Super Monkey Ball Jr. Review by: Someone70 - 6.5/10
No Monkeys in This BarrelMany 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
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