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It’s been so long since an original Super Monkey Ball game! It’s true, Banana Blitz HD and Banana Mania did feel like they were leading to a truly new release, but still: we’re happy to see it. This time, it’s clear that the development team saw Fall Guys and said, “hey, we can make one of those.” Still, there’s a lot Monkey Ball can bring to the idea, and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble combines it with a fresh new Adventure mode for AiAi traditionalists.

First: the single-player! Or, rather, Adventure mode generally, since the game adds the ability to play through these levels with friends. It’s more of a social thing that doesn’t affect the gameplay very much, but nevertheless, it’s a nice bonus! And hey, maybe split-screen with friends and family will lessen the frustration of the harder levels just a bit. The Adventure mode comprises the traditional Super Monkey Ball experience: tilting a board to move your ball to the goal in 200 stages broken up into themed worlds. You can do this with tilt controls, if you want! Which is great. But the game defaults to analog stick control, and you’ll need to dig into the settings to use motion. 

The new mechanic — you knew they had to add one, whether you wanted one or not — is the Spin Dash, allowing a burst of speed and momentum that doesn’t necessarily align with your active roll. It’s a bit tricky to pull off a change of direction (with the default control mapping), but we’re sure the trick shots with this new mechanic are going to be ludicrous. 

The boards are designed to be generally clearable by most, with special collectibles and time-chasing serving to provide higher difficulty. That’s a good game balance to target, and though perpetual franchise scrubs like us will still hit a snag occasionally just clearing a level, it mostly does its job on that front. To help newcomers, there are a suite of welcome helper functions. You can rewind stages! There are mid-level checkpoints sometimes! There are tutorial-like ghosts you can enable, too. If your goal is simply to get through the level, these should help.

There’s also a story to this mode? We aren’t going to talk about it. It’s bad, which is fine, because it also doesn’t matter. Skip the cinematics and get back to tilting.

It’s multiplayer that brings the most new ideas to the ever-tilting table. Up to 16 players match up in varied modes: Race, Banana Hunt, Ba-Boom!, Goal Rush, and Robot Smash. In Race, you unsurprisingly roll through a checkpoint-laden course and try to reach the end as close to first as you can manage. This mode’s courses are designed to get easier as time goes on, keeping players in the hunt. It does mean that you don’t necessarily want to be first for most of the race, and also even the “easy” form of the tracks can be profoundly annoying when hit with multiple items or when the segment that troubles you the most just happens to not be a segment that gets easier with time.

Somewhat ironically, given both the inspiration and the franchise’s history, but a lot of the multiplayer segments would benefit from less falling. There are a ton of checkpoints in the races, and these mitigate the effects, but Monkey Ball’s more momentum-based approach makes falling that much more punishing and discouraging.

Banana Hunt and Ba-Boom! Are Mario Kart-like battle modes, with the former focused on banana collection and the latter on either bumping into or avoiding other players to make sure you aren’t holding a bomb when time expires. All the games are relatively fast, though we wish it were more playlist-based instead of kicking you out to the lobby between events. Perhaps this pacing will change with a full player server?

Goal Rush is trying something, for sure, as it’s a slalom-like event that has you claiming gates for your team and trying to target ones worth more points. Each time you enter a goal, you’re placed back at the top, and size, movement and distance all result in goals of varied value. Robot Smash feels like the “let’s make sure slow characters have an advantage in at least one challenge” mode. You slam into robots to deal damage and destroy them, and doing so earns team points.

There’s a robust customization suite here! And that is nice for a multiplayer game, especially with its lack of microtransactions and adherence to earned in-game currency. However, we here believe that GonGon should have his G shirt and it’s not an option, so that’s a real strike against the aesthetic offerings. In all seriousness, it’s nice to be able to have different looks for online play. That said, if you’re opting out of the free-to-play microtransaction hellscape in which the industry largely now finds itself, maybe you don’t have to still use the same unlock schemes and menus? Maybe this game doesn’t need gacha mechanics and bonuses? Something to consider, perhaps?

We were hoping that the Switch exclusivity of the game’s initial release would mean that the Switch version is, technically speaking, nice and smooth. Instead, the hitching and other hiccups suggest to us that an eventual port might be the ideal experience. It’s already a given that the Switch’s online play heavily benefits from a wired connection, but in of surviving the inevitable wi-fi players in the group, Banana Rumble honestly does okay.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble is a welcome return to new ideas for the franchise, and does manage to avoid inferior minigame replication disappointment by… not replicating the old minigames at all! The choice to ape (pun intended, pun always intended, you know us) Fall Guys’ multiplayer formula isn’t the best, but there’s some fun here. And the main mode is enjoyable too!

Developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and published by Sega, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble launches on Nintendo Switch on June 25, 2024. It is, at least for the moment, exclusive to the console.

The post Review: Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble Means Monkey Business appeared first on Siliconera.

Fuji TV revealed that Game Center CX will feature Super Monkey Ball as its first title from  Nintendo GameCube. This will be the first time Shinya Arino will play on the platform for the show, as it has not appeared even in prior special episodes.

Super Monkey Ball is a party platform video game that Sega published as one of the launch titles for Nintendo GameCube. It also received attention as Sega's first title on a Nintendo home console. The newest game in the series, Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania, includes stages from this game, its sequel, and the Deluxe compilation.

The long-running Japanese retro gaming show has a rule that only allows games from consoles that have been released for over twenty years in Japan. In May 2021, Fuji TV confirmed that it could add titles from PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Game Boy Advance in the new season.

Shinya Arino played The Earth Defense Force as the show's first regular PlayStation 2 title for the 325th episode on October 14, 2021. He continued playing on the same platform with the PS2 port of Tokyo Bus Guide in the 326th episode on October 28, 2021.

Game Center CX airs bi-weekly at Fuji TV One. The 329th episode featuring the GameCube title Super Monkey Ball will broadcast on December 9, 2021, at 24:00 JST (10 AM ET).

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Super Monkey Ball is back! And this time, what’s returning is what most players love: the stages and minigames from the series’ early installments. Sega clearly intends Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania to be a marquee release for the franchise, with a host of courses, modes and cameos. But with Monkey Ball, gameplay is king. And, as history has shown, really hard to get right! But Banana Mania does its best, and its best is honestly pretty okay.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania is meant as a celebration of the series' early games. It includes hundreds of stages from Super Monkey Ball, Super Monkey Ball 2 and Super Monkey Ball Deluxe. A selection of 12 minigames from those releases is here, too. It doesn't entirely look inward, though. Through a series of cameos, both included and as able content, it looks to expand the game's audience to fans of Sonic, Yakuza, Persona, and other Sega franchises. (And some non-Sega properties too, like Hello Kitty and Monster Rancher.) Banana Mania definitely takes the Christmas tree approach, unafraid to keep adding ornaments in an attempt to catch your eye.

In of sheer content, it’s hard to beat the offering in Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania. It packs in so many levels from those first three games, delivering them in a lot of different ways. There’s the Story Mode. There are challenge packs. There are even more special modifiers to unlock. Each of these games’ stages are held in higher regard than Banana Blitz’ offerings, and for good reason. The first game built a focused challenge. The next ones broadened things out, with some stages that were more manageable on-ramps for new players. Past that? Hey, it’s tough to iterate. But it’s good that these stages are included here.

Story in the early Monkey Ball games ranged from nonexistent to notoriously bad and plodding. Banana Mania splits the difference, offering the basic story beats to those who want them. These segments are presented as talking-free, simple motion comics, watched by the monkeys on a television. They’re fast. They’re painless. Generally, it feels like a smart choice. Still, it's an interesting setup: the monkeys are watching TV shows about themselves? It's probably best to not put a lot of thought into it.

Banana Mania also manages to improve upon its minigame offerings. It still loses a little bit in translation, but the games here are close enough to their original forms to offer similar charms. And as with any Monkey Ball release, this one’s collection is full of gems and duds. Monkey Race, Monkey Fight, and Monkey Bowling are still standouts. Monkey Target’s controls feel a bit finicky, making it a much tougher experience than the classic event. The shooting games? Monkey Boat? You can probably skip them.

In the early GameCube days, these were particularly useful as stopgap activities until the console's library broadened. Even without nostalgia, there's still something about the better ones' depth that makes them worth checking out. Monkey Golf is sometimes punishing in a way that makes success feel great. Monkey Baseball is something of an exercise in futility, but there's a zen value to it. Still, Monkey Fight is likely the marquee event, and with how frantic it can be as groups learn and strategize? It's a good time.

While the game includes online functionality in the form of myriad leaderboards, the minigames are sadly a local-only affair. Still, on platforms that allow remote or share play, a lot of them hold up well. You may lose some of the timing precision, but unlike the truly punishing main game, these side modes are a bit more forgiving in that respect. However you manage it, any game's better with friends, but Monkey Ball certainly amplifies that effect.

Though it certainly takes some strides in the right direction, Banana Mania suffers from some of the same polish issues as Banana Blitz HD. Its menus can’t help but feel cheap. Its controls feel just a bit off. And we do mean a bit! They’re close, and most people will probably be fine. But with a game this much about precision, “a bit” is noticeable. The game’s built in Unity, and we’ve repeatedly seen it implemented better than this, but there’s a signature jankiness that tends to come through in shoestring Unity projects.

And it might be due to a lack of focus. It’s fun to have cameo characters and costumes, sure! (Though we’re doubting the value of some of the paid add-ons.) And it’s fun to have gallery modes and such! But it’s right on the precipice of feeling fully-baked, and a bit more work on making things feel as they should would have helped. It doesn’t help that you’ll occasionally encounter really low-resolution images in prominent locations. (Like every load screen?) The game was likely optimized for the lowest tech specs — hi, Switch — but it’s strange that it doesn’t adjust on more powerful platforms.

Nevertheless, we can’t help but be heartened by the progress. The Super Monkey Ball franchise has been rolling down a slope for a while now, so even a step or two back in the right direction is nice to see. And hey, solid versions of the minigames on modern platforms? That ain’t nothing.

Sega's Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania will launch October 5, 2021 on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X & S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC. It's developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. Players who pre-order the game gain early access on October 1, 2021.

The post Review: Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania Rolls Up Nostalgia appeared first on Siliconera.

A fan game mash-up offers a new sort of take on Super Monkey Ball and Wolfenstein 3D. Nickireda’s Return to Castle Monkey Ball is an opportunity to send B.J. Blazkowicz to fight Nazis and collect bananas in Castle Wolfenstein. Yes, it turns the castle into a labyrinth and pops BJ into a ball.

Essentially, Return to Castle Monkey Ball applies Super Monkey Ball gameplay to the Wolfenstein 3D story. People are tasked with going through eight levels in the castle as part of “Operation Bad-Boon,” each of which is timed. You can also collect bananas and treasure along the way to increase your score or run into enemies to get a little more time. (You do need to build up some momentum to actually damage foes, and guards can shoot at and hurt B.J.) There are four difficulty levels to choose from, which are “Can I play, Daddy?,” “Don’t Hurt Me,” “Bring ‘em On,” and “I am Death Incarnate.”

Here’s Nickireda’s announcement tweet, which includes a trailer showing Return to Castle Monkey Ball gameplay.

B.J. just got a whole lot ballsier! 💪

Collect bananas, find treasure, defeat guards, and escape the procedurally generated fortress! 🍌

Beloved games Wolfenstein 3D and Super Monkey Ball have crossed paths in this totally FREE wacky fangame!

Play Now!: https://t.co/YSgkvL1dGi pic.twitter.com/vPE4kRoLh7

— AutisticYui 🐻 (@Nickireda) January 10, 2021

Castle Monkey Ball is immediately available to play in your HTML5-compatible browser for free via itch.io.

The post Return to Castle Monkey Ball Offers a New Look at Wolfenstein 3D appeared first on Siliconera.

In an interview with Sega Chief Creative Officer Toshihiro Nagoshi, he reminisced about Sega leaving the console hardware business and going third party, as well as the first periods of working together with Nintendo. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

Here are the highlights:

On Super Monkey Ball:

What did you make of [the announcement that Sega was leaving the console hardware industry], Nagoshi-san?

Toshihiro Nagoshi, Sega CCO: “Back then I was working on arcade games, and wasn’t really in the thick of Dreamcast development, so I only thought it was a bit of shame, but not really that strongly. However, when I thought, “Hey, Sega’s becoming a pure software developer”, I began to be interested in console games. I realized that we were now able to make games for other company’s hardware. And so, we immediately went to Nintendo.”

That was quick. (laughs)

Nagoshi: “They were like, “Are you making a racing game? A fighting game?”, but I decided on making Super Monkey Ball.”

Why didn’t you make a game in a genre you specialized in?

Nagoshi: “When thinking of where to begin playing our hand, I prioritized making a family game rather than something more specialized. I mean, it was Nintendo hardware… In that sense, you could say that I didn’t really get that we were now making games with Sega’s name on the line. (laughs)”

Well, why not? (laughs)

Nagoshi: “Personally, I wanted to gain experience by making Super Monkey Ball. But then it didn’t sell locally. I thought, “Now we’ve done it”, but then it took off overseas. Still, honestly I don’t know why it sold well. In the midst of that, Sega’s president called and praised me, saying, “You really took the overseas market into !”, and of course, I said yes. (laughs)”

On Nintendo and Sega’s differences:

Nagoshi: “Afterwards, we worked even closely with Nintendo, such as porting Virtua Striker and making F-Zero GX. At that time, we were contracted to develop F-Zero series, and we were lucky to be able to learn from Nintendo’s game creation philosophy. With things like Mario Club, and the differences between Sega and Nintendo’s ways of making games.”

Are they that different?

Nagoshi: “Completely different. Thanks to that I was able to see what Sega was missing, and also see Sega’s good points. Although if you had to ask which one’s the right answer, I’d have to say that there’s no correct answer. As expected, both companies had their own culture.”

To go into detail, what was so amazing about Nintendo?

Nagoshi: “Their way of thinking towards holisticness and versatility was rock-solid. They didn’t really care about “whether things had a convenient excuse” or not. Being inclusive for everyone was something already assumed from the start, and this was something that was set in stone. Furthermore, this sort of thinking was found practiced by everyone from the top brass to the newcomers. It wasn’t just something said by the higher-ups and never practiced. Their unity is amazing. I thought, “If they have this way of thinking, no wonder Sega wasn’t able to beat them on hardware.””

So it was like, “As expected of Nintendo”.

Nagoshi: “Compared to Nintendo, Sega is a more “flashy” company. But because we’re more “flashy”,  we’re able to go at ideas with a more lighthearted attitude. If we didn’t have this sort of attitude, I don’t think I would have been able to keep working here. Perhaps if I had ed Nintendo, I would have left this industry long ago.” (laugh)

The post Sega’s Toshihiro Nagoshi Reminisces About Sega’s Third-Party Shift And Work With Nintendo appeared first on Siliconera.

A trademark has appeared for Tabegoro! Super Monkey Ball, in what could be the next game in the series. [Thanks, @piercesword on Twitter!]

The series of rolling platformers began on arcades and moved to home consoles with the Nintendo GameCube, but hasn’t seen any new entries since Super Monkey Ball Bounce on iOS and Android in 2014.

To explain what the title means, ‘Tabegoro’ means the time of ripeness, which aptly describes the bananas AiAi and his friends collect on the stages. Of course, there’s a pun here too, as ‘Gorogoro’ is also an onomatopoeia for rolling in Japanese.

Once again, Siliconera would like to remind people to take this trademark with a grain of salt until the game is officially confirmed.

Tabegoro! Super Monkey Ball might be in development.

The post ‘Tabegoro! Super Monkey Ball’ Rolls Into The Japanese Trademark Office appeared first on Siliconera.

Things are looking up for Super Monkey Ball creator Toshihiro Nagoshi. He formed a new Yakuza studio last year and now Nagoshi is Sega's Chief Creative Officer. Nagoshi's previous position was General Manger of R&D Division 3 and a senior corporate officer.

Sega announced Nagoshi's promotion and a corporate ladder boost for Naoya Tsurumi who will be the Representative Director for Sega Sammy Holdings.

Nagoshi's latest game, Binary Domain, is available in worldwide now.

The post Super Monkey Ball/Yakuza Creator Promoted To Sega Chief Creative Officer appeared first on Siliconera.

AiAi and his banana loving buddies are coming to PlayStation Vita. Sega's latest Super Monkey Ball game gives players three control options. Players can tilt the system to move the world, use the dual analog sticks or the front and rear touchpads.

Super Monkey Ball will have new worlds to roll around in and classic mini-games refreshed for PlayStation Vita. Monkey Target, a mini-game where you roll down a ramp and glide in the air, will return for this version of Super Monkey Ball.

Super Monkey Ball for PlayStation Vita is slated for release early next year.

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Super Monkey Ball 3D’s release isn’t far off; Sega’s new Monkey Ball title is a Nintendo 3DS launch game, and it includes three modes: classic Super Monkey Ball, Monkey Race, and Monkey Fight.

You probably know what to expect from Super Monkey Ball Mode. Meanwhile, Monkey Fight was covered by us in a set of hands-on impressions of the game. If you’re curious about Monkey Race, Sega have released a trailer for that, which you can watch above. If you want, Race Mode also allows you to play against three other players over Wi-Fi.

The post Super Monkey Ball 3D Race Mode Trailer Races Out Before Release appeared first on Siliconera.

Before Super Monkey Ball became a hit on Gamecube it was an arcade game with a banana joystick. Ever since then the Super Monkey Ball series appeared everywhere accept arcades with future games on consoles, handhelds, and mobile phones.

But, Super Monkey Ball may be returning to its roots. Sega trademarked Super Monkey Ball Ticket Blitz in Europe and the USA. Given the name, this is probably going to be some kind of ticket dispensing machine. Since ticket machines aren’t as popular as UFO catchers in Japan, Super Monkey Ball Ticket Blitz is probably being made for the West. Perhaps, we’ll see new Monkey Ball machines in Gameworks in the not-so-distant future.

The post Seems Like Super Monkey Ball Is Returning To Arcades appeared first on Siliconera.

Alongside several other publishers eager to create a presence on the iPad's App Store early in its lifespan, Sega have ported the iPhone edition of Super Monkey Ball 2 to the device.

Exclusive to the iPad version is a multiplayer survival mini-game called "Monkey Base," where 4 people play on a single iPad and fire orbs at each other. Sakura Edition also includes 10 new levels and is priced at $12.99 (or $9.99 if you buy it this week).

It should be interesting to see how much more expensive games will be on the iPad as compared to the iPhone, once developers find the right balance between price and content. The thought of a game priced at $12.99 on the iPhone is almost unthinkable at this stage in its life, but the iPad requires greater development resources and has great potential for multiplayer on the same device, which could very well go on to become its defining genre, as it lends itself well to word-of-mouth.

The post Super Monkey Ball 2: Sakura Edition Rolls Onto iPad appeared first on Siliconera.

On the GDC show floor, an exhibitor is demoing a Super Monkey Ball-esque virtual reality system.

But, it’s not for Super Monkey Ball. It’s used for a first person shooter. Players wear glasses, carry a plastic gun, and walk inside a giant “monkey ball.” When you move, your character in-game moves. It looks neat (except for the falling down, which happened a few times to the person playing). Sadly, I didn’t have time to try it. Too busy drafting interviews and getting news about Acquire, Compile Heart and what happened with the now canceled US version of Shining Dragon.

The post It’s Like Real Life Super Monkey Ball appeared first on Siliconera.

In Super Monkey Ball Step & Roll players guide AiAi through winding mazes with the balancing board and become “monkey ninjas”.

Unfortunately, Sega isn’t working on Super Monkey Shinobi. The monkey ninja bit is a mini-game which the ESRB description leaked.

In one mini-game, players become "monkey ninjas" and must step on floorboards to block ninja stars and "cartoony" smoke bombs: When monkeys are hit by a ninja star, there is crashing noise and a red mark that appears on the screen; when monkeys are hit by a smoke bomb, a plume of smoke appears and fills up the screen momentarily.

 

On second though, Sega should add a simian version of Joe Musashi (Joe Monkashi?) just for this mini-game.

Super Monkey Ball Step & Roll will be in North American stores on February 9, 2010.

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After a three year break, Sega is revisiting the Super Monkey Ball series on Wii with Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll. The game s the balance board, which is a good idea in concept. The marble maze game in Wii Fit was fun, right?

On the other hand, Super Monkey Ball games need precise control that the balance board might not be able to handle. I'm not too worried about that since I don't imagine Sega shipping a Monkey Ball game that requires the balance board. Perhaps, the development team will solve the problem by implementing good old analog control for fans of the original games and a motion control mode for newcomers.

Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll is slated for release in "early 2010" for North America and Europe. A Japanese release has not been announced at this time.

The post Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll Is Exactly What It Sounds Like appeared first on Siliconera.

Aside from an iPhone game Sega hasn't done much with the Super Monkey Ball franchise. AiAi seems to be paying his banana bills by making cameos in other Sega games like Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing.

Maybe, just maybe, Sega hasn't given up on the Super Monkey Ball series. They ed a trademark in Europe for Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll, which sounds like Super Monkey Ball with a balance board. This concept has potential. The Marble Madness-like mini-game in Wii Fit is fun to play. If Sega can borrow those controls and add solid Amusement Vision style level design I'll give Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll a whirl.

The post Is Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll A Balance Board Game? appeared first on Siliconera.