Overall 7.3 Graphics 8.7 Sound 6.7 Addictive 7 Depth 5.3 Difficulty 8.7
8.4
Super Monkey Ball Jr. Review M4g1cW4rr10r
So, I’ve been sitting in a ball of thought thinking what my next review should be. Suddenly it hit me, as if someone threw an idea at my
head and yelled, “Hey, pay attention to me.” But that’s aside the point. Today, we’re going to be reviewing a game developed by Sega’s Amusement Vision department, better known as AV. They created their own version of Marble Madness, but with one major difference: MONKEYS! Because why not, right? So, let’s delve into the 3-dimensional experience of one of the most frustrating puzzle/platformer/physics series known to mankind…On the Gameboy Advance.
Gameplay:
Now, already my first problem comes with the design of the Gameboy Advance. The Dreamcast, (Or if you’re more familiar with the Gamecube version) the system Super Monkey Ball debuted on had an analog stick, so you could move all around in a smooth circle. The Gameboy Advance has a D-Pad, which is an immensely bad design choice for a 3-D game. You can’t just back up, or you’ll just fall off, you need to take time and slowly turn by pressing on the D-Pad. Thankfully, it’s the only control you’ll use in the game. Unlike in all the other games where pressing the A button zooms in or out of the map, you don’t have a map at all. But, let’s just start this up and see what this game has to offer in the menu. (Fun fact, if you try to input the Konami Code on the title screen, the game will mock you by changing the title to ‘Super Nice Try.’ ) You have Main Game, and Party Games. (There’s also Practice Mode, but you have to beat the stage in Main Game to unlock it.) Sadly, you can only play the Party Games with another person and a Link Cable. (Or the Wireless Adapter, whichever works) So, Main Game has three difficulty setting similar to SMB; Beginner, Advanced, and Expert. Sadly, the levels are cut down, and Advanced has 20 levels, and Expert 30. Beginner still has the same 10 levels. You select one of four monkey characters, AiAi, MeeMee, Baby, and GonGon. As far as I know, none of these characters have any differences except different appearances. Starting the game, you can pretty much tell all of the levels are carbon copies of the original levels, except on a handheld.
Now, I can’t say too much about that unless you have truly played Super Monkey Ball. This game is very slowly paced. Literally. Your movement speed is pretty slow, even when you’re going full speed. If you’re thinking of using your speed running skills in this game, you’re sorely mistaken in doing so. Everything you do is so slow, you’ll probably fall because of it. Moving up slopes in this game is a pain as well due to this. I suppose they had to do this for the fact that maybe it would be too hard with a directional pad or something like that, but even if it’s the case, it’s still a major setback. If you think of a game like Super Mario 64 DS that fared pretty well even though you played with a direction pad (Even now they have improved that with the Circle Pad of the 3DS) and compared it to this, well… You get the idea. Something else that really irritates me about this game is every time you collect a banana, you character has some sort of victory cry. It may be cute the first time, but when you’re collecting a line of bananas, it just gets obnoxious. Oh well, apart from all the bad things about this game, at least I get to enjoy that nice credits minigame that was from the first SMB… What? They don’t have it here?! Fine, let’s just wrap this up.
Graphics: 10
Although the Dreamcast/Gamecube version is superior in just about every way, I do have to give them credit for designing a very well graphically done game. The levels actually look like they were from the original, and the shading isn’t bad at all.
Sound: 7
The music doesn’t sound that great in comparison to the original either. Given, it’s not the worst remix, but it just doesn’t sound the
same. And we can’t forget that sound effect that plays every single solitary time you collect a banana.
Addictiveness: 6
Given, you do probably want to replay this game over and over, it just doesn’t have the fast paced feel the original does. But what about those Party Games? Yeah, you don’t want to play those…In fact, if I remember correctly, there’s less games here.
Story: N/A
There is no story whatsoever. I don’t know, maybe they’re collecting Dole’s missing bananas? I think the better question is why these
monkeys are rolling around in hamster balls.
Depth: 6
This game is pretty lengthy, but with some levels being taken away, it subtracts points away. (Then again, I suppose it is for the best.)
Difficulty: 8
Being Super Monkey Ball, this game is hard. However, being the fact that there are less levels, I had to bump the difficulty level down a
little. The only real difficult part about this is you’re too slow, and this is a really big problem for levels that require you to be fast, like Expert Floor 7. You know the floor…
OVERALL: 8.4
Well, I gave this game a chance as a really young kid, and seeing as this was a Christmas gift, I did play it a lot. But, I think I’ll just stick with the original. I mean, some of these levels are pretty impossible without a da- Wait, what? By holding A, you can dash? Oh…I guess, until next time, I leave you with this review…?
"Aaaaahhh!" ~AiAi - Super Monkey Ball Jr.
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Graphics 10 Sound 7 Addictive 6 Depth 6 Difficulty 8
Review Rating: 5/5
Submitted: 04-27-13
Review Replies: 3
6.5
No Monkeys in This Barrel Someone70
Many of us know the phrase of “more fun than a barrel of monkeys.” But what if that barrel was a ball and that ball was on a flat stage floating in mid air? And what if you had to tilt that flat land so that the ball rolls into a goalpost on the stage? That’s the premise of
Super Monkey Ball, and in this rendition of
Super Monkey Ball Jr., that concept has been shrunken down to the size of your Gameboy Advance.
In case you were confused by my earlier questions, the goal of
Super Monkey Ball is to roll an adorable monkey helplessly trapped in a ball to a big sign that says “Goal” somewhere on the stage. Along the way, you have to avoid falling off or running into obstacles that will cause your poor monkey’s demise. You also have a time limit in which you have to reach the goal before it runs out; otherwise, it also counts as falling off the stage. Your monkey also has an extreme banana addiction. Scattered across the stage are Dole sponsored bananas that you can collect, but are usually out of your way. You are rewarded for your efforts, though, as 50 bananas will earn you an extra life. Complete all the stages needed to beat the difficulty you're on, and you win the game. That's the basic overall goal of the game. This concept work exceptionally well on the Gamecube, but how does its miniaturized sibling stack up?
Graphics: 6
It's a rather unfortunate fact that
Super Monkey Ball Jr. follows directly from the smooth version of the Gamecube, because everything had to be downsized so that it could fit within the specifications of the GBA. If we're only comparing the graphics to other ones on the same system, then I say that this game is a good pioneer for 3D graphics above the rest. The stages are rendered in full 3D, although your monkey is only 2D, so that it recreates the feel of the original game (or at least it attempts to).
However, it has little comparison to the original
Super Monkey Ball. The stages are extremely laggy because of the resources it takes to run 3D graphics in the GBA. Your monkey being only a 2D image not only makes it difficult to judge exactly where it is on the stage, and it ruins the effect of the 3D stage. The party games are also small downsized versions of its predecessor. When you earn 2500 Play Points (which you get by beating stages in the main game), you can unlock one of six Party games. Unfortunately, due to the GBA's limitations, these games feel like they drag along instead of being full of action like they were in the first game.
Music: 7
Again, a distict comparison must be made with
Super Monkey Ball Jr. between comparing it to games on the same system and the original game. Instead of being made of bleeps and generic instruments, the music of
Super Monkey Ball Jr. is catchy and does its best to replicate the original. Each "world" of the game has its own theme that plays as you roll the monkey to the goal. They sound like low quality music clips for a Gamecube game, which is saying a lot for a GBA game.
Unfortunately, the music does little justice for the original. If you've ever played the first
Super Monkey Ball, you will notice that the game mixes two tracks into a single low quality track for each world. Though the reason for this is that there are fewer stages and thus fewer worlds in the GBA game. The game also does its best to replicate the sound effects for the original, including some voice clips, so some credit must be given there.
Addictiveness: 7
Fortunately, the concept of
Super Monkey Ball still holds up in the miniaturized game, though it's somewhat plagued by poor controls and presentation. The idea of trying to roll a ball into a goal while avoiding as many obstacles as you can is entertaining. Sometimes, you succeed easily while others, you fail miserably. However, the game keeps rooting for you and you get the incentive to try again. Also, because the game rewards you whenever you clear at least one stage, you keep coming back again and again in order to achieve all of the unlockables (even if it means doing the same stages over and over again).
Only during frustrating bits of the game do you get the urge to ragequit.
Super Monkey Ball, in nature, wasn't designed to be used with any type of control other than a control stick. Unfortunately, the Gameboy Advance doesn't have one of those, so the developers had to settle with the D-pad. And that caused some major problems with gameplay. You can't be quite as precise with your movements with the D-pad. There is no way to go in a direction besides the 8 you can press, and the game measures your strength based on how long you hold the button down instead of how far you tilt the control stick. This can be a big issue when trying to go up slopes, navigate very narrow passages, or time your rolling so that you hit the goal at the right time.
These control problems didn't seem to be considered when the developers were making the stages either. Many of them contain curves that need button presses that are closer together than diagonols, but these are not possible on the Gameboy Advance. Some of the Party Games also don't work well with the controls at hand, or are just bland for the game. For instance, Monkey Fight, which is similar to Super Smash Bros without damage percents, is difficult to play because you can't judge how fast you go and can't change direction easily. You are able to connect with other people to play the Party Games, but you each need your own system for that. When you're alone playing the party games, they're not a lot of fun with just CPU around.
Story: N/A
Seriously, I can't think of any reason why monkeys would go around in plastic balls 5 miles off the ground to roll on a tiny platform controlled by someone else that could potentially kill them. Unless they were forced to. ANIMAL CRUELTY!
Depth: 7
Super Monkey Ball Jr offers depth in terms of strategy for each individual stage and the game in general. As you keep falling off through trial and error, you learn the ins and outs of each stage and eventually develop a strategy for it. As soon as you beat one stage, you can figure out the strategy to the next. It only gets annoying when you run out of continues and have to restart from the beginning of the set of levels to get back where you were. But fortunately, you get a stage practice mode where you can play the stage you got stuck on until you can pass it flawlessly.
In terms of the Party games, there isn't much reason to look into them unless you're obsessed over high scores/beating the computer. They offer a nice little break from the main game every once in a while, but by no means offer more exciting gameplay than the normal mode.
Difficulty: 9
Again, the difficulty of the game comes from the fact that the game simply doesn't work on the Gameboy. You can't make precise movements using only the directional pad that the Gameboy Advance offers. The stages become increasingly frustrating until they hardly make sense or require exact timing to get right (which can't be done on something like the GBA). One example are the Master stages (which can be unlocked by going through Expert without using a continue). They have no form to them; they're almost all basically a line with many bumps and curves in the road that try to throw you off.
Final Score: 6.5
Overall,
Super Monkey Ball Jr. takes the good idea of a monkey in a ball and tries to stuff said monkey in a cube half an inch high. As a result, what you get is something that looks somewhat like the original, but doesn't work quite as right. The controls are off, the graphics look absurdly simple, and the depth of the game itself is somewhat below superficial. However, when compared to other Gameboy Advance games,
Super Monkey Ball Jr. makes a decent effort to bring Gamecube style games to the handheld. Really, this game should be played only by fans of the game, or people who are looking for worst case scenarios and want to know what
Super Monkey Ball shouldn't be like.
Graphics 6 Sound 7 Addictive 7 Depth 7 Difficulty 9
Review Rating: 5/5
Submitted: 09-03-11
Updated: 09-03-11
Review Replies: 0
9.3
Super Monkey Ball Jr. For GameBoy Advance - Review by EmosewaRepus EmosewaRepus
So, I recently played through most, if not all of "Super Monkey Ball Jr." The game originally piqued my interest, when I saw the game's cover among the other games in the RGR, and I thought about how such a game could be pulled off taking into the account the limitations of the Gameboy Advance.
I've been a fan of the series for about a year, owning the GameCube ports of the first AND second games in the series, as well as both iPhone games plus their iPad counterparts. I've noticed that it's aimed to a more female audience but the addictiveness of the gameplay kept me coming back no matter how hard or challenging it is, which is very rare in my case because I will easily put down a game and never play it again upon reaching a difficult roadblock.
So, inevitably, I ended up buying the RGR version of Super Monkey Ball Jr. Upon starting up the game, I noticed an interface almost IDENTICAL (despite graphical inferiority) to that of the GameCube version of the original Super Monkey Ball. So, I was surprised. Finally I started up the game, and began to play. The levels, if memory serves me correctly, were also the same as the GameCube version.
So the first criticism I had was that it's name, Super Monkey Ball Jr. suggests that it's a whole new game, rather than a port of the original. I was hoping to see some unique, fresh new challenges, but instead, I got a graphically inferior version of the same game I already have. Now, this is an advantage in the case of actually OWNING a physical copy, because then you can take the game around you wherever you go- but you see how in the case of an RGR rom, it really could be a waste of viz for me since I already pretty much have it.
Now, the game itself, as are most Super Monkey Ball titles, is pretty tough. The first few levels are going to be pretty easy and simple, but the further you go into the game, the harder it gets. It's so difficult that I issued the game a Difficulty rating of "9". Now, normally I'd rate it lower because this is the norm for Super Monkey Ball games, but the controls are actually alot harder. Obviously, due to the limitations of the GBA, the physics of the controls leave alot to be desired, and this is a great hinderance to the gameplay.
Despite the difficulty, this will be a pretty quick game, as it doesn't offer alot of content. You have the minigames, which are pretty good, and then you have the regular mode. Basically, it's just three different selections you can choose from- Beginner, which has 10 stages. Advanced, which has 20 stages. And Expert, which has 30 stages. Now, to be totally honest, I didn't complete all of the stages. And unless you're a veteran to the franchise, I'm guessing most people won't be able to get to them all either. Since these modes are really all that the game has to offer, there is not very much Depth.
And thus, a Depth rating of 3. It's nothing more of a port of an arcade game. Now, arcade games are great and all, but I'd think that if they can push the limit as much as they did when it comes to the game's graphics quality, you'd think that they'd add a little more to the game such as cut-scenes, extra modes to unlock featuring varying gameplay styles, I don't know. Maybe this really is all that was possible for them to do. Either way, it's still essentially the same as the arcade game, and if you compare the arcade version to, say, Super Monkey Ball 2... well, you'll get the idea.
The story score was left blank of course, because there was absolutely no story whatsoever at all in this game.
The addictiveness, however... scored 8. This game is, just like the other titles, extremely addictive. Super Monkey Ball Jr. may not be as addictive as other entries in the series, but it's still got a good deal of replay value and if I didn't have a better version of it on my GameCube, I'd be playing this game for hours.
The sound is a 6. Mostly because I don't usually pay much attention to the sound quality of games, so maybe I'm missing something, but from what I remember, the music is essentially the same as every other game in the franchise. The same stock sound effects you should be familiar with if you score a banana, make it through the goal, or fall off the edge of the stage into a pit of endless failure.
Now, the graphics... while no game on the Gameboy Advance has truly superb graphics, I just had to rate this game a 10 in the graphics department because it is just one of a handful of games that REALLY pushes the boundaries of what the GBA's technology is capable of. I mean, for those of you that have played other entries in the series and have not played this, you're probably reading this thinking that the game is played from some sort of top-down perspective. No. This game provides you with full 3-D graphics that are borderline DS quality.
Its hard to explain how flawlessly they pulled off the graphics, I seriously don't believe they could have done a better job. The only way you can find out for yourself is to go to the RGR and check out the game on your own. I cant think of any GBA game off the top of my head that can compare when it comes to the graphics. If it weren't for the graphics of the game, it wouldn't have achieved an overall score of 9.3 .
I think if the graphics weren't so good quality for GBA, I would have given the game about a 6 or a 7, maybe somewhere in between. Super Monkey Ball Jr. just impresses that much.
Now, I realize I probably haven't written this review for people who have never played an SMB title before. If you haven't, this game is NOT the game to introduce you to the series, due to the slightly buggy physics in a game where physics are everything. However, I do reccomend you go out and buy yourself the GC copy of the game, or any of it's sequels such as Banana Blitz, Touch and Roll, Step and Roll, SMB: 3D... but not Super Monkey Ball Adventure, thats a whole other game entirely. ;)
I think that just about concludes my review! Thank you for reading. Veterans of the series will appreciate this game and it's graphics capabilities, and it may inspire them to go and play the original again. Newcomers to the series will not enjoy it's slightly broken physics. People looking for games with lots of story and depth, well.. shouldn't be reading this review at all, and people who have played through alot of the RGR library and are looking for something to entertain them while the find a better game to play should enjoy this game.
If anything, it's worth taking a look at no matter who you are or what your interested in, just to see how well the graphics were pulled off. That's really all I have to say! Thanks once again for reading, I'll see you next time I review a game! Bye for now!
Graphics 10 Sound 6 Addictive 8 Depth 3 Difficulty 9
Review Rating: 4.5/5
Submitted: 04-22-11
Review Replies: 0
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