Donkey Kong Bananza, aside from reestablishing the titular monkey as a top IP in the Nintendo library, helped gamers get more acquainted with the lore and characters of this particular franchise. Donkey Kong is kind of a Mario character, but not really, and he’s not as popular, nor is his line of games/characters/settings/etc.
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Pauline, Cranky Kong, Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong, Void Kong, King K. Rool, and many other characters appeared in the various levels of the Earth as DK and Pauline traveled to the core. Despite all of those, one side character that might’ve been overlooked has caught the eye of the fan base.
On sublevel 1100, players will enter the Racing Layer, which is where they’ll find Diddy and Dixie Kong. It’s one of the more unique levels of the game in that it has a mini-game that must be beaten to proceed. It involves racing on the back of Rambi, the game’s version of a rhinoceros.
This character was seen in various other spots on different layers, namely with Cranky Kong, but it took a starring role in the Racing Layer, and fans want to see more of it as soon as possible.
“OK Nintendo, give us this as merch please,” u/AeroTheManiac originally posted on r/NintendoSwitch2. It got over 700 upvotes and quite a few comments in agreement. Another said they’d love to see a Cranky and Rambi amiibo set. u/YouShallNotPass92 said, “I don’t even care about Amiibo’s anymore but inject a whole line of DK ones into my veins.”
For now, that doesn’t exist, but there is a workaround. LEGO has a set where gamers can build Rambi the Rhino. It is currently a retired product, which means you’d likely need to find it secondhand through eBay or some other retailer.
Plenty of gamers expressed their willingness to buy a plush of the character. Rambi has been in plenty of other games, not just Bananza, including:
- Donkey Kong Country
- Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
- Donkey Kong 64
- Donkey Konga
- Donkey Kong Land
- Super Smash Bros.
- Super Mario Odyssey
- Tetris 99
- Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
- Mario Kart
He also made an appearance in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, so he’s far from a one-off character introduced in Donkey Kong’s biggest game yet. There are plenty of characters in Donkey Kong Bananza that are underutilized in the wider scope of Nintendo. Pauline is a relatively new character, but she’s another fan favorite that players want to see plenty more of.
With all this attention, merchandise could be on the way, and plushes would not be a huge shock. Amiibo wouldn’t be, either, since that’s Nintendo’s bread and butter when it comes to collectibles of any kind. Additionally, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary if a future Mario Kart World patch made Rambi a playable character.
For now, Donkey Kong Bananza remains Rambi’s starring role, but it has effectively catapulted this small side character from an often-overlooked franchise firmly into the mainstream.
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