N-Philes

Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll

Posted March 22nd 2006 by Ben Wood.

Most gamers will tell you that the one game that they've poured the most number of hours into is either a large expansive RPG, a massive multiplayer online game, or maybe a multiplayer game with infinite replay value. For me, it wasn't World of Warcraft, The Sims, Super Smash Bros., or even a Final Fantasy game. It was Super Monkey Ball 2. Its addictive gameplay, challenging levels, and array of minigames kept my friends and me playing for hundreds of hours. When the DS was unveiled, I immediately thought about how Aiai, Mimi, Baby, and GonGon could roll their way onto the system. Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll has arrived, though it isn't quite what I expected.

For those unfamiliar with Monkey Ball, the gameplay is fairly simple to grasp: you have a monkey inside a ball, a floor, and a goal. By tilting the floor (the level) forward, the money rolls forward; pull back, and the monkey decelerates and will eventually roll backwards. Your job is to manipulate the floor to get the monkey through the goal. It sounds simple because it is, until the floor begins to fill with obstacles that that stand between your monkey and the confetti celebration – bumpers, holes, rotating elements, moving pieces, switches, narrow paths, and sharp turns. Throw in the fact that most of the floors are multi-tiered so that you have to reach the goal by rolling upwards and dropping downwards (without falling off the level) all within one minute. Suddenly it's easy to see how the challenge builds and how many, many monkeys will die thought the Monkey Ball experience. Unfortunately for Aiai, Touch & Roll follows this formula to a tee.

The fundamental difference that separates Touch & Roll from its predecessors is the banana system. Instead of collecting 100 bananas to earn an extra life, this game requires only ten Chiquitas to earn a 1-UP. If you die on a level, any bananas collected do not respawn, thus creating a balanced system (and a reason to collect those pesky yellow fruits).

Speaking of levels, Touch & Roll features 120 stages to roll through, pulling some of the better levels from the console Monkey Balls, while offering about 50 brand spankin' new ones. They're presented and grouped together in several worlds, with each world containing ten unique stages. As you beat the worlds, more challenging ones become unlocked. Any of the stages that are unlocked can be played in this "challenge mode", or can be practiced individually in the aptly-named practice mode. Of course, Touch & Roll's challenge mode pales in comparison to the set-ups found in every other Monkey Ball game, where you could play 10, 30, or 50+ levels at once, depending on the difficulty category. That set-up added excitement and challenge to the game, two critical components to a Monkey Ball title that are both in short supply on the DS.

I unintentionally killed Aiai in Monkey Ball 2's difficult Guillotine, Warp, Cylinders, and 8 Bracelet levels more times than I did playing all of Touch & Roll, though this game isn't exactly a breeze. Its difficulty doesn't revolve around the level design as much as it does the game's control. Touch & Roll's control is broken. Sega allows the player to use either the touch screen or the directional pad for movement, but neither of them provides the precise and tight control a Monkey Ball game needs. The D-pad is tight, but lacks the subtlety of an analog stick; the touch screen gives much more control over how far the level tilts and at what angle, but it's looser than the screws in Ken Kutaragi's head. Whether using the D-pad, thumb strap, or stylus, you're bound to lose many lives on levels that would have been a cakewalk with a joystick.

Minigames are what made Super Monkey Ball one of the GameCube's top party games. Four of those minigames – plus two brand new ones – make it to the DS. The Monkey Race and Monkey Fight minigames, which are amazingly fun on the consoles, also suffer from clunky and unintuitive touch screen controls. In contrast, Monkey Golf's and Monkey Bowling's new touch screen functionality make them shine as the best mini-golf experience in videogame history and the best handheld bowling experience, respectively. The new Monkey Wars is a first-monkey-shooter minigame that is pretty decent, but because shooting and turning are assigned to the touch screen and movement is restricted to the D-Pad (even thought the buttons do nothing), southpaws are out of luck. Equally new, Monkey Hockey is a twist on air hockey that is addictive and well executed on the DS. The ability to race a friend to the goal in actual game levels could have made Touch & Roll a heavy-hitting multiplayer game, but that feature is MIA (even though Super Monkey Ball Jr. for the Game Boy Advance has it!). Monkey Billiards and Monkey Target would have been welcome, but they too are noticeably absent.

In the spirit of ac-cen-tu-at-ing the positive, I really have to say that Touch & Roll is both beautiful and colorful. It runs incredibly smoothly for a handheld, showing no slowdown despite the massive 3D stages. The backgrounds are just gorgeous, ranging from rushing waterfalls to violent wind and lightning storms, and giant icebergs populated with penguins. The monkey ball that rolls around is a 2D sprite, but it doesn't hinder the game's beauty. The bottom screen shows off really funny animations of your monkey of choice, but you rarely, if ever, look away from the top screen action. In fact, important elements like the number of lives and time remaining should have been on the top screen for quick referencing; the level name and score – less pertinent information – should be on the bottom screen. The music is as expected: bright, happy, and reflective of the graphical style, though it can get annoying after awhile.

Disappointingly, Touch & Roll's the presentation is lacking. There's no story mode, a bare bones challenge mode, no quick "retry" option in the practice mode menu, no volume control for music and sound, a difficult camera, no map, and most importantly no ability to view the stages; these all hamper Touch & Roll from being a polished, tightly-knit package. Fortunately, the game supports single cart multiplayer.

Slight Pulse - Monkey Ball rolls onto the DS and straight off course.

Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll's largest flaw has to be the control. While passable, it's nowhere near as tight and accurate as an analog stick. The minigames, which were highly addictive and enjoyable in the past, are hit or miss this time around. Lackluster presentation and polish don't help, either. Sega may have dropped the ball with Aiai, but to be fair they did manage to produce a gorgeous, fluid game that makes use of the DS' 3D capabilities, touch screen, and multiplayer functionality. Anyone new to Monkey Ball should probably avoid this title in favor of either any of the three console versions available, but those who have some experience and already enjoy the franchise might derive some joy with the new levels in what is, technically, the best handheld version yet.

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