Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Our tour of AiAi’s world takes us to Floating City next, a city of canals and gondolas, based on Venice, Italy, or at least pop cultural depictions of it. (But it works because there are no pretenses on it being the actual Venice.) ANd about a year later, Nintendo would put out a game with its own idealized Venice-themed location, Salty Salty Speedway in Mario Kart World, indicating there is a similar fascination in Japan with Venice.
While there are still a few more concepts taught here, like wormhole portals and play/pause/fast-forward/rewind buttons, the tutorial portion of the game is effectively over, with stages now more focused on testing you than introducing concepts or getting you used to how this game works.
I chose Fes this time around (yes, of the Gala Family, and yes, they are playable) because this looks like the sort of city that a bombastic thief would be in. You unlock Fes, Tee, and Val by clearing World 7, so effectively, me using Fes in these stages make no sense in context of the story, but the story here seems to be a relatively minor part of the game (importance-wise, maybe not time-wise). You also unlock that figure we saw in Banana Farm’s cutscene by clearing the story mode (World 10).
I do not have Hatsune Miku, the Among Us Crewmate, or Godzilla. I got this game in April 2026, after their rights had expired and thus were no longer available. I do have the Dole ball though (Dole being a tropical fruit supplier, best known for pineapples but they do bananas too, and a long-time sponsor of the Super Monkey Ball series), which is still available.
00:44 - 3-01 Switch and Go
01:51 - 3-02 Spider Web
03:03 - 3-03 Conveyor Avenue
03:39 - 3-04 Wavy Path
04:13 - 3-05 Switch and Jump
05:37 - 3-06 Wormhome Branches
06:15 - 3-07 Hole Panel Swing
06:45 - 3-08 Paddle Path
07:28 - 3-09 Egg Pack
07:57 - 3-10 Up the Road
3-01, Switch and Go, introduces what fans call the “VCR buttons” (because VCRs were still common when Super Monkey Ball came out in 2001), though the play, pause, fast forward, and rewind buttons are still known today (though we now more often see “skip forward” and “skip back” in place of fast forward and rewind). Whenever these buttons turn up in a Super Monkey Ball stage, it means there are moving elements in it. Usually, one of them is on by default, and there can be multiple sets in a stage corresponding to different moving parts. Play causes it to move at a normal speed, pause makes it stop at whatever position it’s in, fast forward makes it move faster (usually a bad thing, but speedrunners will keep it on), and rewind, though rarely seen, makes it move backwards, though it varies whether that’s at normal speed for a faster speed. This stage has play, pause, and fast forward, though some will have just play.
For 3-02, Spider Web, I forgot the correct route through, so I fell off after going on the wrong path. If you do, you may run out of time because of the long distances and narrow walkways meaning you can’t go too fast.
3-05, Switch and Jump, seems to be a follow-up to 3-01, Switch and Go, in that you must not only raise the ramps with the play button, but adjust the steepness of the ramp with the pause button. The first set has a guardrail to stop you from falling off the other side. The second set…doesn’t.
3-06, Wormhole Branches, introduces the wormhole portals. They are these blue doorways with an image of elsewhere on the stage within it. Passing through these doorways takes you through the other portal of the pair. This stage is very easy and just seems to be about the concept; they’ll be more imaginative about it later (though not much will outdo Super Monkey Ball 2’s Charge, where they’re used as a momentum-gaining paradox).
3-09, Egg Pack, is the next of those “undulating peaks and valleys” stages, with this one being far steeper, and with holes and gaps in it. The holes are always at the valleys, causing you to fall into them if you don’t fly over them or give them a wide berth. We will see the next one of these in World 5, and that is the first REALLY tricky one. The stage is named for its resemblance to the containers used to store sets of eggs at grocery stores.
Our OOPart this time seems to be a souvenir replica boat. Up next is the Golden Temple, in a prosperous nation with gold coins everywhere. But for now, I have some other stuff from other games to put up, so Banana Rumble will take a back seat for a few days.
Our tour of AiAi’s world takes us to Floating City next, a city of canals and gondolas, based on Venice, Italy, or at least pop cultural depictions of it. (But it works because there are no pretenses on it being the actual Venice.) ANd about a year later, Nintendo would put out a game with its own idealized Venice-themed location, Salty Salty Speedway in Mario Kart World, indicating there is a similar fascination in Japan with Venice.
While there are still a few more concepts taught here, like wormhole portals and play/pause/fast-forward/rewind buttons, the tutorial portion of the game is effectively over, with stages now more focused on testing you than introducing concepts or getting you used to how this game works.
I chose Fes this time around (yes, of the Gala Family, and yes, they are playable) because this looks like the sort of city that a bombastic thief would be in. You unlock Fes, Tee, and Val by clearing World 7, so effectively, me using Fes in these stages make no sense in context of the story, but the story here seems to be a relatively minor part of the game (importance-wise, maybe not time-wise). You also unlock that figure we saw in Banana Farm’s cutscene by clearing the story mode (World 10).
I do not have Hatsune Miku, the Among Us Crewmate, or Godzilla. I got this game in April 2026, after their rights had expired and thus were no longer available. I do have the Dole ball though (Dole being a tropical fruit supplier, best known for pineapples but they do bananas too, and a long-time sponsor of the Super Monkey Ball series), which is still available.
00:44 - 3-01 Switch and Go
01:51 - 3-02 Spider Web
03:03 - 3-03 Conveyor Avenue
03:39 - 3-04 Wavy Path
04:13 - 3-05 Switch and Jump
05:37 - 3-06 Wormhome Branches
06:15 - 3-07 Hole Panel Swing
06:45 - 3-08 Paddle Path
07:28 - 3-09 Egg Pack
07:57 - 3-10 Up the Road
3-01, Switch and Go, introduces what fans call the “VCR buttons” (because VCRs were still common when Super Monkey Ball came out in 2001), though the play, pause, fast forward, and rewind buttons are still known today (though we now more often see “skip forward” and “skip back” in place of fast forward and rewind). Whenever these buttons turn up in a Super Monkey Ball stage, it means there are moving elements in it. Usually, one of them is on by default, and there can be multiple sets in a stage corresponding to different moving parts. Play causes it to move at a normal speed, pause makes it stop at whatever position it’s in, fast forward makes it move faster (usually a bad thing, but speedrunners will keep it on), and rewind, though rarely seen, makes it move backwards, though it varies whether that’s at normal speed for a faster speed. This stage has play, pause, and fast forward, though some will have just play.
For 3-02, Spider Web, I forgot the correct route through, so I fell off after going on the wrong path. If you do, you may run out of time because of the long distances and narrow walkways meaning you can’t go too fast.
3-05, Switch and Jump, seems to be a follow-up to 3-01, Switch and Go, in that you must not only raise the ramps with the play button, but adjust the steepness of the ramp with the pause button. The first set has a guardrail to stop you from falling off the other side. The second set…doesn’t.
3-06, Wormhole Branches, introduces the wormhole portals. They are these blue doorways with an image of elsewhere on the stage within it. Passing through these doorways takes you through the other portal of the pair. This stage is very easy and just seems to be about the concept; they’ll be more imaginative about it later (though not much will outdo Super Monkey Ball 2’s Charge, where they’re used as a momentum-gaining paradox).
3-09, Egg Pack, is the next of those “undulating peaks and valleys” stages, with this one being far steeper, and with holes and gaps in it. The holes are always at the valleys, causing you to fall into them if you don’t fly over them or give them a wide berth. We will see the next one of these in World 5, and that is the first REALLY tricky one. The stage is named for its resemblance to the containers used to store sets of eggs at grocery stores.
Our OOPart this time seems to be a souvenir replica boat. Up next is the Golden Temple, in a prosperous nation with gold coins everywhere. But for now, I have some other stuff from other games to put up, so Banana Rumble will take a back seat for a few days.
