Among a few other internet-breaking news stories that have come out of Nintendo's E3 conference, fans of a certain SEGA franchise were given a surprise during its direct. After many months of leaks and rumors, one of SEGA's classic franchises, Super Monkey Ball, will be having a new game coming onto the Nintendo Switch and it's titled Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania.
In celebration of the franchise's 20th anniversary, three games of its expansive history will be featured in this remastered collection. These include the first two games, Super Monkey Ball and Super Monkey Ball 2, along with Super Monkey Ball Deluxe. Deluxe in particular was a compilation of stages between the first two while adding its own original levels. The Super Monkey Ball series was the creation of Toshihiro Nagosi, who is known as the current director of the entirety of the Yakuza series.
The Super Monkey Ball games are platformers, where the goal is to reach the end of the stage, and cross the goal post while navigating terrifying level structures and traps. This is all done while the player characters are monkeys inside of ball capsules. Much like SEGA's other franchise Sonic the Hedgehog, the idea is to get to the end of the stage as quickly as possible, while maneuvering the level with high precision. When taking into account that this collection is spanning across three titles, there are over 300 stages that can be played.
But that is not all that a player can roll through. If the main story mode is giving them trouble, players can also play a variety of mini-games. The trailer briefly showcased some of these mini-games, such as "Monkey Baseball" and "Monkey Billiards." The remastered visuals and stages were also shown, where the characters have now been updated to match some of their current designs, as well as some higher resolution textures and assets.
Super Monkey Ball is no stranger to the Nintendo console, with the last release being Banana Blitz HD a few years ago, and this release is looking to continue the tradition. While Banana Blitz HD was not the grand return to the series, it was a bone thrown in the fanbase's direction. The series had been mostly radio silent, with the last original platformer title being 2012's Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz on the Vita. This title however is also looking to bring in some new fans, by including the games that had started it all, giving them a showcase of their roots.
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania will be available on Nintendo Switch on October 5, 2021.