Super Monkey Ball Adventure [PS2]

Mario has proved over and over that platform heroes can transition easily to puzzle gameplay. The reverse isn't true, however, as evidenced in Super Monkey Ball Adventure. Super Monkey Ball has long relied upon a quirky, cultish puzzle setup, but with the same controls ported over to platforming activities like jumping and precision item collection, it's just an exercise in frustration.

You'll choose one of four monkeys, each encased in a clear ball, which is the animal's only means of transport. The controls are simple; the left stick rolls in all directions, while the right pans a relatively unresponsive camera. There are eventually other actions, too, but the basics of the game are that you roll around, navigating ramps and bounce pads to collect items and complete objectives.

When the series was just a collection of mini-games and puzzle challenges, a slightly wonky control feel was essential. Part of the point was always that you had to wrestle the ball against forces of gravity and motion. But when attempting to maneuver precisely though a narrow landscape, it's a total pain. Grabbing a single banana might require a six-point turn, and successful navigation of even the earliest series of bounce pads will leave teeth gnashed and controllers marred by furious stress fractures.

Falling off the world's edge is a perfectly respectable danger when playing SMB in puzzle form, but not at all when platforming. With the lack of control over your ball, be ready to roll off the omnipresent cliff edges, either to an area of the level you really don't want to be in, or worse, into the sea. The latter will set you back, perhaps a bit, perhaps quite a lot, based on an invisible algorithm of gaming pain that we're not allowed to see.

The controls are so bad, and your transparent ball so determined to roll precisely where you don't want it to go, that one massive question stands out: Why is yours the only monkey actually in a ball? All the NPCs seem quite happy to be on foot, and we'd be much happier that way, too. Adventure should absolutely have taken that gigantic step away from the SMB template; it's not as if the story mode is doing anything for the series legacy as is.