Topic: Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz

[MarioAllStar]

Who else bought this game? I think the single player main adventure is really nice with the Wiimote, but a lot of the mini games are lacking and I have trouble with controlling some of them. Has anyone tried enough of the mini games to find some gems?

[NWR_DrewMG]

I found the game to be really frustrating.  I keep hoping maybe I'm just not doing it right.  The tilt thing wasn't really all that intuitive.  Monkey Bowling was virtually impossible, as unwanted spin kept me constantly guttering.

I dunno, I'm not ready to throw it to the fire yet, but it was very disappointing when I started getting into this game.

[Martin Q. Blank]

The single player game is alright.  I'm still not used to the controls, I wish Sega would've had an option to allow use of the Nunchuk.  

I also agree that the minigames are lacking, seems like Sega went with quantity as opposed to quality.  Many of them are hard to control and simply not very fun.  The best Monkey Ball imo, is still the first one.  Overall, I'm disappointed in this game and it looks like it may go back to the store.  

[MattVDB]

And I thought I was the only one.  I got this game and Zelda, and it honestly had me reconsidering my purchase.  Can anybody else tell us what we are doing wrong, because I've been stoked for this system for far too long for this game to tick me off to the point of me returning my Wii.

[NWR_pap64]

Quote
Originally posted by: MattVDB
And I thought I was the only one.  I got this game and Zelda, and it honestly had me reconsidering my purchase.  Can anybody else tell us what we are doing wrong, because I've been stoked for this system for far too long for this game to tick me off to the point of me returning my Wii.

Isn't that a bit extreme, though? Just because ONE game doesn't work as well as it should it doesn't mean that the entire system isn't worth it.

One question, though. How do you hold your Wiimote? Do you hold it sideways or what?

[MarioAllStar]

In those games like Whack-A-Mole it is near impossible for me to postion the hammer where I want. Obviously, there is a difference between how far your hand moves in comparison with the hammer. For things like the Wii's on-screen pointer, this is acceptable. We can easily scale our movements to get the pointer to the desired location (as we have been doing with computer mice for years). When they have you do this in 3D, it becomes very difficult to deal with. For Whack-A-Mole they should have just done a top-down view.

Obviously, there are plently of mini games that have control issues in Monkey Ball. I am just singling out Whack-A-Mole to describe my problem with that type of full 3D navigation. A down view would make a lot of these games easier to play.

[MarioAllStar]

Quote
Originally posted by: pap64
One question, though. How do you hold your Wiimote? Do you hold it sideways or what?

Nope, you hold it verticaly like normal. This suprised me at first, but it works just fine for the main single player adventure mode.
 

[NWR_pap64]

Quote
Originally posted by: MarioAllStar

Quote
Originally posted by: pap64
One question, though. How do you hold your Wiimote? Do you hold it sideways or what?

Nope, you hold it verticaly like normal. This suprised me at first, but it works just fine for the main single player adventure mode.

I ask because of this paragraph from NWR's impressions:
"If you had to imagine how SMB should control with the Wii, what would it be like? Stop to think for a moment. Now contrast your thoughts with how the game actually plays. The tilt sensors in the remote control the tilt of the board. So far so good right? Ok, but the designers apparently decided that you ought to hold the remote in one hand. However, when doing this, it's natural for the remote to be angled upward a bit and pointing at the TV. So they made that the neutral position. If you can manage to find and hold this position, your monkey will not roll anywhere. Good luck with that"

What I imagined was the controller was held sideways, like in Excite truck. This part of the impression is making it sound like its hard to control.

[Cortez the Kiler]

I'm surprised people are having trouble with the controls in the main game.  There are a few mini games I have issue with but the main games controls seem really intuitive.

[Griffin]

I bought this game as well, along with Zelda (duh) and Trauma Center.

After reading these impressions, I was really wary about playing the game. However, I had almost no problem with the game controls. It might depend on the way you hold the remote.

I basically held it like it was a mouse, and the A button was the left mouse button (lightly gripping the sides of the remote with my fingertips). This seemed to keep my hand steady, and still allowed me to comfortable rotate my wrist left and right.

Granted, I only played the first 8-9 levels of beginner, but I was able to get through every one of them without any hassle at all (well okay, I screwed up twice on level 7, but that was totally my doing, and not the controls).

I'll have to test out the multiplayer games to give it my full impression, but as for the single player, I have no issues with the controls at the moment (thank god...)

[MattVDB]

"Isn't that a bit extreme, though? Just because ONE game doesn't work as well as it should it doesn't mean that the entire system isn't worth it."

Well, honestly, it was a lot of little things.  Wii Sports is fun, but the ball for example in Tennis rarely does what you tell it to.  You swing left, it goes right.  You swing right, to keep it in bounds, and it goes further left.  The spin in bowling felt completely unnatural at first.  Baseball felt flat.  It was after all these simple annoyances that I then loaded up Monkey Ball.  I loved the first two, and heard great things about this one.  My first impression would have distinctly said otherwise.

Whack-a-mole sucks.  The Trombone DDR clone?  What were they thinking?  Catch a fish on a piece of paper?  Yeah, my thoughts exactly.  Many of the control methods for the monkey ball minigames just don't fly for me.  The pointer based ones work the best, and most of those were cool.  It's just unfortunate that the classics, like Monkey Target (The very reason to own Monkey Ball 2) were murdered.  Instead of 3 levels, with items and variety, there is one level with no items, and half of it is already completed for you, as you get shot out of a cannon towards the landing pad.  This was just sad.  There was just one poor game after another poor game after another in Monkey Ball's 50 minigame lineup.  That made me sad.  I knew there would be some stinkers but man it was hard to find enjoyable ones.  My worry was that this would become a common trend for Wii games, and that made me scared.  (Then again, it could be the fact that I've only had two hours of sleep in the past two days that caused me to be over concerned)

Then I found them.  The alusive good minigames.  They do exist.  There is a Shmup close.  There are physical exertion tests (The shotput/discus clone.  The batting cage).  My roomates and I were swining our controllers around so much, getting into them seriously, just trying to get the furthest distance in each competetion.  We ended up breaking a sweat, and it actually turned into a partial workout, the way we had it set up.  That was great.  There are some that are just so weird, and just not possible on anything but the Wii, that are insanely fun.  It's gotten better, but it's a shame that after playing most of the games only a few stand up.  WiiSports with 4 player Tennis/Bowling has changed my mind as well.  That is just crazy fun.  Even if the ball bounces weird from time to time.

[Cortez the Kiler]

I also think the minigames NEED friends to play with. I may only enjoy 70 percent of the mini games but with a friend I really enjoy that percentage a lot. I'm still not sure if my choice of this over Rayman was right but it is still a really good time.

[UltimatePartyBear]

A friend bought this.  After a while of being frustrated in the mini-games, I realized that the game wasn't using the tilt and motion of the controller as much as it claimed to.  I stood up and tilted it down, and if I pointed high at the screen, the game claimed I was tilting way far back.  We didn't retry any of the mini-games that gave us trouble after I realized that, though.

[RickPowers]

The only mini game that I've found to be worth the time so far is Monkey Darts.  I'm incredibly disappointed, and am trying to figure out how you could screw up something that was as fun as Monkey Target.

[Kairon]

Maybe what was fun about monkeyball was actually tied into using the analog stick? Or maybe sega just busted up the controls?

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[NWR_DrewMG]

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
sega just busted up the controls

Bing AGAIN.  </gratuitous groundhog day reference>

Seriously, Monkey Ball is perfect for motion sensing controls, but they didn't test it enough, I don't think.  I REALLY want to move the remote from left to right when playing, not just tilt.

 

[Kairon]

*sigh*

Oh sega...

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[trip1eX]

I like this game.  I heard it was broke or something, but it's downright fun.  Better than RRR imo.

And Monkey Wars?  No one is talking about this?  It seems to nail fps controls on the Wii.  Amazing.  It fps controls feel better than the ones in CoD3 or Red Steel.  Steady and smooth.  Amazing.  Check it out.

Great title.  

[Nick DiMola]

Over the week of Thanksgiving, me and my brothers played this extensively and I found all of the controls to be pretty intuitive (especially Monkey Wars, better FPS control than Red Steel). There were a few games here or there (like the trombone and whack a mole games) that worked like crap, but most of them were easy oncce you realized all of the particulars. I also noticed that you can't be too far away from the screen or else the controller doesn't seem to work right. The single player was fun IMO, not like the old ones but still fun (plus the way you hold the controller is beyond retarded). After playing I was considering a purchase just to be able to play the mini games with my friends. I'm still on the fence due to Wii Play, Wario Ware and Elebits coming out in the near future, so I may stall for now and wait for a price drop.

Just on a side note, Monkey Ball has been on a steady decline since #1. SMB2 was nowhere near as good as SMB except in the minigame department. SMBA is not worth mentioning. I didn't like SMB JR. on the GBA and I really didn't like Touch and Roll on the DS. Alternative methods of control for Monkey Ball aren't fairing well, nor are any of the true blood sequels. I think I give up on Monkey Ball ever returning to its former glory.  

[zakkiel]

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Wii Sports is fun, but the ball for example in Tennis rarely does what you tell it to. You swing left, it goes right.

 You don't swing in a direction to aim the ball, you use timing and the strength of the swing. This is how real tennis works. I agree with you on bowling, though. I've pretty much given up on it.

[ryancoke]

Monkey wars is awesome and so is monkey darts. There are a couple stinkers...the ring toss, monkey bowling/golf. I like the submarine one as well. The main game hurts my wrist but I think it's just because i haven't figured out the best way to hold the controller.

[Caliban]

The single-player mode is annoying me like freaking hell, the controls suck for it, I really wished there was the option to use the analog stick, arrrrrrgh.

[Ceric]

Its official I hate this game.  I want to like I would have liked it but.  I figured out you need to hold the Wiimote like a pen for it to work right.  Ok annoying but ok.  Then in the first set of levels I get the birds blowing me off... Ok  In the others it was just you and the course.. But whatever alright...  Then I beat the insultingly easy boss and boom... It puts me to the credits... I try to skip the credits so I could go but it won't let me... I don't know if it does this for each of the sets of levels by I'm about ready to shoot it... I watched credits for only a little less amount of time then it took me to beat the set of levels to begin with... Arg....  Nice way to maim a game I thought would be good.  Annoyances is greater then goodness...  Which is really sad because they could have all been easily address.  But I don't want to see the credits ten minutes into a game.  Sega, Stop m***********g yourselves.  

[Pale]

Anyone who is having trouble with the single player mode of the game, I urge you to try different monkeys.  If you don't think it's precise enough, play with the baby and you'll see how precise it can get.

[Mario]

I'm still getting this as soon as it's not sold out everywhere.