Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz

fuck. you.

The aim of the game is to tilt the environment to make your monkey (who is contained inside a ball) roll to the end of the course. The courses are floating high in the sky, often without barriers which means the level must be carefully tilted to make sure your monkey doesn't plummet and lose a life. Along the way there are bananas to collect, and you are also under a time limit too. The time limits are usually fine, but there are the occasional courses which need to be done at speed. On each course there are some bananas within reach, and the rest in perilous positions.

The game is very much suited to the Wii, given that the remote is perfect for tilting and the controls work extremely well. The first few levels are straight-forward and are fun up to the fourth world, where things start to get tricky, then after that it becomes a very frustrating experience. Personally, I think this game should be based on skill i.e. carefully tilting the environment to navigate tricky paths, but instead, the game ends up relying on timing, speed and general luck, and often comes down to trial and error or prior knowledge of the course.

An early frustration of mine was when I'm rolling along a guided path and the end is in sight, it looks like there isn't any need of any interaction, when all of a sudden, my monkey plummets downwards. Turns out there was a gap in the rails without any real warning or visual clue. In a similar fashion, the game introduces moving platforms. When you are rolling at high speeds and all of a sudden the path moves ahead of you, not even quick reactions can save you. I hated any course that encouraged speed; and there are many levels that are basically huge straights with ramps and speed boosts. Trouble is if you hit maximum speed, you often end up bouncing off the course, so you try to slow down to a steady speed, but then all of a sudden a ramp comes up and the game expects you to know that you had to hit it at maximum speed to make the jump. This is exactly what I mean when the game comes down to trial and error, and prior knowledge of the track.

Also, I wanted to complete the game with the main character Aiai, but there was one level where you get to the end, and you hit the ramp with the speed boost, and go sailing way over the goal. After many attempts, I switched characters to Gongon, who has a larger and heavier ball and did the level first time.

There are 8 main worlds (2 bonus worlds) which have 8 levels plus a boss battle. The early boss battles are fine, but the latter bosses are just like the levels, and come down to trial and error to learn their movements.

The graphics are very crisp and colourful, but the colour pallet seems a bit childish. Banana Blitz could have been a great game, but is too short and the terrible level design means it is just a frustrating experience.