Still, Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania has plenty of solid content that makes it worthwhile, if rolling around in a ball is your thing. Monkey Shot is a basic on-rails shoot-em-up with nothing compelling to speak of, but the race and billiards games are quite fun to play. For example, Monkey Target is a classic, but Monkey Soccer controls like a group of drunks kicking a ball around an alleyway. For every good minigame there’s a pretty forgettable one. Some of these multiplayer modes are a lot better than others. For a game that feels like a celebration of all things Super Monkey Ball, limiting multiplayer to local play is disappointing. Sadly, these modes aren’t playable online, which feels like a missed opportunity. Party games from the originals are available here, and you can play with up to four players in local multiplayer or simply head in alone. The game has six starting characters, but plenty more to unlock. I ended up playing most of the game with Sonic and Tails, but unfortunately you can’t take these characters into the multiplayer modes.
Sonic, Tails, Kazuma Kiryu from Yakuza and Beat from Jet Set Radio are all unlockable, and you can get them really quickly too. You can get costumes for your monkeys and visual filters, but most exciting is the array of unique characters you can purchase. There’s even a mode where you play through stages in reverse, and all these modes are unlocked through easily-acquired points in a shop (along with a plethora of other bonuses). The former was pretty nice to play, but the latter was absolutely punishing.
SUPER DX BALL ONLINE SERIES
Golden Banana mode sees the player collecting all the bananas in a series of courses, while Dark Banana mode forces you to avoid them as you head towards the goal. Bonus modes add even more variety to the mix too. The developers weren’t afraid to get crazy with the course designs in these games, and many of them are as bizarre as they are enjoyable. Overall though, the game is a lot of fun. The controls are extremely sensitive and some courses require a surgeon’s precision with the joystick, so be prepared for some painful moments.īanana Mania will take you to all kinds of varied environments. However, many players will find some levels much harder to complete, especially if you have any kind of controller drift. This is a nice addition, and anyone who’s really struggling can always fall back on features like Helper Mode where you can slow down time to tackle a particularly tough trial. Thankfully, Banana Mania has a lot of accessibility options to assist you when you get stuck. In fact, the spikes in difficulty can be incredibly jarring, with certain levels feeling more cruel than challenging. Some levels are a breeze, and others will test even the most seasoned gamers. Naturally, rolling monkeys down different wacky courses is a blast, and the simple control scheme is easy to learn but difficult to master.
Certain stages have been rebalanced, but the experience is pretty similar to those original games. There’s a story mode straight out of Super Monkey Ball 2, all the original stages from the very first title, and an unlockable DX mode which brings in extra levels from the Deluxe version. The main draw here is the smorgasbord of remade levels available to complete. I wonder what’s at the bottom of that rainbow…
However, despite the amount of content here, it’s not quite the perfect collection fans have been hoping for. Each level has been remade in a new engine, and the physics and course design manage to replicate the original action pretty well. Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania combines Super Monkey Ball 1, 2 and Deluxe into one package, offering tons of monkey-rolling action, and fans of the originals will be pleased to know they’re mostly faithful to what came before. The classic Super Monkey Ball games have finally been re-released on modern consoles in a new content-rich collection from Sega.
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