Topic: The future of the Super Monkey Ball series

I’m wondering about what the future holds for the Super Monkey Ball series. The first two entries in the series are prime examples of creative and challenging level designs, addictive multiplayer, adorable characters and excellent replay value: these arcade style games still hold up today and I never tire of playing them, which is testament to their legacy. However, the series has definitely lost its lustre over time. GBA’s Junior was a decent conversion to weaker hardware, Touch and Roll was a fine yet gimmicky DS version and Super Monkey Ball Adventure was a baffling 3D platformer that is a nightmare to navigate.

However, I believe that the true downfall of the series began with Banana Blitz on the Wii. While controlling a Monkey Ball game with motion controls was a novel concept on paper, the lack of precision provided for the player compared to the Gamecube’s analogue stick meant that the level design had to be simplified beyond belief, resulting in a game that possessed very little difficulty with guard rails aplenty hindering any chance of failure. While the controls worked well in the context of the game and the game itself isn’t low quality per se, but my enjoyment of it paled in comparison to the first two games. The multiplayer was rather weak in Banana Blitz as well with fifty party games that weren’t much fun, in comparison to the ingenious bursts of quick fun with friends, that managed to be an extension of AiAi and company’s abilities in the main game. While not downright irredeemable (the music was phenomenal and the visuals looked nice for a Wii launch title), I and many others resent Banana Blitz for acting as a catalyst for the downward spiral the series would face.

Super Monkey Ball Step & Roll’s concept seemed harmless for an experimental Wii Balance Board game, with you essentially acting as the monkey manoeuvring your way to the goal, but any semblance of challenge that existed before was completely gone to compensate for a limiting control scheme and the game became mind numbingly boring as a result. Super Monkey Ball 3D could be considered the farthest the series fell, with flat, featureless levels that acted moreso as overwhelmingly basic mazes with level themes that have been run into the ground. Banana Splitz on Vita was perhaps the single light in the tunnel of bad games as the challenge returned to the series, variety was bolstered and the game even included a dream feature for me in the form of a level editor and while very limited, the fact they included one at all was amazing. Beyond these, the series started a five year long hiatus with the release of the later delisted mobile game, Bounce which was a shameless rip off of Peggle. The series has sadly become dominated with system related gimmicks, rather than simply creating a product worthy of the series’ critical acclaim in its infancy

However, Sega announced and released a remake of Banana Blitz entitled Banana Blitz HD, which still baffles me now. Instead of resurrecting the two most beloved entries in the franchise, Sega chose to rerelease the game that triggered the rapid decline of the series. Perhaps for reasoning concerning budget, time constraints, initial financial success or the relative ease of remaking the latest console Monkey Ball title that was the closest to High Definition. While I felt an underlying feeling of relief to see the series return, I couldn’t help but feel bitterly disappointed at the state of affairs. But I kept an open mind, hoping they would take the opportunity to improve the experience. But unfortunately, besides a pleasant HD facelift and the cutting of some pretty bad minigames, that’s about it. You control the game with the analogue stick and while it offers more precision with regards to control, the original wasn’t designed with this in mind, so it is even easier than before.

This is why the future is so unclear. The game got mixed reviews, the sales figures haven’t been released (although
I’d be really interested to know how it has performed) and to make matters worse, Sega is effectively telling us that the only way for them to free the glorious Super Monkey Ball 1+2 remakes that the fans desire from their basement, is if we buy a product we don’t want, with Banana Blitz HD. What is the future of the series?

@NintendoWiiDS while your writing all that ( i'm sure your tired ) drop a line to nintendo and ask for online monkey ball. show them what you have writen too. might help .

@Ninfan Thanks but I don’t think this is Nintendo’s business, Sega own the series and what they do next is down to them.

@NintendoWiiDS i thought nintendo bought sega

@Ninfan Umm... No. They didn't.
Why do you think that?

@Seacliff they bought sega about 16 years ago !

Y'know how Nintendo has said in the past that they haven't made a new F Zero because they couldn't figure out some new gimmick or idea for it? I feel this is the exact problem Monkey Ball fell into. Once control gimmicks were mainstream enough, they largely decided that was the ONLY WAY they could release a new Monkey Ball game.

I kinda get it because Super Monkey Ball is so simple that I'm not entirely sure what you do with it that isn't a gimmick. But at the same time, there has to be more than running straight first into every gimmick you find.

@kkslider5552000 You can't run out of level ideas for Monkey Ball! (That's a rather sorry thing to claim if they said that!)

Do you think Banana Blitz HD was financially successful?

I've actually started playing Banana Blitz HD the other day (first in the series for me), and I really don't get the claims of it being too easy.

I don't doubt that the originals were even harder with how many people are saying it, but compared to most other platformers I've played in recent memory, BBHD can be eye bustingly hard, and is probably one of the toughest platformers available for Switch, at least from a major publisher (I rarely play indies). I think I died 30-40 times before clearing World 6 - Level 5 today, and while not all levels have been that hard, it's not uncommon for me to replay a level 5-10 times before I clear it (at least in the later worlds).

I actually do like it though, it can just get frustrating at times. The bosses seem like a bad fit for the gameplay (the ones where you have to jump on missiles to redirect them can be particularly annoying), but otherwise I like the game.