GAME CLEAR No. 55 -- Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania

Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania (2021, Multiplatform)

Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Publisher: SEGA
Remake of: Super Monkey Ball Deluxe (2005, PS2/Xbox)
Clear Date: 10/15/2021
Clear Platform: PlayStation 5

This was a bit of a weird one for me to categorize. It’s arguably a remake of Super Monkey Ball Deluxe inasmuch as it contains all of its levels, but the presentation is pretty different, and there are considerable additions. Meanwhile, Deluxe itself was basically a compilation of the first two games with (quite a few) bonus stages.

So basically, I could come up with arguments that Banana Mania is anywhere between 1 and 3 games. But for the purposes of this GAME CLEAR and my backlog, I’m gonna call it one.

So GAME CLEAR in this case specifically refers to beating the “story” mode (a very generous name) of the game, which is just the story mode from Super Monkey Ball 2. I feel weird not requiring any original Super Monkey Ball content to call this one beaten, but I mean… whatever. For what it’s worth, I did complete a couple of the SMB1 challenge modes. They’re fun!

And that’s really what this game is in general. Fun! You roll a ball around some geometry to get to the goal. What a concept. I slept on these games as a kid. Don’t think I really got it. But I decided a remake of the originals would be a great, convenient way to give the series another shot.

Glad I did.

I really love the freedom conferred by such the game’s straightforward goal. There are often many routes through a given stage, and I frequently found myself trying to find a clever way to skip big stretches in others. The only rules of the Monkey Ball world are its physics, so you’re free to do whatever tilting the world will allow you to do to get your monkey to break that goal ribbon.

I think thet simplest way to put it is that I’ve found myself sitting for 10-20 minutes on a single stage trying to do a perfect, silly, tricky solution to a stage that is pretty trivial to solve in a non-clever way. I think it’s a sign of good game design if you can motivate players to do that sort of thing. Especially if your player is someone as credits-motivated as I am.

Anyway, idk. I don’t think I have anything super revelatory or novel to say about this 20-year-old series, but I’m really glad I finally gave it another shot. It’s super easy to pick up and play in short bursts, and I’m sure I’ll return to it from time to time for a little diversion. All that’s left at this point is to dive into its lauded multiplayer modes, which I’m sure are just as good as the single player content.

🍌