Super Monkey Ball: Touch and Roll DS review

You may as well give up. There's no escape. The combination of monkeys plus balls is an unbeatable matrimony that few formats will ever elude, given time. After the success of
Super Monkey Ball on nearly every current console, Sega has decided to bring the franchise to the DS in what's expected to be the snuggest fit of gameplay and format yet.

So, portable touch screen controls, plus Monkey Ball, divided by single-cart multiplayer partygames, equals crazy fun? Sounds like a match made in monkey heaven.

Or at least, it should be. Best laid plans, the road to hell and so on…

Touch Me, Tease Me

The slapstick tone is set from the very beginning once the title screen is up. Namely, one of the game's main characters, AiAi, shaking his ass to music and asking you to touch him. Cheeky. Although perhaps a little too open to the same sort of ill-informed people who are currently trying to convince the public that paedophiles stalk Pictochat 'online' (sigh). But we digress. Brilliantly obscene booty shaking intro aside, Monkey Ball is all about abstract silliness. Those unfamiliar with the concept, it goes something like this: you choose one of four monkeys, they get placed in a little transparent hamster-ball and you have to guide them to a goal at the end of various mazes. All under a time limit.

Each character has a different weight and inertia that can help or hinder you in trying to keep your monkey from falling off into the bottomless abyss that surrounds the maze. There's also collectable bananas (although not sponsored by Dole, this time) that earn you extra lives. And that's about the size of things. Simple.

Or at least, it would be. The skill comes from the fact the mazes are fiendishly tricky and often inventive, requiring a fair amount of manual dexterity. Often you struggle, try again, struggle some more, try again and eventually figure out your approach was all wrong. Or you weren't patient enough. Or conversely, not impatient enough. But the philosophy behind it all is that with deft control, the course can beaten. Achievement through persistence. Which is sadly the exact point where Touch and Roll, at least in its single-player mode, Things Fall Apart.

(Not) a Design for Life

So, the controls. You have the option to use the D-pad, but let's face it; you won't be using that at first. It's the excitement of utilising the touch screen that's got you excited, and seeing as that’s a selling point, it makes sense. Primarily it's great. Once you get used to nuances of moving your monkey with the stylus, controlling speed and direction with the smallest of pushes, you can be surprisingly accurate.

Then the level design totally and utterly screws all that into a ditch and leaves you for dead, with nothing but monkey crap remaining on your stylus hand.

Many of the courses beyond the opening easy batch simply don’t work well with the touch screen. Not to say that's the fault itself, but when coupled with the level design, it becomes a hellish combination, as many of the courses aren't that well suited to the inevitable vagaries of the control system. Even switching back to the more muted D-pad doesn’t alleviate the problems of the camera spinning every time you remain stationary, which in turn throws precision out the window. So you're then having to recalibrate your stylus aim, or mess around with the D-pad while the camera is still rotating, which sends your monkey shooting off in the wrong direction and killing you. No. No no no no NO.

The courses fail to accommodate this little issue, and so with the lack of physical borders to reign in your stylus hand, you slip and slide all over the place when trying to keep an even keel. It's frustrating. And with the latter levels punishing you for the lack of a Johnny Mnemonic style game-to-brain interface, you're left fighting the temptation to throwing your DS across the room.

Mixed Monkey Magic

It's a shame, really. Because a fair bit of Touch and Roll is really rather well done. The visuals are typically bright and colourful, with a steady frame rate and some lovely background detail and animation. Even the sound is surprisingly rich and well composed, certainly as varied than the GameCube/PS2 iterations, bizarrely enough. Although true to form, they soon get on your nerves and you'll be reaching for the volume dial to spare your sanity. Still, it could have been so much worse, and it's bearable at times.

Then there's the minigames, which for half of the part, are a stylus stroke of veritable genius. There are six modes in total, playable across single and multiplayer; Monkey Race, Monkey Fight, Monkey Mini Golf and Monkey Bowling being the mainstays, joined by the DS exclusive Monkey Hockey and Monkey Wars. All playable via wireless and just one cart.

Of these, three are fantastic, the others… well, aren't. You may be surprised as to which ones fall into the above brackets…

The Good…

Let's go for the pleasantries first. Golf, as usual, is exceptional. Using the touch screen to gauge direction and swing power works wonderfully, and many of the courses are insane enough to be entertaining, yet still well thought-out enough to be a joy. Bowling is also excellent. Not as good as the original on the main consoles, mostly because the pin physics don’t feel quite right. But it's good enough, and the use of the touch screen for aiming (while the force of the ball is judged by how quickly you draw the path of your aim) is a nice fit.

The real surprise is Hockey, which is effectively table hockey with two separate modes. The first is the plain vanilla style, for up to four players, where you can gain power-ups to either grow or shrink your paddle. But the second mode gives you an allotted amount of 'ink' which you use to draw your own bat. Then you play with the added danger of your bat shrinking as time goes on, alongside other hazards such as your goalmouth widening. It's certified insanity. But it's also utterly compulsive gaming. Especially in four-player mode where you're desperately trying to draw new bats, fend off the ball and deprive your opponents of ink, all at the same time.

There's a few glitches which spoil things at times, like the ball going through the bat or the stylus inexplicably losing track of the paddle, but overall Hockey the surprise hit of the package and very worthy of your attention. Even the AI is good, for those lacking partners.

…the Bad…

However, the rest of the games fail because, you guessed it, of the touch screen. Monkey Fight suffers as your stylus hand gets in the way of the screen, making things far too unclear for the frantic action that works so well on the bigger consoles. The same goes for Race, which relies on you pushing forward around the course using the touch screen, but irritates because you're constantly stroking towards the edge of the screen and having to re-centre the stylus. The dangerously infallible AI also decreases the fun. With other players, this is far less of an issue, but it's nonetheless damaged.

Monkey Wars provides the biggest disappointment. It's essentially an attempt at creating a first-person shooter, but it flops due to some poor control decisions. There's no point-look method, instead you have to use the on-screen direction-gauge/buttons to turn, and tap it to shoot. It's just far too unwieldy, especially in the complex maze type environments the levels are set in.

The AI is pretty bad here too, meaning it's a minigame that really only works with other human players, but again the control makes it too fussy to be of much fun. Which is a pity, as instead of being the crowning diversion of the bunch, it's left as the one you're least likely to… well, touch.

…and the Disappointingly Ugly

So, three great minigames, three average to bad ones, and one flawed single-player game. Hmmm. A conundrum to score, but there's a few things worth considering. Firstly, how much will you play the minigames compared to the single-player game? The better ones are addictive enough to be engaging for a decent time, especially in single-cart link-up. But secondly, do you have enough contact with other players to get the full enjoyment from them? There's no online option, so it's strictly for those going wireless, and while the AI is good in Hockey, you really need to experience it all with mates to make it worth the money.

Thirdly, if you can deal with the maddening single-player mode, then there's a lot more value for money here. Although it has to be said, short of you being a cyborg with 22nd century post-human reflexes and patience, that's unlikely beyond the first few worlds.

All of which leaves us with something unbalanced in favour of the lower end of 'above average'. Super Monkey Ball: Touch & Roll is a very amiable game. You really want to it to be better than it is, and with its flashes of brilliance it's easy to get deceived into thinking it's far more playable than initial appearances. But in reality, it’s too dear a financial outlay when you may end up only playing effectively less than half of the whole cartridge. Which is too much for too little, at the end of the day. Hopefully the inevitable Touch and Roll sequel will provide a more rounded experience.