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Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania

It shines as a collection of mini-games, but its story mode is often sadistically difficult.

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There are few games that have made me swear so profusely and cry out in frustration, but at the same time have as many fond memories as Sega's absolutely brilliant Super Monkey Ball. It launched exclusively for the GameCube as one of the first games Sega released after the Dreamcast was discontinued and its days as a console manufacturer were over.

When you hear people praising Sega's Dreamcast games, it's simply titles like Super Monkey Ball that are being referred to, even though this particular one never made it to the format. It was likely intended for Dreamcast when development began though. The success of Super Monkey Ball meant that it later came to more formats and had an incredible amount of sequels. But Sega has a long history of being at its best when coming up with creative, new ideas for game franchises and hasn't always been very good at this sequel thingie.

This includes Super Monkey Ball, which has had about twenty different incarnations... none of which have been anywhere near as good as the first game in the series. It was as if Sega never really understood what made the first game so brilliant in all its simplicity, and then fed the franchise with ever more complicated levels, more moving parts, pointless storylines, and new personalities. Although the series continued to be popular, sales declined and the last regular installment for a major console came just over a decade ago.

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Two years ago, Sega sent up a test balloon in the form of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD, and while it received a lukewarm reception, it apparently did well enough for Sega to again venture into making a brand new game, developed by the Yakuza studio Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. My hopes have been extremely high because from the looks of things, it finally looks like Sega has caught on and realised what made fans fall in love with the original in the first place.

Unfortunately, however, I want to state right here that I'm somewhat disappointed. Disappointed does not mean bad in this case, however, because it is clear that Sega is still applying 'more is more' instead of 'less is more' in a game about surgical precision. In reality, this means bigger levels with more moving parts and a lot of gimmicks that unfortunately somewhat obscure the brilliant fundamentals. Early on there are a couple of sadistically difficult levels that I'm afraid will put off many, despite the presence of aids that are diligently teased every time you roll off the edge a little too often. There are also a large number of remastered tracks from the first two games in the series, and it's also here that you can see how much better these actually are.

The thing about Super Monkey Ball was the brilliant set-up that allowed you to have fun even as a happy amateur and compete with your own records. Then better players could play the same tracks and use insanely hard shortcuts at extremely high speeds, creating challenges for themselves. Sure, there were some beastly difficult levels in the original as well (we haven't forgotten Mixer and also Sega Logo on Expert), but not as frequent and early. Thus, it became a title for everyone, and therein also lay its greatness. Now the tracks are presented as a kind of story with a children's TV-like layout, but with a level of difficulty, I think few in the target audience will be able to get through.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania
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I know I sound negative, but I can't for the life of me understand how Sega can have such a hard time seeing the genius in their own brilliant concept. What I'm getting now is certainly not bad, on the contrary, but it has few really memorable levels. Often it involves flying extremely high or far, going extremely fast, or getting around some large, moving obstacle. Also, there are a lot more bananas along the tracks, which I don't think adds anything.

The controls are still as ingenious as ever with an analog stick to tilt the game world and one to control the camera. Something I do note, however, is how much I miss the GameCube controller in this game. While the precision of the Xbox Series X controller is obviously better, in a game like this it's noticeable how much of a difference it makes to play with a cord on a CRT TV as of yore. It had completely non-existent lag, and what's more, the notches around the analogue sticks on the Cube controller also made it easier to keep a perfectly straight angle.

The environmental variety is good, with themes anyone who has played the original will recognise such as lush green areas, deserts, and water. The music is also so wonderfully catchy in a way that game music rarely is these days. To this is then added the classic monkey family with the two new additions of Doctor and YanYan from Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, and for those who get a more expensive edition or DLC, they can also enjoy a bunch of extra cosmetic gadgets such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Beat from Jet Set Radio and the former Yakuza protagonist Kazuma Kiryu.

If you get bored of the usual Monkey Ball setup, there are several alternative game modes, which essentially revolve around bananas in various ways. However, I find that they are mainly of the nature that they are fun to try out, but nothing you want to play for any length of time. The big takeaway for me with Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania, however, is the party games, which are 12 classics that veterans will recognise, and of course, includes Monkey Target. This mini-game became almost as popular as the main game when it was released 20 years ago - and is actually, if possible, even more fun today. Especially if you have people to compete against.

My personal favourite, though, is Monkey Tennis, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. A light-hearted game of tennis with monkeys in balls, which I think offers better digital tennis than anything else I've played in years. You can almost feel the Virtua Tennis basics in it. Monkey Soccer is also surprisingly fun (why isn't this kind of arcade soccer made anymore?) and Monkey Boxer is still as hilariously nasty as I remember it.

I wish Sega didn't feel the pressure to cram so many cheesy graphics and cool effects into Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania, which I feel is a continuation of what happened after Super Monkey Ball 2, rather than a total return to the basics. That said, it's still a clever game fans will appreciate, but one that I think may struggle to attract new fans. The twelve mini-games are absolutely superb though, and I dare say it's worth buying for this alone if fun local multiplayer is something you've been looking for.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana ManiaSuper Monkey Ball: Banana Mania
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania
07 Gamereactor UK
7 / 10
+
It contains an excellent selection of mini-games, it features many classic Sega characters, the remastered stages from the earlier games are still great.
-
The story mode stages are often far too challenging, there are strangely too many bananas.
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

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