An alright game but lacks the magic of the others
Well the game is controlled with the d-pad or the touch-screen. Of course, this game lacks control when you use the D-pad. And for the touch-screen controls.....well they are just horrible. Basically, you keep your stylus in the middle of the screen, in the middle of the monkey on the screen. Then you move it up to move the money up on the top screen and its the same for all of the other directions. This control system is really bad and you are better off using the d-pad.
As usual in monkey ball games, you have to guide the monkey through a puzzle and into the goal. Some of the puzzles are brand new but some of them are just re-used levels from previous console versions of monkey ball.
Then you have the party games. You get the same ones as usual plus three new games. Monkey Race is totally ruined. Instead of using the controls to basically race the monkey to the finish you now have to touch the monkey in the direction you want him to move in. This totally blocks your view of how the race is going. Monkey golf is brilliant however. Your use the touch screen to swing back the club and hit the ball. It has been improved a lot. Monkey Hockey is among the best of the games but it acually has nothing to do with monkeys so it shouldn't be in the game! Monkey Target, the best game on the console games, are absent from this handheld version.
The graphics are good but not great and the sound is what you would expect from a monkey ball. And for some reason this game doesn't exactly feel like a monkey ball game like it used to on the Gamecube.
Overall, Monkey Ball fans will love it, but if you already have it on Gamecube you won't be missing anything on this DS version.