It’s a nice little Monkey-Ball-like
If you’re an OG Monkey Ball physics purist like myself, you’re gonna notice a few problems.
1. Camera
The camera in this game seems to go in the direction your left joystick is facing and not the direction your character is moving. This means that if you’re trying to slow down (holding the stick back) while rolling down a hill, the camera will think you’re trying to go uphill so it pans backwards even though you’re technically still moving down the hill. This is especially prevalent in the “Rings” stage.
To fix this, they added a free camera that you can change with the right joystick, and I appreciate it. It’s extremely helpful for stages like Exam where I need precise angles to move forward. I always wished I could have it on “Narrow Peaks” in SMB2. But most of the time, especially with “Rings”, I’m using it because the camera doesn’t go where I expect it to go, so I correct it myself.
The default camera settings are a little slow to my liking. Again, if you’re a purist, I’d set the camera sensitivity to +2. It makes turning much more fluid.
2. Friction
In short, the game feels like you’re on ice. There are times where the ball isn’t even rolling yet your character is still sliding on the stage. The ball has very little grip, and it can make stopping or changing direction a chore. I’m glad the game preserves momentum unlike Banana Mania, but the lack of friction ruins what momentum I gathered.
3. Bounce
This feels like the ball is made of rubber. I can only imagine trying to play Opera with the bounciness from this game.
Now I’m not THAT much of a physics purist to let that alone ruin my enjoyment. But I know that’s the information everyone’s looking for. I’ll talk about some of the other features now.
LIVES
The life system is genius. Instead of just a set number of lives, every 1000 points = 1 life. So if you get 4,000 points by entering a goal, you have 4 more. It’s a lot more interesting (and forgiving) to have lives based on score rather than a set amount.
GIMMICKS
I can see a lot of inspiration from Portal with the warps, moving objects onto buttons, and levitation beams. They all fit really well with this kind of game. The warps aren’t actual gates, so if you touch one, you’re going to be facing the same direction on the the other side no matter what. I find myself creeping up to every single warp just in case.
TEXTURES
Very faithful to Monkey Ball. It drives me nuts when other ga
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