Kororinpa: Marble Mania was one of the more memorable titles from Wii's early months; I'd go so far as to call it a classic. Its gameplay is very easily explained: roll a marble from point A to point B, collecting gems along the way, by tilting the Wii Remote—and by extension, the level—in your hand. There were no boss battles, no special moves; just your steady hand and increasingly devious levels that would eventually see you rolling marbles just not on their floors, but their walls as well. The only substantive complaint was that it was too short.
Now, Hudson has brought Marble Saga Kororinpa to market, a followup that builds on the original, more than doubling the level count and even adding unasked-for things like a level editor, customizable marbles, and support (via a set of dedicated levels) for the Wii Balance Board. There's a lot here to digest for both avid Kororinpa fan and novice marble-roller alike.
I started out playing Marble Saga in Easy mode, and was enthralled immediately. The largely-flat spaces didn't necessarily call for a lot of skill to navigate, but they were perfect for speed runs—something you'll need to pursue if you want to unlock more marbles. But trouble started to arise as I got deeper into that mode, as well as throughout the Normal mode.
You see, as Easy mode starts off, there's no rolling on the walls required to get to the goal. Around the mid-point some levels start to introduce this, though, and it caused me a lot of trouble—trouble I'd not remembered having in the original. If you roll onto a wall, then go either forward or backward, the camera twists your view about 10-20°, presumably to offer a better view of the level. The problem here is that you still need to tilt the Remote straight forward or straight backward to move in the level, but your marble is, visually, rolling off to one side.
This has become a problem in Marble Saga because the level design is more complex than in the original. This would normally be a good thing—and I was really looking forward to the level editor primarily because I wanted to create some really crazy levels—but because of the camera-control disconnect, it makes those sections annoying. Levels I should have been able to play competently became nightmarish until I was able to learn to adjust my style of play, though I still get thrown a bit from time to time.
Even though my enthusiasm for making levels with a lot of twisting and turning has waned, though, the Marble Saga team deserves major props for the level editor. I've used a handful of level-creation tools on Wii, and some have been a bit unwieldy; others, just too complex for their own good; but Marble Saga's editor really does wonderful things with just a Remote and a Nunchuk, easily enabling full 3-D movement and parts placement as well as making it fairly simple line things up. Levels you create can be sent to friends via WiiConnect24, and it looks like nearly everything in the game can be re-created in the editor... eventually, at least, after you've replayed enough already-beaten levels to pick up the "junk" required to unlock the level editor's full parts complement.
There's also leaderboards for those who want to show off their speedy marble navigation, based on ten stages specifically for ranking, and a Hard mode for those who need more after they've completed Normal mode. There's a dedicated set of levels that work with the Balance Board as well, which make for a fun addition, though it feels like I have to lean a little bit too far forward than I'm comfortable with to get my marbles rolling. You can also, once you've gotten far enough into the game, create your own marble with your Mii inside.
Marble Saga, for the most part, is a good sequel that doesn't throw out what made its predecessor a classic, choosing to skillfully build on it instead. The camera issue saddens me because I'd really had my heart set on navigating smoothly through some pretty crazy levels, but it's not game-killing... just occasionally frustrating. Fix that and I'd honestly have no qualms with it whatsoever, because the rest of the package is everything I could have ever wanted in a sequel.
Now, Hudson has brought Marble Saga Kororinpa to market, a followup that builds on the original, more than doubling the level count and even adding unasked-for things like a level editor, customizable marbles, and support (via a set of dedicated levels) for the Wii Balance Board. There's a lot here to digest for both avid Kororinpa fan and novice marble-roller alike.
I started out playing Marble Saga in Easy mode, and was enthralled immediately. The largely-flat spaces didn't necessarily call for a lot of skill to navigate, but they were perfect for speed runs—something you'll need to pursue if you want to unlock more marbles. But trouble started to arise as I got deeper into that mode, as well as throughout the Normal mode.
You see, as Easy mode starts off, there's no rolling on the walls required to get to the goal. Around the mid-point some levels start to introduce this, though, and it caused me a lot of trouble—trouble I'd not remembered having in the original. If you roll onto a wall, then go either forward or backward, the camera twists your view about 10-20°, presumably to offer a better view of the level. The problem here is that you still need to tilt the Remote straight forward or straight backward to move in the level, but your marble is, visually, rolling off to one side.
This has become a problem in Marble Saga because the level design is more complex than in the original. This would normally be a good thing—and I was really looking forward to the level editor primarily because I wanted to create some really crazy levels—but because of the camera-control disconnect, it makes those sections annoying. Levels I should have been able to play competently became nightmarish until I was able to learn to adjust my style of play, though I still get thrown a bit from time to time.
Even though my enthusiasm for making levels with a lot of twisting and turning has waned, though, the Marble Saga team deserves major props for the level editor. I've used a handful of level-creation tools on Wii, and some have been a bit unwieldy; others, just too complex for their own good; but Marble Saga's editor really does wonderful things with just a Remote and a Nunchuk, easily enabling full 3-D movement and parts placement as well as making it fairly simple line things up. Levels you create can be sent to friends via WiiConnect24, and it looks like nearly everything in the game can be re-created in the editor... eventually, at least, after you've replayed enough already-beaten levels to pick up the "junk" required to unlock the level editor's full parts complement.
There's also leaderboards for those who want to show off their speedy marble navigation, based on ten stages specifically for ranking, and a Hard mode for those who need more after they've completed Normal mode. There's a dedicated set of levels that work with the Balance Board as well, which make for a fun addition, though it feels like I have to lean a little bit too far forward than I'm comfortable with to get my marbles rolling. You can also, once you've gotten far enough into the game, create your own marble with your Mii inside.
Marble Saga, for the most part, is a good sequel that doesn't throw out what made its predecessor a classic, choosing to skillfully build on it instead. The camera issue saddens me because I'd really had my heart set on navigating smoothly through some pretty crazy levels, but it's not game-killing... just occasionally frustrating. Fix that and I'd honestly have no qualms with it whatsoever, because the rest of the package is everything I could have ever wanted in a sequel.