LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Is Banana Mania perfect? No. But god DAMN is it the closest we've come since 2005. To get the negatives out of the way, some of the party games are very clunky. Target and Baseball particularly feel...sluggish. The story cutscenes have been watered down so much that they might as well not even be there, and it's weird to me that none of the guest characters have unique SFX or Voice Clips. But, those nitpicks aside...the core game here still works. If not prime Monkey Ball, it's near-prime for sure. A good chunk of the classic maneuvers for stages are intact, and even still, it gives me a feeling I haven't felt since I first picked up Super Monkey Ball 2 in my teen years. Most of the new music is still good (though the paid DLC for classic tracks was a very scummy decision), and I love how much there is to do between the unlockable extra modes and missions. Banana Mania may not be perfect, but ultimately, it's made me more optimistic for the future of this series than I've ever been before. Now take this experience, SEGA. Take it, and with it, make a brand-new Monkey Ball that rivals even the classics. I'll be waiting patiently.
big monkey balls
While I think I love everything about this remake its hard to say it beats the original 1, 2, and Deluxe. Mainly because the core gameplay from the original is heavily downgraded with the engine they used. Stages that just felt completely fluid in the originals feel like they have these strange momentum shifts that just dont grant the same precise gameplay that the original did.
i think it was really fucked up when they sealed dr bad-boon in that hotel elevator
Playing this as my first monkey ball. This is one of the most irritating games i have ever played
I love it
I love it
Maybe my thoughts on this will change but as of now I feel like the physics engine makes the game way less fun than it should be, and the loading times are a nightmare. And even aside from that it's just a remake but with more characters, and you can tell that this was kind of rushed and they put in the bare minimum effort in some aspects of the game.
Full video review: https://youtu.be/p2cc5xDT5v0
I love Monkey Ball. I played it a lot as a kid back on the GameCube – so let’s just say I was a bit excited for this remake.
Gameplay:
There’s… not much to say here if you’re already familiar with Monkey Ball. You tilt the stage to move your monkey ball around and get it into the goal. A simple setup, but one brought to its absolute limit with the game’s over-the-top level design. Giant speed tunnels, crazy moving platforms, plenty of verticality – the levels are all over the place and it never gets repetitive, even if there’s the occasional stinker or two thrown in there. The original games were some of the best 3D platformers I ever played and it was a lot of fun giving them another shot in Banana Mania.
Difficulty & Accessibility:
Stages I remember being super difficult long ago are still just as difficult here, but the remake also makes a number of changes to increase accessibility without compromising too much of the challenge. The outdated life system, for example, has been removed and they even added the option to outright skip stages. There’s also a new “helper mode” which doubles the stage time, gives you arrows pointing out the proper path, and allows you to slow time. Of course, you can just ignore these additions and play it like a traditional Monkey Ball game as I did, but props to the devs for the options.
Content:
This is by far the most content-packed Monkey Ball title and includes not only the stages from 1, 2, and Deluxe, but numerous other game modes. There’s Reverse mode, Dark Banana mode, Golden Banana mode, and of course, Classic mode. All of these were fun to play – Dark Banana mode being a personal favorite – and they add quite a bit of extra stuff to do on top of the already massive collection of base stuff.
Story mode, challenge modes, practice modes, ranking challenge – it’s honestly a bit overwhelming and, although the story mode took me just five hours to clear, that is a mere fraction of the time I can see people spending on some of these other modes. Whether that be clearing the mountain of in-game missions or trying to duke it out on the online leaderboards – it’s just a beefy game.
And that’s before you even get into the party games. There are 12 of these minigames, including classics like Monkey Race, Monkey Bowling, and – my personal favorite – Monkey Target. A handful of these even have leaderboard support and I’m already interested in seeing how competitive the Monkey Target board will be in the next week or so.
Physics:
The change that is likely to be most controversial comes in the form of the game’s physics. As this is a remake – not a remaster – it was built in a new engine and yes, the physics are not a 1:1 identical match to the original games. I was never a hardcore, speedrunning type Monkey Ball fan, so I honestly didn’t notice the slight changes to the physics, but it’s still something to note for those going in expecting the same shortcuts and such to work – they might require some small adjustments. Then again, this also opens the door to entirely new shortcuts and skips, so that’s something to look forward to as well.
Complaints:
My complaints are more minor – like the lack of online play in party games, the bland music outside of a couple standout tracks, the tacked-on story cutscenes that don’t really add anything, and a couple of the minigames that are not nearly as fun as others. And of course, just as with the originals, you do get the occasional boring or just outright frustrating stage.
PC Port:
On my 1070 Ti, I maxed out the settings and played at 1440p 60+ fps without any hiccups. No crashes, no freezing, no major fps drops – it was smooth sailing and the only issue I had was with the game’s VSync option. When toggled off, it capped my fps to 60, under half of my actual refresh rate. I ended up having to keep it enabled to maintain 144 fps, but even then, the gameplay is seemingly still locked to 60 while the UI and menu elements are not. I’m not 100% sure if this is the case, but there might be some frame doubling going on here.
Controls, on the other hand, are fine. The game plays flawlessly on controller, but the keyboard and mouse support isn’t even that bad. Full rebinding is available for both options and you’re even able to set up custom controls for individual minigames if you really want to go all-out. I found the default layout to be intuitive enough, but it was nice to have the option.
Overall:
Banana Mania may just be the best platformer of the year. It takes all that I love about the original games and slaps them into a brand new shiny package, with hundreds of levels to complete, a ton of new game modes and quality of life features, and a solid PC port tying it together. It may have some faults – the tacked-on story stuff, the lack of online multiplayer, and the occasional bad level or two – but it’s the best that Monkey Ball has been in literally over a decade and is well worth a play for both fans and newcomers alike.
I love Monkey Ball. I played it a lot as a kid back on the GameCube – so let’s just say I was a bit excited for this remake.
Gameplay:
There’s… not much to say here if you’re already familiar with Monkey Ball. You tilt the stage to move your monkey ball around and get it into the goal. A simple setup, but one brought to its absolute limit with the game’s over-the-top level design. Giant speed tunnels, crazy moving platforms, plenty of verticality – the levels are all over the place and it never gets repetitive, even if there’s the occasional stinker or two thrown in there. The original games were some of the best 3D platformers I ever played and it was a lot of fun giving them another shot in Banana Mania.
Difficulty & Accessibility:
Stages I remember being super difficult long ago are still just as difficult here, but the remake also makes a number of changes to increase accessibility without compromising too much of the challenge. The outdated life system, for example, has been removed and they even added the option to outright skip stages. There’s also a new “helper mode” which doubles the stage time, gives you arrows pointing out the proper path, and allows you to slow time. Of course, you can just ignore these additions and play it like a traditional Monkey Ball game as I did, but props to the devs for the options.
Content:
This is by far the most content-packed Monkey Ball title and includes not only the stages from 1, 2, and Deluxe, but numerous other game modes. There’s Reverse mode, Dark Banana mode, Golden Banana mode, and of course, Classic mode. All of these were fun to play – Dark Banana mode being a personal favorite – and they add quite a bit of extra stuff to do on top of the already massive collection of base stuff.
Story mode, challenge modes, practice modes, ranking challenge – it’s honestly a bit overwhelming and, although the story mode took me just five hours to clear, that is a mere fraction of the time I can see people spending on some of these other modes. Whether that be clearing the mountain of in-game missions or trying to duke it out on the online leaderboards – it’s just a beefy game.
And that’s before you even get into the party games. There are 12 of these minigames, including classics like Monkey Race, Monkey Bowling, and – my personal favorite – Monkey Target. A handful of these even have leaderboard support and I’m already interested in seeing how competitive the Monkey Target board will be in the next week or so.
Physics:
The change that is likely to be most controversial comes in the form of the game’s physics. As this is a remake – not a remaster – it was built in a new engine and yes, the physics are not a 1:1 identical match to the original games. I was never a hardcore, speedrunning type Monkey Ball fan, so I honestly didn’t notice the slight changes to the physics, but it’s still something to note for those going in expecting the same shortcuts and such to work – they might require some small adjustments. Then again, this also opens the door to entirely new shortcuts and skips, so that’s something to look forward to as well.
Complaints:
My complaints are more minor – like the lack of online play in party games, the bland music outside of a couple standout tracks, the tacked-on story cutscenes that don’t really add anything, and a couple of the minigames that are not nearly as fun as others. And of course, just as with the originals, you do get the occasional boring or just outright frustrating stage.
PC Port:
On my 1070 Ti, I maxed out the settings and played at 1440p 60+ fps without any hiccups. No crashes, no freezing, no major fps drops – it was smooth sailing and the only issue I had was with the game’s VSync option. When toggled off, it capped my fps to 60, under half of my actual refresh rate. I ended up having to keep it enabled to maintain 144 fps, but even then, the gameplay is seemingly still locked to 60 while the UI and menu elements are not. I’m not 100% sure if this is the case, but there might be some frame doubling going on here.
Controls, on the other hand, are fine. The game plays flawlessly on controller, but the keyboard and mouse support isn’t even that bad. Full rebinding is available for both options and you’re even able to set up custom controls for individual minigames if you really want to go all-out. I found the default layout to be intuitive enough, but it was nice to have the option.
Overall:
Banana Mania may just be the best platformer of the year. It takes all that I love about the original games and slaps them into a brand new shiny package, with hundreds of levels to complete, a ton of new game modes and quality of life features, and a solid PC port tying it together. It may have some faults – the tacked-on story stuff, the lack of online multiplayer, and the occasional bad level or two – but it’s the best that Monkey Ball has been in literally over a decade and is well worth a play for both fans and newcomers alike.
An addictive, exciting package that serves as THE entry point to the franchise for newcomers, while offering plenty of goodies and content for veteran fans. The physics are a little strange in function compared to the originals, but get the job done just fine, and if you're on PC you can resolve a major difference with them through letting Steam alter your controller to use a square deadzone. Not a perfect package, but a great one for sure.
not game of the year as i though, but still a great time
It's the 1 2 and DX levels sure but it feels half-hearted. A step up from Banana Blitz HD for sure but like I'm beginning to question why I still buy these games.
The Story Mode just shows how lazy it all is, the proper cutscenes were flat out removed and replaced with much cheaper ones, Bad-Boon isn't even redesigned to fit the new style, and the new music ranges from decent at best to sounding like someone never composed for a game before.
There's also just how Sega made things people actually wanted (classic monkeys and music) paid DLC in a celebration game just feels kind of insulting. Also why add Kiryu if you're gonna make him silent?
It just sounds worse the more I write about it, I should stop. Physics. Okay now I'm done.
The Story Mode just shows how lazy it all is, the proper cutscenes were flat out removed and replaced with much cheaper ones, Bad-Boon isn't even redesigned to fit the new style, and the new music ranges from decent at best to sounding like someone never composed for a game before.
There's also just how Sega made things people actually wanted (classic monkeys and music) paid DLC in a celebration game just feels kind of insulting. Also why add Kiryu if you're gonna make him silent?
It just sounds worse the more I write about it, I should stop. Physics. Okay now I'm done.
Wasn’t the big GOTY contender I wanted it to be, but it was still a great time. It wasn’t as great as SMB2, but it has some great levels, a kickass soundtrack, and a great cast of characters. I just wish some more effort went into the cutscenes and minigames.
Full thoughts over in my review here: https://youtu.be/gx2HcV-MsqE
Thanks to SEGA America for providing a pre-release review copy.
Thanks to SEGA America for providing a pre-release review copy.
An absolute travesty of a game for hardcore OG Super Monkey Ball fans.
Shit wrong with the main mode:
1. The physics and camera are completely off. Especially the camera is REALLY bad. Who thought it would be a good idea to be able to control the camera? AND HAVE THE CAMERA SNAP? WTF?
2. No multiplayer.
3. Sound effects are terrible. Think of the rolling sound effects, monkey sound, etc.
4. Visual effects. No particles for when you move fast, so you have almost no visual clue about how fast you're going. The goalposts aren't unique to the worlds anymore. The aesthetics of Master 2 and Advanced ex 5 are completely nerfed. The master world feels fucking empty because of the stupid decision to not put the banana temple where the goalpost is. No monkey face on the mini-map, instead just a lame arrow. ETC
5. The remixes are really low effort. The originals were made in the early 2000's and they had better sound design, arrangements and mixes.
6. You can't kill yourself easily in expert 20, cause of the bad physics. And more of these kinds of examples.
7. You can't change the size of the mini-map anymore.
Shit wrong with the party games:
1. Extra characters like Sonic are not playable.
2. All party games feel insanely unpolished. Try playing this Monkey Target and then immediately playing the originals like we did. It's such a jarring contrast in quality.
For example: After winning a fight in the original monkey fight: A cool tune starts, the character does a victory pose, you are able to still punch (even punch the camera away lol) and then flies up with a cool sound effect and it fades to white. The Banana Mania one sucks ass compared to it. Just compare it.
When getting a score with bowling the music just continues during the announcement? Like wtf?
3. The party games play way more clunkier than the Gamecube counterpart. Actually insane.
General polish:
1. You can't skip to the particular stage you want in practise mode quickly. You have to scroll through all stages. Which is just tedious. Just make a next page button lol
2. No monkey voices when selecting a character. Just a lame announcement. Probably cause they don't have voices for the extra characters...
3. THE GAME LAGS A LOT. PLAYING SUPER MONKEY BALL WITH OCCASIONAL LAG IS JUST UNPLAYABLE.
Overall, as an avid Monkey Ball fan and speedrunner I am utterly disappointed with this game. The only redeeming quality I can mention are how the floors look themselves. And the menu theme is pretty good too. The developers don't understand. We wanted a new SMB game which had the physics and gameplay of the original 2. We didn't get this. R.I.P.!
Shit wrong with the main mode:
1. The physics and camera are completely off. Especially the camera is REALLY bad. Who thought it would be a good idea to be able to control the camera? AND HAVE THE CAMERA SNAP? WTF?
2. No multiplayer.
3. Sound effects are terrible. Think of the rolling sound effects, monkey sound, etc.
4. Visual effects. No particles for when you move fast, so you have almost no visual clue about how fast you're going. The goalposts aren't unique to the worlds anymore. The aesthetics of Master 2 and Advanced ex 5 are completely nerfed. The master world feels fucking empty because of the stupid decision to not put the banana temple where the goalpost is. No monkey face on the mini-map, instead just a lame arrow. ETC
5. The remixes are really low effort. The originals were made in the early 2000's and they had better sound design, arrangements and mixes.
6. You can't kill yourself easily in expert 20, cause of the bad physics. And more of these kinds of examples.
7. You can't change the size of the mini-map anymore.
Shit wrong with the party games:
1. Extra characters like Sonic are not playable.
2. All party games feel insanely unpolished. Try playing this Monkey Target and then immediately playing the originals like we did. It's such a jarring contrast in quality.
For example: After winning a fight in the original monkey fight: A cool tune starts, the character does a victory pose, you are able to still punch (even punch the camera away lol) and then flies up with a cool sound effect and it fades to white. The Banana Mania one sucks ass compared to it. Just compare it.
When getting a score with bowling the music just continues during the announcement? Like wtf?
3. The party games play way more clunkier than the Gamecube counterpart. Actually insane.
General polish:
1. You can't skip to the particular stage you want in practise mode quickly. You have to scroll through all stages. Which is just tedious. Just make a next page button lol
2. No monkey voices when selecting a character. Just a lame announcement. Probably cause they don't have voices for the extra characters...
3. THE GAME LAGS A LOT. PLAYING SUPER MONKEY BALL WITH OCCASIONAL LAG IS JUST UNPLAYABLE.
Overall, as an avid Monkey Ball fan and speedrunner I am utterly disappointed with this game. The only redeeming quality I can mention are how the floors look themselves. And the menu theme is pretty good too. The developers don't understand. We wanted a new SMB game which had the physics and gameplay of the original 2. We didn't get this. R.I.P.!
This is a pretty good collection of the series' best levels with a ton of extra content. Give us more new Super Monkey Ball, SEGA!
BALLS?!?!?
It's Super Monkey Ball Deluxe with the new artstyle and a lot of extra fat. There are quite a few minute differences between BM and its source material, but the notable changes include a movement and camera system which don't appreciate small, minute movements and make it hard to move completely straight forward without veering to the side. I also expected a free-cam stage view. I had no reason to expect this, but I did, and it's not in the game. I appreciate that Banana Mania is high resolution, visually appealing, and separated its Challenge Mode into well-portioned level setlists, because Deluxe's setlists could go on for hours, and I like completing a Monkey and a Ball in one session. Despite its corporate pop artstyle, BM feels ever so slightly cheap in a couple places: guest characters provide no auditory exclamations whatsoever, and, despite having a large menu, the options are rather shallow, particularly camera options and control stick deadzone options. I couldn't find a setting which makes the camera feel comfortable, whether I'm moving it with the right stick, or the game is. Control stick deadzone issues also caused some problems at first, preventing me from going top speed while moving diagonally, making 8-7 "Warp" and 10-6 "Crazy Maze" unwinnable, but I found a fix in Steam controller settings. Overall, it all right. It tasteless and lukewarm. It remind me of me beer, which I like better. Seriously, play a GCN monkey ball back to back with Banana Mania, and you'll feel that the original games have incredibly responsive controls. There's no substitute for good physics... especially when that's all the game is.
todavía no lo terminé pero 5 estrellas a los monos en bolas
It's a good game, but I wish it was better. You can tell so much care was put into this, but unfortunately some things piled up into making this game just decent. For a game with so many cool small details and little things, they're also missing so many little things. The cutscenes for example, do not have the charm of the old ones. Another issue I have is the engine. For the main game, while not being as perfect as the original, did the job. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite do the job for the minigames. Monkey target, a game I spent nearly as much time as I did with the main game in the originals, is an absolute mess now, and isn't worth playing. This trend unfortunately carries over for many of the mini games. It's a shame as well, because there's so much to like about this game. A surprisingly awesome roster, online rankings, and many other things were added to make this a great game. I just wish they could have ironed out the kinks. Overall, you'll have a good time with this game. But unfortunately, it let me down when comparing it to the originals. And while this is then best monkey ball game in the series since the originals, I can't say I have hope for the future of the series, as a lot of the good of this game is from the traces of the originals. I honestly can't recommend this at it's current price point, especially if you already have access to the originals.
Returned this as well. The way I play would make this game miserable to play through all the way without some serious practice for a game I just wanted to approach on a more casual level.
The psychics are definitely the main thing of controversy here. In most levels the change doesn't really effect anything and they still play great but in a few of them you can feel the change pretty hard which makes them harder and more frustrating than they should be. Not "unplayable" imo but just a really unfortunate problem for there to be when it really didn't need to be there.
But as a package this is fantastic. Three great Monkey Ball games that are fun singleplayer and as party with unlockables that can give you more content like a reverse mode, and original stages. Tons of minigames that can be really fun party games (I've heard some of the mini games feel a bit off, I can't say for sure been too long since I played originals). Very fun game and it was nice to play some good old monkey ball again after so long. And it has Kiryu
But as a package this is fantastic. Three great Monkey Ball games that are fun singleplayer and as party with unlockables that can give you more content like a reverse mode, and original stages. Tons of minigames that can be really fun party games (I've heard some of the mini games feel a bit off, I can't say for sure been too long since I played originals). Very fun game and it was nice to play some good old monkey ball again after so long. And it has Kiryu
The word monkey and balls would make a lesser man chuckle. But this man can see the beauty and finesse that is Monkey Ball. Banana Mania blesses us with with our favorite monkeys in more balls. Even though the balls feel a little different. Physics are slightly different than the originals. It's not a deal breaker, but long time fans will notice some mini games suffer because of it.
It insists upon itself.
part of the reason I love old-school sega games is because I just love the way their games feel. games designed by sega straddle the line between nuanced, logical physics and exaggerated, arcade-y physics with aplomb. the sega rally series captures this perfectly, where the terrain material and topography are intimately factored into the performance of your car while at the same time you can perfectly drift around corners and fly over hills with a bit of squash-and-stretch going on. the tightrope here is between making the player feel like they're in total control of the car (with the consequences that result) while simultaneously hand-waving the internal mechanisms that limit player expression. the early monkey ball games are the same way: the level design is punishing yet it's addicting because any strategy you devise can probably work thanks to how controllable the ball is. it's why I've stuck with this series so long: from barely making it past beginner as a young child, to learning the extra levels as a high schooler, to finally conquering master and master extra in both games as I whittled away time during a global lockdown.
that being said, I didn't want to go into this game with unrealistic hopes. I knew the original engine was not being used here, so I figured it probably would be a bit stiffer and maybe a little hand-holdy. after all, this remake is partially meant to introduce new players and give them leverage to actually succeed in comparison to the original games, where over half of the levels were tucked behind some serious execution barriers. when I popped it in for the first time this mostly held true: I ran smb1 beginner (newly christened as "casual") without much issue. it wasn't until I touched smb1 expert immediately after...
167 deaths. 167 deaths without including expert extra no less, which I accidentally voided myself out of thanks to misreading the helper option menu that pops up automatically (protip to UI designers: don't make both your selected and unselected options bright colors!!!). these levels are no cakewalk, let's be clear, but I know these levels by the back of my hand. I've 1cc'd expert + expert extra in the original many many times, and even now out of practice I can manage 10 - 15 deaths. it just shocked me that this game felt so different, and so much less precise. in a lot of ways it felt like the original levels popped into Unity with a basic sphere physics plugin, and the results were not pretty. my roommates (also long-time monkey ball fans) also immediately wrote off the game after playing it. even though we had been so hype about finally getting an HD monkey ball - a monkey ball game that wasn't garbage and didn't require us to pull out our CRT - all of our energy immediately dissapated once we got our hands on the game.
so what exactly is the issue here? basically everyone agrees that the physics in this game are noticably different from that of the original, but I want to delve into why. after playing this game for quite a bit (all of story mode, up through master mode in smb1, all the deluxe levels, and poking around into other stuff here and there) I think I've narrowed it down to frictional differences between the two games. for those of you who haven't taken high school physics in some time, let me present the equation f = μN, where f is the frictional force applied parallel to surface we are moving upon (usually horizontally), μ is the coefficient of friction, and N is the normal force applied perpendicular to the surface (hence the name "normal"). before your eyes glaze over, let me connect these to some intangible game-feel statements:
coefficient of friction: this refers to how difficult it is to move over a material; for example, it accounts for why it's more difficult to slide your coffee table when it's on a shaggy carpet versus a finished wood floor. as it relates to the how it feels in this game, I'll borrow a quote from my roommate when he was playing the game: "it feels like every single floor is made out of glass"
normal force: this refers to how hard the object is pushing down on the surface, which in this case mainly refers to the gravitational force the object exerts. this scales with the mass, so we can think of it as how much the object weighs; a cardboard box is a lot easier to move than a full wardrobe. this affects the game-feel, as my girlfriend eloquently put: "it's like there's no monkey at all, and you're just rolling around a hollow ball"
so tldr: there's a severe lack of friction in this game in comparison to the original. in the original game, the ball was weighty, and the friction on the goal posts or ledges allows you to grip them easily (and a bit unrealistically for that matter). these things are boons to the player that go a long way towards making impossible looking courses just barely doable with practice. here the stages refuse to budge when you try to force them to, and you end up without a lot of the gravity-defying tricks you could initially pull off. I'll give some examples of situations that pop up that break under the new physics:
stopping the ball: this took a lot of adjustment for me, and while it's just a matter of relearning muscle memory it very noticeably makes some stages harder. in the original game you could stop pretty much on a dime (unless you were rolling to the point of sparks flying), whereas here the ball will sliiiiiiiide all over the place unless you very deliberately deccelerate. this is more of a general issue but a good example of where this becomes frustrating is Twin Cross, where you're expected to roll across a series of 1x1 tiles in diagonal lines. you need to keep a certain level of speed up to avoid falling off when crossing the corners of two tiles, but then also must deccelerate at the right moment to keep your ball from flying off at the end of a line (which itself is just a 1x1 tile floating in space). Edge Master also becomes more annoying than its prior appearances thanks to this issue, as staying within the bounds of the upward face of the first rotation becomes very precise given how much speed you gain when the stage rotates.
narrow lines: approach a ledge in this game and you'll notice that the bottom of your ball will just be barely close to the ledge when your character starts trembling and attempting to balance themself. compare that to the original, where the characters won't start said animation until their feet are literally touching the ledge, far closer to the center of mass for the ball. you basically have a lot less wiggle room on the edge, and it can become very apparent in certain levels that depend on this. kudos to the dev team for adjust Catwalk to accommodate, but on the flipside look at Invasion. I'd say this level was middle of the road in terms of its original difficulty, but here it's fucking brutal towards the end, where you're expected to navigate in a curve on a ledge around staggered bumpers. comments I've read on early gameplay capture on youtube were quick to point to this stage as one of the biggest difficulty bumps for a remade stage.
slopes: friction is the reason why we don't instantly slide down slopes in real life, hence why we use snowboards and skis instead of just standing on mountains waiting to gain speed. however, in monkey ball the goal is usually not to slide down slopes unless you're explicitly supposed to, and many levels depend on you being able to balance yourself on slopes either while waiting for a cycle or when speeding through before you have a chance to fall off. Drum and Twister back-to-back in smb1's ice world were originally breather stages, where you simply had to keep yourself balanced in brief intervals before reaching the goal. here they became much more precise than I feel was intended, as even slightly moving from the narrow top of the curve on either of these levels will send you careening to your death with no recourse. from smb2 I can absolutely not forget to mention Warp... oh my god Warp. this level was already surprisingly difficult in smb2, given that the flatter part of the curves here are covered with bumpers and maintaing yourself on a slope is already a trickier technique to learn (I see a lot of more casual players get stuck on Floor Bent from smb1 for this reason). here it's nigh impossible to do thanks to how little grip you have. Cross Floors is another smb2 example that requires a lot of practice in the original and here feels terrible to attempt.
centripedal force: some of you may have seen charity donation recepticles shaped like curved funnels (I've seen them in american malls at least), where you can put a coin into a slot and it will spiral around the funnel down and down until falling through a hole at the bottom, much like water spinning in a drain. there are multiple areas in the original monkey ball games that utilize this phenomenon to great effect, and it relies on the friction of the slope or wall that the ball is on to keep it from dropping out. however, when I first played Spiral Hard in this game, I was very surprised to find that I could not simply drop in as I was accustomed to, as even with a decent amount of speed the ball does not grab onto the slope and instead falls off. it took me several tries to successfully drop in, where I had to come in with an exceptional amount of speed, heavily tilt against the slope to avoid falling off, try to balance out before I lost the speed I needed to stay in, and then continue on my way. this level is already difficult enough as is, with a path that narrows the further it spirals down and a goal that is difficult to aim for, so I don't see why dropping in needs to also require a lot of set up when it didn't originally. the end of Stamina Master is also much more difficult than before thanks to this, as the spiral towards the end becomes nearly vertical, and I would often drop out of it completely before I reached the goal. the pipe stages also seem to struggle with keeping you moving, such as the smb1 expert extra stage Curl Pipe, where the second hill virtually always stopped me dead in my tracks (though I've had this happen occasionally in the original as well).
this would be a good time for me to also mention how the camera has changed significantly from the original games. the camera used to rather aggressively stick to the ball's back, whereas here the camera will follow your stick without really staying glued to a particular orientation on the ball. to solve this there is now camera control on the right-stick... this sort of defeats the purpose of the original one-giant-banana-joystick control scheme, but I'm sure plenty of players will feel more comfortable with it there. the big issue here comes when trying to line up straight lines: in the original game it was very doable to turn in place with the camera lining up directly with the center of the monkey's back. here it's already hard enough to turn in place given that you slide around with so little provocation, and now you must center the camera manually using... non-analog controls? yes, the right stick does not seem to have a real gradient of turning from my time playing with it, giving it little more functionality than d-pad camera controls. you can at least adjust camera sensitivity, but I feel like you're forced to sometimes go in and change it per stage, ie high sensitivity for when you need to turn quickly or steadily on fast stages, and low sensitivity when you line up precise shots. the latter was a necessity on Exam-C (a particularly infamous stage) and the aforementioned Twin Cross, as well as Checker, and it made all three of these stages much more tedious than I would've liked. sometimes the camera just breaks entirely, most notably on Centrifugal from smb2, where the speed of rotation in the giant wheel of death causes the camera to get stuck outside the level geometry, or flip in front of you to mess up the angle you're tilting the stage in.
I wanted to include this diatribe about the physics in here just to have some sort of document with the issues I've noticed with this game, and as to provide a detailed summary of why and where the physics are different without just saying they are. players who know the levels above might have noticed that they're virtually all pulled from expert and master: this is because the beginner and advanced difficulties (casual and normal) are totally playable regardless of the changes. that is not to say they aren't still difficult (I still have not beaten Polar Large in this game and, much to my consternation, can not even figure out a good route through it for some reason) but if you're coming in just to fuck around a bit, play through part of story mode, enjoy the cameos, and play minigames with friends, you're not going to notice the different game-feel to the extent of it being overbearing. on the flipside, I do feel justified in presenting my opinions on this in pedantic detail because beginner and advanced only make up 108 stages out of the 258 total stages between the non-DX games, which is to say that for over half of the game you will likely notice what I mentioned above unless you have never played the originals.
regardless of everything listed above, I've actually rated this one a bit higher than super monkey ball deluxe, a collection that still has the original physics intact. my rationale: banana mania is an amazing package overall. what honestly frustrates me more than anything about this game is that it perfectly captures the features and content I'd want in a remake of these games without the tight gameplay I originally adored in the originals. whereas deluxe (on ps2 mind you) was a poorly performing mess with overly-long course structure and a lack of improvements over smb2, this game is packed to the brim with extra modes, great cameo characters, and accesibility features. not everything really hits, but I appreciate how much effort and material there is here with so little development time.
the main game specifically deliminates between the first two games for its courses, unlike deluxe where stages from both games were interleaved. each course is 1:1 with their original set of stages, with extra stages now being unlocked if all the regular stages were completed without the helper functions active. master mode for smb1 is now accessible just by completing expert without the 1cc requirement or even extra stages being finished. there are also marathon modes for each, which while not as wild as the ultimate course from deluxe, still are great additions. stages in both have been rebalanced, with the original layouts being included in a special purchaseable game mode. overall the rebalances were really well done: probably the most notable for me was Arthopod, a stage from smb2 that was complete bullshit originally and has now been made less annoying to deal with by far by removing gaps. virtually all of smb1 master was rebalanced as well, with Stamina Master getting a much-needed nerf to its infamous middle 1x1 moving tile balancing section (which balances out the more difficult first and last sections a bit). the other master changes honestly make some of the stages like Dodge Master and Dance Master trivial, but I don't really mind considering that the requirements for obtaining master are less restrictive now. other changes are more subtle, such as adding curved inlets to the titular launchers in Launchers (which honestly don't help very much) or an extra 30 seconds for the timer in Exam-C (which helps an insane amount).
there's a story mode identical to that of smb2, with truncated cutscenes in mime retelling the lovably bizarre plot of the original. personally I don't mind this change, as the story isn't really that important or complicated. I'm a little puzzled at why they didn't use the expanded worlds of deluxe's story mode, but it's not a big difference either way. as I mentioned prior stages that were changed have their original versions present in a standalone mode, and all of the deluxe-exclusive levels have a mode as well. playing through them all back to back, I have to say I still like them for the most part, as there's a lot of great ideas present (maybe one too many maze stages tho). there are also a few modes that remix the levels. golden banana mode is probably the best of these, where you need to collect every banana in a stage in order to clear it. this actually changes how the stages need to be approached quite a bit. the opposite of this is dark banana mode, where any banana touched instantly causes a game over. while the idea is good in concept, they're designed for a level of precision I just don't think exists in this game. finally there's reverse mode, where certain levels start you at the goal and make you work your way back to the starting point. the best level of these is Free Throw, where they make you throw yourself backwards onto the starting platform in a cool twist. the others mainly just require you to tread the same path as whatever the hardest goal is, so they come across as rather redundant.
minigames are also back in full force, with all of the features from deluxe retained to my knowledge. the big thing that turned me off here was the lack of alternating multiplayer, which even in a patch could be such a trivial addition. I bought this on ps4, where I don't really have extra controllers to work with, and it's frustrating that my roommates and I can't play monkey target or billiards by passing the controller around. overall the minigames seem to be pretty much as I remember them from the old games, with all the customization you could want to boot. I can't really pretend something like monkey race isn't scuffed as fuck, but they were in the originals as well so it's pretty faithful. all that I played other than monkey target look very solid... monkey target is honestly a "Made in Dreams"-ass game here, but it's so annoying in its original form that I'll let it slide here. most of the other games here I can just experience via yakuza or really don't care that much about, beyond perhaps trying to go for completion later down the line.
I also wanted to briefly mention the art design for both the menus and the levels, which are absolutely phenomenal. beyond some UI nitpicks I mentioned earlier I think the interface is very clear and clean, and feels like an accurate translation from the older games to a modern style. the world designs are really gorgeous, and blew me away with their accuracy. I really would not have thought a quickie project for RGG would capture the style and detail of the original worlds so well in HD, but they absolutely nailed it here. the banana blitz-era monkey designs I'm not crazy about but they do the job fine, and the cutesy redesigns of kiryu and beat are so fun; I still can't believe they're in the game!! the music has all been remixed as well, though I personally think they're pretty middling overall. the original soundtracks are legendary so I definitely didn't expect them to live up here, but they really veer into tacky EDM territory more often than I would like.
finally, I wanted to bring up the accessibility options, which are much-needed additions for newer fans looking to try the series out. you can use helper functions in each level to double the timer as well as open up a very useful slow motion mode for the cost of receiving no points upon clearing the level and disabling the extra stages for the course. I messed around with these a bit and I think they do a good job of covering the bases for someone learning a given stage. if stage is too taxing, you can also pay 2000 banana coins to mark it as cleared. which is a hefty toll but honestly worth it when poking around in the special modes to skip annoying levels that would take a lot of practice. finally, the jump from banana blitz has been added in as a purchaseable item, and surprisingly it doesn't void trophies/extra stuff like the helper functions (though it can't be used in ranking mode). when watching trailers I thought I wouldn't touch this at all but I decided to try it out when struggling on Warp and wow did it really save my ass. because the jump wasn't present in the original games, it opens up a lot of ways to break previously challenging level design, and honestly that became the most fun part of the game for me at points. skipping all of the tiring maze levels from smb2 feels so great, and I even managed to pull off a strat equivalent to the speedrun route for Stamina Master by jumping at the peak of the first ramp. it honestly made the final worlds of story mode a lot more enjoyable given how many frustrating and gimmicky levels are contained within it (they were bad in the original too, not just this game). when I eventually get around to smb2 master and master extra, I'm sure I'll have fun finding ways to break levels that originally took me dozens of lives to beat.
I think I've exhaustively covered every aspect of this game that I've played so far... and now that I've finished this giant wall of text I can finally move onto some other games. I don't think I've wasted my time with this game at all, and I'm glad this package exists, but man does it really not scratch that itch that the original games do. perhaps an engine on par with the original simply isn't capable of happening without the original source code available... but at the end of the day I'll still have the original games to return to when I really want to experience monkey ball as it originally felt.
that being said, I didn't want to go into this game with unrealistic hopes. I knew the original engine was not being used here, so I figured it probably would be a bit stiffer and maybe a little hand-holdy. after all, this remake is partially meant to introduce new players and give them leverage to actually succeed in comparison to the original games, where over half of the levels were tucked behind some serious execution barriers. when I popped it in for the first time this mostly held true: I ran smb1 beginner (newly christened as "casual") without much issue. it wasn't until I touched smb1 expert immediately after...
167 deaths. 167 deaths without including expert extra no less, which I accidentally voided myself out of thanks to misreading the helper option menu that pops up automatically (protip to UI designers: don't make both your selected and unselected options bright colors!!!). these levels are no cakewalk, let's be clear, but I know these levels by the back of my hand. I've 1cc'd expert + expert extra in the original many many times, and even now out of practice I can manage 10 - 15 deaths. it just shocked me that this game felt so different, and so much less precise. in a lot of ways it felt like the original levels popped into Unity with a basic sphere physics plugin, and the results were not pretty. my roommates (also long-time monkey ball fans) also immediately wrote off the game after playing it. even though we had been so hype about finally getting an HD monkey ball - a monkey ball game that wasn't garbage and didn't require us to pull out our CRT - all of our energy immediately dissapated once we got our hands on the game.
so what exactly is the issue here? basically everyone agrees that the physics in this game are noticably different from that of the original, but I want to delve into why. after playing this game for quite a bit (all of story mode, up through master mode in smb1, all the deluxe levels, and poking around into other stuff here and there) I think I've narrowed it down to frictional differences between the two games. for those of you who haven't taken high school physics in some time, let me present the equation f = μN, where f is the frictional force applied parallel to surface we are moving upon (usually horizontally), μ is the coefficient of friction, and N is the normal force applied perpendicular to the surface (hence the name "normal"). before your eyes glaze over, let me connect these to some intangible game-feel statements:
coefficient of friction: this refers to how difficult it is to move over a material; for example, it accounts for why it's more difficult to slide your coffee table when it's on a shaggy carpet versus a finished wood floor. as it relates to the how it feels in this game, I'll borrow a quote from my roommate when he was playing the game: "it feels like every single floor is made out of glass"
normal force: this refers to how hard the object is pushing down on the surface, which in this case mainly refers to the gravitational force the object exerts. this scales with the mass, so we can think of it as how much the object weighs; a cardboard box is a lot easier to move than a full wardrobe. this affects the game-feel, as my girlfriend eloquently put: "it's like there's no monkey at all, and you're just rolling around a hollow ball"
so tldr: there's a severe lack of friction in this game in comparison to the original. in the original game, the ball was weighty, and the friction on the goal posts or ledges allows you to grip them easily (and a bit unrealistically for that matter). these things are boons to the player that go a long way towards making impossible looking courses just barely doable with practice. here the stages refuse to budge when you try to force them to, and you end up without a lot of the gravity-defying tricks you could initially pull off. I'll give some examples of situations that pop up that break under the new physics:
stopping the ball: this took a lot of adjustment for me, and while it's just a matter of relearning muscle memory it very noticeably makes some stages harder. in the original game you could stop pretty much on a dime (unless you were rolling to the point of sparks flying), whereas here the ball will sliiiiiiiide all over the place unless you very deliberately deccelerate. this is more of a general issue but a good example of where this becomes frustrating is Twin Cross, where you're expected to roll across a series of 1x1 tiles in diagonal lines. you need to keep a certain level of speed up to avoid falling off when crossing the corners of two tiles, but then also must deccelerate at the right moment to keep your ball from flying off at the end of a line (which itself is just a 1x1 tile floating in space). Edge Master also becomes more annoying than its prior appearances thanks to this issue, as staying within the bounds of the upward face of the first rotation becomes very precise given how much speed you gain when the stage rotates.
narrow lines: approach a ledge in this game and you'll notice that the bottom of your ball will just be barely close to the ledge when your character starts trembling and attempting to balance themself. compare that to the original, where the characters won't start said animation until their feet are literally touching the ledge, far closer to the center of mass for the ball. you basically have a lot less wiggle room on the edge, and it can become very apparent in certain levels that depend on this. kudos to the dev team for adjust Catwalk to accommodate, but on the flipside look at Invasion. I'd say this level was middle of the road in terms of its original difficulty, but here it's fucking brutal towards the end, where you're expected to navigate in a curve on a ledge around staggered bumpers. comments I've read on early gameplay capture on youtube were quick to point to this stage as one of the biggest difficulty bumps for a remade stage.
slopes: friction is the reason why we don't instantly slide down slopes in real life, hence why we use snowboards and skis instead of just standing on mountains waiting to gain speed. however, in monkey ball the goal is usually not to slide down slopes unless you're explicitly supposed to, and many levels depend on you being able to balance yourself on slopes either while waiting for a cycle or when speeding through before you have a chance to fall off. Drum and Twister back-to-back in smb1's ice world were originally breather stages, where you simply had to keep yourself balanced in brief intervals before reaching the goal. here they became much more precise than I feel was intended, as even slightly moving from the narrow top of the curve on either of these levels will send you careening to your death with no recourse. from smb2 I can absolutely not forget to mention Warp... oh my god Warp. this level was already surprisingly difficult in smb2, given that the flatter part of the curves here are covered with bumpers and maintaing yourself on a slope is already a trickier technique to learn (I see a lot of more casual players get stuck on Floor Bent from smb1 for this reason). here it's nigh impossible to do thanks to how little grip you have. Cross Floors is another smb2 example that requires a lot of practice in the original and here feels terrible to attempt.
centripedal force: some of you may have seen charity donation recepticles shaped like curved funnels (I've seen them in american malls at least), where you can put a coin into a slot and it will spiral around the funnel down and down until falling through a hole at the bottom, much like water spinning in a drain. there are multiple areas in the original monkey ball games that utilize this phenomenon to great effect, and it relies on the friction of the slope or wall that the ball is on to keep it from dropping out. however, when I first played Spiral Hard in this game, I was very surprised to find that I could not simply drop in as I was accustomed to, as even with a decent amount of speed the ball does not grab onto the slope and instead falls off. it took me several tries to successfully drop in, where I had to come in with an exceptional amount of speed, heavily tilt against the slope to avoid falling off, try to balance out before I lost the speed I needed to stay in, and then continue on my way. this level is already difficult enough as is, with a path that narrows the further it spirals down and a goal that is difficult to aim for, so I don't see why dropping in needs to also require a lot of set up when it didn't originally. the end of Stamina Master is also much more difficult than before thanks to this, as the spiral towards the end becomes nearly vertical, and I would often drop out of it completely before I reached the goal. the pipe stages also seem to struggle with keeping you moving, such as the smb1 expert extra stage Curl Pipe, where the second hill virtually always stopped me dead in my tracks (though I've had this happen occasionally in the original as well).
this would be a good time for me to also mention how the camera has changed significantly from the original games. the camera used to rather aggressively stick to the ball's back, whereas here the camera will follow your stick without really staying glued to a particular orientation on the ball. to solve this there is now camera control on the right-stick... this sort of defeats the purpose of the original one-giant-banana-joystick control scheme, but I'm sure plenty of players will feel more comfortable with it there. the big issue here comes when trying to line up straight lines: in the original game it was very doable to turn in place with the camera lining up directly with the center of the monkey's back. here it's already hard enough to turn in place given that you slide around with so little provocation, and now you must center the camera manually using... non-analog controls? yes, the right stick does not seem to have a real gradient of turning from my time playing with it, giving it little more functionality than d-pad camera controls. you can at least adjust camera sensitivity, but I feel like you're forced to sometimes go in and change it per stage, ie high sensitivity for when you need to turn quickly or steadily on fast stages, and low sensitivity when you line up precise shots. the latter was a necessity on Exam-C (a particularly infamous stage) and the aforementioned Twin Cross, as well as Checker, and it made all three of these stages much more tedious than I would've liked. sometimes the camera just breaks entirely, most notably on Centrifugal from smb2, where the speed of rotation in the giant wheel of death causes the camera to get stuck outside the level geometry, or flip in front of you to mess up the angle you're tilting the stage in.
I wanted to include this diatribe about the physics in here just to have some sort of document with the issues I've noticed with this game, and as to provide a detailed summary of why and where the physics are different without just saying they are. players who know the levels above might have noticed that they're virtually all pulled from expert and master: this is because the beginner and advanced difficulties (casual and normal) are totally playable regardless of the changes. that is not to say they aren't still difficult (I still have not beaten Polar Large in this game and, much to my consternation, can not even figure out a good route through it for some reason) but if you're coming in just to fuck around a bit, play through part of story mode, enjoy the cameos, and play minigames with friends, you're not going to notice the different game-feel to the extent of it being overbearing. on the flipside, I do feel justified in presenting my opinions on this in pedantic detail because beginner and advanced only make up 108 stages out of the 258 total stages between the non-DX games, which is to say that for over half of the game you will likely notice what I mentioned above unless you have never played the originals.
regardless of everything listed above, I've actually rated this one a bit higher than super monkey ball deluxe, a collection that still has the original physics intact. my rationale: banana mania is an amazing package overall. what honestly frustrates me more than anything about this game is that it perfectly captures the features and content I'd want in a remake of these games without the tight gameplay I originally adored in the originals. whereas deluxe (on ps2 mind you) was a poorly performing mess with overly-long course structure and a lack of improvements over smb2, this game is packed to the brim with extra modes, great cameo characters, and accesibility features. not everything really hits, but I appreciate how much effort and material there is here with so little development time.
the main game specifically deliminates between the first two games for its courses, unlike deluxe where stages from both games were interleaved. each course is 1:1 with their original set of stages, with extra stages now being unlocked if all the regular stages were completed without the helper functions active. master mode for smb1 is now accessible just by completing expert without the 1cc requirement or even extra stages being finished. there are also marathon modes for each, which while not as wild as the ultimate course from deluxe, still are great additions. stages in both have been rebalanced, with the original layouts being included in a special purchaseable game mode. overall the rebalances were really well done: probably the most notable for me was Arthopod, a stage from smb2 that was complete bullshit originally and has now been made less annoying to deal with by far by removing gaps. virtually all of smb1 master was rebalanced as well, with Stamina Master getting a much-needed nerf to its infamous middle 1x1 moving tile balancing section (which balances out the more difficult first and last sections a bit). the other master changes honestly make some of the stages like Dodge Master and Dance Master trivial, but I don't really mind considering that the requirements for obtaining master are less restrictive now. other changes are more subtle, such as adding curved inlets to the titular launchers in Launchers (which honestly don't help very much) or an extra 30 seconds for the timer in Exam-C (which helps an insane amount).
there's a story mode identical to that of smb2, with truncated cutscenes in mime retelling the lovably bizarre plot of the original. personally I don't mind this change, as the story isn't really that important or complicated. I'm a little puzzled at why they didn't use the expanded worlds of deluxe's story mode, but it's not a big difference either way. as I mentioned prior stages that were changed have their original versions present in a standalone mode, and all of the deluxe-exclusive levels have a mode as well. playing through them all back to back, I have to say I still like them for the most part, as there's a lot of great ideas present (maybe one too many maze stages tho). there are also a few modes that remix the levels. golden banana mode is probably the best of these, where you need to collect every banana in a stage in order to clear it. this actually changes how the stages need to be approached quite a bit. the opposite of this is dark banana mode, where any banana touched instantly causes a game over. while the idea is good in concept, they're designed for a level of precision I just don't think exists in this game. finally there's reverse mode, where certain levels start you at the goal and make you work your way back to the starting point. the best level of these is Free Throw, where they make you throw yourself backwards onto the starting platform in a cool twist. the others mainly just require you to tread the same path as whatever the hardest goal is, so they come across as rather redundant.
minigames are also back in full force, with all of the features from deluxe retained to my knowledge. the big thing that turned me off here was the lack of alternating multiplayer, which even in a patch could be such a trivial addition. I bought this on ps4, where I don't really have extra controllers to work with, and it's frustrating that my roommates and I can't play monkey target or billiards by passing the controller around. overall the minigames seem to be pretty much as I remember them from the old games, with all the customization you could want to boot. I can't really pretend something like monkey race isn't scuffed as fuck, but they were in the originals as well so it's pretty faithful. all that I played other than monkey target look very solid... monkey target is honestly a "Made in Dreams"-ass game here, but it's so annoying in its original form that I'll let it slide here. most of the other games here I can just experience via yakuza or really don't care that much about, beyond perhaps trying to go for completion later down the line.
I also wanted to briefly mention the art design for both the menus and the levels, which are absolutely phenomenal. beyond some UI nitpicks I mentioned earlier I think the interface is very clear and clean, and feels like an accurate translation from the older games to a modern style. the world designs are really gorgeous, and blew me away with their accuracy. I really would not have thought a quickie project for RGG would capture the style and detail of the original worlds so well in HD, but they absolutely nailed it here. the banana blitz-era monkey designs I'm not crazy about but they do the job fine, and the cutesy redesigns of kiryu and beat are so fun; I still can't believe they're in the game!! the music has all been remixed as well, though I personally think they're pretty middling overall. the original soundtracks are legendary so I definitely didn't expect them to live up here, but they really veer into tacky EDM territory more often than I would like.
finally, I wanted to bring up the accessibility options, which are much-needed additions for newer fans looking to try the series out. you can use helper functions in each level to double the timer as well as open up a very useful slow motion mode for the cost of receiving no points upon clearing the level and disabling the extra stages for the course. I messed around with these a bit and I think they do a good job of covering the bases for someone learning a given stage. if stage is too taxing, you can also pay 2000 banana coins to mark it as cleared. which is a hefty toll but honestly worth it when poking around in the special modes to skip annoying levels that would take a lot of practice. finally, the jump from banana blitz has been added in as a purchaseable item, and surprisingly it doesn't void trophies/extra stuff like the helper functions (though it can't be used in ranking mode). when watching trailers I thought I wouldn't touch this at all but I decided to try it out when struggling on Warp and wow did it really save my ass. because the jump wasn't present in the original games, it opens up a lot of ways to break previously challenging level design, and honestly that became the most fun part of the game for me at points. skipping all of the tiring maze levels from smb2 feels so great, and I even managed to pull off a strat equivalent to the speedrun route for Stamina Master by jumping at the peak of the first ramp. it honestly made the final worlds of story mode a lot more enjoyable given how many frustrating and gimmicky levels are contained within it (they were bad in the original too, not just this game). when I eventually get around to smb2 master and master extra, I'm sure I'll have fun finding ways to break levels that originally took me dozens of lives to beat.
I think I've exhaustively covered every aspect of this game that I've played so far... and now that I've finished this giant wall of text I can finally move onto some other games. I don't think I've wasted my time with this game at all, and I'm glad this package exists, but man does it really not scratch that itch that the original games do. perhaps an engine on par with the original simply isn't capable of happening without the original source code available... but at the end of the day I'll still have the original games to return to when I really want to experience monkey ball as it originally felt.
alyssa played a good chunk of it but im overall rly impressed by this thing w the exception of a few differences in the physics that make some levels significantly harder than they used to be. we just unlocked jumping and its the most unbelievably broken shit in the universe all i wanna do is bounce around aimlessly forever and see how far i can push the physics... i love monkey ball
game is pretty fun, but i'd still recommend the original over this
also the remixes suck wtf
and the story mode cutscenes are definitely lacking compared to 2's, i know it's not that big of a deal but I wish they made them better in some way
also the remixes suck wtf
and the story mode cutscenes are definitely lacking compared to 2's, i know it's not that big of a deal but I wish they made them better in some way
YEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH
Monkey Ball was a series that I have been casually wanting to return for awhile now. I've never been a mega die hard fan of the games but I had a lot of fun with them as a kid and I've felt like it would be nice to replay them every so often or to get new ones that follow the design philosophy of the original trio of games. That essentially is what Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania sets out to do; and for the most part it manages to succeed in a way that I'm pretty happy with.
So going into this I had a bit of a different expectation as to what Banana Mania was compared to what it actually was. The only trailers I saw for this game was the E3 announcement trailer as well as all the character reveal trailers that they did, but based on the initial announcement and how they made it a point to show that everything was coming from Monkey Ball 1, Monkey Ball 2, and Monkey Ball Deluxe I had assumed that this was a remake of the trilogy entirely as is in a similar style to how the Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy was remade and not what we ended up getting, which was a remix of the three games into one game that uses levels and elements of each game. Personally I would have preferred what I assumed we were getting, but that is ultimately on me and not the game so I can't really hold it against the game. I did think it was important to note though due to how reviews will inherently be biased and what I thought would be nice versus what we got will definitely color this a bit.
That being said there are quite a few really nice changes that this being a remix of the first three games instead of straight up one to one remakes of them. One of them is the aforementioned characters that have been added, which while not adding any inherent gameplay changes does just work as a nice cosmetic thing. Seeing a little chibi Kiryu Kazuma rolling around in a ball collecting tauriner bottles or seeing Tails from Sonic the Hedgehog collecting rings in a ball is fun and adds a level of fun to it at the absurdity of these characters getting rolled around in balls. Also the rate at which you are given the currency used to unlock these characters as well as new modes is really quick and makes it feel like you're constantly gaining something and moving up even when you fail, which is a really nice feeling in my opinion.
The other main thing that I thought was nice is how despite this game being an amalgam of the other games they still left each game's challenge mode as its own thing so you could play through a collection of challenge levels from each game if you wanted too. It's nice that even if its all one game now they still left options to keep the contents from the different games in order for people who wanted to replay levels from a specific game if they choose too. It's a neat thing that I do kind of wish was how the main mode was handled as well but at the same time I do understand why they didn't do this for the main game as well.
This one is more of a complaint from someone who put way too much time into Monkey Ball deluxe as a kid, but the physics in this game are noticeably off compared to how they were in the originals and I am not really a fan of it. I'm not sure how best to describe this so the best I can really do is to give an example. There is a level you will see in deluxe's challenge mode that has you stuck in what is essentially a bowl inside of a much bigger bowl. You are supposed to keep going around the edges of the small bowl until through hitting the corners you gain enough momentum to go over the top into the larger bowl, where you do the same thing again but needing less speed to reach the goal. This is made significantly harder in this game since you do not gain or maintain as much height from bumping into the edges of the bowl and can get stuck in the small bowl much easier than in deluxe. I pulled out the original game and set up my original Xbox to test it and it is noticeably less functional due to how the game registers and calculates its physics in the Banana Mania version. This is also noticeable in the minigames that make a return from previous games, in that a number of them do not work correctly due to this change as well. Which is unfortunate but I was never big into the minigames anyway so it doesn't impact me too much.
Another thing that I'm not sure how I feel about with this is how it balances its level curve. The main mode of the game is a mix of the main modes from one, two, and deluxe which is nice since we still get all the levels from those games even if its not in the original format, but the way they're ordered in this game leads to having really random and unnecessary feeling difficulty spikes in each world. The original games definitely had difficulty spikes and tough levels, but those were at least ramped up at a more even pace whereas here you can have one of the easiest levels in the game back to back with one of the hardest here in Banana Mania. It isn't the most egregious thing since I would have had to do these levels eventually, but it did kind of break up the pace of the game in a really odd way that I didn't really enjoy.
Despite everything I've said up to this point though, its still Monkey ball at its core almost exactly how you might remember it. The gameplay might take a bit to adjust to if you are intimately familiar with the original trilogy of games, but for newcomers to the series this would most likely not be noticeable as most stages will still function fundamentally the same. The game is still incredibly fun but challenging and makes you really try to master its gameplay to finish its puzzlebox style levels. Sure I would have overall prefered we got full remakes/remasters of the first three games but I do think there is merit to remixing the games into something entirely new like this and I do appreciate the wave of nostalgia I got from seeing a ton of the old levels from the first few games that I remember so fondly.
Ultimately, I do still really like Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania. It's goofy, its creative, it's frustrating as hell, but it's classic monkey ball. I'm glad this remix of the first several games exists and I hope that the monkey ball team getting this opportunity to recreate the original games means that an original monkey ball based on the first three is in the works coming up. This game has a really strong basis going forward for the series with it using the best of the original games as well as adding a lot of cool new features like multiple unlockable characters from other sega properties. I had fun with this game and I hope you do too if you decide to pick it up.
8/10
So going into this I had a bit of a different expectation as to what Banana Mania was compared to what it actually was. The only trailers I saw for this game was the E3 announcement trailer as well as all the character reveal trailers that they did, but based on the initial announcement and how they made it a point to show that everything was coming from Monkey Ball 1, Monkey Ball 2, and Monkey Ball Deluxe I had assumed that this was a remake of the trilogy entirely as is in a similar style to how the Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy was remade and not what we ended up getting, which was a remix of the three games into one game that uses levels and elements of each game. Personally I would have preferred what I assumed we were getting, but that is ultimately on me and not the game so I can't really hold it against the game. I did think it was important to note though due to how reviews will inherently be biased and what I thought would be nice versus what we got will definitely color this a bit.
That being said there are quite a few really nice changes that this being a remix of the first three games instead of straight up one to one remakes of them. One of them is the aforementioned characters that have been added, which while not adding any inherent gameplay changes does just work as a nice cosmetic thing. Seeing a little chibi Kiryu Kazuma rolling around in a ball collecting tauriner bottles or seeing Tails from Sonic the Hedgehog collecting rings in a ball is fun and adds a level of fun to it at the absurdity of these characters getting rolled around in balls. Also the rate at which you are given the currency used to unlock these characters as well as new modes is really quick and makes it feel like you're constantly gaining something and moving up even when you fail, which is a really nice feeling in my opinion.
The other main thing that I thought was nice is how despite this game being an amalgam of the other games they still left each game's challenge mode as its own thing so you could play through a collection of challenge levels from each game if you wanted too. It's nice that even if its all one game now they still left options to keep the contents from the different games in order for people who wanted to replay levels from a specific game if they choose too. It's a neat thing that I do kind of wish was how the main mode was handled as well but at the same time I do understand why they didn't do this for the main game as well.
This one is more of a complaint from someone who put way too much time into Monkey Ball deluxe as a kid, but the physics in this game are noticeably off compared to how they were in the originals and I am not really a fan of it. I'm not sure how best to describe this so the best I can really do is to give an example. There is a level you will see in deluxe's challenge mode that has you stuck in what is essentially a bowl inside of a much bigger bowl. You are supposed to keep going around the edges of the small bowl until through hitting the corners you gain enough momentum to go over the top into the larger bowl, where you do the same thing again but needing less speed to reach the goal. This is made significantly harder in this game since you do not gain or maintain as much height from bumping into the edges of the bowl and can get stuck in the small bowl much easier than in deluxe. I pulled out the original game and set up my original Xbox to test it and it is noticeably less functional due to how the game registers and calculates its physics in the Banana Mania version. This is also noticeable in the minigames that make a return from previous games, in that a number of them do not work correctly due to this change as well. Which is unfortunate but I was never big into the minigames anyway so it doesn't impact me too much.
Another thing that I'm not sure how I feel about with this is how it balances its level curve. The main mode of the game is a mix of the main modes from one, two, and deluxe which is nice since we still get all the levels from those games even if its not in the original format, but the way they're ordered in this game leads to having really random and unnecessary feeling difficulty spikes in each world. The original games definitely had difficulty spikes and tough levels, but those were at least ramped up at a more even pace whereas here you can have one of the easiest levels in the game back to back with one of the hardest here in Banana Mania. It isn't the most egregious thing since I would have had to do these levels eventually, but it did kind of break up the pace of the game in a really odd way that I didn't really enjoy.
Despite everything I've said up to this point though, its still Monkey ball at its core almost exactly how you might remember it. The gameplay might take a bit to adjust to if you are intimately familiar with the original trilogy of games, but for newcomers to the series this would most likely not be noticeable as most stages will still function fundamentally the same. The game is still incredibly fun but challenging and makes you really try to master its gameplay to finish its puzzlebox style levels. Sure I would have overall prefered we got full remakes/remasters of the first three games but I do think there is merit to remixing the games into something entirely new like this and I do appreciate the wave of nostalgia I got from seeing a ton of the old levels from the first few games that I remember so fondly.
Ultimately, I do still really like Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania. It's goofy, its creative, it's frustrating as hell, but it's classic monkey ball. I'm glad this remix of the first several games exists and I hope that the monkey ball team getting this opportunity to recreate the original games means that an original monkey ball based on the first three is in the works coming up. This game has a really strong basis going forward for the series with it using the best of the original games as well as adding a lot of cool new features like multiple unlockable characters from other sega properties. I had fun with this game and I hope you do too if you decide to pick it up.
8/10
This is my first ever Monkey Ball game and while I appreciate that for long time fans the physics and stuff wasn't what they hoped for, as a newcomer they were good enough to sell me on the franchise.
It's definitely a game you can tell was designed for the notched controller the Gamecube had because the full circle sticks on modern controllers make it difficult to roll in a set direction and makes it soooooo easy to fall off thinner platforms.
That said, the core concept of moving stages to guide a monkey in a ball to a goal? Addictively fun! I love arcadey style stuff like this so much. Easy to learn, difficult to master as stages become more complex, asking you to pull off manoeuvres that make you feel like a Monkey Ball deity when you do them.
I do appreciate that for long time fans, the physics being off can be hugely detrimental to your enjoyment (I've experienced that with Sonic 4......) but I think for newcomers like myself, this is good enough to hook us on the series and get us interested in trying out the Gamecube originals that people love so dearly
It's definitely a game you can tell was designed for the notched controller the Gamecube had because the full circle sticks on modern controllers make it difficult to roll in a set direction and makes it soooooo easy to fall off thinner platforms.
That said, the core concept of moving stages to guide a monkey in a ball to a goal? Addictively fun! I love arcadey style stuff like this so much. Easy to learn, difficult to master as stages become more complex, asking you to pull off manoeuvres that make you feel like a Monkey Ball deity when you do them.
I do appreciate that for long time fans, the physics being off can be hugely detrimental to your enjoyment (I've experienced that with Sonic 4......) but I think for newcomers like myself, this is good enough to hook us on the series and get us interested in trying out the Gamecube originals that people love so dearly