Monkey Ball

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Monkey Ball
System(s): Sega NAOMI GD-ROM
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Amusement Vision
Genre: Puzzle
Number of players: 1
Release Date RRP Code

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Monkey Ball (モンキーボール) is a Sega NAOMI GD-ROM arcade game, originally released in 2001. It is the often-forgotten predecessor to Super Monkey Ball, which went on to found the Super Monkey Ball series.

The arcade cabinet of Monkey Ball is unique for its banana-shaped joystick. All the bananas in the game are sponsored by Dole, a practise that would carry through to its successor, Super Monkey Ball and Super Monkey Ball 2. There are three characters, AiAi, MeeMee and Baby, three difficulty levels and numerous puzzles to complete.

Monkey Ball was unique at the time of release. Though marble/ball rolling games had been done in the past (see Marble Madness), none had ever been presented in 3D, and no games had ever put the user in charge of the scenery rather than the ball itself.

Monkey Ball was not ported to home consoles, however Super Monkey Ball contains all the levels seen in Monkey Ball, as well as adding the benefit of enhanced graphics and extra features.

Production Credits

Chief Programmer: Hisashi Endo
Programmers: Jun Tokuhara, Yoshinori Suzuki, Eiji Takaki
Chief Designer: Junichi Yamada
Designers: Mika Kojima, Yukinobu Arikawa, Yukio Oda, Mari Sasaki
Sound Design: Yoshiyuki Kadooka, Chamy, Hiroyuki Hamada, Hidenori Shoji, Sakae Osumi
Monkey Voice: Kaoru Morota, Konami Yoshida, Rio Natsuki
Mechatronics: Masao Yoshimoto, Akihiko Kohno, Kazuhiro Nojo, Hiroki Koyama, Masahito Yanase, Seiji Ishii, Yutaka Yokoyama, Eiji Inoue
Publicity: Masae Otoshi
Cooperation: Dole Food Company,Inc, Dole Japan Ltd.
Special Thanks: HAIKYO, STURM Co.,Ltd., T's music Co.,Ltd.
Producer & Director: Toshihiro Nagoshi
Created by Amusement Vision
Produced by Sega

Physical scans

NAOMI, JP

NAOMI, World(?)