Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania - Review

Super Monkey Ball and its sequel were amongst my favourite GameCube games. They featured a simple concept executed to near perfection – roll a monkey in a ball across a series of increasingly perilous courses to the goal. Throw in some excellent party games and you had a guaranteed good time. After countless years of pleas for these original games to be remade, SEGA has delivered Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania – a new package bursting at the seams with remixed content from the first three games and plenty of new goodies to boot.

The main story mode, which is loosely tied together by an inconsequential and barely coherent series of slides in the form of a TV show, consists of 100 levels of devilishly tricky courses to carefully navigate, lest your monkey’s ball drop in the abyss below. Things start simple enough with intuitively designed pathways, multiple viable approaches to the goal, and layouts that test your thinking in addition to your thumb dexterity. Each world is unique and vibrant with a vivid colour palette that is just begging you to crank up the brightness until your retinas say stop.

Don’t expect the breezy joy ride to last for long though, as you would be amiss to let the colourful, cheery exterior fool you – there is a serious challenge on offer here. By around World 4, the difficulty ramps up substantially. Platforms become razor-thin, new gimmicks are introduced, and mechanised platforms catapult you across the map. It all results in serious tests of both your skills and patience. There’s a good mix of ideas and map styles, though I undoubtedly prefer those that offer a challenge that is within your control as opposed to some ludicrous maps with moving parts that can be a nightmare to try to force to cooperate with you.

Thankfully, numerous helpful changes have been introduced to manage this difficulty. At any time, you can turn on a helper mode, which doubles the time limit and brings up arrows on the screen showing the optimal path to the goal. Furthermore, you can hold a button to trigger slow motion, allowing you crucial time to manage your weight, angle, and velocity to give you some chance of successfully clearing some of the more deviously tricky levels. Sure, you’ll lose some bonus in-game currency and you won’t feature on the scoreboards, but it’s a small price to pay for your sanity when the challenge can become a bit much. If all else fails, you can drop some coin to skip a level entirely, meaning you won’t have to pull your hair out for too long if a particular level seems insurmountable.

You’ll earn cash for practically everything you do. Pass a level? Have some coins. Pass a level quickly? Have some more coins. Find an alternate exit, use a character for the first time, enter a menu, change an outfit, or just grab a banana? More coins for you. These are used to purchase all sorts of extras from the in-game shop, from new characters (oh hi Sonic and friends), clothing customisation options, and even the ability to jump. That’s not even mentioning full extra modes, such as modes requiring you to collect all bananas, dodge poison bananas or even switching the start and finish lines on levels.

The missions that net you these coins are tied to every single mode and action in the game. If you’re the completionist type, there is no shortage of content and things to do. In your quest to score some more ripe digital currency you might want to also take a look at the challenge mode and online rankings, which give you some more classic levels to play or revamped stages to try achieving your best times. For me, usually just passing the levels was enough satisfaction, and I can’t see myself striving to shave seconds off my runs, but it’s yet more content and things to do if you want to keep rolling around and unlocking all the items.

True monkey maniacs though know the true monkey magic lies with the party games. Twelve returning favourites make their appearance, ranging from spectacular to solid simulations of a real sport, to “that was kind of fun but let’s not do that again”. Billiards and Golf (both regular and mini) are surprisingly thorough simulations of the sport and are some of the strongest of the bunch. Bowling has standard and crazy lanes to play through, whilst soccer is a somewhat clunky version of something like Mario Strikers. One on one baseball is great fun, but tennis feels bland and somehow just…off.

Less traditional sporting options are on offer too. Monkey Shot is an on-rail light gun game with multiple levels that’s extremely simple but fun for a few goes. Monkey Fight is chaotic and a bit sloppy but has lots of levels and power-ups to mix it up. Monkey Race and Monkey Boat see you racing your fellow chimps to the finish. The former throws in Mario Kart-style powerups for good measure and is extremely enjoyable with friends, but the latter’s controls are tedious making it one of my least favourite of the bunch – joined only by the final two.

Monkey Dogfight is some extremely imprecise and clumsy aerial combat that isn’t worth your time, but it’s the Super Monkey Ball star-child Monkey Target that disappoints the most. The concept remains the same as 20 years ago – roll off a ramp and land on a target floating out at sea – but it just feels plain wrong. Velocity, weight and momentum don’t flow as they should, and you’ll more likely end up underwater than not.

It’s a point that also impacts the rest of the game. Most people won’t notice, but with this game being made in a new engine, the physics are ever so slightly different. Monkey Target was unquestionably where it was most noticeable, but the feeling of just rolling around in the main game will still feel just a tad strange to those with lingering memories of the original games. It’s by no means a deal-breaker (again, except for Monkey Target which just feels plain wrong), but it’s worth noting for returning fans.

A couple of dud party games aside, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania is a welcome return to form for the series. There’s just so much here to see and do, and the welcome helper features ensure that the intense challenge never becomes overbearing. The simple act of clearing a tricky course remains as satisfying as ever, there’s an almost overwhelming assortment of modes and unlockables, and the strong selection of party games means it’s a worthy addition for game nights with friends. To top it all off, it all looks and sounds as sweet as candy. It’s a rollicking good time for series’ veterans and newcomers alike.

The Score

8.0

Review code provided by Sega

The Pros

+Core premise remains plenty of fun

+Stacks of missions, modes and extra content

+A mostly excellent selection of party games…

The Cons

-…let down by a couple of dud party games

-Extreme challenge may prove immensely frustrating for some

-Slightly altered physics can feel off for returning veterans