Mania perfectly describes the fever currently sweeping the nation over Wii, but it’s hardly a term to be paired with marbles. Best left as a reminder of days spent terrorizing siblings with well-aimed shots, marbles aren’t exactly mainstream entertainment anymore. It comes as a surprise then that Kororinpa: Marble Mania emerges as an entertaining little title. While it suffers from a couple of significant shortcomings, this unassuming game rolls onto Wii with pleasing results.
Kororinpa: Marble Mania has you guiding a marble through obstacle-riddled levels to reach a goal. Each level contains a set number of red crystals that you must collect in order to activate the end goal and finish the level. Of course, there are plenty of obstacles hindering an easy roll to the goal such as gaps, moving platforms, narrow catwalks, and complicated corridors.
Tracking down these crystals and getting to the goal is done by movement of the Wii Remote. Like Sega’s launch title, you actually manipulate entire levels to influence the movement of your marble. For example, tilting the Wii Remote to the right causes the level to lean in that direction, this then moves your marble. The game really takes this concept to heart with levels that literally require twisting your wrist in order to navigate surfaces 90, even 180 degrees removed from your starting position.
Kororinpa: Marble Mania succeeds in utilizing the Wii Remote in this manner, arguably better than Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. The controls are extremely intuitive and appropriately sensitive. The big problem, however, is the fixed camera; at all times, it remains centered on your marble. As you work your way through a level, you have no means of rotating the camera for a better view of what lies ahead or simply to prevent an object from obstructing the screen. You can press the B button to access a full screen map of the current level, but you never are given real-time control over your view. With the directional pad just sitting there at the tip of the Wii Remote, you can’t help but wish that it was used for controlling the camera during play.
Two basic modes of play are offered: a solo campaign and split-screen multiplayer. The single player mode consists of 50 levels, unlocked in bunches of 5. Finding special green crystals enables you to unlock up to 15 secret levels; additionally, special balls and music tracks can be revealed dependent on your performance in the game. Only the last 10 or so levels provide any substantive challenge, so you can easily burn through all of the single player stages in a few short hours. There’s simply not enough content here, which is disappointing because Kororinpa: Marble Mania is surprisingly fun.
The two-player head-to-head mode features the same mechanics of the core game with the added goal of finishing levels before your opponent. You either use two Wii Remotes or simply connect a nunchuk to one controller with player one using the actual Wii Remote and player two holding the nunchuk. Since buttons aren’t needed to play, it works just fine to use this nunchuk configuration. Having to mind that the controls are connected is somewhat annoying, but if you don’t have two controllers it’s nice to have the option.
