Every night last week, I was reuniting with a dear old friend. Super Monkey Ball and I were inseparable during the GameCube era, but our relationship grew estranged when the series replaced its perfect combination of devilish challenges and finely tuned physics with bland level design and imprecise motion controls aimed at a more casual demographic. So it’s easy to imagine that I was indifferent when the initial announcement of Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble focused on the uncontrollable chaos of 16-player online battles. But I’ve never been happier to be wrong, because hidden within Banana Rumble is the best traditional Super Monkey Ball level set in the series’ history since the GameCube original, backed by tight mechanics that give you the total control you need to get through those tough late-game obstacles. Monkey Ball is finally back, and now I just want to get the ball rolling.
Banana Rumble’s 200 courses are split across 20 cartoon-style worlds, each with 10 stages. In classic Monkey Ball style, the setup is surprisingly simple: you have 60 seconds to roll your monkey from start to finish, but the hurdles in between change dramatically over the course of your adventure. The first stages aren’t too difficult, giving you a good understanding of how Banana Rumble works, so you’ll be up and running quickly when the heat kicks up.
As a certified Super Monkey Ball 2 master, I had no trouble getting through the first 80 or so levels. However, it was still fun to beat stages that were reminiscent of the excellent Super Monkey Ball 1 and 2 level design, with curves, ramps, rails, switches, and bumps. Additionally, speedrunning is a classic element of the original, and it was a lot of fun to see how quickly I could get through levels that didn’t require much precision, such as a stage where you could get a perfect start and dunk on the goal if you knew what to do. I quickly realized that Banana Rumble was a return to the series’ roots, and I had a blast getting through the early levels while listening to the fantastic GameCube-esque soundtrack.
But that refreshing feeling didn’t last long, because Banana Rumble doesn’t hold back in the second half. The 10 EX Worlds unlocked after beating the main storyline fulfilled all the Monkey Ball challenges I’d been begging the series to bring back. Suddenly, I was faced with tough stages that really tested my monkey mettle. From crazy spinning machines to invisible tilting seesaws to the narrowest passages that you have to carefully tiptoe across, Banana Rumble is constantly introducing new challenges and clever twists on old challenges. Some of the final levels require dozens of tries, and nothing feels better than when my main monkey, AiAi, finally breaks through that elusive finish line. In fact, I was so obsessed with clearing all the stages in Banana Rumble that one night I couldn’t be bothered to get up and turn on the lights when it was dark outside, and I just kept rolling the monkey in pitch black until after midnight. Definitely worth it.
Chaos, Control
Its fantastic stage design and diversity feel Yes, exactly. And for the first time in decades, Super Monkey Ball achieves that goal. Though it may seem like you’re directly moving the sphere through each course, Super Monkey Ball is actually a game in which you control the stage, not the monkey. At its best, the control stick is aligned 1:1 with the angle of the stage, giving you pinpoint precision control over the tilt of the terrain and therefore the direction the monkey will roll.
2021’s Banana Mania (a reworking of all the levels found in Super Monkey Ball 1, 2, and Deluxe) should have been a home run, as it returned to the best stages in the series’ history, but the controls were so slow and imprecise that they were overly frustrating at best and borderline unplayable at worst. Precise control is a must for the most difficult levels, and Banana Rumble handles so well that whenever I fell off a stage it felt like it was my fault, motivating me to improve on my next run. Banana Rumble also offers extensive control options for both the stage and the camera, so I found I could crank up all the possible settings to the max and get the expert-level control I was looking for. The physics weren’t entirely perfect, and sometimes I didn’t get the level of bounce I expected when falling off a high ledge, but still, this is definitely the best-feeling Super Monkey Ball since the first two.
Banana Rumble finally does away with the series’ poorly implemented jumping mechanics (how can a monkey jump if he’s trapped inside a ball by tilting the stage?) and instead introduces the exciting Spin Dash, inspired by Sonic the Hedgehog, which allows you to charge up and get a quick burst of speed. Whereas jumping was little more than a gimmick in past games, the Spin Dash is a genius evolution of Monkey Ball’s core mechanic. While the Spin Dash is only mandatory on a few levels, nearly every stage features some sort of shortcut or exploit that can only be performed thanks to this new feature.
A well-aimed spindash can send the poor monkey hurtling across the map in no time – a speedrunner’s dream trying to figure out all the ways to utilize this clever addition. For players who understand the mechanics and level design, Banana Rumble offers optional routes hidden in plain sight that require greater skill to reach, adding even more replay value to an already packed adventure.
Banana Split Screen
Multiplayer has returned to the main game, something that was surprisingly missing from the previous two installments. You can take on all 200 levels with up to three other players in split-screen local multiplayer or online co-op. Playing with others online is incredibly smooth; I played the entire campaign online with a friend and never experienced a disconnect. Banana Rumble runs at a very smooth 60 FPS when playing solo on the Nintendo Switch, and maintains that level of performance even when you add in online play. There is a slight drop in frame rate in split-screen, but not enough to make it unplayable.
Playing with others makes Banana Rumble a surprisingly strategic cooperative experience. Everyone starts a level at the same time, and only one player needs to complete it for the group to move forward. This also makes each level’s optional missions easier to complete. In each stage, you’re tasked with collecting a certain number of bananas, completing it within a certain amount of time, and finding the hidden golden banana, which often requires advanced technique. Having one person reach the goal as quickly as possible and assigning the remaining players to search for the bananas adds a fun layer of planning to the whole experience. I also enjoyed challenging levels with random players online. I helped a Monkey Ball newbie complete an easy world, worked with others to get the challenging golden banana in a later stage, and used encouraging emotes and phrases to cheer on my teammates. I wish Banana Rumble had also included a more traditional challenge mode where you could take turns and complete all the levels individually at your own pace.
The problem with online multiplayer is that you get kicked out of the party when you clear a world, so you had to share a new lobby code with your friends every time you wanted to continue playing. Plus, when you’re playing Adventure Mode online, Banana Rumble doesn’t show you the story cutscenes, which means if you want to find out what’s happening to AiAi, MeMe, Baby, GongGong, and your new friend Palette, you’ll have to play locally or catch up on all the cutscenes in the gallery after the fact. I’m not playing Monkey Ball for the story. To begin with, the story in this game is very basic and barebones. So while it would have actually been better to just go straight to the stage without watching the cutscenes, it feels like a strange omission.
Banana Rumble’s biggest wish is for the aforementioned Battle Mode. Longtime Super Monkey Ball fans know how iconic legendary party games like Monkey Target and Monkey Bowling are, but this game just doesn’t have anything to hold my attention for more than a few minutes. All five modes are very shallow and uninspired, with so few maps to rotate through that I felt like I’d seen everything it had to offer in under an hour. The run-of-the-mill racing, banana collecting, and bomb passing feel like a cheap copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s Battle Mode. It took me a few minutes to find a match with 16 players just a few days after launch, so I assume others feel the same way. Performance also takes a serious hit in Battle Mode, turning Adventure Mode’s smooth 60fps into a choppy slideshow at times. Local multiplayer has its own limitations, with two people not being able to play online Battle Mode on the same system, and 3-4 player battles not an option locally.
But even if you completely ignore Banana Rumble’s half-baked battle mode, there’s still a lot to do. I’ve already beaten all 200 stages, but I’m not close to completing all of the stage missions. In some missions, I’m still trying to figure out how to grab dozens of bananas and reach the finish line in time. There are also hundreds of cosmetic items you can purchase with in-game points to style your monkey. Being a simple person, I bought AiAi’s classic orange t-shirt from the original game and was happy with that, but the number of outfits and accessories available for Banana Rumble’s 12 playable characters (even more if you get the optional SEGA Pass, which adds Sonic the Hedgehog and friends) is impressive.