The varied gameplay styles are underdeveloped and rarely make it feel like you're playing anything other than a linear visual novel. The writing is boring at the best of times and actually insulting to me as a queer woman at the worst of times. This game clearly wants to swing for the fences, but it doesn't accomplish anything other than striking out every time it steps up to the plate.
Overworld exploration and combat have both had their edges sanded down to the point that they're a little too frictionless, and I think some of the magic has been lost as a result. It's a detective game where I never felt like a detective, and an action game where the action felt simple on all but the hardest difficulties. It's certainly a fun game, the period piece vibes are immaculate, and I hope it's successful enough to lead to a remaster of the sequel that my sister tells me was even better (or maybe even a third entry in the series), but unfortunately I wasn't quite as wowed by the remaster as I was hoping after twenty years of putting the game off.
That said, the Director's Cut is easily skippable for existing fans unless you're invested in the brand new English dub or extra languages the game has been translated into. The changes made to the story by the new cutscenes make me believe this is a worse version of the game than the original PS4 release that I played, but that is by a very small amount. If you're a Nintendo fan who's been looking for your chance to get started with the Like A Dragon franchise, this is the moment you've been waiting for.
The failures of Banana Mania have not been repeated, and the high skill ceiling of the spin dash combined with the extensive replayability of the optional objectives means that I am probably going to be playing this game for the next twenty years just the same as the GameCube classics. Even as the modern descendant of Super Monkey Ball's original developer Amusement Vision, Ryu ga Gotoku Studio has outdone themselves here. This is not simply a return to form; this is proof of the bright future that Super Monkey Ball might have.