A series I first got into through 2021’s Banana Mania which took the beloved GameCube classics and managed to recreate the physics to a point that was close enough to satisfy long time fans. Banana Rumble arrives as a Switch exclusive (at the time of writing), aiming to build upon that with a new experience. Does it manage to reach the heights of the beloved classics though?

The marketing to release put a lot of focus on the new multiplayer modes being added in this instalment but for me the multiplayer stuff is extra, I'm here for the single player stuff and rolling some monkeys into goals, so how does that hold up? Pretty flipping good if I may say so as a relatively new fan. The game controls and feels very similar to Banana Mania where the movement feels like how you would expect it to. Speed rapidly picks up slopes, crashing into bumps will flick your monkey up into the air and there's a good level of bounce when landing at speed and from heights. It's Monkey Ball at its simple peak enjoyment. The one new mechanic they added was borrowing the Spin Dash from the Sonic series and it fits in so well here. By holding B you can charge up a spin dash where releasing the button will give you a boost of speed which is so flipping good for ramming into bumps and skipping large portions of the courses to reach the goal.
That's the beauty of Monkey Ball, the objective is very simple of guiding a monkey in a ball through an obstacle course within 60 seconds but through the use of ingenuity and physic manipulation, you can clear some of the courses in under 10 seconds and in some very satisfying and impressive ways. It's what makes the series so addictive and fun for me.

Level design starts off very simple but you'll eventually run into obstacles that will bounce you up into the air, or maze-like courses or even courses that use teleporting gates as the challenge deliciously ramps up from world to world. You've got 10 worlds in the main story to clear and then all 10 of those worlds gain post game extra versions which contain some devilishly difficult courses to clear.
There was one course which had a really tight time limit that I had to pull out the game's helper function on which very handily gives you a ghost and route to follow as well as checkpoints and even a rewind function which is very helpful for when a course stumps you. The drawback is that it doesn't count as a clear and you don't clear any bonus objectives like beating the level collecting a certain number of bananas either. I think it works well but it is annoying seeing the option pop up every time you fall off the course after the first few attempts.
So yeah, the single player campaign was definitely a blast to play through and offered everything I wanted from a Monkey Ball game. You've got a shop to spend in game points on cosmetics and other characters (each with their own characteristics like spin dash cooldown times etc) so there's plenty to unlock but what about that multiplayer mode then?

Offering both offline and online multiplayer, Banana Rumble delivers on paper a multiplayer mode that has a level of attention put into it that feels out of the GameCube generation. Plenty of modes and up to 16 players sounds good on paper but it does come with some drawbacks. The main one is the framerate being halved from 60 to 30 for multiplayer which is pretty jarring when you're moving from single player. The other thing is that a few of the modes are pretty meh.
Race is the best one and captures the chaos you want from multiplayer. Here you race to the end of an obstacle course, picking up items to mess with your opponents. It can be pretty chaotic when you have 16 people bumping into each other and knocking each other off course but that's the fun.
Banana Hunt is also decent fun. It's just collecting as many bananas as possible within the time limit which the usual concentrated drops and stuff to fight over as you would expect.
Ba-BOOM is a mode where a few players start with bombs and must pass them to other players before the round ends to earn points. It's alright, the rounds feel a little short but it works well enough for a change of pace.
Goal Rush sees you split into two teams to earn as many points as possible by rolling through goals. Each goal offers a different amount of points but it's a pretty meh mode to be honest.
Finally there's Robot Smash where again two teams aim to earn points by rolling into robots dotted around a course. You earn more points for hitting a robot at higher speeds but it's another kinda dull mode.
For something that was built as the main attraction before release, I can see why reviews were harsh on the multiplayer mode but as someone who sees it more as a side dish to the single player, I think it's kinda cool that there's a sizable GameCube generation style multiplayer on offer both locally and online, even if some of the modes are a bit naff.

All in all Banana Rumble offers an excellent single player mode with an ok multiplayer offering. For those looking for another great Monkey Ball experience, then you'll probably be very satisfied with what the single player offers. Those lured in by the multiplayer might come out a little disappointed but I think there's still some fun to be had there. As someone in the first camp, yeah I LOVE MONKEY BALL SO MUCH!