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Super Monkey Ball 3D

Super Monkey Ball 3D

Jonas Mäki crowns Sega's Super Monkey Ball 3D the worst game of the Nintendo 3DS launch. Read on for the review.

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It is with a great deal of sorrow that I realise that Sega still haven't figured out what made the original Super Monkey Ball a hit on Gamecube back in 2001. It was an arcade game, intuitive and designed to make you chase high scores and faster times. For those who just wanted to make it through the levels it was a blast, and for those who wanted to find all the shortcuts and find the fastest routes it was even more fun.

Super Monkey Ball 3D

A brilliant concept, a game that appeals to everyone and a true classic. Where did Sega go from there? Well, sequels have never been Sega's strong point, whether they make them or refuse to. The second game was placed in an amusement park, everything was grander, but less thought through. After that they took the monkeys on an adventure Super Monkey Ball Adventure, and when they launched Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz they had changed the design of the monkeys to something far from the typical cocky Sega image we know and love. Next up we were rolling monkey balls with our feet in Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll, and I have purposely left out the handheld titles.

This takes us to Super Monkey Ball 3D, and Sega have obviously decided to not even try and appeal to those who loved the original. Instead the game is designed for kids. Out of eight available worlds it is only the last two that provide any form of challenge. As a matter of fact you have to try hard to fall off the course as it is lined with barriers.

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It took me an hour and a half to play through all the levels in the game, and it left me with absolutely no desire to go back and perfect my times. The levels simply aren't good enough and thanks to grooves and barriers I'm sure my times are pretty good even without really trying to set records. There is no room for improvisation or shortcuts, and what made Super Monkey Ball great simply isn't here. What you see is what you get, and what you get is mediocre level design.

Super Monkey Ball 3D

The idea is that you can play Super Monkey Ball 3D either with the analogue pad or the motion sensing gyro. But in order to use the gyroscope you have to turn off the 3D effects (as they don't work when you move and tilt the device). I tried playing it with the 3D effects still on and it immediately made me feel sick to my stomach. Your eyes are frantically trying to make sense of the 3D effect and you feel as though your on some cheap and shaky carnival ride.

It should be said that even with the 3D effects turned off they gyro is far from ideal. I try to control Baby through the first world (inspired by the original) and a world with a Middle Eastern theme before I give up. I turn on the 3D and use the analogue pad instead (you can choose your means of control before each level, which is nice), and it's all so much easier. Better, but not perfect.

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Super Monkey Ball was designed to be played with two analogue sticks. Here I'm stuck with one, and I get the feeling that this will be something of an achilles' heel for the Nintendo 3DS moving on. The camera tries its best to keep up and give me a good angle, but it feels to slow for the job. In the end Super Monkey Ball 3D is a mediocre experience. But there is more to the game, will the mini games save the day?

Super Monkey Ball 3D

Not such luck. It's the opposite in fact. Sega have added Monkey Fight and Monkey Race to the package. The first of which usually is something rather highly enjoyable, but this time it's a truly terrible version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, with an artificial intelligence that annoys the hell out of me.

And it gets worse. Monkey Race is a Mario Kart clone, with horrible physics, awful tracks and extremely unbalanced items. Given that Sonic & Sega All-StarsRacing exists in a fairly entertaining version for Nintendo DS it's inexplicable that Sega haven't been able to create something better than this.

Great extras could have lifted Super Monkey Ball 3D to a decent score, but as it is the mini games only weigh down a game that is mediocre at its core and I cannot recommend buying this. Super Monkey Ball is still a brilliant concept, but I only wish Sega would return to its roots and bring back the stuff that made the original such a classic. It sure wasn't awful mini games, lack of challenge, poor camera or bland design that made it stand out.

04 Gamereactor UK
4 / 10
+
Charming environments, nice presentation, a handful of good levels towards the end.
-
Lacks both challenge and content, no replay value, awful mini games, sluggish camera.
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

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