After years of remaking and re-releasing older Super Monkey Ball games, Sega finally has a whole new entry in the series in development. Revealed during today's Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase, Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble was announced as a Nintendo Switch exclusive. The game will feature 200 new levels, and will have optional motion controls. Players will also discover a new spin dash feature, which will apparently help to create shortcuts; in one example, Sega showed how it can be used to clear jumps.

A trailer for the game can be found below.



While single-player is getting some changes, players will also have a bunch of new multiplayer options as well. The game is adding four-player local co-op, as well as several online modes that can be enjoyed with up to 16 players. As far as online play goes, there are competitive modes such as Race and Banana Hunt, but players can also work together in Robot Smash.

With that many players potentially interacting at once in Banana Rumble, it could be easy to mix up characters. However, players will be able to make their monkey stand out thanks to new customization options. In the trailer, we can see how users can change up their monkey with sweaters, overalls, sunglasses, sneakers, and backpacks. The game will feature more than 300 customization options in total.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble Release Date
Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble will be released on June 25th. Pre-orders for the game opened today on the Nintendo Switch eShop, and there will be a physical release in addition to digital. The Legendary Banana Edition will have reversible cover art, a 40-page adventure book, and an exclusive banana suit avatar design.

Super Monkey Ball on Nintendo Systems
It's somewhat surprising that Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble is a Nintendo Switch exclusive! The past two entries in the series were Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz HD and Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania. Those two games were multi-platform releases, arriving on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. However, it seems Banana Rumble will be sticking to Switch this time. It's possible the game is a timed exclusive, or that sales for the other versions didn't justify bringing a new game to those platforms. That might seem unusual, but Super Monkey Ball has a long history on Nintendo systems, going back to the GameCube. The original Super Monkey Ball was a launch game on the system, and was an exclusive for a time.

Since then, entries in the Super Monkey Ball series have been released on a lot of Nintendo platforms, from consoles like Wii, to handhelds like Game Boy Advance and 3DS. Clearly, the series has a big following there, and it will be interesting to see if Switch fans embrace the new title.

Posted: Feb 25, 2024 12:53 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/super-monkey-ball-banana-rumble-announced-nintendo-switch/