[Review] Super Monkey Ball: Sakura Edition (iOS)
Soon to be lost media.
In 2017, Sega began Sega Forever, an initiative to release their retro games on modern mobile platforms. This included lots of Mega Drive games, Crazy Taxi, and even games made earlier for mobile that had been delisted like Sonic 4 Episode 2, or Super Monkey Ball 2: Sakura Edition (more on the name in a minute). The project quickly ran out of steam and now it seems that Forever was itself a total misnomer, as these games (and other Sega mobile titles) are being delisted themselves.
The silver lining to this blow against preservation is that Sega is pulling a Good Guy move and making all these games free before removing them (and apparently stripping the ads from the ad-supported ones). This is how I came to play this semi-unique Monkey Ball title.
This is actually the third Monkey Ball release on iOS. In 2008 Other Ocean, a Canadian studio newly independent from Backbone/Foundation 9, made for Sega the unimaginatively titled Super Monkey Ball, a tilt-controlled take with content based on the Wii launch title Banana Blitz, although as far as I can tell the levels are newly designed. The follow-up SMB2 was more of the same taking from the five worlds not already adapted in the previous iOS title. SMB2 Sakura Edition followed shortly after, a refined rerelease with an extra world based on the newer Wii title Step & Roll—Far East—with a traditional Japanese theme complete with copious sakura.
Now hopefully the name makes sense. Since this game was originally released in 2010, it looks dated with low-poly geometry and character models. I actually like the charm of this kind of graphics though, the simplistic menus and such, and the flat vibrancy is a timeless look.
Being completely tilt-controlled in gameplay is a bit rough depending on the mass of your device. My old light iPad worked ok, except that tilting can uncomfortably shift your viewing angle, reflections, etc. I even triggered a 180 degree rotation at one point when I was trying to zoom!
The level designs are a bit gentler than typical Monkey Ball courses from what I can tell, to accomodate this less precise control scheme. It wasn’t until late in the bonus Sakura world that I really started getting grief from the game, and I never had a game over situation thankfully.
The world themes are visually nice, and each has two sets of ten levels plus a single Sakura set, for a total of 110. But there’s no story, no framing, no point; my favourite Super Monkey Ball Adventure’s ambition not to be repeated here at least. The character roster is merely the core four, not even a YanYan to be seen despite being established in the game this one is drawing from. There are some Monkey Party minigames at least, with Target, Bowling, and Golf offering a momentary diversion. But hey, for free it’s a pretty good deal as long as you get it before it’s gone!!
