Recent form has left even the hardest of Monkey Ball fans disappointed. The series that rolled back our Gamecubes to the arcade era had lost it's way completely and was now just churning out any old tosh. Despite this, I had high hopes for Monkey Ball 3D. It is in 3D, after all.
Monkey Ball 3D consists of three modes. Ball, Fight and Race, which happen to be my three favourite modes from the first game. It was strange to see Target missing though, as it almost seems made to be viewed in 3D. Still, if Sega had reverted to the charm of the first two
Monkey Ball games and not messed about with them too much they could have been onto a winner. Unfortunately, they had other ideas.
Monkey Race is the most disappointing of all the modes. Instead of the fast paced and unique version of old we're presented with a kart game. A really poor kart game. Everything is scaled back from what you expect. Power-ups are unimaginative and boring to use, cornering is a pain in the arse and races feel slow and sluggish. Crash into an opponent and your kart will come to a complete standstill, slowing races down even more than they need to.
There's no real skilful or tactical approach to be made as you'll never gain advantage from it. After a few races you'll simply just go through the motions of driving round a track firing off power ups as soon as you get them and have an odd yawn here and there.
Monkey Race is the perfect indicator as to where Sega went wrong with
Monkey Ball 3D. It's trying to be too simple in order to appeal to younger gamers, or even a more casual audience. What was once a nice addition to the
Monkey Ball world now feels like a lazy port of an awful kart game, which is then dumbed down so far that even kids will wonder where the fun is.
This attitude is carried over to the rest of the game. Monkey Fight is no longer a king-of-the-hill-massive-boxing-fist-fun-festival, it's now a poor
Smash Brothers rip-off. It tries to take
Smash Brothers and simplify it, but in doing so has removed everything that makes it worth playing. Although combos and special moves are in the game, you fare better with default punches leaving you with a button-bashing mess.
In
Monkey Ball games previous, the extra mini games didn't seem tacked on. They were games in their own right. They offered a chance to learn a new skill and perfect it. Monkey Race offered something new to the power-up based genre and while Monkey Fight may have always been a button-bash-heavy game, it was a fun one. What we have here though are a couple of mini games that are trying to be something they're not, and ones that you'll rarely visit because of it.
