Time sure flies. It feels like just yesterday I was looking up articles on Super Monkey Ball after hearing it was being ported from the arcades to the new Gamecube console. I was initially confused about the name. I mean, Super Monkey Ball? This is the first game Sega chose to release on a Nintendo console? What the heck is it even going to be about? As I eventually learned the name actually describes it to a tee. The game was released at the Gamecube’s launch and was easily the best title available for the fledgling console at the time. Today I’m taking it for another spin to see how well it holds up. Is the original Super Monkey Ball worth it? You bet.
There’s no real story here. Instead, what we have, are monkeys inside of balls and a plethora of levels to guide them through. Everything is rendered in 3D with a behind the monkey (err… ball) perspective. The twist is that you don’t actually control the monkeys themselves. Instead you control the landscape. Each time you press a direction on the right stick the entire stage tilts that way. The monkey inside doesn’t actually do anything. Why they’re there in the first place is beyond me. The ball itself reacts realistically to the physics of each level. That means if you tilt forward they’ll start rolling downhill that way. If you push the opposite direction they won’t immediately stop rolling. You have to counter the momentum so it might take a few moments before you come to a stop and begin the roll in the opposite direction.
Of course the game doesn’t just use the four cardinal directions either. It’s fully analog thanks to the analog joystick. This means you have the full range of movement. Tilting the environment in all directions is incredibly smooth with the game running at a full sixty frames per second at all times. Your primary goal in Super Monkey Ball is just to reach the exit of each stage. Unfortunately these levels don’t have walls, and are often narrow ledges. Sometimes you have barriers on the side, but that’s pretty much only in the early stages. For the most part you’ll have no protection from falling off the edge if you clumsily roll the Monkey Ball too close. This is considered a ring out and you lose a life.
Your secondary goal is to snag bananas. Every level has these and often times they’re placed out of the way. What benefits does this fruit have to offer, you may ask? They add more points to your score. That may sound kind of lame but let’s not forget that Super Monkey Ball originated in the arcades where high score is king. It’s worth noting that Sega apparently had a licensing deal with the Dole company. You’ll see the stickers on all the bananas and the logo itself appears in some other spots here and there. It’s kind of funny if you ask me.
Part of what makes Super Monkey Ball so great is it’s sheer simplicity. Technically the game only uses one input; the analog stick. There’s no power-ups, or even jumping. It’s just rolling. Anyone can jump in and grasp the gameplay mechanics within seconds. You are just guiding a ball from point A to point B. That’s it. Thing is that’s more than enough in this case. Some arcade games suffer from replayability or lack of content. Super Monkey Ball has both of those things, but gameplay is so dynamic that it’s easily replayable even for veterans. There’s something remarkably addictive about such a simple concept, and a big part of this is in the fantastic level designs.
Don’t let the kid friendly graphics and concept fool you. Super Monkey Ball is hard as all heck. Even some of the easier stages will test your reflexes. It’s incredibly easy to fall off a stage. If I’m having trouble with it I can’t even imagine how many kids were left screaming in disgust. For how simple of a concept is Super Monkey Ball is remarkably unforgiving. The first few stages are pretty easy no doubt. Many of them have barriers, no hills, and are very straightforward in design. Around the fifth stage things are kicked up a serious notch. Here you’ll have things like small moving platforms to navigate and absolutely no barriers. Super Monkey Ball doesn’t let you think you’re good at it for long, that’s for sure.
The difficulty would be a real drag, but the level designs are actually incredible. There’s nothing overly cheap here. Super Monkey Ball might throw some curve balls at you but with a little planning and patience you should be able to eventually persevere. The stages are basically just floors for the most part. Sometimes they have stairs, pits, moving parts, etc. While creating these Sega did a really good job of making them fun. They knew how players would be approaching them, and came up with some really neat gameplay scenarios.
There are plenty of gameplay options as well. From the start you can choose between three difficulty levels. Beginner has ten floors, advanced 30, and expert 50. At first I assumed the only thing that was changed is the number of levels. That presumption is false. Most of the stages are entirely different, and the ones that are shared have some obvious changes to them which severely increases the difficulty. For a launch game, and an arcade port at that, there’s a lot of content and replayability in Super Monkey Ball.
Nintendo consoles have always been focused on multiplayer. Sega knew this, and took advantage with this release. Super Monkey Ball has a plethora of multiplayer options. Competition mode in the main game lets you compete with another player in the main stages. You can either take turns or race. It’s pretty neat. Then we have mini-games. Normally these aren’t particularly interesting, but Sega put a lot of care into it. First of all there’s a racing game wherein players race around a course. It’s somewhat similar to Mario Kart in that you pick up items to use against your foes. It’s surprisingly fun. Then there’s Monkey Fight. Here one to four players compete on a flat arena and can punch each other. The goal is to knock the other monkeys off of the arena which gives you points.
Next up is the absolutely best one. Monkey Target. Here you take turns with other players as you aim to hit a target for the highest score. This is done by launching your monkey off a ramp and then opening the ball to basically make it into a hang glider. Here you have to guide the monkey down on to the target. It’s an absolute blast and this makes for one of the best party games of all time. Other mini-games include billiards, bowling, and golf. These play like you would expect but have the added Monkey Ball physics twists to them. They’re all quite fun but nothing reaches the heights of Monkey Target. If that one was fleshed out a bit more I wouldn’t have minded it being a standalone game in and of itself.
Super Monkey Ball is a simple game visually, but it’s undeniably pretty. The levels are remarkably basic consisting mostly of just a floor and background. These vary in textures and colors, but for the most part they don’t look that differently. The four monkeys you can choose from are basically just visual changes. From screenshots you don’t really get a good idea of how pretty Super Monkey Ball is. That’s because it’s all in the framerate. This game runs at a silky smooth sixty frames per second. With all the carnage on-screen from tilting the environment this is incredibly impressive. I’m not a framerate snob by any means, but in this case it’s undeniable how fantastic Super Monkey Ball looks because of it. The music is a mix between pop and techno and I really like it. It’s not something I’d listen to outside of the game, but it’s catchy.
