Welcome to Modojo, 
Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll Review
Written by Señor Cha Cha on Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Monkey Hockey and the stages that actually work with the stylus control.
Monkey Wars and all of the stages that suck.
There are many things in this world that furiously anger the Senor. Sour milk, crying children, parking authorities; all of them make me madder than a caged chupacabra, but lazy videogame design is also right up there and unfortunately, Sega's Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll suffers from this affliction. What could've been one of the DS' flagship games, yet another feather in Nintendo's money hat, is instead a sloppily designed title that doesn't make Sega or its friends look like kings but paupers. Paupers I say! Paupers...INDEED!
The primary reason why Touch & Roll pisses me off is because its developers didn't think things through, and if they did, they chose to ignore all of the good ideas. Basically, you can control your monkey ball using either the d-pad, which offers precise control and is preferred while playing the much harder stages, or the touch screen, where you can actually maneuver your little primate about the top screen by dragging the stylus across the bottom one.
Now for some stages, the touch screen control is excellent and the game's genuinely fun. But problems arise whenever I need to make sharp turns or come to a quick stop. It's not because the touch screen isn't up to task, but rather, the developers decided to include some of the stages from the console titles instead of building the game from the ground up for DS, and unfortunately for you and I, the touch screen control isn't suited for these boards because it's too easy to spin out of control. And as a result, many of the stages are a lot more difficult than they should be. It's like taking a bothersome level from the GameCube version of Super Monkey Ball, one that really pisses you off, and magnifying this irritation by [pick a number, preferably a large one].
On the positive side, tricky stages can be easily cleared using a combination of touch screen and d-pad, but if you're going to put in place two control schemes, both of them need to work, so I'm not dumping a barrel full of brownie points into Sega's potato sack. However, despite these troublesome issues, Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll is still amusing, in part because there are enough stages that are well-suited for stylus control and the 3D engine is quite impressive.
On the multiplayer front, there's a nice assortment of six party games that allow you to wirelessly compete against two or four people or with the AI, though not all of them are enjoyable. Monkey Bowling, Monkey Mini Golf, and Monkey Hockey are incredibly addictive and Monkey Fight is decent despite being hampered by both control schemes, but Monkey Race doesn't feel right because it too is crippled by the d-pad and touch screen, and Monkey Wars, which is basically first person monkey death matching is pretty bad because turning is an awkward mess. But all of these games offer varying levels of amusement, especially when friends are involved. And while everyone will need to own a copy of Touch & Roll to enjoy all six games, you can send demos of Monkey Race, Monkey Hockey, and Monkey Wars to peoples' DS'.
Despite the at times sloppy design and irksome gameplay, I still enjoy Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll because it offers up some good times. But Sega really stumbled into a brick wall with this game and it'll always be one of those titles that, when I look back on it, will be remembered as a missed opportunity to create something truly special.
