Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz

 

    So picture this, you're Sega in 2006. Nintendo has put out this wacky new console with a focus on motion controls, and they're asking you to make a launch title for it. Whatever are you going to do to make full use of this strange gimmick? The answer, of course, is obvious: “monkey.”
    In case you're somehow unaware, Super Monkey Ball is a series where you are Monkey In Ball, Esq. and have to maneuver them through obstacle courses by tilting the level itself. It's basically a more elaborate take on a marble maze, and you'd think not a lot of people would be passionate about that, but to call this a divisive entry in the series is massively understating it. A lot of people treat Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz like it delivered a plague unto their houses or something, and it left me very confused for the longest time. It was actually the first game in the series I ever played, and I remember liking it fine enough at the time. Going back to it now, while I think the hate for it is massively overblown, I can't exactly say the game was enjoyable either.
    I will say that the obnoxious thing about the GameCube entries for me was that, while they have a solid gameplay foundation with fantastic controls, the level design can get downright sadistic, to the point it feels like it's a ROM hack of itself. The funny thing is that on some design aspects, it's actually made to be rather sensible; the level design is dialed back to be far more forgiving, so you're no longer clipping underneath mechanical colossi or selecting the correct switch to not die. They even added a jump button to the game, both so you could save yourself at the last second and also to give the levels more variation. On the subject of positives, the music is actually pretty awesome, as required per Sega law, with the snow level theme being an easy standout.
    However, this game ends up having the opposite problem of those earlier installments, in that the controls are extremely unreliable. I don't mind motion controls, I wouldn't have started a Wii blog if I did, but it's the way they were implemented here that poisons my potato chips. My first thought was that you would hold the Wii Remote like a joystick and tilt it around to move your monkey, akin to the original Monkey Ball arcade game with the banana joystick. While you still tilt the Wii Remote to move, the default position of the Wii Remote is pointed towards the screen, with no way to change it. I find to tilt it forward, I have to move my wrist to very uncomfortable angles, no matter how I held the Wii Remote. It's compounded by the fact that even the slightest nudge will send your monkey flying off in a random direction, resulting in a fair few unfair deaths.
    This all comes to a head with the boss battles, which were a new addition to the series with this installment. Most of them are pretty standard, being either “hit the glowing spots in a circular arena” or “hit the glowing spots after completing a smaller course”. A sound idea in theory, but often the boss's elaborate animations will completely push the monkey off the stage, in a way that doesn't feel intentional. That octopus fight in particular was absolutely awful with this, since you have to account for any slight movement of the octopus's limbs that could send you off into the water. At the very least, the boss battles are mercifully brief once you get the hang of them.
    Of course, it wouldn't be a Super Monkey Ball game without the minigames, and this game features fifty of them to choose from. It hindsight, it's pretty much the blueprint for every single Wii minigame collection going forward, and has about the same level of quality variance. While some of them can be a decent time, like Dangerous Course and Monkey Target, it also has quite a few that were very obviously not playtested, like Trombone or Alien Attack. The variety and ensuing randomness could prove to be a fun time with friends, but you're going to eventually hit a point where you play something like Monkey Bowling, and wonder why you aren't playing Wii Sports instead, with its significantly worse controls.
    I feel like this game definitely came out underbaked, as with some tweaks, it could prove to be a pretty fun time. However, it's very clear it was rushed to meet the Wii launch, with its frustrating controls and unfinished-feeling minigames. It feels important to note that this game got a remaster in the form of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD, and while that does swap the motion controls for more traditional analog stick inputs, it also replaces the music and changes the level design to ramp up the difficulty significantly, so it becomes a very pick your poison kind of choice. The game in its original form very much represents the start of the long, awkward journey developers had getting to grips with programming controls for the Wii Remote, although whether or not they ever truly figured it out is debatable, especially on Sega's end.