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Marble Saga: Kororinpa Updated Impressions

We experiment with wafers and other delectable pieces in Marble Saga's level editor.

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Marbles and candy bring back fond memories of the elementary-school yard, where children used these items as currency and bargaining tools to get what someone else had. Maybe that's why Marble Saga: Kororinpa feels so familiar when you first see it, or it could be the mounds of cookies and candy pieces that are taunting you from the background. Hudson came by our office today to show us the latest build of Marble Saga, and more specifically the level editor, which will let you create and share with friends via Nintendo's Wii Connect 24. For additional information on the gameplay, please see our previous hands-on from last year's Hudson's Gamer Day.

You can create your own crazy stages using the map editor.
You can create your own crazy stages using the map editor.

The level editor is broken up into three levels of difficulty. The easy setting limits your construction to the X-axis, but if you want to get fancy and make some crazy contraptions for your marbles, you can bump up the difficulty setting and create on the Y-plane as well. Given that there are seven themed areas in the game, you will have the opportunity to pick up items in the main game so that you can add them to your budding collection. We focused primarily on the candy level and saw that it included candy canes, wafers, and other delicious goodies that we could piece together. The menus seemed fairly straightforward to navigate using the Wii Remote. You can pick up and drop pieces wherever you like, and the camera can be rotated to give you the best view.

Up to 40 gadgets or widgets can be found in the main game and used in the editor. You can find cannons, fans, magnets, bumpers, and other random devices that can bump up the trickiness factor for the unsuspecting player. Once you've completed your masterpiece, you can share it with friends online. Hudson has announced that there will be an additional 20 maps available at launch for you to download automatically. The game already comes with 150 levels, with 30 Wii Balance Board-specific ones. There are ranked levels as well, if you want to show off your fastest time on the Wi-Fi leaderboards.

Another aspect of the game that you can edit is your Mii ball. Your Mii is placed in an apparatus, and you can put on various masks if you like. Another cool feature is that you can edit this ball's properties as well, altering its responsiveness, speed, slide, bounce, and sound. A well-balanced marble is key for most levels, but there may be some levels for which you might want to add a little extra speed or bounce, depending on what you're comfortable with.

Share your creations with friends, or play with them.
Share your creations with friends, or play with them.

If you're wondering whether this is harder than the first game (which was relatively easy), it is. There are three difficulty settings for each map, so you can always change it so that you lose a few walls and gain some narrower pathways. The widgets also add a new layer of gameplay because you're dealing with machines that can shrink and enlarge the size of your marble to meet the size requirements for certain areas. Magnets, fans, and cannons also keep you on your toes. Those looking for a challenge might find it here, but it is still an accessible and easy-to-play game that makes excellent use of the Wii motion controls as well as the balance board.

Marble Saga: Kororinpa is set to be released this spring in the United States. Europe and Japan will also be able to play with marbles this summer, with a more balance-board-focused version of the game.

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