Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD
Nintendo Switch
NOT A few eyebrows were raised when Sega decided to release Super Monkey Ball on the GameCube. Timing was, of course, critical to the decision. The success of Monkey Ball in coin-op machines at the turn of the millennium prompted moves to port it over to a home platform, and its programming for the Japanese videogame company’s New Arcade Operation Machine Idea cabinet made the Dreamcast an obvious choice. Unfortunately, the pioneering 6th-generation console floundered off the gates, leading to its status as a launch title for Nintendo’s own piece of gaming hardware.
In retrospect, Sega was right to shun the Dreamcast for Super Monkey Ball despite the console’s chipset coming off as NAOMI lite. Certainly, the wacky premise and controls were right up Nintendo’s alley; it was a party offering that fit the senses and sensibilities of would-be GameCube owners. Gamers were tasked with directing monkeys AiAi, MeeMee, and Baby (from the arcade version), as well as GonGon (a new addition to allow for four-player setups), in transparent balls (hence the title) through platforms laced with obstacles within a specific timeframe without falling off.
As things turned out, the unlikely marriage was a hit. In fact, Super Monkey Ball became one of the best-selling among the GameCube’s initial forays, so much so that Super Monkey Ball 2 — a direct sequel featuring more of the same absurd fun via a story mode and enhanced multiplayer options — followed not long after. Monkey Tennis, Monkey Baseball, Monkey Soccer, Monkey Boat Race, Monkey Shot, and Monkey Dogfight augmented Monkey Race, Monkey Fight, Monkey Target, Monkey Billiards, Monkey Bowling, and Monkey Golf to amp up its appeal as a party game.
To Sega’s credit, Super Monkey Ball 2 was no simple cash grab. Even as it capitalized on the strides made by its predecessor, it established its bona fides by being named Best Puzzle/Trivia/Parlor Game at the E3 2002 Game Critics Awards and then claiming solid reviews. (Parenthetically, it even found purpose as a tool for maintaining sharpness among medical practitioners about to perform surgery.) Just as significantly, it flew off store shelves, prompting its re-release as a Player’s Choice title and subsequently spawning a franchise.
Fast forward to the present, and it’s clear that Super Monkey Ball has seen better days. Super Monkey Ball Bounce, its pachinko-like Peggle-derivative foray into mobile devices in 2014, lasted all of two years. And two years before that, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz, its last console contribution containing familiar base mechanics, debuted on the PlayStation Vita to disappointing results; reviews were mixed, and it failed to catch the fancy of owners of the handheld more predisposed to edgy fare.
That said, Sega continues to hold high regard for the Super Monkey Ball franchise. In partnership with Yakuza series caretaker Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, it has released Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD on all 8th-generation consoles, with a version for the personal computer slated by the end of the year. A remake of the 2006 offering on the Wii, it makes full use of the Unity game engine to sport industrial enhancements, carry contemporary design aesthetics and, most importantly, eschew motion controls in favor of analog support.
For gamers, the good news is that Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD lives up to promise. On the Switch, it runs on solid 1080p resolution and renders enhanced graphical fidelity at 60 frames per second with nary a glitch. The audio presentation is equally stunning, boasting of a finely tuned blend of voices and music, the absence of a few original tracks due to licensing issues notwithstanding. Controls are responsive and apt for quick moves, with the addition of the jump button a marked but requisite departure from the norm. In other words, it aims to deliver the goods from a technical standpoint.
In this regard, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD likewise tries to fix the waggly camera movements exhibited by the original on the Wii by instead fixing the vantage point so that gamers are, in theory, able to see in advance the mazes and obstacles in store, and act accordingly. In practice, however, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s design choices don’t go far enough to address handicaps in depth perception. Jumps can and will still be mistimed, leading to untimely deaths off wrongly judged platforms and projectiles thrown by bosses in battles at the end of levels (new to the series and potentially adding heft to the content). Changes in perspective via the otherwise-useless right analog stick would have been a welcome addition.
Thankfully, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD provides significant quality-of-life improvements that help ease the burden on gamers to do better the next time around. There are unlimited continues to tap, and death effects a reset to the start of the level and not the world — definitely welcome features considering the 100 stages on offer, the uneven progression of difficulty degrees, and the sheer challenges posed by the boss fights. Make no mistake; frustration will set in no matter what. However, the veritable lifelines are a boon to keeping hope afloat and preventing interest from waning.
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD manages to retain just 10 of the 50 mini-games on the source material. No doubt, the development stems mostly from the chucking of motion controls, which would have been required to play the 40 that ended up on the cutting room floor. Those that have wound up being part of the remaster are touted as the most popular of the lot, in any case, albeit with no single-player-versus-bots option. Online leaderboards and features, among them Time Attack, serve to jack up replay value. Ditto with unlockable characters, of whom Sonic the Hedgehog is invariably the most desired. (Choosing Sega’s resident mascot revises the theme of the game; collectible bananas turn into the ubiquitous rings.)
Overall, Sega earns props for publishing a solid remaster from a highly regarded franchise. Whether it would have done better by choosing Super Monkey Ball or Super Monkey Ball 2 to port over is subject to speculation. What isn’t: the painstaking care it and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio handled Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD. While far from perfect, the release marks an auspicious beginning and should serve as a blueprint for more remakes — and, needless to say, original work — to come.
THE GOOD:
• Enhanced graphics and sounds
• Quality of Life improvements
• Motion controls eschewed
• Online leaderboards
THE BAD:
• No camera controls
• Uneven difficulty progression
• Mini-games reduced in number
• Change in soundtrack due to licensing issues
RATING: 8/10
POSTSCRIPT: SEGA AGES Ichidant-R finally makes its way to Western audiences 25 years after it was first released in Japanese arcades and on the Sega Mega Drive, and gamers won’t need much time to wonder why. It’s a series of timed puzzle mini-games that, for all its wackiness, holds universal appeal. Both iterations are on offer, although the home console version (which has Quest and Competitive Modes apart from Free Play) is absent any English support; the lack of localization is mitigated somewhat by the inclusion of a digital manual that effectively serves as a walkthrough.
Nonetheless, SEGA AGES Ichidant-R earns its $7.99 price tag. In proving that quantity and quality can mix even in the absence of depth, it throws in shades of its publisher’s own Panic! and Nintendo’s immensely popular WarioWare series to come up with 20 “tests” all told, divvied up within an amusing, if paper-thin, story about a knight needing to go through four castles, in which puzzles abound, to ultimately save the princess in distress from the evil king. En route, themed challenges have the would-be hero besting obstacles through the use of either brains or brawn, or both, but in spurts.
The original Ichidant-R was designed to gobble up coins, so the puzzles can be difficult, if not borderline impossible, to solve. SEGA AGES Ichidant-R on the Switch, however, has a Helper setting that lowers the bar for completion of a level, not to mention adds lives. Still, there can be no discounting the fun factor it provides. For gamers on the lookout for retro goodness in spurts, there’s no better choice than developer M2’s excellent port. (8/10)
THE LAST WORD: Arc of Alchemist, a tactical role-playing game developed and published by Compile Heart, is slated to be released in the West on the Switch and the Sony PlayStation 4 early next year (although physical copies for the latter are exclusive to Europe). The localized version will include the new update rolled out in Japan that allows gamers to control any of the playable cast members during battle. Anyone in the party can be a leader and, therefore, wield the Lunagear, a special device assembled with ancient technology and, when equipped with the four orbs of fire, water, wind, and earth, seen to unlock the Great Power destined to save humanity.
