Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz HD Review


A Failed Reboot-A Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz HD Review

Following the recent news of full blown remakes of Super Monkey Ball 1, 2, and Deluxe, I decided this week to check out the most recent entry of the series. Before playing it, all I had previously heard about it was negative, so I'll play it myself and form my own opinions. 

To save the suspense, you read the title already, I can say that the negative reviews are definitely warranted. 

Beyond Slippery

What I immediately noticed about Banana Blitz was the utter lack of precision as compared to the GameCube games from 20 years ago. New mechanics aside, the simple act of rolling around is so overly sensitive yet imprecise it leans on unplayable. Whereas in the original games I could consistently beat the harder levels with the right strategy because of their rock solid controls, in Banana Blitz I routinely found myself randomly beating levels and hardly understanding what I even did to win. 

Good Ideas, Bad Implementation

This leads in to what I believe is the main problem of Banana Blitz: Jumping. I don't think on paper this couldn't work in the monkey ball formula, however, it is undisputedly terrible in its implementation in banana blitz. A vast majority of the levels are not even designed around jumping, and thus when you jump you can completely break the game outright. And in the levels it is implemented, it's so rudimentary it doesn't add anything (For example, they'll just add a random pit in the middle of a straightaway to force use of the mechanic). Jumping immediately leaves you to the will of the engine as you bounce uncontrollably around obstacles. With a more restrained height of jumps and maybe a subtle gravity tweak this could have been fine, but, as it is now, it's horrible. 

What you'll find about Banana Blitz is that it will continue to throw good ideas out that are executed horribly. Yet another one is the boss fights, which could be a nice change of pace for Monkey Ball but instead are clumsy and overly frustrating. Some are beyond easy, and others are so clunky they can take upwards of 15 lives to complete. I was actually impressed with a few boss fights, like the desert snake who's body serves as a miniature level as you go to hit its weak point. 

I don't want to end this whole thing solely complaining so I'll take some time going over what I enjoyed here. For one, I really liked the more varied character selection with a ton of stat variation between them. There's also a little cameo here I was excited to see unlock. 

There is one unlockable character I won't show as well as several costumes for each character.
(Image Source)

In terms of technical details, the game runs fantastically, with no fps cap and very vibrant environments. I'm not necessarily against the more cartoony style of Banana Blitz compared to the originals, and I feel the hate comes from the fact that the game itself is not great, not the artstyle. This is what makes me so excited for the remakes, as this art will finally have games worthy of its beauty.

Verdict

Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz HD is beyond disappointing. It doesn't hold a candle to games released 20 years ago and it fails to fully encapsulate the charm of the older titles. Aside from some vibrant visuals and character selection, this is a blatant disgrace to the Super Monkey Ball series. 

3/10-Downright Disappointing 

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