Hands On: Super Monkey Ball 3D Impressions

The Monkeys make the jump into the third dimension

I’ve got to admit, I’ve not had a lot of experience with the Super Monkey Ball franchise, although the concept has always been something that really appealed to me. Who wouldn’t wanted to play a game where you roll around in a ball, as a monkey, and collect bananas? The concept really gels with me for some reason. When I was asked by a rather attractive representative if I’d like to play a round of Monkey Ball with her, my eyes lit up (for multiple reasons) and away I went, rolling everywhere I could. There was a huge problem though. We’ll find that out soon.

The first thing I noticed about Super Monkey Ball 3D was that the game was very polished graphically, with most of the game sporting smooth edges, detailed textures and a very admirable 60fps frame rate. All the characters animated nicely, and the graphical effects during some segments such as POW bubble (think old-school Batman) were really good. Everything looked great and once I had my eyes in the sweet spot for the 3D, I started rolling.

From the moment I started rolling, things started to go downhill. Super Monkey Ball 3D is a very fast game, so fast in fact that you’ll always be correcting your movements constantly to make sure you’re playing it properly. Enter the biggest problem with Super Monkey Ball 3D: the gyroscopic sensor. Primarily used to control the ball, players must tilt the 3DS to steer their ball down a slope or around a corner. This creates huge problems for the 3D effect and you will be constantly losing it. It eventually got so annoying that I had to turn the 3D off just to play it without blinking heaps.

These problems can apparently be remedied by moving your whole body with the 3DS instead of moving the 3DS itself, which is not a bad idea, but with a game this fast paced that requires so much control, it’s very unpractical and might cause anyone near you to either hide or call an ambulance to stop your fitting/seizing. Perhaps it would be a bit more enjoyable in the privacy of your own home but it’s pretty hard to imagine it so. Still, whenever we got quick peeps of the 3D during the rolling it was very nicely done, with bananas we missed flying right at us and such.

Thankfully you can turn off the gyroscope controls entirely and go at it old school with the Circle Pad. These controls show off just how great the Pad is and how well it does work as an analogue stick replacement. The later levels in the game, which will no doubt be complicated and hard, will probably require you to use the Circle Pad. The gyroscope controls just become too unwieldy. To its merit, the gyro sensor was incredibly responsive and much better than I had anticipated, it just doesnt work with the 3D.

Super Monkey Ball 3D was a somewhat mediocre experience with the motion controls, without though it does just fine. Still, the game looks great and plays great without the 3D, but with a console like the 3DS this might not be a particularly good thing to boast. Definitely worth a look though for fans of the series.

+ Graphics are very nice and fluid
+ Gameplay is fast and frenetic
+ Gyroscopic sensor is utilised very well
– Gameplay is hampered by 3D effects and constant need to move
– Minigames are incredibly shallow