Super Monkey Ball 2 (GameCube) Review

One year after the original Super Monkey Ball on GameCube, which was a follow-up to the original Monkey Ball in arcades, Sega continued to refine the series with Super Monkey Ball 2 on the GameCube. This series changed how the monkeys roll and greatly expanded on the ideas introduced in earlier games from its series. This review will judge Super Monkey Ball 2 on its own merits.

Obviously the biggest draw of any Monkey Ball game is the gameplay. It is split up into two main parts, the unconventional 3D platformer puzzler and the various unlockable minigames.

The main mode of Super Monkey Ball 2 is also split up into two parts, the story mode and challenge mode. The story mode involves going through various worlds that require the player to complete many of the game’s levels before they can move on to the next world. Each world has its own graphical theme and there is always a cutscene before and after each world. The challenge mode plays many of these same levels in what is essentially an arcade mode. The player has a limited amount of lives to take on the various difficulties, which generally have more levels and are more difficult as the difficulty increases. The player completes levels one after another, with some bonus levels where the player can collect bananas, which are useful to gain extra lives for that run of the challenge mode. There are also many secret or more difficult goals in levels that allow the player to skip some of the levels in their chosen challenge mode. These levels are generally all well designed, but there are some that demand trial and error, which brings the overall quality of the game down.

These modes are obviously the focus with their extremely well designed gameplay system that they all share. Players control a monkey (it looks like the player controls the stage but from what the reviewer can tell it is actually the monkey) that is trapped in a ball. This entire mode is played almost solely with the GameCube’s left analog stick. Players have to traverse various stages while avoiding various obstacles. One of Super Monkey Ball 2‘s greatest strengths is the various ways that levels can be beaten. While there often seems to be only one solution to the various puzzles, the physics can often be manipulated to allow for often much faster and more impressive strategies to beat the levels. The only other function besides pausing the game, which does not have any gameplay function besides its ability to make some difficult tricks much easier to do for a human, is manipulating the mini-map with the A button. This minimap always gives an aerial view of the stage, with the monkey being represented as a static image. Pressing the A button allows the player to decide how close the mini-map should be zoomed in. This function is only useful in a few levels, but it does not detract from the game whatsoever. Overall the main gameplay system is essentially perfectly implemented and is arguably the only 3D platforming system that can compare to the 3D Super Mario games.

Playing these main modes earns the player points that they can spend on various unlocks. These points can be spent to either unlock additional lives, which are used to make the challenge mode easier, or they can be spent to unlock the various minigames. There are many minigames and almost all of them are surprisingly well designed. Various sports like golf and bowling, as well as some Monkey Ball original games like Monkey Target are represented. Many of these games are highly replayable, especially with friends. Overall these additional modes add a lot of value to the game and make it far from a bad choice for being the only GameCube game one owns.

The sound very well done in general. Sound effects are about what one would expect, with nothing sounding out of place. The soundtrack, on the other hand, is extremely noteworthy. Basically every single song is great, with no exceptions that the reviewer can recall. Overall this is absolutely one of the games greatest aspects.

Technically Super Monkey Ball 2 is also extremely well made. The entire game runs at what seems to be a locked 60 FPS. While the various backgrounds and stages are not particularly graphically impressive, with one exception that is strangely only available in on of the highest challenge mode difficulties, they are more than serviceable and performance is much more important for this type of game than graphical fidelity. This is all true for both the main mode and the various minigames. There is a high amount of unique assets that keep the game from feeling stale visually. The game also suffers from very few glitches or bugs which is surprising considering the complexity of the physics featured. Overall the game is very well put together and has the correct technical priorities.

The plot and world of Super Monkey Ball 2 is probably its most disappointing aspect. Basically none of the characters have any development and the plot of the story mode is far from interesting. Overall Super Monkey Ball 2 still fails to make the world of Monkey Ball a particularly interesting one, which is obviously a popular sentiment considering the general lack of a Super Monkey Ball fandom.

Overall Super Monkey Ball 2 is easily worth paying full price for, though it is unlikely that it is being sold at that price anywhere at this point. As mentioned earlier in this review, this would be far from a bad choice for the only GameCube game to own. The main mode is extremely replayable and well designed, and the multiplayer modes are a bit more shallow but still highly replayable and come in a good variety. Really the only issues with this game are the uninteresting world and some poorly designed levels that drag the whole experience down.

Overall the reviewer would give the game a 9 out of 10.

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