NEW PLAY CONTROL!: ANALOG STICK CONTROL

Remember when motion controls were all the rage? Well Banana Blitz was a launch game for the Wii, the console that started it all. That means that instead of using the Nunchuk’s analog stick to tilt the stage the Wii remote had to be tilted to move the ball. I pulled out my Wii copy for this review and while it works I can’t say it is great. Why they didn’t ask player to hold the Wii Remote vertically like the original arcade banana joystick is beyond me. The game also introduced the jump function and boss battles and had 50 minigames. It was definitely a game worth owning at launch.

It’s now 2019 and SEGA has decided to remaster Banana Blitz and I have some mixed feelings.

PLATFORMS: SWITCH, XB1, PS4
MSRP: $39.99
PRICE I’D PAY: $39.99

The Monkey Ball series started as an arcade game that had players tilting levels with an analog stick to get the monkey (in a ball) through a goal. Levels start off easy but quickly start challenging players. A lot of people fell in love with the series on the Gamecube, and since then the game never really changed until Banana Blitz. Along with the aforementioned gameplay changes the art style also changed (for the better in my opinion) and the game looks amazing in HD. For the most part that basic Monkey Ball formula is still here, and I will even defend the bosses as a nice change of pace (although I wish they didn’t eat up a level slot in each world).

What I can’t defend is the jumping. Maybe the motion controls in the original made me hate the jumping less as the whole process was an experiment in tedious control, but using an analog stick and jumping is no fun. See, in the original Monkey Ball games getting air required speed and hitting a bump or hole in the stage or flicking the stage back and forth quickly enough, and because of this the game never asked for precision platforming. Banana Blitz does with later levels, asking player to jump off a platform thinner than the ball onto another thin platform and then move perpendicular to the original movement of the ball without rolling off and losing a life. This isn’t really fun. I am not bad at Monkey Ball; I am not a champion by any means but I am good enough to not fail at a single level over a dozen times. However, some of these jumps are so ridiculously hard I could not beat all the stages in later worlds in one go. I couldn’t do them on the Wii version and I still can barely crawl through them one by one now on Xbox One.

New to the remake is the addition of character stats. Each of the characters boasted unique stats in the Wii original however the game asks for players to experiment with each of the characters to find out rather than just show them on the character select screen. This time that is no longer an issue as the character select screen lists out the speed, jump, bounce, size, weight, and life so players know exactly who they want to choose to go through the story. Also visible is a character slot for an unlockable character which is Sonic as SEGA has shown gameplay of him on their social media. There are also costumes for each character that can be unlocked.

Party games make a return but only 10 of the original 50 exist. Seesaw Ball, Space Monkey Attack, Slingshot, Dangerous Route, Hurdle Race, Hammer Throw, Hovercraft Race, Monkey Snowboard, Monkey Target, and Whack-a-Mole return and can be played both solo and with friends. The lack of Monkey Bowling, Monkey Race, and Monkey Golf is highly disappointing as those are some of the best fun I had with Monkey Ball multiplayer. Instead there is now a Decathlon mode that has players going through all the minigames to get a high score. It is lame that they didn’t include more of the minigames as those were always an important part of the Monkey Ball series. Even the DS game Touch & Roll included minigames.

Speaking of the DS game, Touch & Roll is probably my favorite game in the series. Despite lacking a joystick, the game did a great job of feeling like I always had full control. Touch & Roll also relied on thin platforms but lacked the jump feature of Banana Blitz, and it makes me wish I could use the directional pad in this remaster to control the ball on thin surfaces rather than being forced to use the analog stick. I also bring up Touch & Roll because Touch & Roll’s soundtrack was amazing-so amazing that they redid the music of Touch & Roll for the original Banana Blitz release. I say original release because that original soundtrack isn’t here and I would argue that was one of the best parts of the original game and it shocked me to find out that they wrote new music for Banana Blitz HD. Surprisingly though the music in this is still great but to say I wasn’t disappointed would be a lie.

Despite my complaints I still love Monkey Ball and I hope that if Banana Blitz HD does well that SEGA thinks about remastering Step & Roll, 3D, or Banana Splitz for current consoles. I am just too deeply attached to certain aspects of the series that I’m very critical. At $40 anyone with any love of Monkey Ball would be doing themselves a disservice not picking up a way better version of a game that was hindered by motion control.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

Good
  • Music is fantastic
  • Game controls much better than the original
  • Looks great in HD
  • New character and costumes
Bad
  • Lacks some key minigames
  • Platforming is too hard at times
  • Music is not the same as the original
8
Great
Written by
Anthony is the resident Canadian. He enjoys his chicken wings hot and drinks way too much Coca-Cola. His first game experience was on his father's Master System and he is a loyal SEGA fanboy at heart.