Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll

The aim of the Super Monkey Ball 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. There are bananas to collect along the way, and you are also under a time limit too. The time limits are fine early on, but later on become rather strict. Most courses need to be done at speed which increases the chance you will fall off the course. On each course there are some bananas within reach, and the rest are in more perilous positions.

The game series is very much suited to the Wii, given that the remote is perfect for tilting and the controls work extremely well. This particular game was designed to be primary played with the Balance Board though, but you do have the option of using the Remote.

Playing with the remote gives you a penalty of many totem-poles/blocks over the course to make it more challenging. The game designers have often gone a bit overboard with the blocks, which makes some levels extremely hard to see where to go; making you feel a bit disoriented and frustrated. They also have placed them in the most inconvenient positions; any place where momentum is vital will have a block to nudge you towards failure. You end up just bumbling about hitting things much like a stupid fly.

Playing with the Balance Board is very tricky because you have to be extremely careful with your balance and momentum. If you find yourself in need to turn round, it can be very difficult to do because you need to lean one direction, then quickly switch to be perfectly balanced, then begin to lean forward again. On more tricky courses that have slopes or obstacles, to do this manoeuvre and begin turning to carry on is a serious challenge.

Since the game is designed with the balance board in mind, it seems bizarre why they added levels with moving platforms or lots of slopes. The majority of levels are designed to frustrate, instead of being fun. Levels should be fairly simple, and fairly linear. I shouldn't be trying to turn around, or navigating bowls. Often you find yourself fighting with the camera, or die because the level moved when you had no visual feedback it was even moving.

I felt the difficulty level was quite erratic; sometimes a ridiculously tough level would be followed by easy levels. You always have 60 seconds to complete the level, even though the levels have varying lengths; it's like the game designers didn't put much thought into it at all. It would make sense to get rid of the time limits so you can complete them at your own pace. Rewarding fast times with bronze/silver/gold medals would be a good idea, rather than taking a life away from the player and making them start the level again.

The graphics are very crisp and colourful, but the colour pallette seems a bit girly. The music is pretty good but the sound effects grate your ears with the repetition. Hearing “woah” ad-nauseum is one way of driving you into a rage. One of the biggest crimes though, is the unskippable credit sequence which plays after you complete each world. It doesn't matter which world you are on, or how many times you have seen the credits; the unskippable credits will always be there to reward you.

Super Monkey Ball games on the Wii should be amazing since the controls are perfect for the style. However, yet again, Sega have missed the mark with this one. Pretty much everything about the game is frustrating; it's quite possibly the most frustrating game I have ever played. I'm quite a calm person, but I was constantly swearing and punching the sofa.