Less fun than a barrel of the same…

I’ve been playing Super Monkey Ball for 10 years now, ever since the first game debuted back on the Nintendo GameCube in 2001. And in those 10 years, the overall formula hasn’t changed at all: Insert monkey into ball, roll ball containing aforementioned monkey through a series of obstacles and pitfalls to a goal while collecting as many bananas as you can, and finally, watch monkey blast off into the sky upon reaching said goal. Rinse and repeat.

While none of the more recent iterations of the series have managed to recapture the magic of the first 2, the games have remained wholly enjoyable and most importantly, infuriatingly challenging. And though I can’t claim to have played every game in the series (I missed Super Money Ball Jr.), it pains me to say that Super Monkey Ball 3D may just be one of the weaker members of the Monkey Ball family.

But why? Where could SEGA have gone so wrong in their classic formula?

Three answers: 1) It’s far too short; 2) it’s far too easy; and 3) many extra modes have been removed.

Let’s start with reason number one. Nintendo’s new handheld sports a number of games varying in style, content and quality, though the vast majority of these games sell for an MSRP of $40. And while games like Super Street Fighter IV 3D and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D offer countless hours of playability and replayability for your dollar, Super Monkey Ball 3D can easily be beaten in its entirety in a single afternoon. That is, of course, if you installed the expanded battery from Nyko into your console. If not, maybe a morning and an afternoon with a charge break in between…

$40 for less than 5 hours of gameplay? It’s ludicrous. Truth be told, I got the game on sale from Amazon for $20, so I’m at least not feeling entirely shafted. After beating the first two worlds, I realized how fast I was moving through the game. So in order to lengthen my time with the game, I broke my play through into 3 days. Gamers should not have to do that…

Now, it would be easy to overlook reason number one if the game offered any semblance of a challenge like the rest of the games in the franchise. But it’s almost as though SEGA opted to stick on a set of training wheels and wrap the player in bubble wrap, like it’s the first Monkey Ball game anyone’s ever played. But hey, this isn’t Sesame Street, guys… This is ****ing Super Monkey Ball! When I play a Monkey Ball game, there are certain things I’ve come to expect. I want my monkey to be launched into oblivion, over and over and over again, causing my blood pressure to rage out of control. I want to scream gratuitous obscenities at a game which is, for all intents and purposes, designed for 5 years olds. And I want my controller or 3DS to fear for its life as I contemplate hurling it through the nearest window upon my 500th trip into the vast nothingness beckoning below each stage.

So when I tell you that it took 64 levels for me to fall off a stage for the very first time, you can understand how seriously wrong the situation is.

And finally, the extra modes. Super Monkey Ball has always had fantastic mini-games and different modes to keep players occupied long after completing the main story mode. Monkey Golf, Monkey Billiards, Monkey Bowling, Monkey Wars, Monkey Beer Pong (no, not really). Eschewing the tried and true classics from the Monkey Ball of yesteryear, SEGA opted to employ an exercise in mediocrity with the inclusion of only two mini-games: Monkey Race and Monkey Fight. The former pits players in a Mario Kart-esque racing game, which, surprisingly, is actually enjoyable if you can manage to get a grasp of the controls. Yet while the power ups are different, Monkey Race is plagued by the same rubber band AI as its inspiration, meaning if you’re consistently in the front, you’ll probably come in 8th place by the end, and if you’re in one of the final positions, you’ll probably finish in the top 3. No skill required. Ugh…

Oddly enough, Monkey Race is actually probably more fun than the main game. However, Monkey Fight is just a travesty. Drawing from another beloved Nintendo franchise for exploita…buhhh, inspiration, Monkey Fight drops 4 monkeys in a no-holds-banana’d battle royale with the winner being decided based on the number of bananas retained by the end of the match. Successfully landing attacks on the other monkeys will cause their bananas to burst forth from their bodies for you to collect and attempt to maintain for the duration of the fight. The player with the most bananas at the end is the winner, of course. But forget the fact that this second mini-game is also not an original formula for the title. What breaks Monkey Fight is its bass-ackwards controls and attack timing. It seems like the game had a chance to be fun, but instead, it feels like a rushed product, tacked on at the last second to add artificial length to the total package of Super Monkey Ball 3D. In short, a total waste.

While there are some enjoyable spots in Super Monkey Ball 3D, the overall package just leaves me with a feeling of being shortchanged and wanting more. More content, more levels, more challenge. It’s true that the 3DS launched with a very scant lineup of games, but there are better games out there that deserve your $40. And though it’s not the worst game that launched with the new system, this is a title that should only be purchased on sale or once it hits the bargain bin. Let me put it in perspective for you: Super Monkey Ball 2 for iOS devices can often be found on sale for 99 cents in the App Store. and at 1/40th the price of SMB3D, you’re getting better, more challenging levels and a slew of infinitely more fun mini-games. I’d love to see a refined version of Monkey Race included in future releases of the game, and hopefully, SEGA will take a note from its past and recapture the former glory that used to be Super Monkey Ball.

In the meantime, hop on the App Store and give the iOS Monkey Ball games a whirl. And just try not to toss your iPad like a frisbee while playing Super Monkey Ball 2. I dare you…

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