Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania: Launch Edition (Nintendo Switch)

I’ve been a fan of SMB 1 and 2 since they launched over be 20 years ago. They are great games then and they still are today. Banana mania does a lot of good by giving the old games a fresh coat of paint, bumping up the resolution to HD and maintaining that sweet sweet 60fps (most of the time). Anyone who hasn’t played the originals for some time will be pleasantly surprised by the looks of the game – the colours really pop.

The sounds are a bit of a mixed bag, the new theme actually sounds very good and fits well. The monkey voices are ok, nothing to write home about. The announcer is different though and it’s a shame Brian Matt’s lines were cut and re-recorded.

The controls, however, are probably the biggest difference compared to the originals. One of the best things about the originals was how intuitive the controls were and how natural it felt too play. To some extent that remains the same. However, a big part of this was down to the Nintendo GameCube’s octagonal joystick. That can’t be replicated (anyone who’s played SMB Deluxe will know what I mean), as a result the controls feel more “loose” and slightly more wayward in places such as when you need to go in a dead straight line. This results in some levels which were dead easy one shots with your eyes closed on the originals being frustratingly difficult, and interestingly vice versa in some instances. It works, but you’ll have to reset your muscle memory a bit.

More refreshing, however, is that your can now control the camera angle with the right joystick. This really helps with control and turning on the spot is now much easier than it ever was in the originals.

Some of the new modes like golden banana and dark banana modes add some decent challenges to the game that I wasn’t expecting too.

The multiplayer games are mostly the same, but monkey target is quite disappointing compared to the original.

Overall it’s surprisingly fun and I think worth the buy. Definitely not without its flaws but it’s the best monkey Ball has been, quite literally, since it’s inception.