PLAIN OL’ MONKEY BALL

▪ If you wondered why the original GameCube game carried the moniker, it’s because it wasn’t the first title in the series. Debuting in Japanese is perhaps best described as the ‘final beta’ for the GameCube version, which was released four months later. The main game is almost identical, with the same floors in the same order – it just looks a bit prettier on the GameCube. The chief difference is that was designed for single players, which means no Competition Mode and crucially no minigames. This is why the coin-op only features three playable monkeys – AiAi, MeeMee and Baby – as GonGon was added later to support four-player multiplayer on the GameCube. The one feature the console absolutely couldn’t compete with was the original’s controller – a curious banana-shaped joystick that you gripped to play. To say it stood out in the arcades would be an understatement.