Let me first clarify that I’m a big Super Monkey Ball fan. Ever since playing the original on the GameCube I was totally convinced of the varied and addictive gameplay the series had to offer. I thoroughly enjoyed the minigames such as Monkey Target and thought that the game provided the perfect balance between both solid gameplay and party type “quick blast” fun. So imagine my excitement when I preordered Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz with my Nintendo Wii console.

Unlike everyone else, the first game I played on the Wii wasn’t Wii Sports. It was in fact Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz. Alas, it didn’t stay in my Wii for long. See, the Wii controls should be perfect for a game like Super Monkey Ball. You tilt the remote down to roll forwards and twist the remote side to side to turn corners. It should be the most intuitive thing in the world. Thing is, it just doesn’t work.

Now I don’t care if you’re going to argue with me, the general consensus of the gaming press is that this game handles really well. But I’m writing this review and I strongly disagree.

See in the original analogue stick controlled iterations of Super Monkey Ball pushing forwards hard would allow your ball to roll at high acceleration. This is something of which just doesn’t happen in Banana Blitz, because even if you were to point your remote directly at the ground, your ball still wouldn’t roll as fast as it should. And let’s also take into consideration here that pointing the remote at the ground means putting your arm into a horrible position.

Turning doesn’t feel entirely comfortable either as twisting can lay some unnecessary pressures upon the arm. I played Banana Blitz for about an hour and came out of it with my arm aching an insane amount. The whole control of Banana Blitz feels a bit like Twister for the arm as you’re constantly putting it into unnatural positions. It’s a little bit worrying aswell because unless similar games that rely on the Monkey Ball formula (such as Kororinpa and Mercury Meltdown) improve on the controls then there could be a problem for this genre of games (a genre which should work best on the Wii). Personally I think the controller should be held sideways (like a NES controller) and tilted about that way. This would feel a lot more natural and would take away any issues of RSI.

It’s such a shame that the game doesn’t control as well as it should because what is on offer here is a really good Super Monkey Ball game, with varied levels and environments balancing skill and frustration perfectly. There are 80 levels in total on offer and each environment is designed nicely with colourful graphics and richly rendered graphics.

The big change in the gameplay to Banana Blitz (aside from the horrible controls) is the ability to make your monkey jump. By tapping the “A” button your monkey will provide a small leap, unlocking a whole new plethora of gameplay methods in terms of discovering shortcuts and reaching bunches of bananas.

Not just that but Banana Blitz also provides you with 50 minigames all of which based on different methods of Wii remote control. Now needless to say at least 45 of these minigames are utter bollocks. Just like SEGA were unable to get to grips with the controls for the actual main game of Banana Blitz, most of the mini games simply don’t work.

It’s not that the minigames are bad in themselves; it’s just that SEGA didn’t thinking about the controls enough. Sure they want to show off what the Wii Remote can do, and it's great that a developer aside from Nintendo wants to make use of the Wii Remote in interesting ways, but they should make sure that the controls actually work first. For example, a simple ring toss game which has you throwing a ring onto stumps is made virtually impossible due to the complexity of the movements required.

Classic minigames such as Monkey Target also just simply don’t feel right and the only minigames that excel are ones such as Asteroid Crush, which requires you using the Wii Remote as a cross hair and shooting on coming asteroids.

Conclusion

The presentation in Banana Blitz is perfect, with annoyingly catchy guitar riffs fuelling the action and bright colours creating an immersive world. Unfortunately everything about the controls sucks and at times makes this game utterly unplayable. If the controls were good then you could double the score I've given it.