{"id":6412,"date":"2016-11-25T14:21:45","date_gmt":"2016-11-25T14:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielprimed.com\/?p=6412"},"modified":"2016-11-30T10:25:01","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T10:25:01","slug":"the-decline-of-super-monkey-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/2016\/11\/the-decline-of-super-monkey-ball\/","title":{"rendered":"The Decline of Super Monkey Ball"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"shutupqd6\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Because you’re asking ‘Why? Why are they in the balls?’ With this story, you’re going to find out why they’re in the balls.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014Marty Caplan, Producer of Super Monkey Ball Adventure<\/em><\/p>\n

Back in 2006\u00a0fans and critics universally panned Super Monkey Ball Adventure<\/em><\/a> labelling the game as the first misfire in the series. Given quotes like the one above, it’s not hard to understand why. In hindsight, Super Monkey Ball Adventure<\/em>‘s failure signalled the series’s decline over subsequent games. Yet for all its flaws, Adventure<\/em> was a spin-off from the main series developed by an external studio trying their hand at a new concept. The game is far removed from the main line Monkey Ball<\/em> games and their developers in Japan.<\/p>\n

Rather I would argue that Super Monkey Ball<\/em>‘s decline began from the second game in the series. Super Monkey Ball 2<\/em> added fast-moving objects, big drops, and mazes to the pool of precision-based challenges. Dr Bad Boon and songs about poo aside, the game’s new-fangled story mode defocused the gameplay through its do-what-you-want organisation of level challenges. Super Monkey Ball Deluxe<\/em>, a greatest hits spin on the first two titles, only added to the bloat with 43 new levels\u2014a middling compilation defined by expansive mazes, flat gimmicks, and few fresh ideas<\/a>. Not helping matters the lack of the Gamecube’s octagonal grooves in the PS2 and Xbox analogue sticks diminished the series’s iconic precision input. Super Monkey Ball Adventure<\/em> may have been the punching bag, but the series’s real decline started three years earlier.<\/p>\n

Chaotic Approach to Levels<\/h3>\n

Super Monkey Ball Deluxe<\/em> consists of two types of levels: tight navigational challenges which test the player’s ability to finely manoeuvre their monkey ball to the goal and ineffective gimmick levels which hinge on risk or chance. The latter group tend to feature the following elements:<\/p>\n

Sporadic jumping challenges and fast-moving objects<\/strong> which can knock the player off stage with little notice. The combination of the default behind-the-monkey camera angle, slow camera tracking, and fast movement speed inhibit the game’s ability to frame the action when the player quickly turns, falls, or makes a sporadic action. Unfortunately, some levels are constructed so as to elicit such perilous manoeuvrs.<\/p>\n

Mazes and dull switch puzzles<\/strong>. Given the default camera position, the player cannot easily see above walled areas. Thus without the information necessary to make informed decisions, most mazes boil down to guesswork. Some mazes spread themselves out for no apparent reason other than to force the player to move through a highly scaffolded environment.<\/p>\n

Random stage conceptions<\/strong> (for example, a giant wall textured in the Monkey Ball<\/em> website address or an insect walking along a cylinder) instead of challenges designed around the navigational nuances of the game system.<\/p>\n

To substantiate my argument, I’ve compiled a list of the worst offending levels from Super Monkey Ball Deluxe<\/em>. Most examples have a video link, so you can click through to see the level played out in full.<\/p>\n

Levels with Fast-moving Objects<\/span><\/p>\n

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Hoppers 2-5<\/a><\/p>\n

Inertial 3-3<\/a><\/p>\n

Reversible Gear 3-19<\/a><\/p>\n

Proskaters 4-1<\/a><\/p>\n

Launchers 4-10<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Coin Slots 4-13<\/a><\/p>\n

Stoppers 4-16<\/a><\/p>\n

Arthropod 4-18<\/a><\/p>\n

Meting Pot 5-4<\/a><\/p>\n

Brandished 6-6<\/a><\/p>\n

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Sieve 7-7<\/a><\/p>\n

Quick Turn 7-17<\/a><\/p>\n

Pistons 8-1<\/a><\/p>\n

Vortex, 8-9<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Levels with Bad Puzzles<\/span><\/p>\n

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Jolt Channel 2-17<\/a><\/p>\n

Sewer 3-9<\/a><\/p>\n

Dynamic Maze 4-20<\/a><\/p>\n

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Wormhole 5-1<\/a><\/p>\n

Mad Shuffle 5-6<\/a><\/p>\n

Bead Screen 5-7<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Switch Inferno 6-15<\/a><\/p>\n

Crazy Maze 9-9<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Levels with Big Jumps and Falls<\/span><\/p>\n

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Lunchbox 2-9<\/a><\/p>\n

Freefall 5-3<\/a><\/p>\n

Jump Machine 5-9<\/a><\/p>\n

Tower Word 5-13<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
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Hierarchy 7-13<\/a><\/p>\n

Brackets 7-15<\/a><\/p>\n

Serial Jump 9-1<\/a><\/p>\n

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Corkscrew 9-11<\/a><\/p>\n

Revolution 10-13<\/p>\n

Created By 10-17<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Levels with Poorly-implemented Gimmicks<\/span><\/p>\n

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Floaters 1-10<\/a><\/p>\n

Spinning Top 1-15<\/a><\/p>\n

Dormant Pits 1-17<\/a><\/p>\n

Switches 1-20<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
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U.R.L 3-8<\/a><\/p>\n

Folders 6-17<\/a><\/p>\n

Obstacle 7-4<\/a><\/p>\n

Domino 7-6<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
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Spinning Saw 9-4<\/a><\/p>\n

Air Hockey 9-17<\/a><\/p>\n

Gimmick 10-3<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In challenge mode the player cannot filter between the navigational challenges and ineffective gimmick levels, rather the two types are mixed in together. As a result, the effort you invest in manoeuvring through the obstacle courses can easily be undermined by the chance involved in many of the gimmicky stages. Furthermore, the luck involved in these levels also promotes a more reckless style of play which the player may transfer over to the dexterity-focused navigational challenges. These non-serious challenges can therefore have a potentially negative impact on player motivation and concentration.<\/p>\n

Organisation of Level Challenges<\/h3>\n

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Super Monkey Ball 2<\/em>‘s story mode defocuses the gameplay by giving the player too much control over their progression. For each world the player must complete ten out of a pool of twenty levels of varying difficulty. The selection screen includes difficulty rankings for each level and players can choose to complete whichever levels they like in whichever order they like. The player therefore has an unprecedented degree of freedom over the experience, being able to scale the difficulty as they see fit. The extra freedom sounds good on paper, but in reality the average player lacks the aptitude and strategies to successfully regulate their own learning.<\/p>\n

Regardless of one’s experience with a particular series or genre, players simply don’t know what the next set of challenges will look like, let alone what conceptual understandings or skills they’ll need going forward. If I were to trust someone to teach me a game, I would probably trust the people who made the game over myself, the novice. And so it is that the freedom to play whichever level one wishes should actually read as \u201cthe freedom to drive the difficulty curve off a cliff\u201d.<\/p>\n

If there’s one consolation, the level select does allow players to skip past the problematic levels discussed above. So in the end I personally didn’t mind the extra leeway.<\/p>\n

Camera Design<\/h3>\n

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Super Monkey Ball Deluxe<\/em>‘s camera is perfectly functional for most stages, but can prove troublesome for particular types of challenges. The camera sits behind the monkey ball and doesn’t like to move from its default position. If the ball turns, the camera will maintain its original reference point. This behaviour keeps the camera work clean and non-intrusive. Once the player releases the stick, though, the camera will swivel around the monkey ball until it arrives back in its default position. The rotation begins at a reasonable pace and then slows to a crawl as it comes in for landing behind the monkey ball. The player therefore controls the camera through intentional releases of the analogue stick following a turn.<\/p>\n

The camera\u2014privileging the default position\u2014will sometimes end its rotation before it arrives behind the monkey ball, leaving the player to contend with a slightly skewed perspective. I’m not exactly sure if this issue is related to the release, the turn, or something else\u2014but it exists nonetheless. The speed and responsiveness of the camera’s tracking exert an \u201cinvisible\u201d but powerful influence on Super Monkey Ball<\/em>‘s gameplay.<\/p>\n

The camera’s behaviour is crucial in 3D navigational games like Super Monkey as the camera establishes the nature of space. Super Monkey Ball<\/em> employs a tracking camera (as opposed to say a series of specifically programmed cameras as in, say, Super Mario 3D Land<\/em>), and so a significant element of play involves aligning the camera, monkey ball, and path ahead. By triangulating these elements, the player can simplify a game challenge.<\/p>\n