Helper Function

_“Clearing a stage will be easier using the Helper Function!_”
~Description in Banana Mania

The Helper Function is an assistive feature in Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania and Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble. It is designed to help players who are struggling with a particular stage to clear that stage and allow them to progress.

Features

The Helper Function has various features depending on the game.

In Banana Mania

The Helper Function has the following 3 features:

• The time limit is doubled. This allows players to take levels more slowly and not have to worry so much about time overs.
• Yellow, amber, and orange arrows appear to guide the player through the level. This helps players deal with levels where they're not sure where to go.
• Slow motion is enabled. By holding down the indicated button, the player can play the game in slow motion, allowing for more precision on tough levels. While in slow motion, a dark gray filter is applied, and the music is dampened.

In Banana Rumble

The Helper Function has the following 4 features:

• Arrows appear to guide the player through the level, as in Banana Mania. The arrows change from blue to yellow to pink to indicate how fast to go while following the arrows.
• A ghost guide appears, which follows the displayed route to demonstrate how to play the level.
• A checkpoint partway through the level is unlocked. If the player falls out beyond this checkpoint, they will respawn at the checkpoint with the full time limit restored.
• The rewind function is enabled. By pressing Y and using the D-pad, the player can navigate back in time to an earlier point in their playthrough of the level, to correct a mistake that was made. This can also be used to pause buffer, and the camera can be manipulated while the game is frozen.

Usage

The Helper Function is always disabled by default at the start of each new level. To enable it, the player must pause the game and select the "Turn Helper Function On" option from the pause menu. Alternatively in Banana Mania, after failing a level a few times in a row, a prompt will appear on the screen asking the player if they would like to enable the Helper Function. If a level has only ever been beaten with the Helper Function enabled, this will be indicated next to the level or level set with a pink heart with "HELPER" written on it. Additionally, certain missions require beating levels or level sets without using the Helper Function.

The Helper Function cannot be used in Ranking Challenge mode. Additionally, using the Helper Function comes with the following restrictions:

• In Banana Mania, if the helper function is used at any point during a Challenge Mode playthrough, the player will not be allowed to advance to the extra stages in that set.
• The player will not be able to receive a Speedy Clear or an Extra Goal Bonus for levels where the Helper Function was used in Banana Mania, and will not receive clear points at all in Banana Rumble (though points for bananas collected are still gained.
• Clear time will not be saved for levels where the Helper Function was used.
• In Banana Rumble, stage missions cannot be cleared when the Helper Function is enabled.

Trivia

• Using slow motion appears to alter the physics of the game. For example, on the stage Hollow, if the player holds up the entire time, they will normally clear the gap and make it to the platform with the goal on it; but while using slow motion, the player may fall short.
• When saving replays where the Helper Function was used, usage of slow motion will not appear in the replay. This means the Helper Function can be used to create "TAS" replays.
  • In said replays, the speedometer will glitch out during the parts where slow motion was used, and the movement of the player can become jittery.
• Prior to update 1.1.0 in Banana Rumble, using the rewind function allows for an exploit with the Spin Dash. Spin Dashes can be charged while the game is frozen via the rewind function if they are initiated before bringing it up. Additionally, the recharge time before another Spin Dash can be initiated will continue to count down while the game is frozen as well, and thus can effectively be skipped. This allows for rapid-fire Spin Dashes to be performed. Once again, replays will not display where the rewind function was used, and the charging and cooldown animations in the replay will not match what actually happened when using this exploit.