Kororinpa: Marble Mania
Score: 98% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: Konami Developer: Hudson Soft Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Puzzle
Graphics & Sound: Kororinpa: Marble Mania takes after a long tradition of marble manipulation and racing games. It started with the classic Marble Madness and continues to the more recent Marble Ultra Blast from Garage Games and Mercury (my favorite PSP line), though that last one isn't "marbles" per se. Marble Mania's simple and unassuming graphics really show that just because the Wii can't push as many polygons as its competitors, you shouldn't count it completely out in the visual department. Granted, you don't need a lot of graphical horsepower to show a marble rolling around a series of platforms, but all of the lines and curves in this game are smooth and nicely detailed. Marble Mania isn't lacking in acoustic aptitude either. The background music comes in a wide variety, but always feels happy and peppy. I found myself really relaxed and calm when winding my way through the many levels thanks to the pleasing soft tunes coming out of my TV.
Gameplay: Kororinpa: Marble Mania is simple, you use the Wii-mote to tilt the level and guide your marble into red and green gems and finally to an end point. If you don't get all of the red gems (the green ones are for bonus), then you get zipped back to the beginning to pick up any you left behind. Along your path, there will be everything from conveyor belts to obstacles that will chop you in half and even parts of the track that disappear and force you to jump or turn the level/Wii-mote upside down and on its end. I can't tell you how many times this game reminded me of the Mercury line for the PSP and PS2. In that game, you tilt the level to get blobs of mercury across the board and along the way, you have to split it up and change its colors and states before you get to the end. Even though Marble Mania doesn't split your marble up or force you to think about changing the ball's color, you have a much wider range of control and tilting ability in this game than you do in Mercury, but I guess that is a discussion best left for the Game Mechanics section. As you progress through the different "worlds" that the game goes through (my favorite being the Candyland styled world), you will unlock new marbles to use as well as new background songs. Marble Mania also has a two-player split-screen mode where two people see who can complete the level the quickest. An interesting part of this mode is that the other player's ball appears as a ghost on your screen so you can always keep an eye on where he/she might be.
Difficulty: Kororinpa: Marble Mania does a good job of slowly turning up the burner. At first you only have to worry about a few wall-less areas and slippery or sticky ground coverings. However, it isn't long before you are having to deal with complete sections of the track missing (requiring you to do some unusual jumps) or chopping scissors and cannons. I found the game's steady progression was at just the right pace and I never felt like I was seeing the same obstacles, nor did I feel like too many new problems were being thrown at me at the same time. I definitely have to hand it to whoever was in charge of balancing this game, as it seems to be just about perfect.
Game Mechanics: Now for the fun part of pretty much any Wii review. Kororinpa: Marble Mania's controls are very simple and you can use either the Wii-mote itself or the Nunchuck. In either case, the horizontal and vertical tilting of the level that your marble is rolling on is directly tied to the tilting of your controller of choice. That means that as you tilt the Wii-mote forward, the level tilts forward. If you tilt it to the right, it tilts to the right. That also means, if you turn the Wii-mote upside-down, the level turns upside-down. In Mercury, the level could only really slant a little bit in any direction. This meant that it required special objects to do nice tricks like putting your ball on the ceiling. In Marble Mania on the other hand, if you wanted to or needed to do that, you just have to position your self appropriately and carefully (and quickly) flip the Wii-mote. There were also a ton of times when I had to turn the whole level at 90 degrees in order to get up some walls that had gems on them. This made me feel a lot more in direct control over the level than I ever did in Mercury. The only other controls in Marble Mania are the reset and pause buttons. Reset moves your marble back to the beginning of the track, but doesn't reset the time or put the gems you have collected back. This is good if you fall off the track and don't want to waste time falling, you can just tap the (B) or (Z) button and you're back at the start. Meanwhile, the pause button does exactly what it sounds like, that is done with the (C) or (A) button. The only complaint I might have to file against Marble Mania is that it is too short. I flew through most of the game in a weekend and found myself wanting more. Besides that, I can't wait for a sequel, or (crosses fingers and hopes really hard) for Mercury to get ported onto the Wii.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
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