Limber up as it’s time to play Super Monkey Ball with the full force of your toned body.

Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll is a childhood dream of mine come true. I’d endlessly play the original Super Monkey Ball on GameCube until my analogue stick got old and worn, but I’d never be able to imagine a world in which I could feel as though I was actually there, controlling the Monkey Ball’s with my own body but alas, in 2010, that dream came true as I literally rolled my body to victory.

Control Pads, touch controls, Wii Remotes and D-Pads were thrown out of the window for this edition as you control your character with the Wii Balance Board. Standing proud on the board, you tilt your body forward, left or right, flailing your arms out for extra leverage, to roll your monkey around this collection of mid-air mazes.

Controls:
The controls initially seem very awkward and you may even struggle to roll in a straight line, if your balance is as terrible as mine, but over time you’ll get better controlling your centre of gravity and get the hang of things. There’s a Wii Balance Board icon in the bottom corner of the screen with a red dot showing exactly where the point of balance is in that moment, so if you’re not sure you can always look at the dot to re-balance yourself.

Moving your arms out in the direction you want to go as well as learning will shift the weight even more, so whilst you may look at bit ridiculous and it could seem as though you’re pulling off the worst dance-routine of all time to on-lookers, it will improve your monkey tilting skills.

Even after getting used to the control scheme and using the red dot as a reference, trying to control a game such as this with the tilts of your body is extremely hard and as such, even if you become a pro at this title, you’ll never be able to pull off the kind of stunts your GameCube pad and thumbs could.

Design:
To accommodate the controls and your less than able body, the levels aren’t as extreme as in previous Monkey Ball games. Despite this, the levels still seem a lot harder because of the constant leaning and flailing required. In accommodating this new control scheme, the wider levels, railings on the sides and longer time-limits make this feel like less of a fast-paced arcade game and more of a slow journey through a series of puzzles. Whilst it is fun to experience each level as you progress through the game, you won’t feel compelled to come back to play them again and again to get a high score as you did in the older titles.

Did it work?
It’s a hell of a lot of fun and very interesting but is best left as it is - a side game and one-off attempt. I wouldn’t want all Monkey Ball games to follow this type of control method. Kind of like the FLUDD in Sunshine or bongo controls of Jungle Beat, it’s a very interesting and fun gimmick but it’s one that needn’t be done again.

Visuals and sound
The visuals are clean and crisp, perfect for when you need to concentrate on the platforms around you. In fact, they’re so smooth that it looks more like a kids CGI cartoon than an actual videogame.

But the highlight of this entire game for me is the music. As you enter a world, a simple melody will start playing that slowly builds up as you progress from one level to the next, adding drums when you pass one goal, more melody for the next level, stripping everything away to just the beats for the bonus stage in the middle then back into the song seamlessly, before the last few levels are a full instrumental theme that sounds just awesome... until the explosive ending!

Each world has its own credits mini-game and over the top of that mini-game plays the completed instrumental of the song you’ve just been building up but with vocals too. The amount of effort and inventiveness that went into the music for this title is utterly insane and is one thing I really hope they carry over to Super Monkey Ball games of the future. An example of the graphics and slowly building music can be found in my play through of World 1 below:

Memories
I’ve had a lot of fun with this game. My initial play-through was a tormented yet enlightening one, as I struggled endlessly getting to grips with the controls but later figured out it was mostly the fault of my terrible balance. Not only that but I was genuinely in awe of the music in this title when I first played it, in a way I hadn’t been since NiGHTS, as the slowly building themes were a great way to draw you into the worlds.

My favourite moments are probably some of the times I’ve got my friends to play it though, totally bewildered by the concept. Whilst we did especially terribly on this attempt, the most fun was having my friend stand on the Balance Board and use him as a human arcade stick, as he stood still in the middle and I tilted him through the first world. if ever there was a ‘new way to play’ then that was certainly it. My carpet didn’t appreciate the masses of Disaronno and coke it had to absorb with that play session, mind. Perhaps it’s something SEGA could think about for their next demo of a Monkey Ball title.

Verdict
Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll was a bizarre side project, using the balance board in a very unique way. It’s a lot of fun to play but very hard to master. If you’re looking for some more fun on your Balance Board outside of the world of Wii Fit then this is definitely the way to go, but if you’re looking for a true Monkey Ball game then you’re probably better off looking elsewhere.