Recent reviews by Skelig

comfy game

As someone who has put thousands of hours into SMB2 and Deluxe, I wasn't expecting this remake to be that good - since I knew they were changing the physics which was fundamentally what made those games so excellent - but I wasn't expecting it to be this damn bad. It's all well and good keeping the stages (nearly) exactly as they were, but when the physics, camera and controls are all worlds apart from what they used to be, it fades into insignificance and the result is something that does not feel fun to play. I tried to be open-minded about it and push the fact that I'm intimately familiar with the original games both from a casual and speedrunning perspective to the back of my mind; but I could not find any positives, it just feels bad to play whatever your level of familiarity with Monkey Ball is.

Just play the original games, they are fantastic, have a reasonable and balanced difficulty curve, and still hold up just as well as they did when they were released. This is nothing more than a poor imitation dressed up in pretty new textures.

running backwards and shootan

monster hunter

Solid game with a very noticeable influence from the Super Monkey Ball series - that is, tight physics with a lot of air maneuverability, making it an excellent game to speedrun, and a satisfying game to play through casually as well.

This review reflects the current version of the game at the time of writing, which is early access verson 0.52.2, and therefore may not accurately reflect future updates. I may update this review in the future when I feel necessary.

The Good:

• It's hard, but the difficulty curve is fairly consistent. If you play the levels in order (which is not a requirement, though some levels require certain conditions to be met to be unlocked), you will get a feel for the physics making the harder levels a lot less daunting.
  
• The controls feel tight and responsive, and very predictable (except on the ice levels, which are, understandably, very slippery). This is probably the most important factor which separates good and bad ball rolling games, and one which most get wrong.
  
• For the most part, really fun level design with only a few exceptions - most of which are bonus or secret levels and can largely be overlooked if you're not much of a fan of them anyway.
  
• Plenty of bonus levels, most of which are typically much harder than the standard fare, adding a lot of extra play time for the experienced player.
  
• Graphically it's not going to set your 1080 Ti on fire, but it's visually quite pretty, with some decent background music which is nice enough to listen to for extended periods (which will be necessary when you're grinding out those WRs).

Needs Improving:

• UI is a little dull and utilitarian (lots of text and flat square buttons). Looks a little like a prototype as a result, but on the plus side is fit for purpose, and I appreciate that it can be entirely navigated with a controller.
  
• Needless to say because yes, it's early access, but there are a couple bugs here and there - but nothing game-breaking, and the developer is very quick to patch these when brought up over Discord.
  
• Some of the gold time requirements are very tight and require extremely optimal play to achieve. Generally I wouldn't see this as a problem if it weren't for the fact that achieving gold times is a requirement for some of the bonus levels, so some of them should probably be toned down a little.

Overall, already an excellent game in its current state with plenty left to deliver. The developer releases regular content updates and patches too, so there's a lot to look forward to. I was a little sceptical at first given how easy it is to get a game like this wrong - even more so given that it's in a relatively early stage of its lifecycle - but it delivers in every important aspect, and I'd have no trouble recommending this to people who like this kind of game without needing to wait for a finished product.

If you're a fan of the old Super Monkey Ball games, you'll probably love this game. If you're a fan of the newer Super Monkey Ball games, definitely play this because those are ♥♥♥♥

because the first game didn't resemble mm3 enough

it's literally mega man 1-6 with anime waifus instead of robot masters

what the hell

bretty gud

big the cat