{"id":1249574,"date":"2026-03-01T03:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T03:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=612647"},"modified":"2026-03-01T03:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T03:27:07","slug":"the-donkey-kong-timeline-is-a-mess-can-bananza-clean-it-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/the-donkey-kong-timeline-is-a-mess-can-bananza-clean-it-up\/","title":{"rendered":"The Donkey Kong timeline is a mess \u2014\u00a0can Bananza clean it up?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Donkey Kong Bananza<\/em> will add even more chaos to the confounding timeline of the Donkey Kong games, which over the past 40-plus years, has been a tangled mess of contradictions and confusion. <\/p>\n

But Nintendo\u2019s revelations about Pauline and its coyness about her age<\/a> \u2014 she\u2019s just 13 years old in this game \u2014 plays into the story of Donkey Kong Bananza<\/a><\/em> offer a glimmer of hope that the Switch 2 exclusive might help clear some things up. And this is big news for weirdos who think about the Donkey Kong timeline.<\/p>\n

Of course, this is Nintendo after all, a company that has both contorted itself to try to explain away the diverging timelines of The Legend of Zelda franchise but also loves a paradox in which Baby Mario and adult Mario exist in the same time period and race karts against each other. The company is here to make fun games and put smiles on faces, even if it means frowns for the people who try to dissect whether Cranky Kong is Donkey Kong\u2019s father, grandfather, or an older version of Donkey Kong himself.<\/p>\n

In order to understand (or try to understand) the Donkey Kong timeline, we need to start at the beginning: 1981\u2019s Donkey Kong<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Who even is Donkey Kong anyway?<\/h2>\n
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