Marble Saga Kororinpa

So the other game I bought from my recent jaunt over to Vancouver... Marble Saga Kororinpa. I started playing it last night, and so far it's not bad. It gets mediocre reviews because of the control scheme. With the "marble rolling genre" of games, control is key. I read someone refer to these games as a genre, and I guess they are when you think about it.

I can understand why some may complain about the control. But it's not as bad as you would think from the reviews. Yes-- you WILL need to turn the Wii remote upside-down at times; so that the A button side is facing the floor. The key to playing this game is to hold the Wii remote with the tips of your fingers & not let it rest in your palm at all. You've gotta think about the Wii remote as a gyroscope or something. And it helps not to use the Wii remote strap.

There are times when I'm thinking, "did the devs actually PLAY this level themselves?" things almost seem broken. Then I went into the level design editor where you can make your own levels, and decided to create one myself. I think that the number of tools I have available are dependent on unlocking them from progressing through the main game, so my tools may be limited, but... I created this level that was UTTERLY BROKEN. It was so funny-- had me in stitches when I test-played it because I thought, "OK, let's play this to see how it works" and it was SO bad.... hehehehe. So maybe this game/level design stuff is harder than it looks....

Another weird thing I noticed is that there's this ant character, and his "vocals" sound EXACTLY like the characters in Animal Crossing.... you know, that fast chirping like sound they make as you read their text dialogue? I actually checked my GameCube copy of Animal Crossing to see if it was made by Hudson, but it seems to be a first-party Nintendo game. Maybe the same company developed both games? I dunno.

It's still early but I'd say Marble Saga Kororinpa is worth the $9.98 Real Canadian Superstore sells it for.



later
don