Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble
Switch Review
Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble (Referred to as SMB going forward) is the 9th main console game in the franchise and the 35th game in the franchise overall.
It is an arcade style puzzle platformer game that features the player taking control of a group of monkeys as they attempt to reach the Goal as quickly as possible under a 60 second time limit.
Banana Rumble is the 2nd title currently on Nintendo Switch with the prior one being SMB Banana Mania in 2021 and serves as a sequel that also introduced its own brand-new mechanics which are new to the franchise.
Pros:
200 well designed levels.
Across the 10 different Worlds and further 10 EX Worlds, each set of Worlds has 10 levels for the player to complete.
The difficulty curve is also pretty forgiving in this game. With the first noticeable difficulty spike being from World 6 Neon Arena, since that introduces the player to invisible platforms that while still tangible while invisible have no indication that they are there when they have disappeared.
Each level also has 3 bonus missions to complete further requiring multiple replays since it is usually impossible to collect all 3 in the same run.
These missions are the Time Mission, to beat the level under a certain time limit, these become a lot tighter in the later levels and EX levels in the post-game.
The Banana Count mission, where players have to collect a set number of bananas before crossing the Goal line, with this being the most challenging mission in later levels where the 60 second time limit became a serious factor, with myself running out of time frequently when trying to collect enough bananas.
The final mission is the most fun in my opinion and that is trying to collect the Golden Banana hidden in every level and then reaching the Goal post. These bananas can either be hidden behind geometry or by doing a tricky jump by using the Spin Dash when going off a ramp or hitting a bumper.
These missions all add great replay ability to the game, to make this one of the most valued for money titles in the franchise, that will keep players returning for a very long time to complete all the missions and grow their banana tree the highest on the world leader board, after they collect all their points from finishing all the missions.
There is even a handy mission checklist that the player can refer to that keeps track of all the missions for the levels, as well as bonus missions for doing other objectives located in the game, for instance finishing an online Battle Mode game.
World design.
Banana Rumble features 10 Worlds this time around and each of them focuses on a very different theme for their levels, ranging from the basic Jungle/Grassland themed opening World 1 of Banana Farm to the very psychedelic world 10 in Astrum that feels like the player is on a mind-altering experience with how space like the environment is and nonsensical the platforming challenges become.
So, there’s a World theme out there for every player to enjoy to vibe with, as my personal favourite was World 6 Neon Arena which takes after its name by being a music themed world with the backdrop of an electronic rave musical event complete with glow sticks.
Customisation.
Banana Rumble features a very expansive shop, that has a lot of unlockable items and clothing to spend the player’s points on, from different clothing on the monkeys to different balls to roll around in and even different particle effects to put on your Spin Dash.
There are also more different options than in prior games, so each player can really stand out when using their favourite monkey in online mode, as the shop is also where new characters are bought and when they are unlocked, they further unlock new clothing styles to buy like the Phantom Thief sets, or a clothing set themed after the character you unlock after playing online Battle Mode for the first time.
Online multiplayer.
The biggest new feature touted for this game was the ability to go full online with multiplayer, where you could play the Adventure Mode with other players and the older Party Mode (Now called Battle Mode) can be played fully online.
The Battle Mode even boasting an impressive 16 player capacity for all it’s different modes. This is really impressive and very hectic when attempting a race with that many players with items including leads to a lot of fast paced fun if you can enjoy the chaos.
Other modes include Banana Hunt which sees the player attempt to collect the greatest number of Bananas under a short time window and on very vertical maps in comparison to other Battle Modes that focus generally on the horizontal map aspect.
Goal Rush (Which is my personal favourite) sees the player and their opponents going down an incline slope and attempt to get to the Goal Gate as quickly as possible, and I found these matches to be more intense and fast paced, than the actual races you can do.
There’s the bomb focused mode left with Ba-Boom! Which sees the player attempting to avoid having possession of a bomb when the time runs out, or if they start with it then to pass it to a vulnerable player.
The last battle mode is Robot Smash where players build up speed using the Spin Dash to collect giant robots to make them blow up and score more points doing so than the opposing team.
All of these modes are a fun distraction and while not living up to some of the older Party Games from prior SMB games still serve as a fun time, especially when played online or with local wireless play with friends akin to Mario Kart.
Cutscenes.
For the first time since SMB2 back in 2002 on the GameCube the story mode this time round actually has moving cutscenes and proper voice acting.
This adds so much more enjoyment to the Story Mode as instead of it being 2D comic book style cut scenes it’s now back to being full 3D CGI cutscenes, that convey the story a lot better and easier to follow for younger players.
There is also the option to rewatch all previous cutscenes from the main menu, so if a player accidentally skips any then they are easy enough to rewatch as the player doesn’t even need to unlock them in the shop.
The story mode also doesn’t outstay it’s welcome, as it only covers the first 100 levels across the 10 Worlds, as afterwards there is no story for the EX-levels and instead the player has celebratory snapshots of some of the characters standing in the levels.
Music.
Like all prior SMB games Banana Rumble carries on the tradition of fun upbeat songs for its soundtrack.
Each world also has a very distinct theme song that doesn’t get repeated in another world, as for example my personal favourite track is the Neon Arena from World 6 that sounds like it’s come straight out of a Sonic the Hedgehog game, sounding different to World 2’s Rose Garden theme which goes for a more pop song vibe.
Assistance Mode.
A returning feature from prior games is the ability to turn on an Assistance Mode when the player dies a couple of times or turns it on from the pause menu instead.
A few options can be used with the ability to rewind your current attempt so you can make changes with speed an angle to avoid falling off the course or to hit a Golden Banana before the Goal Gate.
Then there are the Ghost Guide and Route Guide who I bundle together since they go hand in hand to help the player. With the Ghost Guide being a semi-transparent model of your Monkey that follows the best route to get to the Goal Gate. With the Route Guide showing you, with arrows, the Route that the Ghost will take, so you can turn either the Ghost on, the route on or both, making it so you can get to the Goal Gate easily.
Then finally the last main option is to restart at set checkpoints during a level, so if the player falls off the course near the end, then they will not have to begin from the very beginning and instead at the previous checkpoint.
There is also an option to skip a level to move onto the next level by paying a small fee of points that the players collects from finishing prior levels.
So, this game has some of the best assistance options for players of all skill levels while not making the game impossible to lose like the older SMB title that put guard rails everywhere on the courses.
Cons:
Reduced Frame rate in multiplayer.
One of the biggest downsides in this game is how the frame rate drops from 60fps in solo mode to 30fps in multiplayer.
So, when players jump into the multiplayer maps that have up to 15 other players for a total of 16 Monkeys taking place on the same map, that is when the frame rate drops in half and sometimes lower depending on the multiplayer mode.
This is very frustrating since SMB is a franchise always based on very quick reaction times and a high sense of speed. So, if the player can no longer react as well as they usually do then that will bring down the enjoyment level as the game becomes very choppy and more hectic with it no longer being as fun compared to when playing solo.
Limited multiplayer maps.
Across the 5 different Battle Modes each mode only has a very limited amount of maps to play on.
The basic Race Mode has 5 maps which is a nice variety but could do with having all the maps from the Adventure Mode being added to the roster. But then each following Mode gets even less maps.
As Banana Hunt only has 3 maps, Goal Rush has another 3 maps, Ba-Boom has just 2 maps, and Robot Smash also has only 2 maps to play on.
So across 5 different Modes there are only a total of 15 maps, and no more maps have been announced as post launch DLC. So, I could see these modes dying off very quickly with most players getting bored and online matches getting more difficult to find in the future unless better A.I bots are added to fill the gap.
Removing the Jump feature.
While a controversial mechanic in the older games was the ability to jump, that has now been replaced by the new Spin Dash feature.
While the Spin Dash feature is more useful it is a shame that the Jump ability didn’t return as at least an unlockable option in the shop when the player finishes the story mode.
Stage glitches with certain characters.
Something I noticed in stages with long vertical slopes that you were expected to boost up, in the later Worlds and the EX-Worlds, is that occasionally my character would clip inside the slope and get a fallout.
This occurred mostly when using larger characters like GonGon but also when using smaller faster characters like Baby and Spin Dashing up at full speed.
Monkey stats.
The stats for the individual monkeys don’t feel as impactful as they did in prior games with GonGon boasting a high weight and brake stat, still taking as long to come to a stop as other characters.
Game crashes.
A peculiar type of crashing I encountered was when pausing the game from the pause menu and then returning later, it would cause the game to soft lock where the menu is frozen.
It happened to me on 4 separate occasions and was very annoying since it would lose any progress already made on the level and having to restart all over again.
Small playable roster.
The game has 7 characters at launch, with a further 4 unlockable through the story and a final locked behind online battle mode.
This is a smaller roster than more prior recent games and the only way to add more is through micro transactions since there are no announced plans for DLC.
Conclusion:
The best Super Monkey Ball game we have had since Super Monkey Ball 2 on the GameCube in 2002.
If players are in the mood for some great fast paced arcade style fun, then I would highly recommend Banana Rumble especially to play solo for the higher frame rate.
Score: 9.2
Anime Amigo and Nerd Consultant
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