I'm still going to finish up the post-game bit, but yeah, I was starting to kick around the idea of trying to 100% the game until I hit that Zebra challenge. I made it through, but no way I could do it and get all the bananas.

Without trophies or Gamer Score, I don't get the appeal of 100%'ing a game like this.

It’s just an excuse to keep playing a game if I’m having fun with it, which is the same reason I’d go after trophies or achievements.

I feel the same way. I wish Nintendo would come up with some sort of accomplishment thing, but I guess they figure we have gotten along fine without it since the NES first came out in the mid 80's.

Every time I read your gaming posts I feel like it's a job. That's how it comes across.

Exactly, yeah.

In my case, I was kicking the tires to see if the post-game was something I’d be into.

For Super Mario Odyssey, collecting the 8,000,000,000,000,000 moons was pretty swiftly a hard pass. Bananza kept me going further than I would’ve thought, but once I hit a couple of frustrating difficulty spikes, I was content to walk away.

I’ll power through annoying bits for a game I haven’t finished, but for ones I have, there’d have to be something really compelling on the other end to keep making myself miserable.

I’m not sure how much I’m in the minority here, but I’m personally glad that there aren’t system-level trophies/achievements for Nintendo games.

I certainly wouldn't criticize someone for staying to 100% this amazing game. I just feel like especially a Platinum trophy is a nice reward for putting in that kind of effort. Like a visual validation of the achievement. Though I don't know, maybe there is something in-game to reward you at that point besides maxing out all the stats.

I realized after trying to play it several times today that I feel done with the game. Fantastic experience, though. Maybe I'll just leave it behind for now and get to play Mario Kart World.

I feel so targeted…

Yeah, that rings true.

Alright, game beaten in 55 hours. With no 2nd player help.
So only 40 hours longer than the upper end of the Kotaku estimate.

My son and I have a running gag about the only way that DK can get full health is by sleeping with a 12 year old girl, which is technically true, but not what it sounds like.

She’s 13 which in many states and counties is the age of….

jk. But she is 13. The only reason why I know is because my oldest is 13.

DK is in the files!!

I was at Costco and they had physical copies for $62.99 and I couldn't resist. I hope to fire it up this weekend.

I played this over the weekend and think I've taken it as far as I'm going to. There are around 20 bananas I'm missing, but only one that I just couldn't find. I've no interest in a couple from the racing level and then the rest are from the post-game rehearsal challenges. I made it through all of the rehearsals, but there are some side bananas there that are more of a pain in the ass than I will ever want to deal with. I'm a little surprised that finding all of the bananas doesn't get you enough to max out your abilities. I'd need a little more than 70 to get everything, but the final bananza upgrades aren't really interesting enough for me to care.

All in all, this is a wonderfully designed game, but for me, I stand by my previous assessment of its lack of staying power. I'll still pop in Odyssey and the pair of Switch Zelda titles on occasion and have played through Pikmin 4 something like half a dozen times, but I don't see much to pull me back to Bananza down the road. That's not really a complaint, just an observation. It brings all of the creativity and fun one would expect from a top-tier Nintendo title and is well worth the price. While it's not technically a launch title, it's probably the best within-a-monthish-of-launch Nintendo title since Mario 64.

Does BotW not count as a launch title?

I guess it kind of does, but I was thinking in terms of reasons to buy a system. Both BotW and Twilight Princess were simultaneously released on previous gen hardware.

$20 Paid DLC out today

Now I can play this game!

Played for only the second time today… but I put about 6 hours into it.

I’m missing a handful of items (like 6 bananas, and one small and one medium fossil).

Loving it so far.

Going “bananzas” and and clearing out large tracks of rock revealing treasure chests, maps, fossils, and bananas is wild.

Definitely can see the hand of the Odyssey team in this game.

I hopped down to the hillside level before turning it off.

Great game.

Put a few more hours into this today. I’m now in Sublevel 600, the leafy level.

I usually like to play games docked, but I prefer this game in handheld mode.

Got back to playing it today. Finished Sub Level 600 and backtracked to Level 500 and just got the record pieces and got the new Bananza form.

That’s enough for today.

Sitting at 247 Bananium Gems right now.