Anyone play this? I picked it up for $25 during the Black Friday sale.

From reviews I got a sense of "it's mostly a return to form but not quite at the level of the GC originals" and so far I'd say that feels about right.

The single player is well, about what you'd expect. I'm not super far into it. Good so far, if a bit easy (again, very early in.) The only odd thing to me is that there is not really any penalty for failing, since there is no lives / continue system, if you die you just restart on the course you are on. The old way wasn't ideal but it felt like it demanded really getting to know the stages. I'll probably just burn through them all this way.

With that said when you finish a world (10 stages per world it seems?) it unlocks a time trial mode (with leaderboards!) which does demand more perfection if you want to actually do well on the leaderboards, since your time is for an entire world, not a single course. But I only have 1 other friend on my leaderboards, come on people, join me!

The online multiplayer is... interesting. They clearly tried to tap into the Fall Guys thing where it just selects a match type / stage for you and adds a ton of players (except less players, looks about 20 per match?) Some of the modes are neat, some are sort of so so, all of them are chaotic. I'm enjoying it. HOWEVER. It's pretty clear that it's basically all bots. I think maybe 1 or 2 other real people at most. Sometimes probably 0. Not sure much can be done about that if not a lot of people are playing.

It also has a (totally free) battle pass / shop system and that's kind of fun, a TON of customization for your characters / balls / etc.

Haven't played the offline multiplayer, not sure how it works, the same games just a lot less people? (Or does it also fill in with bots?)

Biggest missed opportunity: WHY IS THERE NO 20 PLAYER MONKEY TARGET? That would have been the most hilariously awesome thing ever. Even if they are all bots!

Yeah, I think I have this. I should break it out again sometime. I heard there is some DLC which adds in stages (and maybe modes?) from the GCN game(s).

So....maybe Monkey Ball is back?

@GameDadGrant I think that is a different game?! This one's DLC is just characters and such.

I'm going to update more later but I've been playing this game a ton, I love it. I'd probably put it somewhere in between SMB 1 & 2 (the single player, anyway). And I'm top 100 in a lot of the leaderboards that probably only like 200 people played...

Yeah it might be a different Monkey Ball I’m thinking of. (How many SMB games are on Switch, anyway?)

I haven’t found whatever game I have yet. It’s buried somewhere in my pile of Switch titles. I think I’ve bought more games for this hybrid system than any before. Including DS and even 3DS, if you can believe it.

There are three of them on Switch!

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD (2019) - Remake of the Wii game.
Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania (2022) - Remake of 1, 2 and Deluxe.
Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble (2024) - Brand new game.

So it seems Monkey Ball is alive and well on Switch. I've heard the other games on Switch are a little janky...but maybe SEGA has learned it's lesson with this new one?

I played a bit of it today. Got through the first world, and it's...certainly Super Monkey Ball, all right. Maybe as I dig deeper into the game, I'll get into it more.

Maybe. I'm not loving it so far, but? It *is* fun.

I guess they changed the physics a few games back and since the remake stages were built for the old physics some people didn't like the remakes. But this game has all new stages built on the new physics so it works.

The first few worlds are a bit easy but it picks up eventually.

I put some more time into this game and I can see this getting pretty addictive. And wow some of the locations of the Golden Bananas are downright devilish.

Didn't get this for Christmas so I bought it today. Should arrive by New Year's Eve.

Really excited for it.

Well, I finished all of the EX stages. Some of those were HARD AS F.

...and now there are even more stages?! Though supposedly these are just a hard mode for some of the other stages. Hopefully not too hard, some of the EX stages made me want to throw my Switch at the wall.

Well I hope I'll be playing this soon. My copy got delayed to January 3rd and then delayed again last night to January 10th. I hope they are actually going to come through with a physical copy.

Ok, the UEX stages (as they are called) are hard as F. I beat a few already but then last night I played two hours and only beat one more stage?! Some of these are friggen ridiculous! I can't tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing! Like, I love a challenge, but with some of these it's just like, how am I even supposed to do this other than sheer luck? Platforms moving all over, things disappearing, bumpers everywhere. How?!

Supposedly there are only 20 of them but I'm on like, 5, and if it is going to take hours to beat each one... oh boy.

I ended up cancelling my Target backordered copy when I decided to try a Walmart quite a ways away. Luckily they had it and still for a good deal so I do finally have this game. I'm on like world four and I'm having a blast! Amazing how it does truly feel so different from past one's that just didn't feel great.

Here's a speedrun race of the game from this year's AGDQ, just a few hours ago.

That's just the first 100 courses! Let's see them do the rest!

The game actually saves the ghosts of the best players online so you can race against them but uh... all they do is perfectly throw themselves at the exact spot needed with the exact right speed and angle to bounce right into the goal from halfway across the map... not much of a race.

I can actually do the first world fairly clean with most of the shortcuts but then I mess up that big jump on the last course.

The rest? Eh. Not even close.