An evil ape with golden lobster claws; cuddly monkeys rolling to and fro; and enough bananas to make Dole see green. No, this is not the sequel to a sub-par Mark Wahlberg film, but Sega's "Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz." Addictive gameplay combined with loads of party games to suit every occasion makes "Banana Blitz" a superb Wii launch title, with few minor faults.
"Banana Blitz" has a simple enough story. One day while lounging on Monkey Island, marveling at their bunch of golden bananas, AiAi and his cuddly ape companions are unexpectedly dropped in on by a pirate baboon who steals the bananas. Each banana is sent to one of eight initial worlds, where players must roll their way to recovering the lost booty. Along the way countless traps abound, culminating in a final boss battle.
Taking full advantage of Wii's control scheme, "Banana Blitz" takes the same principle of tilting the ground beneath the monkeys' feet to allow movement to a whole other dimension. For instance, on Gamecube renditions, tilting the control stick forward the slightest bit meant slowly tiptoeing along, varying the degree of tilt to control speed. However, with the Wii-mote in hand, players need only to move their wrist forward and back, side-to-side to yield the same results. As such, players will feel more in control of the game. The Wii-mote is highly sensitive, which can take some getting used to in this case, but the learning curve is really coexistent. The one area where the controls falter is during mini-game play. Some games like "Monkey Golf" can be finicky and require a great deal of finesse, which is fine, but it can be tiresome when overshooting and turning a birdie into a triple bogey.
Graphically, "Banana Blitz" seems very polished and presented in an all together more animated fashion than previous titles. In this installment, cute accents such as a more broad range of facial expressions really show the care that was put into making this title. Also, main game level design is extremely lush and textured, not to mention nearly blindingly colorful. Design is certainly polished and very clean by comparison to other games in the series. At times it is like rolling through Willy Wonka's factory, minus the Oompa Loompas.
The main game, as mentioned before, tasks players with traversing themed worlds to recover the stolen bananas. The style is of course very similar to the other "Monkey Ball" titles, but is sadly rather short. The main game only consists of around 100 levels, which may seem like a lot, but each level can take as little at five seconds, and only as long as two minutes. However, the consolation is that there is replay value to the effect of going back to completed levels to finish collecting the bananas in hopes of unlocking a secret character. With other titles boasting well over 200 main game stages, this really fell short, as Sega developers chose to focus more on party games.
Party games are where many players will spend the bulk of their time playing "Monkey Ball." All the old favorites are in attendance, including "Monkey Target," as well as a slue of new arrivals like "Disk Golf" or "Monkey Squash." There is indeed a robust variety of genres to choose from. A personal favorite is the hurdle race, where players are forced to rapidly flail their arms to simulate picking up their feet and running before quickly clearing the hurdle and racing through the finish line. This game is both fun, but rather tiring at the same time, as players can flair a bit too hard for their own good. However, this is mildly entertaining just to watch. With more than 50 party games to choose from, players will have a hard time mastering them all too quickly. Sega chose this time to allow players access to every party game right from the start instead of having to unlock them. This is fantastic since players can have a group of people over and have the ability to jump right into a tournament-style match without having to sacrifice hours of play beforehand. However, the one clear downside to all these games is that some are clearly modeled after each other, with identical control schemes, and really only a different name. If Sega simply removed a few of the duplicates and replaced them with more main game levels, "Banana Blitz" would certainly be a stronger title.
With only a few minor gaffs, "Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz" shows gamers that simplistic gameplay is sometimes a major plus when not wanting to devote hours to get into a title with greater depth, like Zelda. "Banana Blitz" breathes new life into an already superb line. So strap on the Wii-mote, go ape for the ever-adorable AiAi and roll out.
Grade: 4 out of 5
