Just some good clean fun for your goddamn GameCube. Enjoy the first two difficulties and the goofy minigames with your friends, and then get ready to have your shit absolutely ruined by the hard mode levels. Take note: when they say "expert", they mean it. You'll be yelling at your screen in no time, but really, it's impossible to stay mad at this game.

P.S.: Replaying this on my nice Sony CRT with an S-video cable and a brand new 2018-made Smash Ultimate GameCube controller is a dream

P.P.S.: This along with F-ZERO GX and YAKUZA 3 specifically constitute that essential Nagoshi-core experience - ultra smooth, clean, and colorful aesthetic ... shiny frictionless worlds ... high FPS ... similar soundtracks ... echo-y announcer voice ... these are games that feel like they belong on Dreamcast dammit

P.P.P.S.: Gongon is my friend and brother.

Real talk though, I actually think I prefer the levels in this game over Super Monkey Ball 2's, despite me growing up with the latter rather than the former.

While I very much like SMB2, I think that game's levels rely a bit too much on a either a central gimmick or playing around with physics. That necessarily isn't a bad thing until you get levels like Switch Inferno which misses the point of Monkey Ball's concept.

The level design here can be immediately differentiated just by looking at them, especially on Expert, where the levels are at their fully fleshed out. All the levels have an emphasis on turning precision, and each and every Expert level plays that to it's fullest, creating quite possibly one of the most nail biting trial by fire gauntlets I've seen in a video game.

I mean seriously, name one other game that asks the player to beat 50 of the most tightest and percise levels in it's series history without a continue then have you beat 10 more stages without a continue to even attempt to try the Master stages, the ultimate test of the physic system in this game. Even the Master stages song sounds like you ascended to Monkey Godhood. Absolute raw kino they packed this in a childrens funny monkey game. Thanks Nagoshi...

...For directing the most insidiously evil game I've ever played. I swear I get heartburn everytime I hear one of those poor monkies panic when they're about to fall off. Why would you do this to me????

It seems I was one of the fewer who spent their childhood with this game rather than its much more popular sequel so I may be a bit biased.

Super Monkey Ball is the defining example of "easy to learn, difficult to master." The game's control scheme is so simple to where it only requires a single analog stick yet it still manages to become absolute chaos the later you progress in the floors. The stick tilts the stage itself which is all you need to know to try experimenting with the game's physics engine to discover shortcuts and whatnot. As aforementioned however, certain stages are no walk in the park and you may need to use proper precision to not risk falling off the entire course. Suppose you tire of the ball-busting mayhem of the main game, not to worry. There's a good handful of alternative minigames you may want to experience with a friend, my recommendations being Monkey Race and Monkey Billiards. Not to mention this game got an extensive speedrunning community with plenty of insane stunts to shave off mere seconds from past records. All in all, Super Monkey Ball may be surprisingly extreme in level design, but it's incredibly rewarding to master.

imagine pause buffering lmao

I'm very sorry to give this game a 3 star rating, but I have to. While this is the second game of the Monkey Ball Series (The Arcade game "Monkey Ball" is the first but was ofc, Japanese exclusive), they were brutal with the requirements to get certain things in the game, and some of the later stages are hard as hell. Furthermore, they've also ruined it for international players while the Japanese version is pretty much like Super Monkey Ball 2 with how better the requirements to get certain things are in that game.

You literally have to be good at Beginner without dying in order to get it's extra stages, and I believe the same thing could be said for Advanced. Expert is the only normal thing. Not using a single continue. I don't know how Master Extra will work, but I'd imagine that's tedious as well.

I didn't think I could be traumatized by a game with funny monkeys but here I am.

Farthest gotten: Floor 26 Advanced Mode

I don't think I want to play this ever again.

Going from playing Banana Mania, to playing Super Monkey Ball 2, to finally playing this game, has been a strange experience; each later game individually good and enjoyable on their own merits, only for their flaws to become more apparent when compared with what came before.

The issues with Banana Mania's physics have already been excellently laid out by Pangburn. They're the exact sort of things that I didn't really notice at the time, but that become very clear the moment you play the earlier games with the original physics engine; Banana Mania is weirdly frictionless in a way that leads to a lot of issues, and whilst as someone relatively new to the series I wrote off me getting stuck on some levels for as long as half an hour as me just being inexperienced and playing badly, the moment I returned to these older games it became so clear that it actually wasn't really my fault after all but rather that the newer physics engine sets you up to fail by just not being suited to some of these challenges.

Super Monkey Ball 2's physics engine is night-and-day better than Banana Mania's, and I enjoyed the game a lot, but again the moment you compare it to the first Super Monkey Ball game issues start to rear their head. SMB2 leans hard into gimmick levels in an attempt to make itself stand out, and whilst some of the gimmick levels rule a lot of them either lack the replay value (especially ones where the entire challenge is to figure out a specific timing or route) or are just explicitly not fun to try and master in the way that the more physics-focused levels are; Launchers is such a heinous example that I couldn't bring myself to try and complete that game's harder arcade modes. Some of these gimmick levels also push at what you're really capable of in-game with the game's fixed camera, which I assume is a part of why Banana Mania would go on to have camera control; I think both these outcomes are not really ideal.

And then you come to Super Monkey Ball and in contrast it's just this perfect little package. Every level has a fun little idea or challenge to it, the game is so focused on the physics and execution that replaying earlier levels is a joy as you see how far you've come, whilst learning the later levels is this constant process of having things click into place in your head. The gameplay loop is also just effortlessly effective; you play through an arcade mode level selection only to get stuck on a specific level and have your run end, so you go work over that stumbling block in practice mode learning its intricacies so that next time you'll get a little bit further in arcade mode, every time getting a bit more practice on the earlier levels you find harder too and seeing your performance constantly grow. Expert mode is kind of nonsense, but just as you start to hit your limit the game starts slowly feeding you more continues as if to say you can do this is you just stick with it.

I also love the aesthetics of this one. The giant bomb at the top of the screen would probably be considered 'objectively' bad, it takes up a lot of screen real estate and just obscures your vision, but damn if it doesn't just ooze personality.

You know that feeling you get in your arm when you tilt an analog stick and the weight of what's happening on-screen transmogrifies into a 6th sense? That climb upwards which matches the thumb's losing grip on rubber? That illusive beat of existence where motion transcends action and becomes sensation?

They made a game about that.

(P.S. Monkey Target is fun.)

+this almost certainly is the crowning game design success of sega's turn-of-the-millennium arcade output, both in how addicting the concept is and how strong the execution is
+because this is the first in the series, this one gets to horde all of the most pure ball-rolling puzzles that reward player control, where the later ones had to lean into gimmicks more
+the physics are so tight and the controls are equally precise, giving the game a steep yet rewarding difficulty curve
+amusement vision was a master of sega's cutting-edge proprietary arcade hardware, and that knowledge transitioned to their three gcn games. the fact that this is a launch game for the gcn and somehow one of its best looking titles is astounding
+the minigames are equally as engrossing, especially for parties. some of these (bowling and billiards specifically) were continuing to be the model for the equivalent yakuza minigames up through the mid 2010s
+if anything this indicates how well sega understood the mechanics of their own arcade games, and how well they could design challenges that require mastery of many different skills to overcome. so much nuance to rolling a ball around with a single joystick

-the beginner extra stages repeat through advanced and expert extra as well... minor nitpick, but they feel out of place in terms of difficulty
-the vast majority of players will never get to see much of expert mode (which contains over half of the stages in the game) due to the brutal difficulty. there's certainly plenty of more casual content, but it demands a lot in order to experience the game as intended
-a specific qualm I have related to the above is the difficulty curve of expert: I think the biggest hurdle for players are the levels from 15-25, with the rest of the 50 levels being more reasonable in what they expect. perhaps the level order should've been changed... again, a nitpick

toshihiro nagoshi has had so many successes as a director, and this one of his best. finally getting through master mode in this game was such a huge personal accomplishment after playing this game on and off since I was a child, and I would recommend taking a whirl of it whether you just want to try it out or really dig into it

I can play with monkeys in a ball, but nobody ever wants to play with my balls.


Especially after “The Incident”.

Sad.

funny monkey go weeeee

okay I'll go in further detail

I have tons of nostalgia for this very specific game so maybe five stars is a little too generous, but god this game has so much charm and soul that I don't care. there's only four characters in this entire game: AiAi, MeeMee, Baby, and GonGon. that kinda seems underwhelming, but it really doesn't need any more characters than that, all four monkeys are extremely charming thanks to their excellent character designs and voice clips.

the story is pretty weak I'll admit, it's not even explained to you in-game, you'll have to resort to the Japanese manual for that (not even the English manual lol). basically AiAi, MeeMee and Baby want to reach the Banana Island, basically a banana sanctuary. the road to get there is pretty dangerous though, as there's obstacles/floors/stages/etc. they will need to go through. thanks to a magical spell, the monkeys are able to go inside these balls that will protect them from danger on the way (yes there's actually a reason why they're in the balls). however GonGon of the Gorilla Tribe is after the island for himself and his tribe, so it's kind of a race to see who gets there first.

but you're not playing this for the story, you're here for the gameplay, and it is just complete arcade goodness. there's three difficulties: Beginner, Advanced, and Expert. each difficulty has it's own set of levels, so I'd recommend going through all of them in order. each level has a starting point and ending point, your goal is to get through the level and enter the goal without falling off or running out of time. it eases you in with the Beginner levels and the early Advanced ones, but beyond that the game stops holding your hand and has you go through these crazy levels using your own skill and precision. this game gets HARD man, but it is so satisfying to see yourself getting farther and farther with each attempt until you eventually complete the level and feel like a king. so many of these levels are filled with intentional and unintentional shortcuts, which makes this one of the most fun games to speedrun. you have not become a true gamer god until you've 1CC Expert (I am not a gamer god :^( ). thankfully this game blesses you with a Practice Mode, where you can practice any level you reached in the main game and play them as much as you want, truly an underappreciated mode.

if the main game's getting old for you, you can use the Play Points you've earned to unlock Party Games and Mini Games. each of these six games are a blast to go through, and you can even play them with your friends. Monkey Race is a neat racing minigame, Monkey Fight is probably the best unofficial Mario Party minigame, Monkey Target can be considered even better than the main game to some fans, Monkey Billiards has jazz and piano music so that's an automatic win, Monkey Bowling's okay, and Monkey Golf is a relaxing time. so if the main game's turning you off, you always have the party games to go back to.

okay but can I talk about this game's aesthetic though? this game screams late 90's/early 2000's SEGA and I love it! the visuals for the levels are down right beautiful, the music is complete earworm material, and the game just has SOUL like A LOT OF SOUL MY GOODNESS AAAAAAAAAA

okay I'm being too positive so I'll briefly go over some negatives. the game's difficulty curve is WACK. one minute you'll complete an otherwise easy level, then the next minute you'll be up against EXPERT FLOOR 7. basically hard levels just pop out of nowhere not matter how early you are into the difficulty and that's kinda stinky. another stinky thing is that each difficulty has a set of Extra levels, which you can only access by clearing the difficulty without losing a life (or without a continue in Expert's case). listen I love this game, but that's downright brutal. you only get three lives at the beginning, so trying to make sure you don't use a continue in Expert or lose a SINGLE life for the other two difficulties....yeah I know this is technically an arcade game, but come on. besides that though, those are really the only major problems I have.

my god I got carried away, I feel like I've been typing for hours but I can't help it I love this game!!! anyway, please play this game at least ONCE in your lifetime, you may not enjoy it as much as I did, but you will certainly have a great time :^)