It's easy to write off technical marvels of yesteryear. Sure, a working 3D Monkey Ball on the GBA is an insane thing to even exist, but appreciating it on an interactive level can be a challenge in the first few minutes of gameplay. This is a franchise that relies heavily on analogue input and depth perception; playing it on a 2.9" screen with a d-pad and two face buttons is bound to bring some frustration.

Even so, when you get the hang of it Super Monkey Ball Jr. does offer a rewarding challenge, and utilizes some great features to make it a worthy portable expedient. I played this game exactly where it was meant to be played, on the bus and in the break room at work. With some accessible cheat codes to enable unlimited continues, SMB Jr. becomes a great pickup and putdown game for those looking for a bite-sized bit of precision.

The game isn't without sore spots. Expert levels ask quite a lot of the player, and it can be hard to imagine beating later challenges without using the inverted Konami code on the title screen. The lagging camera and difficulty involved with making micro-adjustments are a particularly big source of frustration. Still, it's hard to be too upset when you're playing Monkey Ball on a device with less than half a megabyte of RAM. Especially when the gameplay is as competent as it is.