Super Monkey Ball

The Super Monkey Ball series is a series of arcade platform games developed by Amusement Vision and distributed by Sega. It features 4 characters (3 in the arcade version): AiAi, MeeMee, Baby and (exclusive to console versions) GonGon. The game debuted in Japan in 2001 as an upright arcade cabinet simply called Monkey Ball (which featured a banana-shaped joystick) and later that year was released as one of the three original Nintendo GameCube games. Since then, many sequels and ports have been created.

Games

Here is a list of games in the Super Monkey Ball series.

Gameplay

As opposed to normal games where the player takes control of the character itself, Super Monkey Ball has the player move their character around by tilting the world itself (the exception of this being Super Monkey Ball Adventure). By tilting the board at various angles, players can control the speed and turning of the character. The goal of each level is to reach the goal gate to beat the clock and not falling off the level. Bonus points and extra lives can be earned by collecting bananas on the stage. Early games use traditional controllers to play while many recent titles utilize modern technology, such as the accelerometers of the Wii and iPhone titles. The gameplay is similar to Marble Madness.

Characters

The playable characters of the whole series are AiAi, MeeMee, Baby, GonGon, YanYan, Doctor, Jam, Jet, C AiAi, W MeeMee, A Baby, F GonGon, P YanYan, R Doctor, N Jam, and B Jet. AiAi is a playable character in Sonic Riders & Sega Superstars Tennis (the latter of which also features MeeMee as an unlockable character). AiAi also appears in Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. In this game, he rides a banana car and his All-Star move has him racing in his ball along with MeeMee, GonGon and Baby crashing into the other players. He returns in the sequel, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, along with the addition of MeeMee as a playable character. AiAi was also featured in Archie Comics' adapt of the second game in Sonic Universe #45.

The primary characters are AiAi, MeeMee, Baby and GonGon. They are present in many games. Super Monkey Ball Adventure, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, and Super Monkey Ball 3D incorporated a larger roster of playable characters, usually varying from title to title.

References