is like my fifth favorite DK game haha. Tropical Freeze, DKC2, Returns, DKC3, Bananza, DKC1, then DK Jr Math.
Also, was Cranky glitched? Or does he really just say the exact same thing every time you meet up with him?
He always starts out with the same lines, but then he has a unique line in each world about the villain he's chasing. And they're all stuff like... he's greedy, he has wild eyes, a jagged grin, he zips around on his stupid little device, hmm... Talk to him again in postgame ;)