Note [7/16]: Sega has indeed confirmed the new Monkey Ball remake is coming to North America on October 29, titled Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD. Nintendo provided a new cinematic trailer for the game as well.
The original story is below.
Super Monkey Ball chatter has been rife recently, with rumors of new installments following Taiwanese and Korean ratings for a new game in the franchise. Japanese publication Famitsu has confirmed that, indeed, Tabegoro! Super Monkey Ball is a thing and will release October 31 in Japan for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, with a Steam version set for a December release.
The game is a remake of the Wii launch title, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, which was the first game in the series to allow players to jump over obstacles on a course.
It also included a ton of mini-games, such as the fan-favorite Monkey Target and roughly 50 others, which some argue are more important than the series’ story content.
Being a Wii game, Banana Blitz also incorporated motion controls, doing away with the control stick or D-pad as methods for getting an encapsulated monkey through the obstacle courses. Whether the remake will also use motion controls isn’t known yet, though Famitsu is set to print in a few days and might provide more information then.
Should it require motion controls, then it seems Tabegoro! would make it on the list of Nintendo Switch games you won’t be able to play easily on the new Nintendo Switch Lite.
It seems unlikely the game would be motion-control only, though. The only danger for the Wii was throwing a Nun-chuck through the TV screen by chance. Flailing around trying to frantically save a monkey from falling off the edge probably wouldn’t go down as well in public or on a crowded transit system.
For now, there’s no word on whether the West will see a release for Tabegoro! Super Monkey Ball, but given the series’ popularity in years past, chances are, we’ll be hearing an announcement from Sega on the subject soon.
