Nintendo had fun with the Donkey Kong Land trilogy for the original Game Boy and made the cartridges yellow. It had fun again with Donkey Kong 64 and made that one yellow, too. A fan thought he’d also have some fun and make Donkey Kong Bananza yellow as well, and now it’s trapped inside his Switch 2.
TikTok user Gardner went viral last weekend for taking his new copy of Donkey Bananaza and defiling it in the service of nostalgia and content creation. What seemed like a straightforward experiment quickly went off the rails. The bottle of spray paint he purchased wasn’t quite the warm, egg yolk yellow of the retro Nintendo cartridges. Then, he had to slice open the plastic to get the actual cartridge part with the game installed on it out. Then, he spray painted the plastic just to have it blow away under the force.
The final result was a messy but unmistakably yellow copy of Donkey Kong Bananza. It was a crude attempt, but one that almost inspired me to break my own cardinal rule of never mimicking stuff you see on TikTok. Then the Kong paw curled around Gardner’s knew creation: It wouldn’t fit in his Switch 2. At least not at first.
I guess he jammed it in or something, because he returned yesterday with a new video showing him trying and failing to remove Donkey Kong Bananza from his Switch 2. “The internet was clowning on me cause I decided to paint my Donkey Kong yellow and now it is absolutely stuck,” he said. Metal pliers seemed like the answer, but all they did was scratch up the new paint job and break off a piece of the plastic. “Again I’m chilling because I’ve been playing the game for a while but again I’d love your suggestions” he implored his viewers.
Instead of offering help, the internet continued to Monday morning quarterback the situation. “Shoulda 3d printed a new yellow shell or something for the cart instead,” one person wrote. Another chided Gardner for failing to sand the plastic before applying the paint for a smooth and better adhering coat. The most helpful responses were just people telling him to send it into Nintendo for an official repair. But the prognosis could be grim.
“The crazy thing is that the switch 2 cartridge reader isn’t a removable it’s a part of the motherboard,” one user noted. “So you can’t even get a new one to take it out at a repair shop.” Even if Gardner never gets to play another physical game in his Switch 2 ever again, he’ll at least have his own personal DK rap tribute from fellow TikToker Joshstatix: “Ruined the cartridge, brought his console to shame, he’s sprayin’ paint like it’s an art class flex but now the game won’t boot it’s just an error text.”
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