Last month's Nintendo Direct brought us plenty of exciting new games to look forward to, including none other than Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania. Launching this October, the game features more than 300 stages from GameCube's Super Monkey Ball and Super Monkey Ball 2, as well as Super Monkey Ball Deluxe, a PS2/Xbox title that already serves as a compilation of those first two entries.
The game will include a story mode, 12 minigames, online leaderboards and more, but it'll also add gyro control functionality, potentially transforming the overall feel of these classic Monkey Ball games for those wishing to make use of them.
Super Monkey Ball producer Masao Shirosaki has shared a quick clip of the Switch version's gyro controls in action, and it's all looking very smooth indeed. These gyro controls will be supported across Switch, PS4, PS5 and Steam:
Of course, traditional stick controls are also supported if you'd rather play that way, so hopefully this game will have the best of both worlds. Gyro controls have been a pretty contentious issue for the series in the past – remember the original Banana Blitz? – but here's hoping that things will be better this time around.
Are you thinking of buying Banana Mania when it launches this October? Will you try out the gyro controls, or will you be sticking to the, er... sticks? Let us know in the comments.
Comments (42)
I really hope that they don't compromise the stage design in any way to accommodate the motion controls. I know they're mostly directly from 1 + 2 + Deluxe but still.
That was actually why the 3DS game was so damn boring, the stages were all designed around motion control.
Motion controls seem like a perfect fit for a game all about tilting the level.
@RupeeClock Absolutely. I can't stand Gyro controls in games for the most part (apart from for aiming in some games like Splatoon 2) so won't be using them. Would be awful if they changed the stages for that reason.
I really hope the analogue stick controls feel as good as the GameCube versions too... might actually buy a GameCube controller for it.
I hope there’s a full 3D camera with the right analog too. The Monkey Ball knock off, Paperball Deluxe has it, and it helps TREMENDOUSLY with lining up your next move. Fingers crossed.
@Figo SMB is already a super-hard quarter muncher, so I see it more as a bonus challenge.
Owww. Now this I'm looking forward to playing. Great to have as an option. I can imagine some levels being very challenging!
@Realness Would you say paperball is worth it? I am very curious, graphics kinda put me off. But if the gameplay is as good as Monkey Ball I'm all for it.
@Figo
We are aware of at least one modified stage anyway, the one with the Amusement Vision logo has been changed from AV to a banana symbol.
The stage that originally featured a Gamecube will probably also not return, as was the case for the PS2/Xbox Deluxe release.
Eesh, imagine doing Arthropod with motion controls. It’s hard enough with a Cube controller and those are brilliant.
@Figo YES!!! Thank you for that! Now I can relax and just wait. Ahhhh…
Okay, but can we play multiplayer in the puzzle stages?
That's fun, but the only way to play Monkey Ball precisely is with the analogue stick... that or the balance board
Are we not going to talk about how the player skipped a third of the level at 0:14? Most likely a test level but I hope skipping is prevented as much as possible in the actual game.
@Broosh it’s hard to say. It’s not a bad game, but it’s odd… there’s some weird luster that’s somehow lost without there being some cute monkeys trapped inside a ball. It’s 12 bucks and I can’t say it’s not worth that price BUT to ensure that you’re cool with it, wait for a sale. Again, it’s not bad. It just ain’t Monkey Ball
Omg so hyped for this game
Will this game support the Pro Controller as one of the controller options by chance?
@Figo Unless you are a motion master, some levels will be easier with gamepad.
@Realness Fair enough, thanks for the insight!
It's looking like they're doing what they can to make this a Greatest Hits Monkey Ball game we've been wanting; just hope it's more WarioWare Gold/Rhythm Heaven Megamix and less Mario Party: The Top 100...
Nice! I really wanted motion controls for these. People didn't seem to like Banana Blitz for Wii, but I really liked the motion controls in that one. It was what sold me on the Monkey Ball series at all actually.
I can finally experience a harder Banana Blitz.
@Noid You'd think. I owned Banana Blitz on the Wii, and the controls were horrendous on the main and mini games.
@chapu2006 Skipping was always part of SMB though. I couldn't master it on most levels, but there were a few levels that I always did with skipping. There were levels that were definitely designed with it in mind.
@JasmineDragon
Oh, sorry. It does make more sense now that I think about it. The only SMB game i have is touch and roll and I haven't played it for years, so I may have forgotten some parts of it.
I usually only use motion controls for shooters (Doom, Zombie Army, Sniper Elite, ect) and not much else. (Mario Tennis Aces, Maro Golf, ect) It's a nice addition though. Any word on if the Switch version supports local wireless play?
It's leviosa, not leviosa!!!
@nessisonett I honestly barely remember most of the level names, but THAT name rings a very loud and ominous bell!
I definitely agree with the consensus here, gyro controls might seem like an obvious fit for a game that's all about tilting but most of the advanced levels in SMB are absolutely going to require thumbstick control. Good to have the option though, I'm looking at it as kind of a new extreme difficulty level for those who have mastered the normal game.
I like motion controls for physics based games like these. However, considering these games are from the analogue stick era of MB 1&2, which were fairly challenging, I hope compromises haven't been made to allow for motion controls. Anyway, really can't wait.
That's awesome! Makes me want to get it more now. I love motion controls for that kind of game! Though I do remember Monkey Ball requiring a lot of precision and the one on Wii being pretty frustrating due to the motion controls... Hopefully that was just the Wiimote and the new JoyCon motion controls will work better!
@chapu2006 Yeah it's essentially a physics based marble game. Those games are basically made to mess around with the physics and find creative ways to break and skip parts of levels; it's one of the things that makes them fun!
Oh boy.
These games are tough as nails as is. Normally gyro makes aiming easier, but for a game like this, it’s actually much more difficult (but also crazy fun).
I’m glad the option is there. I’ll definitely use gyro until it gets too hard. Then I’m switching to analog.
Def a launch day 4 me
@ralphdibny no wonder she hasn't got any friends.
I only vaguely knew about Monkey Ball, and skipped on the Switch Port of Banana Blitz since it didn't get very good reception. This collection will be what pushed me to finally give the series a chance. I'm very curious about trying some of Sega's older games (may grab the physical version of Panzer Dragoon) so this collection is perfect for me.
Though I get the feeling people aren't exaggeration about this series difficulty. Should be interesting...
@OstianOwl important that they do something to accomodate speedrunning as well, this could be great for some rivalry..
Really am thinking asbout which version will be perfect.. putting my gamecube controller in this, or ps5 with haptic feedbacdk in the controller
@chapu2006 That's a regular way to cut time off that level. It's part of what is so fun about the Monkey Ball games — discovering new short cuts to save time and get a higher score. Ok, so that one can't be discovered now, but there are tons of things like that in the game. It's cool because they require skill to pull off.
@Broosh Paperball is a great game. I've played about 5 hours of it and really enjoyed it. I was surprised how difficult it is, but was able to get better and enjoy the higher difficulty. One thing I'll say, it is stuffed to the gills with content. You can play with a jump feature enabled, or regular mode without jump. There are time trial runs where you get medals based on your time, multiplayer modes, flip mode (where control over ball changes, so it's like a weird multiplayer mode), medal mode (you get medals upon completion of levels, not sure how this differs from time trials), etc. I just played the game a bit — it really is good. It runs locked at 60fps, so it feels like a quality experience in that regard. Load times are pretty short too. It feels like a nice little love letter to Monkey Ball in a way that no other game does. I recommend paying full price for Paperball Deluxe, it's worth it. I also feel the same way about Marble It Up!, which is the same genre, but feels different again. It has weekly challenges, so I have played it for years and continued to really like it a lot. Some of the challenges have a double or even triple jump, and sometimes moon gravity. It is an awesome game.
I'm so excited for this new release of Monkey Ball! It's going to be nostalgic playing through all these classic levels. Can't wait to try out gyro controls, regular controls, and whatever else is included in the package.
@60frames-please Thanks, good to know! I also heavily enjoyed Marble It Up! so with your recommendation I'll start Paper Ball 😎
@Broosh Nice! You'll have to let me know what you think of it. I just played Paperball for awhile and still really like it. I enjoyed medal mode and blitz mode (where you can jump). Paperball Deluxe has shortcuts that are similar to Super Monkey Ball, both in how you can drop off risky ledges and in how you can make difficult passages to skip levels via a different exit. A lot of the music is decent too. I like the music in the swamp stages.
I've put about 40 hours into Marble It Up! and even gotten on the online leaderboards in spite only being a medium good player at best. The weekly challenge levels with different gravity, or jump ability, or rules, are brilliant and I wish more games had that kind of thing. The ability to watch replays of really good players is a great feature too.
@60frames-please Only completed Novice in Arcade and already it's money well spent. They nailed the controls and didn't take too long to warm up to the aesthetic either. I dig this. And I just found out the OG Monkey Ball announcer is optional in this! What?!
@Broosh Yeah, cool. Glad you like it. It looks way better in motion than in screen shots, which is unfortunately true of most smooth running games (for extreme examples look at screenshots of Doom, Doom 2, or Doom 64 versus seeing them in actual gameplay movement). I will still say that some of the textures are a bit lacking, but it's not a big deal.
One of the things I did while playing it today was rush through the amateur levels in blitz mode with the jump ability. It only takes like 3 or 4 minutes, but man is it fun.
That's cool, I didn't know it had the original voice guy.
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