♫ Music: Floating City ♫
~Winner of the "Best Dole Sponsorship" Award~
I completely missed Super Monkey Ball back on the Gamecube and I'm kinda of two minds about that after finally playing it this year. On the one hand, Super Monkey Ball is brutally uncompromisingly difficult and I almost certainly would have gotten too frustrated to appreciate it as a child. It was only thanks to the magic of emulation and cheating for infinite lives that I was able to see every stage. But on the other hand, SMB is incredible, a real game's game. But this ranking isn't about 2001's Super Monkey Ball, it's about 2024's Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble. I've heard most of the Monkey Balls after 2 aren't very well regarded and I can't really comment on that, but SMBBR both captures the magic of the original and modernizes it just slightly enough. The game is a bit easier than the original, but you also have infinite lives by default. You also have one new manuever: a boost that rockets you forward with enough speed to get up to some real stupid shenanigans. Having just watched a GDQ run of SMB1 and with not even a life quantity on screen to psyche me out, you can bet I tried something dumb at least once on every level. Sometimes a lot more than once. But I had a blast doing so, and it doesn't hurt that suckers like me can buy Sonic characters to roll around as.
Platform: Switch
