When I first got Marble Saga: Kororinpa I was excited to check out what looked like it would be a very fun marble maze game. I had read about improvements that were going to be made from the first game, such as more levels, so I was looking forward to playing a revamped and fun puzzle game.
Rating: E for Everyone
Genre: Puzzle
Publisher: Hudson Soft
Release Date: March 17, 2009

RENT

In general the game is pretty fun. You have 150 stages to play through, each one featuring interesting twist and turns that you have to guide your marble through. The one part that is off is the weird story that they try to insert regarding Anthony the Ant who needs to get the Golden Sunflower. You can get through this dialogue fairly quickly and move into the various stages of the game. The first few stages get you used to the mechanics of the game such as magnetic rods, tubes and cannons that are used to move your marble around. As you progress the mazes will become trickier to get through and include many different twists and turns.

But with these new twists and turns come some issues with controls. As you can assume, holding your wiimote parallel will level out the map, and the basic tilts you can use are forward, backwards and side to side. However when it gets to moving the map around so you’re upside down, you will have to turn the controller into many different contortions, some of which made it hard to do the map routes precisely. This honestly got annoying as I progressed and it had me stop playing for a bit due to annoyance. There are also some levels designed for the balance board, but these controls are even less precise and more frustrating than the wiimote.

I did enjoy all of the different maps and the ways you had to solve them. They are pretty fun and challenging and the various themes that you can play through lend themselves nicely. Another feature, though it needs to be improved on, is the level designer. The controls are a bit clunky and it really takes some time to get the pieces where you want them, but hardcore fans will probably enjoy this part. Once a level is designed you can share them over Wii Connect 24.

All in all though I wasn’t too impressed. The attempt at putting a story into the mix was weak and the controls really could have been better. I didn’t enjoy having to tilt my wrist in a weird way or hold the wiimote upside down. But it is a pretty solid puzzle game overall, and I know that there are some big fans of the genre. If you want to check out this game I recommend renting it to see if you’d enjoy it as to me it’s a hit or miss.

Review product provided by Hudson Soft, and does not affect the outcome of this review.