God bless the Wii and its backwards compatibility. Allowing me to go back and replay those classic titles I so miss. Ones like the original Super Monkey Ball. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed Banana Blitz on the Wii. It was good fun but simply had too many changes and problems in it that prevented it being as great as its predecessors. So what exactly made the first so irritating yet so addictive and fun at the same time?

The concept behind Super Monkey Ball is simple. Take one of four monkeys inside a ball and guide he or she around a series of increasingly tough platforms finally reaching a goal. All this is done simply using the analogue stick and it’s through this easy control setup that anyone can get into the game.

The stages are split into easy, advanced and expert brackets with a final master mode being unlocked later if (and I really mean if) your skills are perfect. While things start off relatively simple with wider platforms and limited obstacles, as soon as you try advanced things take a sharp turn in terms of difficulty. Platforms become narrower, bumpers start to appear, paths become more obscure and the once generous sixty second time limit now begins to feel far more pressuring. Ever wondered how tough it is to roll along the Sega logo in less than a minute? Well now you can try it and let me tell you it is definitely no easy feat. While the difficulty may put some gamers off, stick with it and continue to practice and you’ll soon fall in love with the game wanting to repeat levels again and again.

These stages can be played alone or by alternating with up to four people. Another sorely missed mode from the newer versions of Super Monkey Ball is the simultaneous play where it becomes a race to see who can finish a platform the quickest. It’s so much fun and why it’s been eliminated in future versions is beyond me.

If the main game mode isn’t enough for you, then you can take a stab at six mini games. If there was one major problem I had with the Wii mini games it was that they were very basic and more often than not just hardly enjoyable. Not the case here. While six may seem very few, they are great fun and offer surprisingly deep and addictive gameplay.

First up is bowling which is exactly how you’d expect it to play. Timing when you press the A button determines your accuracy and power while spinning can be used after to adjust any mistakes you made before. Good fun. Golf is up next and this is more like crazy golf than the real thing as here it is all about putting along weird sloped and obstacle ridden courses. Surprisingly addictive and again great fun. The final sporting event is billiards which is a decent representation of the past time with up to two players being allowed to play nine ball pool. It’s a shame it’s only restricted to this version as stripes and spots would have been a good addition too.

Now we move onto the three slightly crazy events. First up is Monkey Race. This is almost a simplified Mario Kart copy with six tracks and a host of weapons. These can slip you up, give you speed boosts and allow you to shoot at enemies. There are no computer controlled players here, but if you and a few friends get together the game is pretty demanding and highly rewarding. Monkey Fight is a competition to see who can remain on a platform the longest bashing away the others with giant boxing gloves. It’s hectic, it’s frantic and it’s a good laugh and definitely the more noisy of the six causing shouting and excitement to ensue. Finally we have Monkey Target and this is perhaps the best of the bunch. Here you begin by rolling down a ramp before shooting into the air and sprouting your ball into a pair of wings. The goal here is to land on a target and get as high a score as possible. Throw in some power-ups to help you along the way and you have a pretty in depth mini game. I’d even go as far to say as this could easily be released as a WiiWare title. It’s that good!

The music is surprisingly good and very catchy. Each world has its own theme and the music that accompanies it is usually very suiting to it. To this day I still remember the tune for the opening garden-like world and hearing it again never fails to bring a smile to my face. The one negative point is the monkey voices. Sure they sound cute, but eventually they will tend to grate as you fall for the hundredth time. Visually things are kept very simple and while the sequel may just about beat it, it still looks better than the almost cel-shaded look of the Wii version. The underwater stages look funky, the desert levels have a shimmering heat wave effect and the monkeys themselves look funny and cute.

There are a little over a hundred stages in the game and it’s likely going to take a fair while to see them all as your limited live amount will hinder you from rushing through. The mini games add more lifespan and with three friends are hard to beat in terms of fun.

The original Monkey Ball will always remain my favourite in the series. The levels are challenging and rely on your skill rather than dumb luck, the mini games are fully thought out and more importantly feel like an excellent side dish to the already awesome title and the entire game itself is full of such charm. Monkey Ball is one of Sega’s greatest franchises and the original is a game that deserves to be played by everyone.