I’ve spent every evening the past week reuniting with a dear old friend. Super Monkey Ball and I were inseparable back in the GameCube days, but we grew apart when the series traded in its perfect blend of devilish challenges and finely-tuned physics for bland level design and imprecise motion controls aimed at a more casual audience – so you can imagine my apathy when Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble’s initial announcement focused so heavily on the uncontrolled chaos of its 16-player online battles. But I’ve never been happier to be wrong, as tucked away inside Banana Rumble is the greatest set of traditional Super Monkey Ball levels the series has seen since the GameCube originals, backed up by tight mechanics that give me the complete control I needed to overcome its demanding late-game obstacles.
Monkey Ball is finally back, and now all I want to do is roll. Banana Rumble’s impressive set of 200 courses is divided into 20 cartoony worlds containing 10 stages apiece. In classic Monkey Ball fashion, the setup is delightfully simple: You have 60 seconds to roll your monkey from the start to the goal, but the hurdles between those points change radically across the adventure.
The opening stages aren’t too challenging, smartly acquainting you with Banana Rumble’s mechanics so you’re ready to go when it does turn up the heat. As a certified Super Monkey Ball 2 master, I had no trouble with the first 80 levels or so. But they’re still a joy to roll through, as I.
