Highlights

  • Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble brings back original gameplay and features, including a new character and 200 new stages.
  • The game offers a mix of campaign and multiplayer modes, with up to 16 players online and 4 players locally in multiple game modes.
  • Guest characters like Sonic the Hedgehog and Axel from Crazy Taxi join the roster, hinting at potential DLC with characters from various IPs.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble is bringing original entries back to its franchise in a big way, with a veritable smorgasbord of confirmed features. For fans of the cult-hit series, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble has a lot to offer.

Releasing June 25th, Banana Rumble will be exclusive to the Nintendo Switch—a fact that serves as something of a departure. Though the Super Monkey Ball games have frequently been exclusive to Nintendo platforms, with its first two console titles found only on the GameCube, both Banana Blitz HD and Banana Mania received multi-platform releases. Regardless, the upcoming Banana Rumble looks to be a perfect fit for the Switch; not only does the portable system match its arcade-style timed levels, it has the exact type of cutesy charm found all over the console's library.

Mario Kart characters racing against each other
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Everything Confirmed For Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble's Release

Campaign and Multiplayer Modes, New Character

The level count of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble is nothing to scoff at, with 200 new stages. These stages will come packaged with a variety of optional accessibility features, including a 'rewind' aide, a stage guide, and extra checkpoints. Players will also need to navigate a new spin dash move to best the game's levels, all while balancing standard stage-control gameplay.

Banana Rumble is poised to receive a new narrative and an assortment of cutscenes to accompany these levels, as well as 1-4 player local/online multiplayer integration. Local play is a feature not seen in the franchise since the original Super Monkey Ball from 2001, not to mention the ground broken by the inclusion of multiplayer.

Banana Rumble will innovate the series even further in this regard, with multiplayer modes that promise lobbies of up to 16 players. This multiplayer is split across 5 different game modes, those being Race, Goal Rush, Ba-Boom!, Banana Hunt, and Robot Smash. Race and Robot Smash are self-explanatory, while others can be detailed further; Goal Rush has gamers roll through goals to score points, Ba-Boom! is an explosive game of keep-away, and Banana Hunt has players collect as much of the fruit as they can before time runs out.

When playing through the campaign and adjacent modes, fans can deck themselves out with cosmetics—of which there are over 300 to unlock. Players can also change the character they use to progress, with Banana Rumble offering not only a guest cast, but an entirely new character. Palette is the new face on the block for Banana Rumble, one pursuing the Legendary Banana the game's plot revolves around. The adventurous ape wants to use the artifact to find her father—though she also has an eye for loot and any other shiny treasures that might cross her path.

Guest Characters

Banana Rumble will rope numerous guest characters into the fold, something that isn't new to the series; characters from Sonic the Hedgehog, Yakuza, Jet Set Radio, Hello Kitty, Persona 5, and Monster Rancher all appeared in Banana Mania. Now it seems that new characters will arrive through a DLC 'Sega Pass', though if the game is a success it's entirely possible for IPs outside of Sega's wheelhouse to make a return.

The first characters announced for Banana Rumble's Sega Pass were of Sonic the Hedgehog fame. Sonic and Tails will return to the Super Monkey Ball franchise alongside newcomers Knuckles and Amy. More surprising was the announcement that Axel from Crazy Taxi will be joining the cast (though he doesn't seem to have company). Crazy Taxi hasn't had a major game since 2002, but 2023's Game Awards did reveal that Sega is working on something new. In the meantime, Axel's cameo here serves as further reassurance that Crazy Taxi hasn't been entirely forgotten.