Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz Review.

[Lepruk86]

I wrote this ages ago for an old Wii site so thought i'd share.

SMB:BB Review:

Super Monkey Ball for the GCN is still easily one of the best games for the console. It offered players a variety of different puzzle mazes limiting their control over the monkey centred ball. You couldn’t jump or actually do much other than just roll in the direction you tilt the board via the use of the analogue stick. This mechanic didn’t just work, it felt amazingly responsive and offered a great gaming experience (not to mention the pleasure of flinging a monkey over 100mph). The difficulty was just right also; it held your hand for the first portion of the game but quickly forced you to maintain complete control. Some of the mazes could be incredibly frustrating but this all added to the joy of over coming the games fairly tough challenges.
On top of this it also offered a couple of party games thrown in on the side. Despite their tacked-on-feel they had a surprising amount of lasting value and did offer a great multiplayer experience. Sega had certainly managed to hit an appealing, immersive and impressive button with the game. The Monkeys had enough character to allow them to carry the game without it becoming too obsessed with them or the plot. The game set out to be an amazing puzzle experience; and that is precisely what it was.

So does Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz live up to its predecessors?

Firstly let us get the technical information out of the way. The game runs in 480p progressive scan and defaults to 16:9 wide screen with a solid 60FPS. I have been playing the game for about 30 hours now and have experienced no lag between the Wii-remote and the main game; nor have I found a single second of the frame rate dipping or becoming unstable. That said of course it would be near impossible to play this game with a choppy frame rate considering the many demanding tight corners the mazes throw at you.

The game has an almost Zelda:Wind Waker look to it (due to the fact that SMB:BB is partially cell shaded); so if you loved the graphics of that game then this should at least moisten your taste buds. The game is bright and colourful, but not overly so that it is difficult on the eyes. None of the textures look bad up close and even the subtle lighting effects all add up to a fairly rich but simplistic look. I personally really like how the visuals have turned out.
As for the Audio - it is the same cheery score as before. I haven’t found it to become annoying or irritating. The game sounds like the other Monkey Ball games and I personally don’t think it needs revamping all that much. The cheery, rhythmic and fast paced melodies that loop whilst you navigate the puzzles are as enticing as they has ever been; Though as a side note, you aren’t going to walk away humming them and in fact I don’t think any of them are all that memorable.

Right off the bat SMB:BB is not exactly the same as the previous instalments mainly for two reasons: the first being that this game has an entirely new control scheme; and the second is that Sega has really pushed the Party Games segment. It now features 50 mini games all trying to get you to use the controller in unique, new and fun ways.

I think I first have to emphasise how good the controls feel when playing the main game. The transaction is natural and seamless. There is a mild learning curve of around 20 – 60 minutes depending on how fast you catch on to just how responsive these controls are. The game feels exactly like you always wanted it to feel and I actually found it hard to go back to the first game after spending so long with the new one. It uses the Gyroscopic features of the Wii-remote to replace the analogue stick so to move forward you tilt your hand down a little, to move back you thus of course pull back and left and right are also handled by tilting in the desired direction. If you have any concerns about these mechanics, lay them to peace now because they work better than you could ever imagine.

The main game is laid out so that you select the world you want to play then within that world you work your way through the 8 puzzle mazes, the bonus stage and the boss battle at the end. The bonus stage gets thrown at you after you complete any 4 of the regular puzzles in that world and the boss comes after the second 4. The game features 8 standard worlds with an extra two that are unlockable. You have to complete the worlds in order first time through but within each world you are free to do the 8 stages in what ever order you wish. In fact after world 3 the stages don’t really seem to go in any kind of difficulty order so it doesn’t seem to make a huge difference. I never felt the need to exit out of one stage and attempt another though but it is an option available to you if you wish.

The new volume of mini games is breath-taking to begin with. I have only had the opportunity to experiment with 1 – 3 players but even with just three of us flapping our arms to control a bird it still felt fun. Sega have really put a lot of effort into trying to make this game something that you are going to want to take off the shelf when you have a couple of friends over.

But the game does have a few short comings and unfortunately I feel that some of them are fairly huge.

The first one is that the game holds your hand too far through. I managed to fly through most of the main missions and in fact I really only hit some difficulty at the end of world 6 / beginning of world 7. I never found one maze which took more than 10 fall outs but most were done in under five. I think they were concerned about the new controller so they made the mazes easier which is a real shame because the controls are so responsive. I really think they should have removed the barriers on the edge of the world at 4 or 5 at the latest. Granted there are some parts that would be impossible without them but as I have said, they really need to give the player just a little more credit.
Along these lines also; the game is populated by around just 80 levels. Now considering I found 60 or so of these incredibly easy and the remaining few moderate at worst; that just isn’t enough. The kind of long tutorial feel of the game would have been fine had their have been double the amount of levels where the game really begins to become difficult. I know that the Wii is supposed to attract non gamers too but please don’t ‘dumb down’ our classic titles for this purpose. As I keep mentioning; the controls feel so good that even non-gamers could get into this.

Another thing which I am filing under complaints is the added ability of jumping. I found the puzzles that relied on the jumping element almost completely devoid of fun. For the most part it isn’t too much of a damper on the gameas their are only a couple of these; but in some of the worst cases; you have no sense of speed because you have to jump slowly and wait for moving platforms etc. This detracts from the sense of insanity which the first game built up so well. I am not saying that the jumping is unresponsive but I just found that it didn’t suit the Marble-like vibe that echo’s from SMB:BB; that or the designer’s over relied on it to form some of the levels.

As for the mini games - I think to say that 20 out of the 50 mini games are playable is pushing it to be honest. For a good 20 of them the controls just do not work or cut out. It makes you feel cheated some what considering how responsive the single player campaign is and that maybe just another month of tweaking would have solved this problem. For the last 10 it is simply that the games aren’t fun; Jigsaw Puzzle for example just is not enjoyable at all.

That said the few games that do work; work very well. Monkey Target returns and despite the addition of having a second ball (a bit random but it works); it feels as fun as ever. Monkey racing makes a return and again, it works near perfectly. Both these games have a new control scheme (due to the Wii-remote’s abilities) but I think they managed to get them right.

Because SMB:BB is essentially two different games (a single player and a party game) packaged together; you get the feeling that both could have been done better. However I do want to conclude on a positive note because the game is enjoyable and incredibly difficult to not recommend. The controls (again) work, the puzzle mazes are so much fun even though they are a tad easy, the multiplayer can be great once you have sorted out the dud ones so that you know what needs to be avoided, and it does still in all fairness feels like Monkey Ball; which is great because the formula is still as awesome now as it was in 2001 with it’s debut. Just don’t go into this game expecting the same kind of fiendish puzzles we have come to love and hate. The game would have scored much higher, but the lack of single player content and the fact that most of the multiplayer is forgettable really drags down the experience, which is a real shame.

Graphics 7 / 10 – The game looks slick, cartoon-like and cute with a truly amazing frame-rate, but it doesn’t really show off anything that is technically amazing.

Gameplay 8 / 10 – The gameplay would have easily been a 10 if it wasn’t so easy to breeze through and if just a couple more of the mini games were more thought out.

Sound 7 / 10 – Nothing impressive but suits the mood of the game perfectly.

Content 7/ 10 – Features a lot of different games etc; but it isn’t all as well thought out as you would hope. Making it harder to find what is worth playing and what isn’t.

Replay Value 9 / 10 – Always great to compete for times and scores; especially if someone else in the household plays. This game saves the top three scores on every mini-game and world. Not to mention the excitement of finding shortcuts to artificially increase the difficulty of the game.

Total: - 7.6

Luke Farber