by Amr (@siegarettes)

• Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz HD
• Developer: SEGA
• Publisher: SEGA
• Switch

Seeking to bring new life to a lesser regarded entry in the series, Banana Blitz HD removes the motion controls, brings the game to HD, and tags on a sharp new interface. These additions do a lot to make the original game more playable, but also makes clear the glaring compromises in the original design, while sanding off some of the unique appeal of the original.

The original Super Monkey Ball focused on careful challenges of dexterity that used the full range of analog control, while its sequel began to push the series towards higher speeds. 

Banana Blitz begins as a full blown rollercoaster, with straightforward courses that focus more on timing than precision. To compensate for the more ambiguous inputs of motion controls, bumpers have been added around many edges, turning it into an almost on-rails experience at times. Careful everyone, keep your hands inside the ride at all times. 

In the second half it does finally take the guard rails off, it immediately starts introducing tightrope walks that need you to perform ridiculous feats of balance or instantly fall out of bounds. As basic as stages are in the first half, there’s a certain momentum to them. That stops dead at the midpoint, and the new controls don’t do much to remedy that.  Most of the stages were frustrating, but doable, but one stage in particular took me hours because of how fiddly the interactions it required were. 

On the topic of fiddlyness, Banana Blitz introduces boss fights at the end of each stage. Alongside the swaying stages and jump mechanic, this marked the first time I’ve wanted camera control in a Monkey Ball title. Monkey Ball’s central conceit–that you’re moving the stage rather than the character–is still true here, and applies even when you jump, forcing the stage and camera to make an abrupt lurch each time you jump. 

Combined with the constantly tilting stage, it can get disorienting, though I eventually got used to it. The trouble comes during boss fights, where the camera constantly stays locked to the boss, obscuring your surroundings and causing unpleasant camera swings when combined with the constant jumping and stage tilting. One boss in particular has a side path that’s rendered barely accessible, since the camera forces it out of view for the majority of the fight. 

The new makeover can’t do much to smooth over these original flaws. In some places, it even dampens the original’s appeal. To match the stylized new graphical interface, Banana Blitz HD brings a new lighting engine. The new lighting results in higher contrast and oversaturated colors, burning away the pastel colors and rounded edges of the original. Personally, I find that it loses a lot of charm in the process, removing the unique aesthetic that made the Wii games so pleasing to look at. Worse still, turns out that some of the aforementioned difficulty spikes were a result of retooled level designs for the new analog controls. 

The removal of motion controls has also means that that the suite of mini-games from the original has also been drastically cut down. Amusement Vision, the original developers, seemed to stuff more and more mini-games into each Monkey Ball title. (Only fitting then that they’d eventually go on to work on the Yakuza series). 

The original Banana Blitz included FIFTY mini-games, but these have been cut down to only ten in the HD version. It’s disappointing, though understandable given the amount of work that would be needed to retool every game–except that the choices that made the cut are bizarre. 

More involved games like the surprising Monkey Wars, a first-person deathmatch, have been removed for simplistic hurdle and space shooter games that barely even feel like a novelty. In a personal affront to me, Monkey Snowboarding made the cut over Monkey Race, my personal favorite. 

Snowboarding is basically a stripped down version of Monkey Race, with just enough to remind me of what I’m missing out on. None of these games were essential to the Monkey Ball experience, but there were plenty that were interesting diversions in their own right, and the choices of which ones made the cut feel arbitrary and ill considered. 

That’s Banana Blitz HD in nutshell. Its new controls go a long way to making the main game more enjoyable, but tons of small decisions along the edges miss what made the original game appealing, exasperate some of its problems and introduce new ones. The additions made are largely a miss, and not even adding Sonic the Hedgehog to the playable cast can make up for some of the choices here. If you know me, that says a lot.  

Banana Blitz HD is on the surface exactly what I wanted: a revision of a charming Wii game held back by its control scheme. But the way it delivers this misses the mark, and has me aching for a revision of this revision. I’m hoping one day they follow this up with a Step & Roll remaster, and maybe leave that one a little more intact.