Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania will be rolling onto Nintendo Switch in just over a week and from our time with the game so far, it’s shaping up to be a very enjoyable experience indeed.

We’ll share our full thoughts on how the game stands up to the original Super Monkey Ball and its sequel (what with Banana Mania being a remake of these two titles) in our review a little closer to release, but in the meantime, the game’s director Masao Shirosaki has been busy discussing some of the improvements and tweaks the team has been working on.

In an interview with Nintendo Everything, Shirosaki addressed some of the Monkey Ball fanbase’s most pressing concerns including how the camera will work and what we can expect from the minigames:

“The main game camera for this game is based off Banana Blitz HD but includes some additional improvements. Compared to Banana Blitz HD, it’s much easier to turn. Also, you can now control the camera angle. I myself felt very annoyed at not having that level of control over the camera in the past Super Monkey Ball games. I think it makes the new game much easier to play but please try it out yourself.”

“The Party games in Banana Mania are the same 12 that appeared in Super Monkey Ball Deluxe. We did include some new tricks though, so I would be happy if you could try looking for them!”

As for why the team were able to develop a remake of the original games as their next project? Well, that’s down to the fans’ support:

“We talked about creating the next game because so many fans supported Banana Blitz HD. We had received a lot of opinions on how fans wanted original Super Monkey Ball and Super Monkey Ball 2 remakes, so Banana Mania would never have come to be if it weren’t for the voices of all those fans. We were able to remake those titles thanks to your requests. Thank you very much!”

You can read the full interview here if you’re interested; intriguingly, Shirosaki says that he’d like a future Monkey Ball game to let you “adventure around the world with AiAi”. We don’t know how that would take shape, but we’d definitely play it.

“I actually want to know what everyone is expecting of Super Monkey Ball *laugh*. As with past games, we are very eager to hear what fans think of the new game and what they’d like to see in the future.

I like going on adventures so I want to play a game where I can go on an adventure around the world with AiAi!”