Reviews from

in the past


Overall this game throws out everything that made the older Super Monkey Ball games great. The level design is mostly boring, and guard rails surround many of the levels even to the end. The minigames make the game somewhat worthwhile, however it's not worth owning just for that.

This is genuinely an insult to the Super Monkey Ball series it’s insane. Such souless and easy level design with no substance whatsoever. This isn’t even a good portable game it’s just flat out bad. Uh, i can say the level themes are cool though.

Completed in a few hours, then sold

Not very challenging and the side modes are lackluster, but it does offer some fun.

so many walls it took me until world 5 to lose a life. i also accidentally downloaded it in japanese oops


I've never played a monkey ball game. I didn't find this game very challenging but since it's my first time with these mechanics I still had a good time. I allow for score changes here after playing other monkey ball games.

Boring-ass, flash game looking-ass, bowling ball bumper-ass game.

should be called Super Baby Ball because they literally put bowling alley baby bumpers on every stage

Someone probably wants me dead for thinking this is a good Monkey Ball game.

Meter bolas en agujeros nunca habia sido tan divertido.... Sin Albur..

I had a great time playing this for 15 hours. I went out of my way to unlock everything in every mode and get all the collectibles (in game achievements). Even though you can clear the main mode quickly, it kept me interested enough to keep playing a little bit every day. I haven’t played the other monkey ball games yet though, so I come from a fresh perspective.

The 3D is good, I like the soundtrack, the variety in modes and the challenge that gradually goes up. The kart racing mode especially surprised me because it felt very challenging. The controls felt bad at the beginning, but mastering it felt very satisfying.

ITS JUST
its just monkey ball on 3ds
Id rate it higher but legit doesnt even have cutscenes or fun little animated things other than the monkeys having a pop-up book entry way thing. I also noticed that a lot of the level design actually kinda sucks dick instead of being really fun or hitting you with various different obstacles, there's also a SHOCKING lack of slides in this one like what the fuck?????

I played as Meemee the whole way through because she's adorable but even then shes been a staple for so long for pretty much every entry it doesnt even matter bc they all play the exact same.

But i beat every "World" in this game really fast in the span of like legit an hour tops right before bed tonight, kind of a lukewarm thing to end the night on but at the very least SEGA did accomplish one thing with this

its monkey ball gameplay on your 3ds, but at what cost girl

about what i expected. very meh. not strictly unenjoyable or anything, but the stages are very much like step n' roll in that they are mostly about being big and mazelike rather than fun arcade-y challenges that the series is known and revered for; this also makes the game very easy and very short with very little replay value. blah. 3/10

An improvement over Step and Roll but still follows that game's level design philosophy. So dull, but not awful.

Um jogo muito legal de puzzle, usa muito bem as funções de giroscópio do 3DS, e de corrida, pra mim que não tinha Mario Kart fazia muito bem a vez.

i mean it was my first monkey ball so it’s cool but it is very lacklustre

Super Monkey Ball has had a hard time with motion controls. The lack of a neutral position on the Wii Remote has made things a bit tricky. While other games, such as Kororinpa, designed the gameplay around the Wii Remote; Super Monkey Ball kept the much-loved gameplay and made it easier to accommodate the toughness of the controls. Super Monkey Ball 3D returns the franchise to it’s roots of precise analogue stick controls. Does this mean a return to form?

In a way, yes. The circle pad makes for some precise controls and it feels like the GameCube originals. You have the additional option of using motion controls but for this you’ll need to turn the 3D off (unless you want your brain to melt) and in later levels you’ll need to hold the 3DS at angles that make the screen hard to see. The graphics are bright and colourful, but fairly basic. What is impressive is the 3D. The tilting of the world gives a satisfyingly dizzy effect.

Monkey Ball 3D starts off with seven worlds, each consisting of ten short levels and a bonus banana-gathering world. The bananas are there purely to get extra lives which are fairly pointless as once you lose your lives you can simply continue from the level you’re on. Unless you’re aiming for high scores which, frankly, isn’t at all likely in this game, then there is no punishment for running out of lives. Not that you’ll die much anyway. You’ll fall off on one or two levels but there are loads of barriers that prevent you from falling off levels. The first world even has a lowered trench to aid you even further – this includes the starting level where you just have to hold forward. Yes, you heard that right, the developers thought that people playing the game would need an aid to help them move two metres forwards. Hazards, which mainly consist of weak bumpers and some cake-like texture that I think is supposed to be dirt, are there to simply slow you down as opposed to killing you.

Once you’ve made it through the seven worlds, which should take around 90 minutes, you’ll be treated to the credits game. Super Monkey Ball is known for it’s fun credit games, like the Smash Bros. series, but this one is very slow, very boring and feels like it lasts for 10 minutes. I’m certain that it takes up more time than one of the worlds. After this is over it’s easy to feel relieved that the game is over and never touch it again. The game doesn’t tell you that you’ve unlocked an eight world. This hidden world is what Super Monkey Ball is all about – there are plenty of hazards, you’ll die a lot and it’s a lot of fun. If this had been the basis for the second world – with later ones increasing the difficulty from this – then this would have been a complete return to form.

The minigames in this – Monkey Race and Monkey Fight – seem like they’ve both had the same development time as the main game. While fans may be fond of both games from previous titles, they’ve been re-designed from scratch in this iteration.

Monkey Race is a Mario Kart clone. While Sega have shown that they can make a good kart racer, none of the All-Stars Racing team passed on any tips to Dimps. The biggest problem is overpowered weapons. Unlike other kart games, the weapons on this will stop you completely. The singularity (Red Shell) homes in on the racer in front and freezes them in place for a good five seconds while the disco ball (Lightning) causes everyone to spin on the spot for way too long. They didn’t even put in any dancing or funky music when it’s in use. All the other weapons follow the same lines and it means that there will be times where you can’t do a single thing for about 20 seconds, which feels like an age in a racing game, due to items. The levels are bland and there’s no fun to be had.

Monkey Fight is also a clone of a popular Nintendo title – this time Super Smash Bros. Again, this completely lacks all the charm of the game it’s trying to copy. The aim of the game is to hold the most bananas at the end of the game. Bananas are picked up from the stage and can be beaten out of opponents by punching their lights out. There are a few extra modes, if you can count hiding the score as a separate game mode, which alter the rules slightly but don’t change how you play the game. The must fun tactic is to jump around the arena avoiding the dodgy combat. One plus with this mode is the fantastic 3D effect when you open a golden barrel (Smash Ball) – the monkey flies at the screen then zooms into the barrel.

Super Monkey Ball 3D is light on content and is full of easy level design. The controls and physics of the main game are spot-on but you don’t meet any challenge until the hidden last world. If anything, this world highlights how this game could have been brilliant, which makes it feel so much more disappointing.

i guess if you never played another kart racer or another smash bros type game the secondary modes could be enjoyable

Talk about a game that's just... there... If you thought there was no such thing as "playing it safe" pay no attention to Super Monkey Ball 3D. This overall release just feels pointless, a lot of the levels are filled with nothing, using the same models and graphics recycled from Banana Blitz this game does try to seperate itself with its paper craft like style in the story execution. Literally other than that its just Banana Blitz without the jump + boss fights.
Its a boring nothing of a game with quite possibly the worst monkey race and monkey fight modes in the series. Nothing is truly memorable about this game, I went through the whole thing doing everything and nothing. Even the final world you unlock is nothing. Just skip this one, there are better games to play out there, this isn't one of them.

Fun Fact: The main mode of this Monkey Ball game is called "Challenge", which is a reference to the average difficulty of the games Super Monkey Ball and Super Monkey Ball 2 for the Nintendo GameCube. This subtle nod might go over the heads of the average Super Monkey Ball 3D enjoyer, due to the game's inability to offer such a thing.

Controls and looks good, the level design was just awful.

its babies first monkey ball but not even the worst monkey ball game

This game is actually pretty underrated. It’s fun

This is the most 5/10 game I've played in my life.

imagine this being your first 3ds game lmao. or worse your first monkey ball game. haha


First game I've ever completed in one sitting. Entertaining for its worth but almost depressingly void of content and variety.

I would give it a higher score if it saved the best time of each level, as a big part of why I like Monkey Ball is trying to go faster and faster. And as for just completing the levels, they are kinda easy so its not really helpful of padding out the game time with this game.

The minigames I do not care about.

increíble que sega cobrara 40 ñapos o mas por esta cosa

This sure is a game that exists, huh? It's a whole load of nothing. It's so mediocre and easy that I have literally nothing to say about it, but maybe the fact that it's also nothing negative is a positive in itself. Good music though.