Game: Super Monkey Ball 3D
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Dimps
Genre: Puzzle Adventure
Price: $39.99
Verdict: Yet another iteration of rolling monkeys around mazes in balls.
Pros: Crisp 3D visuals, two control methods, three distinct game modes
Cons: Motion controls interfere with 3D, non-maze game modes are simplistic
Acquired via Publisher
I must open with a confession: I don’t particularly care for Sega’s Super Monkey Ball franchise. Naturally that makes me the perfect person for the job of reviewing the latest entry in the series, Super Monkey Ball 3D. I volunteered to take one for the team by having a look at this 3DS release based on the fact that I’ve been told time and again by trusted friends who do like Super Monkey Ball that the total sum of my monkeys in rolling spheres experiences have been the lesser parts of the franchise such as Super Monkey Ball: Touch & Roll and Super Monkey Ball Adventure. “You’re not playing the right Monkey Balls,” they tell me without a hint of double entendre. So, eager to see if this latest title was the Super Monkey Ball for which I’d been waiting, I rolled in to check it out.
The Super Monkey Ball concept does sound appealing in a general term: players must maneuver playful simians such as AiAi and MeiMei who are inside rolling hamster ball-type cases across floating mazes packed with hazards that are designed to propel said cases off of the maze and out of bounds. There are bananas and hidden items to collect along the way, and the monkey must reach the end goal of each maze within sixty seconds. Ten mazes (including bonus round) make up one world’s worth of challenges. But wait! There’s more! Adding variety to this iteration of the series are two additional game modes that toss the primary convention away entirely: Monkey Race and Monkey Fight. Monkey Race apes a standard character-based go-kart racing title for up to four players, while Monkey Fight does its best to copy the basic mechanics behind Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. titles for four-player (human or CPU) character brawling.
There’s a lot of bang for the buck in this 3DS launch title, but it’s a shame that it’s not much fun to play. The basic Monkey Ball puzzle mode is the highlight of the experience, although it wears thin quickly. It’s almost as if you race a monkey through one maze, then you’ve basically raced him through them all. Aside from the track getting twistier and the hazards becoming more numerous, all of the stages are about the same. The challenge level jumps rapidly from simplistic tutorial-type designs all the way to frustration very quickly. I can only watch poor AiAi be bounced to his death so many times before I just close the 3DS and walk away. There’s little to recommend here when it comes to the gameplay, but I have to give credit to the 3D effects. The added depth made it simple to tell where the monkey ball was located in relation to the rest of the maze. While I fell out of bounds many times, I never felt it was because I couldn’t see where I was going and where other objects were in relation to AiAi and friends. Two different control methods are offered, each of which highlights a separate 3DS feature. Play the game with the Slide Pad and one can enjoy the crisip 3D visuals. Play the game with motion controls, on the other hand, and it’s advisable to turn off the 3D effect, as having to tilt the 3DS all around breaks the 3D illusion as the eyes slam full force into the parallax barrier. The Slide Pad offers more precise controls than the tilt-n’-twist method.
As for the Monkey Race and Monkey Fight modes, they’re extra bullet points for the package at best. There’s potential for something more interesting and enjoyable with them, but they never break out of the stereotypes of their respective genres and become much more of a hard slog than actual enjoyable experiences. Monkey Race wants to be the Grand Prix mode from one’s favorite Mario Kart title, but the track designs and variety of playable characters just don’t measure up to the source material. The Smash-inspired Monkey Fight basically boils down to four characters punching at one another until time expires in a quest to gather bananas scattered around the 2D platform environment. Final Smash-type items appear on occasion, but the resulting attack does little to change the balance of power. The key to an enjoyable Super Smash title are the all-star characters and brilliant fan service, and AiAi’s world just doesn’t have that history from which to draw. Without it, we end up with monkeys slap-fighting. Neither mode is anything that most players will want to explore beyond initial curiosity, but these modes to support up to four players for local multiplayer.
In the end, Super Monkey Ball 3D hasn’t convinced me that there’s fun to be had with the franchise. I can see how under the right circumstances the general concept could be, well, a barrel of monkeys, but this iteration isn’t it. Some say that Sega rushed this release to hit the 3DS’s launch window. Looking or listening to the game will not indicate that, but start to pay closer attention and you’ll find that this title is a mile wide and an inch deep.
GrE Grade: C+
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