Sixteen years after Super Monkey Ball Deluxe put the original Super Monkey Ball and Super Monkey Ball 2 on GameCube into one package, Sega did it again with Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania. Once again, it didn’t exactly live up to the original GameCube versions, but it is still a good game in its own right. Unlike Super Monkey Ball Deluxe, this time it also came out on a Nintendo console, and that is the version that was played for this review.
Super Monkey Ball?
If you have had the misfortune of never playing the Super Monkey Ball series, it is thankfully quite easy to explain. In the series you play as monkeys inside of balls that roll around. In the main mode you traverse various courses in an attempt to reach the goal. When playing other modes you do various other activities while usually still playing as these monkeys, or at least moving them around against their will. In the main mode one person plays at a time, and in the other modes you will often be playing with other people.
Originally, a major aspect of these games was that you could not jump, but that changed over time. In this game they made the compromise of only allowing jumping once it has been unlocked by playing the game a lot normally. Obviously this is a good compromise, and it helps make this game feel worth playing even when it didn’t match the originals in other areas, since jumping changes how stages can be played dramatically.
New Monkeys, New Physics
The two biggest changes from the original Super Monkey Ball games are how the monkeys look and control. Sure, there is a strong argument to be made that the monkeys looked better with their old design, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the new ones look bad. Really it is up to you which one you prefer, and you can go to Google images to decide, but the difference is definitely not big enough to justify changing the score at all.
Much more controversial than the new monkeys are the new physics. Suffice it to say most of these complaints are not particularly well founded. The main mode of the game is still completely playable, and the new physics actually make this a much more enjoyable experience for veteran players than if Sega had remade the exact same physics. It even fixes some of the annoyances of the GameCube versions and Super Monkey Ball Deluxe, like how if you needed to turn around in a tight space your Monkey would move a little bit to the side and cause you to fall. In this game, you can turn around without moving to the side at all.
Other modes saw some changes as well. The most noticeable change is in the most popular other mode, Monkey Target. The controls in this mode are quite different from before, and not really for the better. Now, they are pretty much totally unintuitive to control. It is still possible to play this mode properly once you learn how you are expected to do so, but the pick up and play appeal of the original version is totally gone.
Content!
It is definitely a major buzzword in video games these days, and luckily it isn’t one that should be used against this game. In addition to every stage that was in Super Monkey Ball Deluxe (a lot), Sega has added a bunch of new ways to play these stages. There are now a bunch of lists of every stage in the game, and they all have challenges to beat. There are even alternate versions of existing stages to try to beat, so there isn’t a shortage of stuff to do.
One interesting inclusion is all of the unchanged stages from the original games that were changed in this version. The most noticeable one is Arthropod from Super Monkey Ball 2, which was notorious for being way too hard, especially for its relatively early place in the game. Luckily it is not almost easy to beat if you are familiar with what is happening in the stage. Unfortunately not every stage that should have been fixed was fixed. For example, the stage where you have to guess which button to press to gain access to the ending gate is still present. Overall, though, the difficulty is much better balanced than in any other game with these stages.
All of this stuff, in addition to costumes and other things like that, are available in an in-game shop where you spend points you earned while playing the game. Earlier Super Monkey Ball games had stuff this too, but this is the first time the amount of content feels overwhelming.
One piece of content that is lost in this version is actual cutscenes, which were replaced with slide shows like the ones you would see in Bayonetta when they ran out of money or time to do real cutscenes.
Graphics and Sound
Graphically the game is both an upgrade and a downgrade from what was seen in the original versions of this game. After sixteen years it really should have been an upgrade, but at least it looks decent enough. Especially for the price, it is about as good as you can ask for, but it definitely isn’t getting any points for graphical prowess.
The Nintendo Switch version also features relatively frequent drops below 60 FPS. After many hours of playing this never affected the ability to control the monkeys as intended, but it is still noticeable and annoying when it happens. The fact that it is 60 FPS on the Switch port at all is appreciated, at least.
The soundtrack is a rather clear step down from what was there before. Instead of sounding like an early 2000s Sega game, now it sounds like generic modern music like you would hear in Tekken 7, or something like that. It seems like Sega knows the new soundtrack is worse, too, since they are charging $5 dollars for you to be able to use it again in this version.
Should you play it?
Yes you should buy and play this game, maybe even especially if you played and enjoyed the original. If you never played the originals this is a great way to play the best Super Monkey Ball games. You should also get Super Monkey Ball and Super Monkey Ball 2 on GameCube if you can, too. Super Monkey Ball Deluxe, on the other hand, feels a lot more pointless to have now that this game is out.
Overall the game is an 8.5 out of 10.
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