Today, Sega and the official Super Monkey Ball Twitter have revealed that a new unlockable playable character is joining Aiai and the gang on the roster of all-stars in Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania. The new addition is none other than Kazuma Kiryu of the Yakuza series.
This news of a new character addition comes fresh off the heels of previous weekly character announcements, such as Jet Set Radio’s Beat and the duo of Sonic the Hedgehog and Miles “Tails” Prower. Like those characters, Kiryu will be unlockable through normal play of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania.
Check out Kiryu in action with this trailer showcasing the new character, as well as his ability to collect bottles of Stamina X instead of the traditional bananas Aiai and the rest of the gang gather.
Kiryu is an interesting but understandable addition to the Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania roster. Before Sega’s Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio (or RGG Studio) worked on the Yakuza series and Banana Mania, the studio was known as Amusement Vision, working on the original Super Monkey Ball games. Thus, in a way, with this new character announcement, the studio has gone full circle.
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania still has a ways to go until its release date, as it rolls onto PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and PC on Oct. 5, 2021. Therefore, there’s still plenty of time for even more guest characters to potentially be announced in the coming weeks.
The base version of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania will cost $39.99 for the physical console versions, while the digital PC version will run you $29.99. Meanwhile, the Digital Deluxe version featuring the game, classic soundtrack, character skins, and customization items, will cost $49.99 on consoles and $39.99 on PC.
