Marble It Up! : A Worthy Spiritual Successor

[Sirgeorge]

Ever had one of those days when you sit down in the morning to do something you really enjoy only to get up late at night to go to bed? That was the feeling for millions of children and adults alike playing Marble Blast Gold at one point or another during the early and mid-2000s. For those of you that aren't in the know, Marble Blast Gold is an early 3D platform game that revolves around collecting gems and reaching exists, as a marble, on a wacky platform composed world. While not strictly necessary, a timed component exists for those that wish to race against the clock and add puzzle/twitch reaction elements into the game by requiring yourself to find the most time optimized path to get to the exist and find gems. Marble It Up! acts as a wonderful spiritual successor to that original dream. Released oh so many years later, Marble It Up! Couldn't be a more perfect spiritual successor to its classic breatheren.




Marble It Up!, like its spiritual predecessor, is a 3D platform game where you, as a marble, must collect gems and reach exits. Timing elements are present within the game but there exists no penalty for completing the game at any timetable you wish to play it at. If you do push yourself to complete the game under certain time limits, gold and silver (and the coveted diamond) medals are all available for the taking. They, as with Marble Blast Gold, force you to think strategically; thinking of time as a resource not to squander on inessentials.




For those looking for a summery of Marble It Up! in a nutshell; it exists to recreate everything that made Marble Blast Gold (and sequels) so great while taking all the knowledge in game design that was gained in the intervening time span and use it to polish wherever possible. This results in a game thematically and mechanically on par with its inspiration but with an overhauled graphical, menu, settings, music, and platform system. This isn't to say that everything done to Marble It Up! was wholly perfect. No, the menu system leaves something to be desired and the music, while adequate and in tone with its inspiration, leaves something more to be desired. Also, it's really hard to figure out how to get that blasted diamond medal as the times (and other criteria) to meet or beat are not posted on the level menu as they are for silver and gold medals and a spot on the leaderboard. Alas, these are all nitpicks in the grand scheme of things and if you were a fan of the originals of this particular genre and style in the past or if this idea in general sounds interesting to you now, go pick it up. Though do be warned that it IS 20.00$ on average with rarely a discount to be found so be sure that this kind of game partakes in your taste pallet or be prepared to click on that refund button before the two hour mark is up on Steam (or for the Switch, for those of you interested). For anyone interested in a more in depth breakdown, keep reading. I won't keep making references to how this or that is similar to Marble Blast Gold. Please assume that is the case unless otherwise stated in the review.




Marble It Up! greets its player base with a well curated and designed set of levels. Unlike its predecessor, Marble It Up! gives you 40 levels to play with (that's almost double the original). On top of that, user created maps are available for download, though few of them are nearly as polished as the developer created levels. Maps have a wide array of diversity in multiple ways. For one, maps will have a varying range of exportability from linear exploration to an almost sandbox level of paths available for you to go down. This also means that the time limit to get those medals and leaderboard scores affect the levels in a variety of different ways. For more linear maps, the name of the game,for time limited players that is, is to play with perfect timing. Screw up once on when to jump or how to turn and you might as well restart the map (a handy keybindable command exists in game for quickly restarting each map). For more open maps the focus is on branching paths. What direction do you choose first? Do you go for the gems on the higher levels and try to jump down on lower levels (risking falling to your doom and wasting too much time to do anything other then restart the map) or do you go for lower levels and risk taking too much time making your way to the top only to have to drop back down to the mid levels where the exist is? All-in-all, a virtual smorgasbord exists for anyone interested in modifying their gameplay with the time element. As you may have guessed, I personally enjoyed this particular mechanic.




Even if you don't enjoy this particular component, that doesn't mean your gameplay is stuck going around the base map with nothing else to do on a second or third playthrough. Also present in the game, besides a wide array of obstacles, is a whole bunch of powerups. Each one is easily recognizable based on its picture floating longingly in front of you. A feather indicates temporary free floating (meaning that your jumps aren't immediately susceptible to previous levels of gravity). An arrow indicates a super jump. A lightning bold means a charged “bolt” (see what I did there) of superspeed. These powerups aren't strictly necessary for MOST levels in order to complete but they do offer safety nets (such as using the jump to get yourself out of the jaws of gravity when you slipped over the edge) as well as interesting modifiers on getting to hard to reach, or time consuming, places. All of these factors make Marble It Up! Not just a wonderful game to play on the first time around but offer everlasting gobstopper levels of replayability.




Have you ever rewatched the original Toy Story years after its release? It looks good enough to be released today (with a few exceptions). Have you ever compared it to more modern releases of Toy Story? Ever notice how even though the two look like they are in the same realm graphically, the newer ones have clearly better graphical polish? Well, that's the exact same position Marble It Up! is in in relation to Marble Blast Gold. While Marble Blast Gold still looks good enough to be released today, Marble It Up! clearly goes a level beyond its spiritual predecessor's graphical fidelity. Most won't care too much in a game like this, but I thought I should mention it nonetheless.




What people may be more interested in though is the customizability of the marble in Marble it Up! Did you know you can customize the marble? Cuz you can customize the marble. However the way that Bad Habit Productions chose to make customization in this game work is a double edge sword. On the one hand, for those of us interested in completing challenges as well as finding secrete Easter eggs and all that you get another reward besides medals and a spot on the scoreboard, customizable marbles for certain achievements. On the other hand, for those not interested in hitting those achievement markers but DO want marble customization, it can be very frustrating to choose between not getting a customizable marble or doing something you don't want to do for the purposes of getting access to sweet marbles. I won't chastise the developer for making marbles blacked out before you get them (mostly because there is value in not knowing and wondering and for those that really want to know you can go on the internet and find out more) but I will say that it does little to help appease that inherent temptation to choose between two things that someone may not want to do in order to customize. I would recommend a setting to allow players to choose between collector and “classic” style.




All-in-all, besides the few things I peppered in here and there that are negatives, this game just fits perfectly in that hole that was left after the Marble Blast series left us. Rest in peace sweat prince, you've finally gotten an heir to carry your torch onwards. Let's hope for more to quench our hunger in later sequels to both that series or this new one (though do drop that price for both this and future series, even as a fan...it was a little hard to swallow).

(see you in the comments)

[Sirgeorge]

Thanks for the review! This looks really cool, I'm going to add it to my watch list.

Hazza! I have been vindicated. Glad you liked it. Future reviews will include pictures to offload some of the work I was doing with words previously as well as to get a total amount of information exceeding the current amount.

[Saskia]

Thanks for the review! This looks really cool, I'm going to add it to my watch list.