Super Monkey Ball

Update (Tue 23rd Jun, 2020 13:40 BST): In the latest Sega YouTube livestream for this month, Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi has shown some love for the Super Monkey Ball series.

Towards the end of the broadcast, he addressed the chat's demands for the series' return, saying he would "try to do Monkey Ball more" as he's heard it has a good reputation overseas.

The translation comes courtesy of voice actor (and Monkey Ball announcer) Brian Matt, who also happened to be in the chat live stream.

Brian summed it up with the following comment:

bottomline - he admits there is something in the works


Original Story (Sat 13th Jun, 2020 13:05 BST): This might sound a little wild but Sega could be working on a brand new Super Monkey Ball game.

In an email exchange (dated 6th April 2020) with YouTuber Nick Robinson, Brian Matt - the voice of the original announcer for the Super Monkey Ball games - revealed he had done "one paid recording" with Sega in his country of residence, Japan.

A more recent follow-up video interview with Robinson seems to suggest the recording was indeed for a new Monkey Ball.

As the voice actor is under a strict NDA, he couldn't say much - but he was able to repeat some of the lines from his recording session with Sega. Here are a few:

I can give you what I can give you without getting in trouble, okay..."rank one", "rank two", "rank three" of course "goal" - that one never goes away. This was the new one - we did two takes on this one - "advanced level one", "enhanced level one"

Later on in the interview, he was asked what the name or the title of this game might be. While the voice actor couldn't confirm anything he did sum up his thoughts with the following comment:

they're going to go with Super Monkey Ball and then one word, and it's not going to be a number

Robinson has done a little extra detective work and believes when Brian shows the top half of Sega script, the three katakana characters on display sound like "retro" - leading to a theory that the title might be called Super Monkey Ball Retro.

The talent behind the announcer in Super Monkey Ball

The day after this interview, the voice actor shared "one last breadcrumb" via Instagram. In a post referencing Robinson, he tagged Sega, Sony, and a few others.

The two names at the very end, though, were perhaps the most interesting - Masao Shirosaki (who oversaw development on Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD) and Toshihiro Nagoshi (the Yakuza and Super Monkey Ball creator) - could they perhaps be in charge of this new project, if it is the real deal?

What do you make of all of this? Would you like to see a brand-new Super Monkey Ball game? Tell us down below.

[source segabits.com]