Super Monkey Ball Deluxe (PS2) - Weird Background Differences 

Deluxe was clearly rushed. Another example is that Exam B still has the Monkey Mall goal despite now being in the Storm Theme

As weird as it is that a majority of the background elements are removed, I actually think World 9 with just the cosmos and nebula looks really neat on its own, even if it really wasn't intended. And Switch Inferno feels like you're in the dark depths of the whale, so in a sense, that adds some unintended atmosphere. ...that said, World 10 does look very barren. Surprised I didn't really notice these things when I played it, but that was years ago, so maybe I did notice but forgot.

I seriously can't get over just how botched of a port PS2 Deluxe is. For the longest time I thought that this was just how bad Deluxe was, until I learned that the Xbox version basically fixed everything.

The Playstation 2 port is so botched that it really makes the console look significantly weaker than it really is. While it is less powerful than both the Gamecube and the Xbox, the PS2 had no excuse to run Monkey Ball as porly as it did. I've seen significantly more impressive things on the platform easily hit 60fps.

Honestly as a religious GameCube fanatic of SMB2 who fell in love with the rich and detailed literal world building, this is all cursed looking and jarring. Edit: Especially Inside of a whale. Holy heck, it's like they stripped literally every level of any mention of life. The Space Colony's actual colony is missing. BadBoons base doesn't have any hydro batteries. The whale is dead and it's dark inside. There are no stars in space, it's just a void. What the f*ck?

My guess is that the PS2 couldn't handle the full backgrounds in certain stages because it was just too much geometry to put on screen without slowing down, so they removed parts of them based on how many polygons the level had. It is rather interesting to look at these levels without these flourishes, but otherwise the PS2 port really isn't good at all, especially considering it only runs at 30fps, 480i, and has some really compressed textures.

I still don’t get why the PS2 port is so unpolished.

The background changes in Badboons Base just come off as uncanny and uncomfortable to me

The PS2 version feels like it's held together with Duct Tape

I notice the bells in the Clock Tower world will sometimes either go missing or have fewer amounts of them in both versions of Deluxe. It’s most noticeable after the monkey goes through the goal and flies into the sky.

PS2 Monkey Ball Deluxe is a piece of garbage.

I really like the purple space background at 2:33 and 6:24.

I like that someone finally documented these strange occurrences. I think these backgrounds are here because of the far weaker processing power of the ps2 compared to the xbox and gamecube. For these larger stages, these differing backgrounds seem like the only compensation and way for the ps2 to render them.

Now i actually noticed some of these changes to the backgrounds. And i have to say they are peculiar

This is super weird lil ig Sega was like let's give them a striped version of the game 😭

My thoughts (In order of where the world appears in story mode): Inside a Whale: Okay, I know this world is the closest we have to a "scary" world in this game, but this is a little ridiculous. Space Colony (UFO and Asterisk): All I'm gonna say is that this world looks even more ugly without the rest of the colony. Space Colony (Ring Bridges and Construction): Okay, I'll be honest, this world without any of the extra stuff looks much better than how it looks normally. But I may be a teeny bit biased on this because I've watched many older super monkey ball rom hacks and this iteration really reminds me of that (Yet surprisingly not the others...). Dr. Bad-Boon's Base: Gee, I never thought that if you removed the rest of the extra objects from this world, it ends up looking extremely... barren. And the fact that the pulsing green effect isn't here really makes this look extremely ugly imo.

You forgot about the artic background because there is an ocean view on a ps2, and usually, in the Gamecube, there isn't an ocean view

I can't believe they couldn't optimize the game well enough to render a background.

Lol the Xbox version definitely didn’t have all of these… just ring bridges I think. And possibly treads or asterisk?

I don't get it though why did some stages in Super Monkey Ball 2 have incomplete backgrounds?

Basic Bad Boon's Base looks absolutely HORRIBLE!

That is interesting.

Imagine if monkey ball deluxe ps2 romhacks have monkeyed ball worlds with weird backgrounds

my own Monkey mall: dodegacon and stoppers will have no building or palm tress. jungle island: steps (story mode) will have nothing except for a waterfall (more coming soon)

Fun fact these stages aren't like this in Super Monkey Ball Deluxe on the Xbox Version and I made a comparison video of it back in the day on my old RU-vid channel that had copyrights of anime stuff on it

The only stage in the GameCube versions with simplified backgrounds I know of is Passage.

I had the ps2 version and I don't remember it being this botched (though it might of been cleared up in the European version.)

I’ve played deluxe on ps2 and the backgrounds showed up for me

Oh god this is pain to listen to... And it looks bad as an added bonus!

Wow this version looks really slow and crusty.

Dear god, this port is crap...

If the backgrounds are different does that mean that the test rooms are also different on ps2? I remember one of them was just bad boon's stage background and no level.

Looks worse than Adventure

forgor about passage

Hmm, I did have deluxe on ps2 but I don't remember ring bridges or switch inferno to have looked like that

Ohhh interesting

Which is better? PS2 or Xbox?

hmmmmmmmm putting xbox disc in ps2 may be possible

I didn't know this the entire time I was growing up playing the PS2 version. Thank you for doing this video.