Super Monkey Ball 2
Super Monkey Ball 2, développé par Amusement Vision et édité par Sega, est sorti le 25 août 2002 sur Nintendo GameCube. Classé dans les genres arcade et plateforme, ce titre utilise le moteur Super Monkey Ball Engine et propose de guider un singe enfermé dans une balle en plastique à travers un labyrinthe jusqu'à un but. Le jeu offre un mode histoire avec un nombre d'essais illimité et des séquences vidéo tous les dix niveaux, un mode défi limité en temps et en nombre de singes, ainsi qu'un mode pratique reprenant les stages déjà réussis. Plusieurs mini-jeux réunissant jusqu'à quatre joueurs, comme la course, le bowling ou le tennis, complètent l'expérience. L'intrigue met en scène le docteur Bad-Boon qui dérobe les bananes de l'île et contraint l'équipe de singes à le poursuivre après l'explosion d'un volcan. La presse a salué un travail de suite efficace, Yahoo! évoquant « perhaps the perfect sequel », tandis que GameNow a qualifié l'expérience multijoueur de l'un des meilleurs sur le système. Certains joueurs sur Metacritic jugent le jeu amusant sans être révolutionnaire, tout en notant une difficulté parfois frustrante sur certains niveaux. L'ensemble affiche une note moyenne agrégée de 72,18.
Médias
Avis des critiques et joueurs
Critiques de la Presse (Metacritic)
« Perhaps the perfect sequel. It fixes the main problem the original had -- its uninspiring single-player game -- and capitalises on the things the first title did so well, namely its array of party games. »
« One of the best multi-player experiences on this, or any other, system. [Oct 2002, p.36] »
« Each Party Game offers endless fun, so you practically get 12 stand-alone games with your Super Monkey Ball rocking and rolling. [Oct 2002, p.194] »
« The title has an enormous replay factor, and many Monkey Ball fans will find themselves playing the game until the next iteration of Super Monkey Ball. »
« SEGA has gone the whole way with this one. »
« An instant classic. »
« You simply can’t get bored of it and it’s literally fun for all of your friends and family. How can you go wrong at all? It’s a wicked game. »
« Every aspect of the game works tightly in conjunction, delivering an enormous amount of gaming. »
Avis des Joueurs (Metacritic)
« Super Monkey Ball 2 is exactly what you'd expect it to be like. It plays well and it is fun, but not groundbreaking. I feel like the string of levels in each world do tend to drag on a little bit, but still a solid game nonetheless. »
« Great game. If you liked the first one you’d love this one two. It can be frustrating though, some of the levels are really difficult and doing the same thing over and over in 60 second goes can be boring. »
« I'm rating this game this high primarily because of how good the mini games are. The physics in this game is astounding! »
« This game is significantly better than original Super Monkey Ball by being able to start with 99 lives at max, a story mode where you don’t have to worry about losing lives, and far better and expanded party game roster that greatly improves on the party games in the original. Unfortunately, it takes an insane amount of grinding to unlock all the party games and especially 99 lives at max for the start, still has a grating soundtrack, and remains brutally hard. Point blank, this game is only fun in multiplayer party games against your friends. »
« Remember spending loads of time with this game and the first Super Monkey Ball back in the days of the GameCube. Lots of multiplayer options available. Still a party staple (along with it's predecessor), worth playing even today, particularly for parties. »
« A generously vast suite of minigames places this game far ahead of its competition and easily makes other casual games on the GameCube—particularly sports—obsolete. Unfortunately, the main game suffers from balancing issues, because as soon as you go beyond the Beginner stages, the maps often end up being constant dice rolls rather than skill-based play. Even with cheats, you'll likely find yourself stuck on a stage or two for ages because of the inherent design of it boiling down to luck. The ridiculous scarcity of bananas available to the player does not help the case either, as you never collect enough for them to matter, which disincentivizes collecting them to begin with. You're better off just rushing for the goal each time. Overall, I think this sequel would be best paired with the prequel—you would play the main game on the first and the minigames on the second. »
« Super Monkey Ball 2 offers great single player content as well as fun multiplayer modes. It has a rather steep difficulty curve, but once you get used to it this game is a blast! »
« This game was an impactful part of my childhood. The main campaign has fun and exciting gameplay that challenges the user. The party games were innovative and never got old. I think out of all the games I played on the GameCube this particular game was a timeless masterpiece comparatively. »
