Monkey Ball DS

[davidbrit2]

Did anybody else get impatient and import this? Here's what I think so far.

Good:
Silky smooth visuals and controls, and physics like the Gamecube games. The stylus control is worlds better than DX, to say the least. New stages are generally well made. Replay saving is a nice addition. The mini games are pretty sweet - Monkey Wars is an FPS that would be like what would happen if Sega made Monkey Ball Gun Survivor. Bowling felt kind of sluggish, though.

Bad:
Huge stylistic departure from past games. Monkey Ball 2 stage timing (i.e. stage animations begin at the fly-in, rather than at "GO!") No high score tables for Challenge mode. At all. ;_; Challenge mode has been restructured into a bunch of small 10 stage worlds. You can't continue, but you get extra lives for just 10 (!!!) bananas. There's a new obnoxiously long staff roll game that you can't skip, short of doing a soft reset, and it shows up every freaking time you clear a world. Challenge mode as a whole seems kind of short and easy to complete. I've only found one hidden world so far, for a total of 11, I think. (Anybody found any more?) Replay saving is nice, but you can only fit maybe 4 or 5 on the cart at once. It's sort of hard to "feel" where the stylus is in relation to the center, but you can just lift it off the screen to immediately release the input. Monkey Race moves the action display down onto the touch screen, for some bizarre reason, making things a little tricky to see.

Now if I could just figure out if there are more hidden worlds to find. Heh.

[THATinkjar]

Quite a few reads, but no replies. I, for one, am grateful for your impressions, as I am looking forward to this. I read what you wrote, but what is your overall impression? Is it still worth getting?

[videogameking26]

I'm very interested in buying this...but will just wait for the american version, tried the importing thing a couple times but had very bad luck. Anyway thanks for the impressions man, it sounds awesome.

Enjoy

[davidbrit2]

I read what you wrote, but what is your overall impression? Is it still worth getting?

If you're a Monkey Ball fan, definitely. It's just got a few annoying quirks that keep it from being a total masterpiece.

Oh, I discovered something rather dreadful last night, though. There doesn't seem to be any way for a lefty to play Monkey Wars. You can move with the d-pad, but not the buttons on the right. File that one under huge grievous oversight.