Should you make like a banana and split?
Head back into the fantastical world of Super Monkey Ball and take back your bananas from the space alien pirate king, Captain Crabuchin. Race through over 100 colourful stages and challenge your friends and family to 10 fan-favourite Party Games! Feeling like the fastest, most manoeuvrable monkey around? Try out Time Attack mode or the gruelling Decathlon endurance run! Will you make it onto the scoreboard?
The original Super Monkey Ball was one of my favourite Gamecube launch games alongside Luigi’s Mansion, Star Wars: Rogue Leader and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle but I felt that later games lost its way, which is why I was surprised to see that not the originals were getting a remake, but one of the Wii games that while good…wasn’t as good as the originals. Still, it’s the only Monkey Ball outing we’ve had this generation so I’m all for it. But how does it hold up?
Banana Blitz HD gives you a decent Super Monkey Ball experience with its stages and mini-games, but the camera doesn’t always want to work with you, especially during some infuriating boss battles. On the plus side, you get to play as Sonic if you have the patience to make it past them to the end. It’s a fun outing in short bursts, but it’s definitely one of the weaker SMB games. Personally, I’d have loved a remaster of the original game or failing that, a brand new one.
The HD remaster work itself though is impressive, especially considering the original was on the Wii. Load times are short and the animation/visuals are decent overall. I didn’t come across any slowdown in framerate either, which is always a plus.
The Verdict
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD isn’t the best the series has to offer, but it’s still the only offering for this generation, making it quite hard to ignore. The game itself is good fun despite its flaws and still worth a look overall.