Actually, that's not entirely fair to Pauline, whom a Nintendo rep referred to as a "co-star" instead of a "sidekick" at an extensive Donkey Kong Bananza hands-on preview event I attended recently. The second big Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive,

Nintendo spilled the beans at a recent Donkey Kong Bananaza preview event. It’s being made by “the same team that developed Super Mario Odyssey ,” the company told VGC and others. The studio is “based in Tokyo,

Players who bought the Nintendo Switch 2 with the laser focus of playing Nintendo’s exclusive titles may have been disappointed that the sole first-party experience available at launch was Mario Kart World.