I practiced going through the expert levels in Super Monkey Ball 2, because my brother borrowed part 1. (Yeah, it's absurd that I let anyone borrow one of my favorite games, but my bro is the one who bought me both games, not to mention my Cube, after all.) That a lot of SMB fans consider this the best installment is mind-boggling.

It's a good game, though. The common complaint against part 2 is that it's all based on luck, which is a statement that skilled players quickly shoot down. Stages are busier here than in the first game, so strategies, on average, are more complicated. But strategy is still necessary.

The problem I have is that the focus has shifted from lay-of-the-land based challenge to obstacle-based challenge. What made part 1 unique were the moments of concentration when the player needed only to deal with the contours of the stage - razor thin ledges, warped platforms, crowded bumper fields, etc. SMB2 has some of that too, but when it does, it's a stunning contrast to the rest of the game. Where part 1 was a fresh departure from other video games, part 2 is more similar to the convention. It's less often about good instantaneous control and more often about figuring out the trick to passing the stage.

Not to say that the first game didn't have a good deal of obstacle-based challenge, either. But in that game, stages with a good deal of mechanical activity were a carefully placed break from the norm, helping to give the game its perfect balance. In SMB2, almost every stage has something crazy going on.

The worst part of the game is the switches. Basically, the switches are the controls found on a VCR, and the player presses them to manipulate some part of the stage. While this is a horrible idea, I would have thought nothing of it had it been used in only one stage. But, no - the designers thought this idea was so great that they use it over and over again.

There are twice the amount of mini games this time around, but almost every one of them SUCK. Monkey Bowling is a good game that almost deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the SMB1 mini games, and Monkey Tennis is a remake of NES Tennis - a good, but basic ripoff. Forget about the rest of them. Not one returning mini game is close to as good as it's SMB incarnation.