Is there nothing monkeys can’t do?  They can play music, hunt treasure , climb skyscrapers, fight Godzilla, do…whatever these guys are doing here, take over the world  in the 1960’s they were secret agents, and if you’re a Nintendo fan they can star in overly difficult platforming games that make you so angry you’ll throw the cartridge into the street and back over it with your car while screaming about how unfair life is and how that one time in college – *ahem* – where was I? Ah, right. Monkeys.

Today’s game shows that monkeys can also roll around in balls and collect bananas. That game is Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD on the Switch. As you can take a wild guess, the game is a remaster of the original Banana Blitz that was on the Wii. Now, I’ve never played a Monkey Ball game before this so I thought it was high time I got my paws dirty and give it a shot. It’s fun, it’s frustrating, slightly nauseating, and it’s definitely hard to put down despite the problems I have with it.

So what’s this crazy monkey story about? This bad guy monkey with the scissor hands stole the gang’s bananas and it’s up to AiAi and the gang to get them back. That’s basically it. This game is obviously not about story so much as it’s about taking gameplay popularized by Marble Madness, injecting it with steroids, cocaine, Compound V and Monster drinks, and then setting you loose to roll around like a nutjob getting to the goal in each level.

Every world has a different theme. You’ve got your basic jungles, your desert worlds, snow worlds, pirate ship worlds, and all that. At the end of each world is some horribly frustrating boss whose pattern to beat is easy, however not getting knocked around like a pinball and flying off the course is what you’ll have a harder time with. And that, folks, is where this game gets maddening.

See, the only enemy harder than the boss is the camera.

See, the only enemy harder than the boss is the camera. And possibly your blood pressure. And arthritis. If you’ve played Marble Madness before, you’ll remember steering the marble down the course to get to the goal. In this? You basically tilt the level by moving the analog left and right while making him accelerate by tilting forward on the stick. The camera follows closely behind the ball so you’re basically watching the camera wobble whenever you’re really getting into the game. It’s just wiggly enough to make the game insanely hard to go through some areas you know are so simple that you can do it with just a slightly more stable camera. You have multiple monkeys to choose from with different attributes, and those will make some levels easier or harder, but basically you’re gonna fight with the camera and yell some version of “why did it move that way??”, “that’s not what I meant”, and various expletives sprinkled throughout, like a topping on an angry, agenda of rage sundae.

There’s also a couple throwaway leaderboard modes if you’re bored, but there’s also what I thought was a really fun multiplayer mode with 10 different minigames to play with up to 4 players. I did read that the original game had 50, so I’d be curious to know which those were and why they got cut, but I really enjoyed what’s here. There’s everything from space ship battles to racing, to a hammer throw, hurdle jumping, stuff like that. And if you want to go back to single player, risk your sanity and try to beat all the levels in a world without losing all your lives, then you’ll be rewarded with a shiny new costume for your monkey army.

So ultimately I really have fun playing this despite how much I loathe the camera and how the ball moves. It’s colorful and cheerful, the music is upbeat and fun, and it’s just a crazy good natured game to play by yourself or with friends. I bought it day one and at $40 feel like I’m getting my money’s worth out of it, especially with the portability of the Switch. It’s the kind of game that you can pick up and play for 10 minutes and put back down, and handheld mode is perfect for a game like this.