As a game, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD accomplishes what it sets out to do. What it sets out to do is just very limited. Depending on someone's skill or luck, the main game will not take him or her more than a few hours at most to complete, and with the sheer difficulty of some levels and the minimal incentives to replay anything, there is unfortunately not much to do in an ultimate sense. This is certainly not as extensive or multifaceted or thorough of a game as it could be. When it comes to the franchise's relative uniqueness and the simplicity of its premise (though it can be very complex in how that premise is realized from level to level), there is still enough here to warrant attention from series fans. The drought of Super Monkey Ball games from 2012 to 2019, other than a mobile game, ended with this update, after all.
Production Values
An HD remake of a 2006 Wii launch game, the graphics are not the absolute best on the Switch (or any of the other systems Banana Blitz HD released on), but they remain passable. The mediocre visuals are not the real heart of the game. That would be the ball-rolling, timed frenzy of traversing various floating tracks. I never encountered any glitches or hiccups in the smoothness of the game, the latter being of major significance to making a game like this playable. Reinforcing the real focus of this remake, the audio lacks dialogue and mostly has to do with the sounds of collecting bananas or rolling over obstacles.
Gameplay
As usual, Banana Blitz HD is, boss battles, special levels, and party games aside, about guiding a monkey in a transparent sphere from the start of an environment to the end through all the hazards in between. As simple as the concept is, the game can be quite difficult, with missing floor panels, rotating bars, and moving pathways coming even in the early worlds. At the end of each of the eight worlds, a boss fight awaits, such as one where you use the jump mechanic to attack the head of a bird on a circular plane. These levels become progressively challenging as more and more ways to fall of be pushed into the abyss below are introduced.
Collecting enough bananas grants additions lives, and falling off the edge of the map from turning too late, being pushed off by objects in the level, or getting knocked off by bosses all the way until the lives run out does not end the game. It just forfeits the chance to obtain a medal for completing every level in a world consecutively without having to reset the lives (cleared levels are still unlocked and you do not have to start from the first one again). If the main game is too intense, there are 10 party minigames that can be played against CPUs or against live players. The variety this adds is better than nothing, and there are online ranking modes as well, but the heart of the game us the conventional Monkey Ball levels with difficulty that might deter plenty of players.
Story
There is almost no story to spoil, as a hostile character steals bananas and angers franchise protagonist AiAi and his companions into rolling through the land to reclaim the lost fruit. The player navigates their ball across different floating landscapes to pursue this character.
Intellectual Content
It is philosophically true that simplicity, joyful intensity, and relaxation--if one can reach this mental state from a game as hectic as this one--have their own nature governed by logical necessities and their own depth. No, not every game is, often for the worst, designed to explore anything significant or provide puzzles, and Banana Blitz HD is one of these. The experience of relaxation and intensity are indeed far more explicitly philosophical and thus important than the game itself. The increasing difficulty nonetheless means that careful timing, movements, and observation can be of great effect on the player's part, which provides a different sort of engagement.
Conclusion
Banana Blitz HD does not try to reach for philosophical depth or even a story beyond the bare minimum, but it does at times offer a simple but challenging style of gameplay that remains fairly unique to the series. This is not an utter masterpiece by any means. Anyone content with an inexpensive game designed for a very niche type of gameplay will find an sometimes middling yet genuinely intense experience. It is no Metroid Prime for its layers of gameplay, no BioShock for its atmosphere and ideological themes, and no The Last of Us for its story, yet for what it is, Banana Blitz HD is enough.
Content:
1: Violence: In a very non-graphic manner, the player can attack bosses by methods like jumping on their heads or sending missiles back at them.
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