Super Monkey Ball 3D review

The original Super Monkey Ball was the first game that I played on Nintendo Gamecube way back in 2002. I was totally blown away by the clarity of the visuals as well as the refresh rate of 60 frames per second, before then I thought that F-ZeroX on Nintendo 64 running at a constant 30fps was cool.

So it’s rather fitting that here in 2011 the first 3DS game that has graced my brand new Nintendo 3DS was Super Monkey Ball 3D. Having not played any Monkey Ball game since Banana Blitz on Nintendo Wii, I was more than excited to see how Sega’s first Nintendo 3DS title would shape up. I guess before we get too carried away we need two short introductions, one for Monkey Ball and the other for Nintendo 3DS.

Similar in size and appearance to its predecessors, the Nintendo 3DS looks and feels just like a regular DS with its dual screens and stylus touch control. However once you turn the system on you’ll soon notice things are very different. That new screen at the top isn’t just wider than that of the old systems, it is actually able to output real stereoscopic 3D without the need for special glasses. Words and pictures will never do it justice so if you haven’t already bought a 3DS, I insist you visit a demo station and experience it for yourself.

Super Monkey Ball first appeared in Japanese arcades in 2001 before it was ported to Nintendo Gamecube a few months later. The premise was very simple; whilst avoiding obstacles, roll a ball (containing a monkey) across a platform towards a finishing goal. What was clever about the game wasn’t just its simplicity, instead of using your analogue tick to control the monkey ball as you would Mario or Lara Croft – you were actually controlling the ground underneath your character. Pushing up on the stick tilted the platform forwards which in turn would make the monkey ball roll forwards, obviously pulling back on the stick did the opposite and I don’t need to tell you what would happen if you pushed left or right. The beauty of the GameCube’s analogue stick meant that you could use differing amounts of pressure to tilt and sway the platform in all directions with the utmost precision – this in turn meant that the levels could be very intricate (and in some cases, downright frustrating) without things being physically unfair for the player.

Super Monkey Ball 3D really is what the tile suggests; a new Monkey Ball game in 3D. If you’ve played any other Monkey Ball game you will instantly know what is happening here today. Now just as I described with the original game, you take control of the ground that sits beneath one of four monkeys who have been sealed inside a hard plastic ball. Simply tip, dip and tilt the ground to safely roll the monkey ball from the start area to the finish goal. Of course you’ll need to avoid obstacles such as; fenceless walls, springs, holes in the floor and the obligatory moving platforms. Oh best not forget that to boost your score (and earn 1ups) you can collect bananas that are scatted around the place, sometimes they will be on your path and other times bigger bunches will be in hard to reach places off the beaten track – sneaky!

Let’s get the tricky question right out of the way now. Does 3D make Super Monkey Ball new and revolutionary, or at the very least make a difference to the gameplay? The short answer is no. However this isn’t to say the 3D a waste of time, Super Monkey Ball looks amazing in 3D – just don’t go expecting the added visual depth to change things up here.

Just like previous games in the series, you are pitted against several worlds (8 in total) made up of 10 stages each. As you progress the difficulty of the stages increases with many more of those previously mentioned obstacles coming at once – not only that but the fundamental level design ramps up with trickiness too. Early on you’ll find that the most of the stages are fairly flat, straightforward and unsubstantial. Roll forward a few worlds and prepare for stages with multiple levels, slopes, hills, narrow paths, sand and more.

Okay thus far there doesn’t appear to be much new from previous SMB games, but there must be something new (besides 3D) right? Well yes there is; if you have played Super Monkey Ball on Wii or iPhone then you will have already encountered motion control before. 3DS owners can now use their own movements and take advantage of the built in 3DS gyroscope, you can literally move your console around in the air to tip the ground around. But there are problems.

Viewing 3D content on the 3DS requires the user to hold the console still and constantly in line with your eyes, the narrow viewing angle means that even turning the system a few degrees to the left or right can result in blurry vision and ghosting. So it makes no sense whatsoever to combine 3D visuals with body/arm movement, in fact playing in this mode is near impossible unless you turn the 3D off and play in 2D…then it’s fine. Thankfully Sega have been very smart in not forcing us to use motion control – yes that’s right, the whole game can be played with the Circle Pad for accurate analogue control – hurrah!

Now Super Monkey Ball games aren’t just about rolling around in a ball, ever since the original there have been some multiplayer modes included. This game is no different and if you have up to three other 3DS owning friends you may have a small amount of extra fun with these two extra modes.

First up is Monkey Race, a terribly poor Mario Kart clone that lacks the charm, finesse and excellent game design of Nintendo’s own brand racer. Despite there being lots of characters and cars to unlock, the racing is crappy and just no fun to play. The cars are all sluggish and to turn even the slightest of corners requires a handbrake turn – total utter rubbish, even in 3D.

Lastly is Monkey Fight. Another Nintendo clone but this one emulates Smash Bros – a side on beat em up with a zooming camera. The goal is to smash the living daylights out of everyone else and collect as many bananas as possible before the time runs out. It’s not quite as frantic as Smash Bros and the lack of any mascot characters means you’ll never really fall in love with this mode. Not anywhere near as awful as Monkey Race and I can imagine that this could easily see Smash Brothers fans playing this until Nintendo release Super Smash Brothers 3D.

Sadly the excellent Monkey Target game which would suit the Nintendo 3DS perfectly doesn’t appear – I really can’t fathom what the people at Sega were thinking by not including it. Crazy.

Graphically this game really looks sweet, it’s smooth and everything is bright and lucid. The 3D really is pronounced and yes is a little weird at first, but after your eyes adjust you’ll start to wonder why every game wasn’t in 3D before. Playing the game in 2D is just as fun really but strangely, the graphics look worse, jaggy edges everywhere. Either anti-aliasing is switched off when running in 2D or for some reason your eyes don’t notice the jaggies when 3D is enabled.

The music and sound effects are just as you’d expect from a zany Japanese game – electropop galore! It’s not awful by any means but you might not want to run the game on full volume for long periods of time – you could go just go slightly mad

So how does Super Monkey Ball 3D sum up overall? Well the single player campaign is fun and provides a solid Monkey Ball experience in glorious 3D. The difficulty level is a bit too easy for veteran players and things don’t ramp up significantly until world’s four and five. Even the notorious secret world that all SMB games feature is hardly a challenge this time around – this is quite sad because I was able to finish the game in just a few short hours. Replay value is limited to those who like beating high scores and collecting medals for collecting every banana in each world. New players will likely take a while to get to grips with the game and I can see them having a lot of fun, it’s certainly a great game to introduce you to the world of Super Monkey Ball. It gets 7 out of 10.

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