SUPER MONKEY BALL BANANA MANIA DEVELOPER SERIES
It's a shame players new to the series won't get to go through this. A part of me wants to relive the frustration of falling within reach of the end, and the satisfaction of later overcoming that frustration.
It's not to say there's no satisfaction to be found now, and you can still have that same challenge and progression as you replay the mode and see your lives used go down and down, but I would've loved for there to be an option or an additional mode where you're fighting against a life counter. It took several attempts, but with dedication and passion, you could see the pride and unbridled joy that came with beating it. I can't think of a better example of this than watching Twitch streamer Atrioc spend more than an hour on the 30 stage advanced course of the first game. It was tough, terribly so, but it made the completion all that much sweeter. In the original titles these modes were a huge challenge, particularly on higher difficulties, due to the limitations on how many attempts you could have before having to start over. It's nice and it's presented well, but for the challenge modes I can't help but feel a large part of the challenge has been removed from the game with disappearance of lives. On top of this, your time in beating the challenge mode is recorded for you to try to beat in future. For each difficulty level, you have three missions: beat the difficulty, beat it without using any helper functions, and beat it within a set number of lives. The challenge modes have these missions too, but they're a little more rigid in how they test you. There is a stress and joy you will only find in Super Monkey Ball.
It's really refreshing and adds a layer of replayability to a previously once-and-done mode. The more I play, the more I discover small pieces and gems nestled within levels I had once zoomed through. Where you can beat the stage incredibly easily by holding up on your analogue stick and using the starting momentum to pass straight over the titular conveyer belts, you soon find how powerful they are after you lose speed to collect bananas. The earliest example of this I could find is on 1-5 of Super Monkey Ball's story, Conveyers. There are a good number of levels across both games that are simple to rush through, but for those stopping to smell the bananas, things get complicated.
The banana objectives in particular stand out for this. Where in the original games' story modes these green goals would serve no purpose, their actual use being skipping levels in the challenge mode, you're incentivised to try out new things you may have previously overlooked. Each level usually having missions to beat it in a set amount of time, collect a certain number of bananas, and beating it without any helper functions, you're also tasked with finding hidden goals from time to time. In the story modes you have three or four additional challenges to attempt on top of the usual monkey into goal tape objective. There's more to the game than just the levels though, with missions being a surprising breath of fresh air to areas of the game I've otherwise become really quite familiar with. My mind just couldn't rationalise rings, apples, or random pill bottles where bananas should be. Weirdly, the part that took the most adjustment for me was trying out the non-monkey characters.
For my casual eye it feels just as good as it always did, but for series veterans who have perhaps revisited the original titles more frequently, you should expect your muscle memory to be a little off. With the game now running in Unity though, it should be noted there are some differences from the original outings. If you're a fan of the old games but haven't played in a while you'll feel right at home, and be able to recognise all your favourites on show. It's a mammoth task getting through two story modes, and ten challenge modes of varying difficulty. To cut to the chase, the levels themselves are just as good as they always were, and boy do you have a lot of them to get through. As an anthology of the first Super Monkey Ball, Super Monkey Ball 2, and the additional stages of Super Monkey Ball Deluxe, as well as a colossal collection of series minigames and bonus modes, Banana Mania serves as an accessible way to jump into some classic levels. Against the clock and your only form of control being rotating the world itself, the original games gained a reputation for themselves in their deceptively-gruelling difficulty. Get your ball-encased monkey to the goal, and do it quickly. Originally created by Amusement Vision in 2001, Super Monkey Ball is a long-running series with a simple to grasp concept.
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