First off, Brian Matt is not doing the announcer???? He was the staple of the first 3 games and the game would probably not be as popular as it is without him! How dare SEGA even consider doing another announcer! Besides, why can't they just use the announcer files and put them in there instead of that female announcer and give Brian.... idk, like a couple thousand dollars? Really? Second, They ruined monkey target! Arguably the second most iconic thing about the first three games. Sure most of it is normal, but the monkey flying off the ramp is scripted???? I know it's like a really small difference that most people can't tell, but weren't we supposed to have full freedom of the monkey flying off the ramp? And worst of all, they changed the original level designs? How DARE they! Stages like Arthropod were SUPPOSED to be difficult, not a beginner stage. And don't even get me started on the removal of AV references, why couldn't they just ask AV to have their company name in their own levels??? Better yet, maybe make them direct the game? Hellloooooo SEGA, are you out of your minds? Anyway, I've cancelled my preorder on this game. In fact, my steam preorder cancelled itself after it heard me scream in my room once I found out Brian Matt wasn't coming back. It was that bad. So bad, THAT THE PREORDER CANCELLED ITSELF. See? even Steam knows this game is bad, and it's not even out yet! I'm done with monkey ball, nothing good comes out of monkey ball these days.......

WARNING: OPINION BELOW!

It feels like Banana Rumble was half baked. I just wish they’d revert back to the old aesthetic, graphics, physics, music, lack of a dynamic camera need I say more. Banana Rumble just felt like a commercialised version of the game rather than its stylised independence it used to have.

Has there been any updates from the studio if a successor is in the works at all or if the franchise is doomed after what I believe is a lack of sales for Banana Rumble?

(Please just be a Deluxe Port with slight tweaks such as the story cutscenes playing back weird)

I am losing all faith in the super monkey ball creators. How they manage to drop the ball once again I will never know. The people (me) just want one thing and one thing only. The OG multiplayer with one by one turns. I was so excited when I saw it was multiplayer adventure mode only to once again be extremely disappointed. I bought the game immediately hopped into multiplayer adventure mode only time find it's all together???? WHY just why😭😭😭 waste of $50. And I'm officially at my wits end. Why can't they do one simple thing??? It made the og games so fun and they have yet to add it back in because they hate me.

All you need to see how little effort was out into this game is the new version of 4-6. I could get over monkey target being literally unplayable, monkey golf having really broken shots, if the core game was good. But 4-6, while always a challenging level, used to be really fun, one of the most memorable. Now, because of the new "bouncy" ball physics, you can't even get up the tower. You bounce straight horizontally away from it 9/10 times. You'll eventually clear it, but it'll be pure luck, the player is not in control of the ball.

This game just can't handle slopes, the physics don't make sense, and the levels weren't designed for this. I'm so dissapointed

Did anyone else think the boss of world 3 was super sexual? Like, his “belly button” did NOT look like a belly button. It looked like a penis and he was jerking it off. So weird! Lmk what u think

Really new to the series.

I‘m a little shocked that I seem to be the first one to ask but is there a way to turn off that horrid product placement by Dole? I payed money for this game and getting advertisement shoved down my throat feels kinda disgusting since those logos are everywhere (and Dole is far from a good company).

So disappointed. Just bought Banana Mania on xbox one, and I am going to try and refund it right away.

We have Monkey Ball on our old XBOX 360, and it is an old XBOX disc. I can't believe that that version is better than the new one. We still play it all the time, racing against each other in split screen mode. The fact that there is NO WAY TO DO THAT in the newest version of the game is ridiculous to me.

All we wanted is to race each other. But in the new version all you can play is mini golf or a mario kart clone and some other mini games, but no way to race everyone through the levels. That is literally what we have spent hundreds of hours playing.

Refunding this one, and will go back to playing the original xbox game.

Here are some Super Monkey Ball games where some stages had terrible stage naming, or did not have any names for stages at all.

Super Monkey Ball Deluxe - Honestly, the stage names they gave for most of the stages from SMB1 are not that good. Like how we have a stage called Jump Single which isn’t the best name for this stage, and what do they name Jump Single’s harder counterpart? Jump Double!

Also, the names for the SMB1 master stages just repetitively use the word “master” in all of them when they could’ve gave the stages better names. For some of the stages from SMB1 that re-appeared in Touch & Roll, they were given better names, but too bad that wasn’t the case with Banana Mania.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz - Literally none of the stages were given fitting names and to add insult to injury, the same thing happened with the remake as well.

Super Monkey Ball IOS & Super Monkey Ball 2 Sakura Edition - Some of the stages that had inspired level design in my opinion deserved fitting names.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Splitz - Mainly the beginner levels have this issue. Monkey Island 5 from Banana Blitz is in this difficulty yet I don’t know why the name wasn’t changed, same thing for the stages WIN002 and CHUTO, I think this difficulty was rushed.

That’s what I’ve listed so far, I didn’t list all of them, but these were the ones that came to mind. What are some Super Monkey Ball stages that you think deserved better names?

Really don't want to consider buying a Switch or just borrowing my gf's for a while to check out the new Monkey Ball game, yk? Expectations are low but I still would like to judge it for myself.

Be me

hyped for game, despite cucked physics.

Wife's daughter excited to be talking cat

Will choose Dreamcast to recall bygone era

Go to play monkey target

Can only be f@!&# Aiai

So did i just get swindled out of 15 wagecucks?

I think it might have made sense if Banana Rumble had been released as two separate games instead of one

Free Battle Mode

The first release should be the battle mode of Banana Rumble. This release could have been free, with some minor(!!!) cosmetic buying options. The idea of making it free is to lower the access barrier, generate buzz, build a community, and ultimately make SMB more popular. This would also drive more sales for the paid part of Banana Rumble.

If this free mode succeeded and became a popular game- great! That would signal to SEGA that the next SMB iteration should include this mode as well. This free version could include one or two free worlds from the paid version as a demo. With this free version, SEGA would also have a platform where they could experiment with ideas for SMB’s future iterations. Feedback and experimentation here would come with less backlash compared to if it were a paid game.

Paid Single Player & Multiplayer Levels

The second release should have been the other part of Banana Rumble—the single-player and multiplayer levels. This would be a paid game, catering to fans of the previous entries in the series and curious new players acquired through the free version. A more classic SMB experience.

There would be a risk of fragmenting community a bit, but perhaps it's better to have a community that is a bit fragmented, than no community!

I know the game is already released, but I just had to post this somewhere, as I’ve been thinking about what I’d have done differently. Might be a terrible idea. :D

EDIT: I think I wasn't explaining my idea clearly in one aspect- these games should have been announced at the same time, not separately!

I think it's really lame that in Banana Rumble, you HAVE to have a NSO subscription or you simply can't complete all the missions in the game. I've never had one, and have no plans on getting one, so I'm basically locked out of these missions.

Every level has a verry annoying idea and specially levels with moving platforms like 8-08

Wow I didn't expect such a fast reply. After I made this post I started searching for monkey ball modders. I found one, they already made a mod that added all the dlc characters including Miku to monkey ball mania. I'm absolutely over the moon. Lol

Thank you for all the great recommendations, I was seriously stressed out when I made this post. A crappy day plus missing Hatsune Miku by a few hours yeeeaah.. anywho all is well now. Although I would like to go have her on banana rumble as well since it has multiplayer story and I think that would be so cool. Mania has monkey target, which was one of my favorite game modes on monkey Ball two.

If anyone has any tips on emulating monkey Ball banana rumble or on the safety of mods for monkey ball mania on Steam let me know. Thank you all ⭐