Super Monkey Ball is back, and bigger and better than before. Amusement Vision chose to not mess with the formula, sticking to the same gameplay and bringing us even more minigames. The biggest change in the way you play the game is the story mode. Here, you play through 10 levels at a time, having as many attempts as each level without worrying about lives. If you don’t like this change, then you can still play through all the new levels in the challenge mode, which works the same as the previous game.
The levels themselves also have a few more features. Portal gates take you to a different area of the level while buttons in the level will make moving elements faster, slower or stop them altogether. It creates a bit more to look out for, making them feel more interactive. Then you have the launcher level, which flings you up a large pole and feels far too random – thankfully it’s mainly just that one level that feels frustrating.
All six original minigames return, each one with improvements and extra modes. The biggest change is Monkey Golf, which now features entirely full size holes and has fully reworked controls, which are now much closer to the likes of Mario Golf, including the very important ability of judging how far your shots will go. I’ll go through all the new minigames.
Monkey Boat
Use L and R to paddle a little boat across three different courses. While it sounds simple, steering is anything but, requiring a precise rhythm I can’t figure out to even go in a straight line.
Monkey Shot
A lightgun game. It’s good for a one-off distraction, but won’t keep you coming back.
Monkey Dogfight
Air combat with a cannon and pineapple missiles. It controls quite well and is a lot of fun. There’s a few different modes and levels, and it’s one of the stronger ones.
Monkey Soccer
This one feels immensely floaty and imprecise. The only minigame where the balls the monkeys are in gets in the way, even the little arrow at the top doesn’t help enough.
Monkey Baseball
It feels like a physical arcade version of baseball, and turns the sport into something that works really well with monkeys in balls.
Monkey Tennis
Now this one is as good as the original minigames. It’s a very solid game of tennis with a few courses and singles or doubles. It controls extremely well, with a few types of shots and quick and fluid action. Up there with Mario Tennis for gameplay.
So, while most of the new minigames aren’t up to scratch, the tennis mode plus improved versions of all original games more than make up with it. With all that plus two ways to enjoy the levels, it makes for a wonderful game.