Super Monkey Ball Adventure

"We'll never find peace as long as we ignore the sadness of strangers!"

Hmm...I don't mind helping strangers, but when every single one has something that turns out to be frustrating and tedious in some way, it gets old pretty fast. Super Monkey Ball Adventure takes the pretty fun formula of the first two and screws it up horribly.

Let me tell you why this game sucks so bad. It is good for absolutely no age. The laughably easy problems you're faced with could be solved by someone seven years old, but then you come upon tough puzzles and more challenging problems later on. This is too hard for the seven-year-old. A teenager gets through the puzzles but is then frustrated by the insanely poorly designed troubles. One involved flying around a roller coaster trying to rescue kids who were floating in the air by way of helium balloons. If you ever bumped the roller coaster, you fell in the water and had to start all over. The flight controls are imprecise and annoying, and the camera doesn't allow you to see anything except what's directly in front of you, which makes turning risky and difficult. This is an excellent example of the overall tone of the game.

You can learn chants that allow your ball to do things like expand in size, become invisible, or turn into wood, which allows you to float and safely catch fire. These are entertaining for about 10 seconds after you get them. The times you'll need to use these chants will be terribly obvious, mainly because most of the monkeys with problems that you help tell you exactly what chant to use.

Every once in awhile you'll come upon an entrance to the Puzzle Realm, where you will engage in a few of the 49 puzzles included in this game. After completing them, a door will open, allowing you access to a new area. The puzzles get harder and harder as you go along. These puzzles present a nice break from the horrible game play, but they get monotonous after not too long. Basically, one time through the Story Mode (which I still haven't struggled through) is all you'll ever want to do.

The graphics are fine, the music is repetitive and mediocre, the game play is terrible except for the puzzles which are few and far between, and the story is in the Top 5 Worst I've Ever Seen. Challenge Mode is fun (it's what made the Super Monkey Ball series popular in the first place), and the multi player games provide a little bit of entertainment, but overall this entry falls way short. A 3 or 5-day rent is all right, but don't waste more then five bucks on this bottom-of-the-bargain-bin junk.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/18/07