Super Monkey Ball Adventure
| Super Monkey Ball Adventure | |
|---|---|
 PAL region PlayStation 2 cover art | |
| Developer(s) | Traveller's Tales |
| Publisher(s) | Sega |
| Composer(s) | Simon Forster |
| Series | Super Monkey Ball |
| Platform(s) |
GameCube PlayStation 2 PlayStation Portable |
| Release |
PlayStation 2
|
| Genre(s) | Platform |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Super Monkey Ball Adventure is a video game developed by Traveller's Tales in association with the division Traveller's Tales Oxford and distributed by Sega in the Super Monkey Ball series, released on June 30, 2006.
Super Monkey Ball Adventure is a departure from the series in the sense that the puzzle-based gameplay is replaced by a more traditional 3D platform game world. Traveller's Tales has retained some of the mini-games, however, and integrated the features into the gameplay. Some new mini-games are also integrated into the adventure world. This gameplay shift contributed to why it received negative reviews from critics.
Plot
AiAi, MeeMee, Baby and GonGon are barbecuing bananas on Jungle Island when, all of a sudden, the alarm bells of the Tree Palace sound. King Junjun of Jungle Island tells them the sorrow and naysayers that have spread throughout the five kingdoms, brought on by Prince AbeABE of Monkitropolis and Princess Dee-Dee of Kongri-la's visit to the island. Once the prince and princess's identities are revealed, their true love for each other is, too. King Junjun and the Super Monkey Ball team work together to bring on the wedding of the year - but it is not easy. Monkitropolis and Kongri-la are great rivals, and before the wedding can happen, AiAi and friends must help bring peace to them.
The conflict of the two kingdoms is that "monsters" from Kongri-la are invading Monkitropolis, and the noise from Monkitropolis forces the Kongri-lans to wear tribal-like masks and even going as far as to stealing the sun to get some warmth. Going undercover, you help one kingdom solve some problems with the other, and vice versa. However, when the invitation of the wedding is delivered to both kings and queens, they reject them with similar responses. After talking to King Kon-kon of Kongri-la, suddenly the two throne rooms are connected into a yin-yang and both kings accuse each other of being monsters. AiAi, fed up with the conflict, rips the masks off their faces and points out the obvious - how there are no monsters and that they made up their own. The final mission from NikNIK does just that - pulling the masks off Kongri-lans in the city and showing him (and others) the beginning of a new era in Monkitropolis and Kongri-la.
At the wedding, the true ending does not play until the player has completed all missions. This ending reveals something shocking - that monkey in the robot suit showing you chants? That was AiAi, from the future. The balls the monkeys are enclosed in, as Future AiAi explains, are magic energy balls AiAi and GonGon invent together in their future business, AiGon Inventions, and the story ends with Baby returning home with his father in the future.
Gameplay
Story Mode
There are five main worlds, or "Monkey Kingdoms", through which the player progresses: Jungle Island, Moonhaven, Zootopia, Monkitropolis, and Kongri-la. The goal of the game is to unite the feuding kingdoms of Monkitropolis and Kongri-la. Follow the normal story and complete over 60 quests from the monkeys around the Monkey World, using up to three different files.
There are on average, four sections to each world. To enter a different section, the player must wait several seconds. During that time, the game depicts the entire level from a high angle, showing everything in the level in an animated style. The same style shows up when Aiai teleports to another level. It depicts the four main monkeys blasting off into the sky while loading the level.[1]
Missions involve helping haywire problems going back to normal, fixing machines, and helping local monkeys out. Pospos the mailmonkey helps deliver messages to some characters invited to the wedding for a band reunion. However, he needs a little help remembering their name.
Although the player has to bring peace back to the five islands, there are some monsters, called "Naysayers," trying to stop them. These Naysayers are monsters that are formed from sorrow, as the peace had become disturbed. In order to advance to the next world, the player must complete at least 60% of missions in each world. Some missions are simple, while others are more lengthy and challenging.
Challenge Mode
Re-visit puzzle stages that have been unlocked in the game and compete for high-scores (possibly to win bananas that can be used to unlock new items). Unlike all the other games, SMBA has no practice mode to practice levels that were previously completed by the player. These levels are contained in story mode. There are six continues of three lives, totaling 18 lives altogether.
Like all games in the Super Monkey Ball franchise, the player must control their selected monkey of the four main characters (Aiai, Meemee, Baby and Gongon) with the analog stick to cross platforms, to reach the goal in a time limit of a minute. The goal is a circle-shape with a party ball on above a banner reading "GOAL". The monkey must pass through it to move on, breaking open the party ball and celebrating. Falling off the platforms or letting the timer reach zero causes the player to lose a life. Fifty bananas are required to gain a life, which are usually placed in corners of levels and hard-to-reach and risky places.
The monkeys have unlimited lives here, with the choice to give up and return to the game. The levels are themed as the same as the main Monkey Kingdoms, depending on the difficulty (ex. Jungle Island's color, green, and backdrop is used for the beginner levels). Also a feature removed is that there are no extra stages added on to the Beginner, Advanced and Expert modes. There are 49 stages; 12 beginner, 20 advanced and 17 expert. Stages have several random music tracks playing, some from previous Monkey Ball games.
During Story mode, these levels are in areas of the Monkey Kingdoms. In order to unlock new areas of the Kingdom, Aiai must complete a majority of the levels to progress. Stages come in bunches of four to ten stages per area.
Party Games
There are six different available mini-games, complete with multi-player support, with 20 selectable characters to choose from. Additional features beyond the basic ones are unlocked through an NPC-Store using bananas gathered during adventure mode.
Development
Where as previous Super Monkey Ball games focused mainly on innovative gameplay, Sega emphasized plot in Super Monkey Ball Adventure as a move to make the game more accessible.[2]
Critical reception
Super Monkey Ball Adventure received negative reviews from critics. This was due to the confusion of goals (the significant difference compared to the other Super Monkey Ball games), the lack of character control (causing a lot of falls, especially in water), repetitive and long loading screens, sound glitches, and other various game glitches and crashes.[3] Super Monkey Ball Adventure obtained a rare ranking of zero percent on Rotten Tomatoes' video game section.[4] Nintendo Power gave the game a 5.5 out of 10 rating and it, along with many other sources, claimed it was the worst installment thus far in the Super Monkey Ball series. X-Play gave it a 1 out of 5.[5] IGN gave the game a "Bad" rating at 4.8 out of 10, stating that "We just want to play the damned puzzle mazes." The game's soundtrack, however, was highly praised.[6]
References
- ↑ "Super Monkey Ball Adventure Gallery". GamersHell.com. Retrieved August 31, 2007.
- ↑ Hoffman, Chris (June 2006). "Planet of the Apes". Nintendo Power (204): 40–41.
- ↑ Tom Bramwell (April 7, 2006). "Super Monkey Ball Adventure Review".
- ↑ Matt Casamanissa (April 6, 2006). "Super Monkey Ball Adventure - We chat with SEGA producer Marty Caplan about the game". Archived from the original on May 15, 2007. Retrieved September 12, 2006.
- ↑ Blair Butler (August 29, 2006). "Super Monkey Ball Adventure Review". Retrieved July 7, 2013.
- ↑ MATT CASAMASSINA (August 29, 2006). "SUPER MONKEY BALL ADVENTURE REVIEW".