Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble is a welcome revival, but far from the series’ best

It might be hard to believe, but we somehow managed to go 12 years without a brand new Super Monkey Ball game. Although Sega has kept the franchise alive with HD Remasters and remakes, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble is the first entirely new entry in the series since Banana Splits on PS Vita.

This Switch exclusive boasts 200 new stages and a Battle mode for up to 16 players, but while it is undoubtedly a Super Monkey Ball game at its core, there are a number of issues that will leave series fans disappointed. Rather than simply delivering a succession of stages, the game’s main Adventure mode contains cutscenes for the first time in a while, though the story doesn’t quite challenge the works of Harper Lee in terms of impact.

It revolves around a new monkey called Palette, who wants to find the Legendary Banana by collecting seven special artifacts called the OOPArts. When her father gets in the way, things start to get a little messy, but the usual Monkey Ball crew is there to help Palette explore Juicy Island and find the Legendary Banana.

There are 10 themed worlds, each consisting of ten stages. Each world is bookended with a cutscene introducing the theme, and one showing the group collecting a new trinket and continuing on their journey. It’s all fairly throwaway stuff, but friends of Monkey Ball lore may get a kick out of it regardless.

Once these stages are beaten a further 100 are unlocked, which is just as well because the initial 100 aren’t the most difficult in the world, and have pretty uninspired level designs on top of that (though Stage 10-5 can burn in a fire).

The EX stages, which are essentially stages 101-200, start off slightly tricky and end up becoming particularly infuriating, as is the Monkey Ball way. They’re also far more inventive too, with more interesting level designs.

A new addition to the game is a speed boost which can be charged with the B button. By charging the boost and releasing it at the right time you can get a little jolt of