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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
More Monkey Madness!, 3 Feb 2004
Super Monkey Ball has been a firm favourite of mine since I first laid my hands on a copy, and I can safely say that the sequel has even more primate action packed into the miniscule disc than the predecessor did. Being a sequel, it obviously carries the same layout and structure of the first game. Roll a monkey in a ball around some fiendishly difficult floating obstacle courses, or compete head to head against friends (or computer if you don’t have any) in the 6 original mini games as well as 6 brand new ones.The obvious difference with Super Monkey Ball 2 is the graphics, as they have been improved vastly. The backgrounds are more sophisticated, as courses are now set among forests with huge waterfalls, fiery volcanoes, even inside a whale with wrecked ships surrounding you. Generally, it is a lot more satisfying to look at and makes the original game look bland (although it wasn’t immensely detailed anyway). New to this instalment is the Story Mode, where you progress through the stages and worlds like the previous, but cut scenes act as a transition between them. A new character called Dr. Bad-Boon has stolen all of the bananas, so AiAi and pals have set out to stop him. There are 150 brand new stages to play through, but there are no lives or continues in this mode however, so it’s essentially a glorified Practice Mode. It may be a relief to some people that you get unlimited attempts at an insanely difficult stage, but to those who crave a challenge they will prefer having to start the entire process again once all of your lives are lost, as the feeling of satisfaction is infinitely greater. Basically, it’s up to you whether you find this feature a blessing or a burden. The original mini games return with some new features, like the wacky lanes in Monkey Bowling or a team of formation monkeys in Monkey Target. As well as this, 6 brand new games have been included, which are tennis, boat racing, baseball, soccer, dogfighting and shooting. Some aren’t so great, but others like the tennis, baseball and boat racing games are great fun when wanting to entertain up to 3 friends. The difficulty of the single player from the last game makes a return in Super Monkey Ball 2, but the stakes have been raised. The later floors on Expert Mode were tough, but the new stages are far more complicated, involving fast moving obstacles, warp doors, ramps and even catapults. This can make completing some floors a matter of luck rather than skill, but the extremely hard ones can be great fun. Super Monkey Ball 2 is an improvement on Super Monkey Ball. The improved graphics with massive, luscious backgrounds and special effects just make the game feel more exciting and alive and the mini games will be entertaining you even when Nintendo’s next console is released. Plus the general concept of a monkey in a ball is just pure genius. On the downside though, some floors are frustratingly difficult and some of the mini games, like soccer and shooting, aren’t as fun as they could have been. The constant techno music hasn’t changed either, and if you weren’t too keen on the first game’s soundtrack then your own CD collection will have to make do for this game. Overall, Super Monkey Ball 2 is one of the most addictive games on GameCube and if you enjoyed the first edition, then you will receive a wealth of entertainment from this one. It has all the monkey magic of the original and enough new features to justify a top spot on any gamers’ list.
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