The area where mixing SMBA and an RPG falls down the hardest is in another aspect of the navigation side of the game. Behold the frustration that is the puzzle door! On the surface puzzle doors seem like a good idea; in order to open the door you must pass a certain number of normal SMB puzzle levels. For the first couple of doors you come across, this works well and is a fun diversion from the task completion and navigation of the main game.
However, once you progress from the first kingdom of the world, you will find that you have to be a black belt in monkey ball fu in order to make any progress. When you find yourself spending over half an hour, playing the same puzzle level over-and-over again just to get a bit closer to opening a door and accessing the next section of a kingdom, you want to find the person responsible for puzzle doors and remove their joy completely. This frustration is compounded when you realise you have to solve these levels in order to make any progress, they aren't just optional short cuts, they are required pieces of play.
One other area where the game is let down is the camera. As in the other games, the camera is pointed in the direction your monkey is facing, not the direction it is moving in, and only swings around when you move.
This added to the tactics required in playing the challenge-mode levels in that you had to not only control the monkey by tilting the landscape, but you had to also control the camera by taking account of any moving platforms or slopes that would affect the way your monkey faced. In the RPG game this camera system causes so many issues with not being able to see where you are going that the mechanic should have been dropped. At least developers Traveler's Tales have given us camera adjustment with the D-pad or shoulder buttons, but this is just a fudge since the camera is restricted by the landscape which can cause frustration when trying to adjust it to see what you have to do next.
In order to alleviate the stresses of the RPG game, SMBA comes with party games and the normal challenge mode. These don't have any bearing on the main game, but you can buy extra levels and playable characters for the party games in the RPG by collecting bananas and spending them at a shop in the village on Jungle Island.
You could also use the puzzle gates as a way of practicing for the challenge mode if you can stand the frustration of playing the same level repeatedly instead of having to re-play earlier levels when you fail.
When you get right down to it, SMBA is not a bad game, but it is let down as an RPG by adhering too strictly to the mechanics and ideas of the previous games in the series. Shoehorning in features from the puzzle and mini-games seemingly only to convince the players that they are playing SMB does not make a good game. It was perhaps inevitable that those features would have to make their way into the game to try and keep the purists happy, but the methods employed in doing so have negatively affected the game as a whole.
SPOnG Score: C
A bit more time play-testing and a bit less slavish following of the mechanics of the previous games would have improved this adventure no end. As it is, Sega and TT have given us a game that falls between several stools, it's not a puzzler, maze game nor an RPG, it's just a frustrating mix of the three.
One other area where the game is let down is the camera. As in the other games, the camera is pointed in the direction your monkey is facing, not the direction it is moving in, and only swings around when you move.
In order to alleviate the stresses of the RPG game, SMBA comes with party games and the normal challenge mode. These don't have any bearing on the main game, but you can buy extra levels and playable characters for the party games in the RPG by collecting bananas and spending them at a shop in the village on Jungle Island.
When you get right down to it, SMBA is not a bad game, but it is let down as an RPG by adhering too strictly to the mechanics and ideas of the previous games in the series. Shoehorning in features from the puzzle and mini-games seemingly only to convince the players that they are playing SMB does not make a good game. It was perhaps inevitable that those features would have to make their way into the game to try and keep the purists happy, but the methods employed in doing so have negatively affected the game as a whole.
SPOnG Score: C
A bit more time play-testing and a bit less slavish following of the mechanics of the previous games would have improved this adventure no end. As it is, Sega and TT have given us a game that falls between several stools, it's not a puzzler, maze game nor an RPG, it's just a frustrating mix of the three.