Super monkey ball banana mania main game multiplayer update#

Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania does at least update the technical side of things, and on Xbox Series X and PS5, or indeed any of the 4K-equipped consoles, you’re getting the sharpest ball monkeys yet. The only shame is that there isn’t an online option for all of them. It makes no sense, but then it never did. You can find yourself caught in a Monkey Target rabbit hole as you try again and again to land your monkeys on far-off targets after gliding through the air on their opened balls. The ability to take some of them online to climb the leaderboards is teeth-gnashingly annoying, but also plenty of good, solid fun. There’s definitely some longevity to these party classics, and not just when enjoyed with a friend in the comfort of your own home. These include the iconic Monkey Target, Monkey Billiards and Monkey Golf, with all twelve of the greats from Deluxe available.

While there’s the main single-player shenanigans spread across the Main Game and Challenges, as well as the internet savvy online Ranking Challenges where you can see how you stack up against players from around the world, you might want hop into a batch of multiplayer party games. You’re far better served saving up your points to buy the challenge modes that add Reverse mode, Dark Banana mode and more. If you’re going to let us play dress up there needs to be enough options to keep us coming back. It’s disappointingly limited and frankly there isn’t anything wild enough to match Kazuma’s charisma. There’s going to be more available via DLC as well.īesides the unlockable characters there’s a series of outfits to spend your hard-earned points on, stretching from top hats and headphones to shirts with bananas on and rollerskates. These additions make little to no difference to the way the game plays, unless you count collecting rings instead of bananas as a significant change, but you might get a laugh or two about Kazuma rolling around a bunch of arcade levels collecting health drinks.

Sega fans will enjoy the fact that there’s a small number of Sega stars to take the place of the simians, and you can unlock that speedy blue hedgehog as well as Jet Set Radio’s Beat or, unexpectedly, Kazuma Kiryu from Yakuza.

More recent Monkey Ball games managed to iterate on the original by adding in the ability to jump *gasp*, and fight bosses *ooooooo*, but they’ve simply never managed to capture the simple magic of the first two titles. Yes, they require finesse and good reactions, but there’s not a great deal of depth to them. It’s always hard to innovate when the crux of your game is based on those classic wooden puzzle mazes with ball bearings in. Several generations later, with decades of work that has pushed video games to new heights, Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania does the only sensible thing by bringing the original games back. First appearing on the Nintendo GameCube, the original game relied on pin-sharp analogue controls as you tilted the landscape around, rolling those encased apes around to help tehm collect a bevy of bananas and reach the exit before time runs out. Sega have been busy in the last couple of years, and at least some of that time has been spent coaxing a series of simians into a waiting bank of spheres for another bout of Monkey Ball.