Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble review: top-tier puzzle platforming

The all-new Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble shouldn't be missed.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble / Sega

About a month ago I accidentally bought the wrong Super Monkey Ball game on sale. I bought Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD, the remake of the Wii game, which I thought was Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania, which is a remake of the first three console games. I consider myself a fan of the series, and I still dropped the monkey ball — I just had no idea which game was which. Good thing Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble is here to clear up the confusion.

That’s all to say that Sega has really fumbled the branding across the new Super Monkey Ball games. Two of them are remakes of older games – games of very different quality, at that – and the first original console game in the series to be released in over a decade is finally here, and it’s impossible to distinguish it from the others at a glance. This is complete madness, and the main reason I’m frustrated about it is that Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble is a fantastic all-new entry in the series that fans shouldn’t miss out on, as long as they can figure out which to buy.

This game comes complete with ten stages for each of the ten worlds, and once you manage to finish them all, each gets an EX version, effectively doubling the number of stages to 200. This game is more than content complete — it somehow manages to feel more robust than that aforementioned remake collection. If you’re a die-hard Monkey Ball fan, you can even attempt to complete missions for each stage, which reward you with points to spend at the shop to unlock cosmetic items and characters.

There are loads of cosmetics to buy with in-game points. / Sega

For the most part it’s the classic Monkey Ball experience: you are a monkey, in a ball, and your inputs shift the tilt of the stage you’re on, combined with some effort from whatever creature you have confined (I played most of the game as Sonic the Hedgehog). The stages are usually like marble obstacle courses (shoutout to Screwball Scramble), but sometimes the game will demand a bit more momentum, and they can turn into pinball maps from hell.

It’s easier to build up momentum thanks to the new Spin Dash – yes, it’s a bit like Sonic’s. Monkeys can now charge up a bit of momentum and release it in a burst, and if you hit the right angles on the stages, you can launch your monkey across gaps and through goalposts. It’s a lovely addition, and some stages that were giving me trouble suddenly simplified immensely once I decided to throw caution to the wind and come out of the gate at full speed. Getting those cheeky shortcuts and low times is also the kind of satisfying stuff that will have you regularly recording gameplay clips to admire later.

New stages are designs are brilliant. / Sega

The difficult isn’t actually too high in the first 100 stages, which makes a nice change of pace from how tough the early Monkey Ball games really could be. It means you’ll have plenty of stages to dig your teeth into and master before being hit with a progress block, by which point sharpening up your strategies and skills might be a good idea.

The only real let down here is that the multiplayer games are a bit rubbish. You can play the full campaign with friends, which is a fun addition, but the classic multiplayer minigames that made the series beloved have been replaced with 16-player affairs which are, frankly, not that good. Some things are just better with four local players than 16 online randos.

Monkey Ball multiplayer is just okay. / Sega

But that really is a minor complaint, especially when everything else here is so good. I’ve always loved Super Monkey Ball, and for a while I thought Banana Mania was the best we were ever going to get. Banana Rumble is everything a new Super Monkey Ball should be, and if you’re able to discern which game is which, then you should pick this up for one of the best puzzle platformers money can buy.

Score: 9/10

Version tested: Nintendo Switch