Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania is the latest installment in SEGA's arcade take on Marble Madness. Tilt the world and direct some monkeys in balls towards the goal, albeit this time with the ability to swap them out for Sonic the Hedgehog. It's also a celebration of the franchise as it lovingly recreates stages from the GameCube era.

A snippet.

As a game Super Monkey Ball made its biggest splash at the turn of the new millennium as one of the first third-party standouts for the then brand-new Nintendo GameCube. Debuting on a brand-new console that was turning heads with its impressive-for-the-time rendering of fancy 3D visuals in games like Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, SEGA's Super Monkey Ball was simpler. In terms of its look and easy to understand setup it was Marble Madness... except you’re tilting a stage to direct a monkey inside of a ball towards a goal.

The core game is as easy as that and hasn’t changed. Except that it’s not really easy in the challenge sense. Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania’s dedicated story mode is a testament to that, with it covering a range of creative stages across a number of themed locales. It definitely eases you in, especially if you’re a newcomer, but it’s also surprisingly quick to lean into the stuff found in the compendium of stages from the first two GameCube outings.

Our Full Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania Review