Seeing the trailers back in february 2024, I wasn't confident in this game at all. And considering the entry released before, a somewhat disappointing albeit fonctionnal remake of the first 2 original games, it was hard to keep faith in the serie's future.

I'll start with the negatives : The visual presentation, sound design and general aesthetic is still pretty mediocre to me. I'm not convinced with all the redesign, and the overall "safe" aesthetic of the Banana serie doesn't come close to the abstract bakcgrounds combined with the atmospheric drum'nbass music of the original games. And one of the biggest offender is this boring sound effect when rolling your ball, which again, is hard to not compare it to the older games. These problems might seem like nitpicks to a lot of people, but they were an integral part of my appreciation of the serie, and a big part of why I wasn't feeling this game when looking at the trailers.

I also have to mention the poor performances on Switch. It baffles me how they could let a game like this experiencing weird framedrops during gameplay, but oh well, this will be ported on PC, and maybe a patch could arrive in the future.

But there's a reason why I decided to write about these shortcomings first: I still can't believe I had fun with this game despite what I wrote above

The level design is to my eyes on par with its predecessors, showing great variety between levels asking precision like in SMB1, or the more conceptual ones playing with momentum and switches like in SMB2 -arguably doing a better job at it than the latter-. Early levels are obviously on the easy side while still having interesting concepts. Starting from World 7 until the end of the game, there's almost no levels to throw away, while still holding the variety I mentionned plus a great difficulty, a lot of EX levels being plain excellent. If we're talking about pure level design, it's clearly a love letter to people like myself, to a point when I was shocked they actually COULD do something like this. Guess Banana Mania wasn't for nothing ?

But level design isn't the be-all and end-all when talking about Super Monkey Ball. Physics has to be on point to, and here I guess I have to be a little bit less enthusiastic. It's basically very similar to Banana Mania, it controls well, but not quite like the original. Curves never feel as good as before, but at least, levels are balanced with these physics in mind. Speaking of balance, characters all have theirs unique stats this time, for some interesting results. On the one hand, it adds a bit of replayability, they DO feel (very) different for each others, some characters can help you complete a level better than the others (for whatever reason, I felt like Yanyan was the closest to the original SMB). On the other hand, there are clear winners here, with characters such as Baby (especially him actually) being able to completely bybass levels sometimes with his high speed/insane braking capability combo. It's fun finding skip with characters like this, but it does feel cheap sometimes.

And if we're talking balancing, I have to mention the new Spin Dash gimmick, which basically consists of a quick boost in any direction given by the players. I honestly wasn't too sure about this back then. Finding skips in Super Monkey Ball is always fun and is proof of how good the physics are, but my main interest has always been about playing methodically, while keeping your momentum and balance. With this in mind, I must say that this Spin dash doesn't feel bad at all. Some levels are clearly build around it, but if you're like me, rest assured: the majority is still the Monkey Ball I love. While it gives you the possibility to skip some sections of levels, mainly the easy ones, it isn't so simple for those which come after.

The thing is, this game lacks an "Arcade mode", and is an excellent exemple of why the arcade core structure still holds so much potential. In Banana Rumble, you don't have any lives to lose, meaning there isn't any risk and reward decision in your gameplay. You have absolutly no reasons not to try the crazy skip you're thinking of with the Spin Dash, except the time it could take to actually succeed. But imagine how well the game would balance itself around it if you had to think twice before using it. Lives and continues aren't just relics of the past, they can offer an intrisic progression curve, itself offering dozens of hours worth of gameplay. In its current state, Banana Rumble can be completed in 2 to 3 days for a veteran, and the only reason to play more is time trial, which is fun in itself, but not enough for someone who doesn't care that much about speedrunning. Some of these stages can get as hard as in the original games, and I'm perfectly okay with learning them in a Story mode when losing doesn't really matter, but it's a shame we don't have the opportunity to put our practice to the test. (something SMB2 actually did back in the days!)

All in all, Banana Rumble was a great surprise, I can't stress enough how the level design is AT LEAST as good as the originals, and while the physics are still not quiete there, my biggest issue is more about how this game feels too safe, wether it's because of its visual, or more importantly, how the absence of an Arcade mode mean your decisions hold little meaning.

Well played, Banana Rumble, for giving me a smile with new Monkey Ball content, something I wouldn't have imagined except in fans mods. We're still not quite touching the perfection of the first game, but it doesn't need much more.

And I still can't believe I wrote this.