Super Monkey Ball Jr. Review (Game Boy Advance, 2002)

Super Monkey Ball was one of the early defining games for the Nintendo Gamecube. This surprise hit was the game that blew away critics at launch. Honestly its name did it no favors. Who names a video game Super Monkey Ball? Besides being suggestive it gives almost no indication of what genre it falls under. Despite this the game was super popular, and was even ported to the PS2 and Xbox. The big surprise though is that the Game Boy Advance even saw its own version. Most of the time these downports of 3D titles were converted to two dimensions. That’s not the case with Super Monkey Ball Jr however. Today we’re going to take a look at this ambitious title to see if it holds up. Let’s dive right in to Super Monkey Ball Jr!

The premise is the same bizarre set up we saw in the original Gamecube release. There’s no story in Super Monkey Ball Jr. You play as a monkey trapped in a ball (hence the name). You don’t directly control the character and instead can only manipulate the environment. Pressing a direction on the d-pad tilts the whole environment that way. It’s kind of like the classic title Marble Madness. The main difference is that the Super Monkey Ball games feature a behind the ball perspective and all of the environments are rendered in glorious 3D.

What’s most shocking about Super Monkey Ball Jr is that it retains the 3D polygonal graphic style of the home console versions. That might not sound super impressive, but anyone who has played a GBA knows that almost all of its games are completely two dimensional. It’s even more impressive that while the characters are rendered with sprites all of the environments are polygonal. Again, this is not a system that was well known for any modern graphical techniques even back then. You would expect then that the framerate is absolutely horrible but that’s not the case. Super Monkey Ball Jr isn’t smooth like its console counterparts yet it’s still surprisingly playable even today.

With all the technical mumbo jumbo out of the way let’s get to the gameplay. Your simple goal is to guide your monkey (you can select from one of four) to the end of each stage at which point you move to the next. To distract the player the developers have placed bananas in each stage that you can collect for the higher score. Super Monkey Ball did originate in the arcades, after all. Reaching the end goal is not often difficult, but collecting these items is. These are frequently placed in all corners of a stage and sometimes in hard to reach places. Unfortunately you’re also battling a timer and when it runs out you lose a life. Score hounds will love the extra challenge. Finding these awards the player with points. These unlock mini-games as well as a new expert set of stages exclusive to this version.

I went in expecting a brand new set of levels smaller in scale but more tailored for the limited hardware. That’s not the case here. The developers instead ported almost all of the levels right from the Gamecube game. While original stages would have been nice it’s still really impressive that they managed this feat. It also helps that the original Super Monkey Ball was a very competently designed games. These levels will challenge your reflexes with lots of hills, pits, moving platforms, and narrow paths. New to the game is the ability to both slow and speed up your roll using the two face buttons. This was likely done to make up for the lack of analog controls. It’s a decent alternative.

Despite this the controls do have some issues. As I just said the slowing and speeding up does help, but it’s still not quite enough to make up for the lack of a joystick. Super Monkey Ball Jr is also limited to eight directional movements because of the nature of the directional pad itself. The sense of momentum does mask this a bit but it’s still fairly evident. Super Monkey Ball just doesn’t feel as nice to control with a directional pad as it does with an analog stick. I found myself constantly battling the camera here but that’s kind of a common issue int his series. It doesn’t snap back behind your character and instead you often have to rotate the monkey to fix this.

For being such a small cartridge the developers managed to cram an absolute ton of content into this package. You have three different difficulty modes and each has their own stages. Not counting the bonus areas, or master levels you have sixty different floors in this game. These are simple and if you don’t fall off they can usually be completed in less than a minute. Because Super Monkey Ball Jr is such a difficult game you’re unlikely to finish most of them on your first go. Included here are also the mini-games that are so beloved on the Gamecube. You’ve got monkey fight, monkey golf, and monkey bowling. These are functionally the same as on its console counterpart. This means they’re a ton of fun. If you’re like me then these mini-games will steal more of your time away than the main game itself.

Unfortunately monkey target didn’t make the cut. This is disappointing because not only was it the best mini-game in the Gamecube version, but it’s also the one that seems like it would be easiest to re-create on the Game Boy Advance hardware. The best part is that these can also be played multiplayer. While monkey golf and bowling can be played by passing one system around (they’re turn based after all) monkey fight and monkey duel require multiple units and everyone has to have their own copy of the game. Obviously multiplayer was the big draw in the console game, and it’s really great that the developers carried this element over to the small screen edition.

Now comes the big question. Can Super Monkey Ball Jr replace the Gamecube iteration for fans of the series? In my opinion it’s kind of a toss up. Jr looks and feels like Super Monkey Ball. It even has most of the stages and mini-games. For a Game Boy Advance title it’s a technical marvel. I did have a lot of fun with this title but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say I missed having an analog stick the entire time. That’s the input the entire game was designed around. The experience just doesn’t feel as tight or polished without it. Still in 2002 there weren’t any other options to play Super Monkey Ball on the go, and the development team worked wonders with this iteration. It’s still fun, addictive, and challenging. It’s still Monkey Ball even with the hardware restrictions.

I’ve already touched on the graphics but let’s take a deeper look at them. The game uses obvious polygonal rendering for the backgrounds and these are impressive. They’re also very simple. There are no reflections or effects. Just simple polygonal floors that are plainly colored. It looks amazing on the small screen even today. The characters and ball itself look bad, but that’s not an issue. Unfortunately the frame rate does struggle. The game seems to run at around fifteen to twenty frames per second which isn’t smooth, but it’s serviceable. There’s also some pop in when exploring the more complex levels but this too isn’t really an issue. Overall the game looks really nice. The soundtrack has also been scaled down but has the same tracks we all know and love. Just this time all of the instrumentation is bleeps and blips. I still really liked the music.