Super Monkey Ball 2. Is that not one of the strangest game titles you have ever heard?
“Hey man whatcha playin?”
“Oh you know, Super Monkey Ball 2.”
“Oh… What do you do?”
“Uh well, you’re a monkey… that rolls inside of a ball through mazes…”
“…But why a monkey?”
“Dude go ask Sega, I don’t know.”
I’m in love with this game, and have been since I was in my pre-teen years. I didn’t play much of the first Super Monkey Ball until years after discovering Super Monkey Ball 2, which came out for Gamecube in 2002 for North America. The Super Monkey Ball series was developed by a second-party developer of Sega’s called Amusement Entertainment, and Amusement Entertainment released the first Monkey Ball game as an arcade game. It wasn’t until 2001 that the developers decided to bring the game to home consoles.
Super Monkey Ball 2 has plenty of different ways to be played. You have Story Mode, Challenge Mode, Practice Mode, and 12 different mini games to unlock and play. Since each mode is played differently, I’ll break everything down for you. Let’s start with the different modes and leave the mini games alone for a moment. The controls for all the modes are the same, and they’re easy to learn as well! You move your ball around with the joystick, and there’s a little map in the lower right corner that you can zoom in and out of by pressing the A button, but that’s it when it comes to controls! Your objective in all of the different modes is to go through different mazes and obstacle courses to reach the goal at the end in 60 seconds. It may not sound like a lot of time, but all of the courses are short enough to get through within the time limit. There will be levels that you’ll need to practice a bit before you can get an idea of how to beat the level (timing, different routes, ext), but with practice you’ll be a pro in no time! Now, let me explain what’s so different about the different modes you can play:
Story Mode
The story begins with an evil monkey named Dr. Bad-Boon appearing over an island in a blimp. He then takes a giant vacuum and sucks all of the banas out of the village all for himself, which Ai-Ai and his gang aren’t happy about. As Dr. Bad-Boon then goes to make his escape, Ai-Ai and his friends then use a magic spell to put themselves into balls and fly around the island (No, you can’t actually fly around while playing the game. Disappointing, I know.) The game then brings you to a screen with 10 different courses to play through. You can go through them in any order you please, but in order to get to the next area you have to complete all 10 courses. There are no bosses in this game, and there aren’t lives either so you get an infinite amount of chances. There are also play points that you can earn. The more you play, the more points you earn! You can then trade in these points to unlock more lives for challenge mode, or to unlock more mini games.
Challenge Mode
Have some friends over that want to play, but none of you want to play any of the mini games? No problem! In challenge mode, there are different sets of levels to play on that are similar to the levels you go through on story mode. The only thing different about challenge mode is that it’s multiplayer and you all have a certain amount of lives that you can use. Don’t worry too much, you do get continues even if you lose all of your lives. “Well then what’s the point of lives if they’re just going to give me continues anyway?” Well reader, if you get through all of the challenge courses and don’t use a continue, you get to move onto the bonus stages! How’s that for motivation?
Practice Mode
Practice Mode is exactly what you think it is. You’re able to go into practice mode and play any level you’ve reached in story mode and replay through it. Even though you can replay the level as many times as you want, you don’t get to record your score.
Let’s talk about this games mini games for a second. A lot of these mini games are broken and unbalanced, to the point of being unfair. In most of these games, there are items with different helpful actions, but the moment you turn them off is the moment you’re doomed. In racing with items off, there is no possible way for you to catch up if you’re in last place. In boxing, the items they use can be 1 hit KO’s to your enemies, which sounds like a fine thing for you but the moment one of your opponents gets a hold of one of those power ups, you’re through. Some of these games are poorly explained, or can make playing the game nearly impossible (lack of speed, courses that are impossible to read or figure out, and in some cases the game controls your character for you). My suggestion? If you’re playing Super Monkey Ball 2 with friends, go play challenge mode.
Overall, I’d give this game a 8/10 rating. The story line is cheesey, but the game isn’t played for the story but more for the levels themselves. The mini games are unfair, but can sometimes be fun if you’re playing with a group of friends who won’t take the game seriously. if you can laugh off how badly designed some of the games are, I think you’ll be just fine playing them. As for the games courses and controls, you always have full control over your monkey and the game does a brilliant job of teaching you how to improve rather than making some levels easy and some of them impossible. Most courses even have different routes you take for those who want the easy way through or for players who want a challenge. There are buttons hidden in the back of some levels as well that slow the level down to make things easier, but of course it’s all optional. The game is less than $10 used on Amazon, so go get yourself a copy!
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