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It's Been Done - But It's Still Fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 17 / 18
Date: March 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Kororinpa Marble Mania is in essence Super Monkey Ball without the monkeys. Taking its cue from the classic Labyrinth game, you guide the maze in 3D and the marble acts with basic physics responses.

First, the premise. You have a series of themed maps that involve three dimensions of track. As you twist and turn the Wii remote, the track moves to match. As you give a tilt to the board, the marble rolls down the tilt. This is of course the basics - but soon there are ramps, sliding doors, sliding platforms, rotating pieces and other tricky objects involved in your path.

There are of course crystals to collect - what would a game be without collecting crystals! There is also a bonus green item on each level which is rather tricky to achieve, but unlocks new items. This gives you incentive to go back and re-play levels repeatedly.

Each level has its own theme. There are nature themes with leafy objects, a sugar-high theme with candies and cookies, an industrial theme with concrete, a cardboardy paper-Mario style theme, and so on. There are also background theme songs to unlock, and a variety of balls. Some make cute little noises, like the pink pig or the mrowling cat.

My first reaction was - do we really need another Super Monkey Ball game? Super Monkey Ball has a ton of great mini-games, great levels, and all around fun. Kororinpa is lacking a lot of that. All you have is mazes. The multi-player is just map racing.

It is challenging in a brain-train sort of way to figure out the solution to each puzzle, thinking in three dimensions. So from that point of view, I suppose you can consider this "Monkey Ball 1A" - not really better than Monkey Ball, but it gives you a new set of puzzles to figure out. Again, though, it lacks a lot of the features that Monkey Ball has, so I would start with the Monkey Ball series, and then move on to this one once you've figured all the Monkey Ball puzzles out.

The only real complaint I have about the core game is that the game treats the balls too delicately. There were many times where we were done with the first half of a map, and did a 'leap' to get to the second half. We landed nicely, plainly on the map, and it made us die. These are marbles! They're not eggs! If they land on a surface, they don't explode in a million pieces :)

I do have to give kudos here to the Wii remote. When I remember back to playing these types of games on a regular remote, it was always a little challenging to get the board tilt just right with the stick or buttons. With the Wii remote, it is very simple and obvious. You tilt the remote - the board tilts. No thought, no translation - it simply does what you do.

Recommended!

Simple, but entertaining

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 14
Date: April 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The first time I sat down to play this game, I played for a couple hours before realizing how much time had passed. It is extremely simple to pick up, for gamers and non-gamers alike. There is no concept of "lives", so you can never really lose if you keep trying - you just keep starting back at the beginning of the level you are on, and you get to keep all the crystals you have collected. You can earn gold, silver, and bronze trophies by completing the course quickly, and you can also collect special objects which unlock secret levels, new music, etc. The game is easy to learn, but difficult to master - getting gold trophies is HARD!

I imagine the game probably isn't as much fun once you have gotten all the way through it and received however many trophies you are willing to put the effort into getting, but in the meantime I'm having lots of fun with it!

Unlike the other reviews I see here already, I have not played Super Monkey Ball on the Wii; I found the previous Monkey Ball game I tried on the GameCube repetitive and boring after about half an hour, so take that into account when you read this review.

well done use of wiimote

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: April 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a fun and addictive game, and it really shows-off just how precice the wiimote is to the most sensitive movements. Great control combined with good software physics give the game a very realistic feel of momentum, gravity, etc. I actually like that the orientation of the camera remains fixed (doesn't follow behind the marble), however it would be nice if the camera would pull back a bit when when the marble heads towards it, such that you could see what is up ahead better. Thankfully I think the designers created the levels in such a way that the "coming towards camera" portions are rarely an issue. The 2 player gameplay was also entertaining.

MARBLE MADNESS!! It's back!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: November 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Being a fan of the old NES game Marble Madness, I've kind of always been waiting for another game like it. Something unique, fun, and difficult. Kororinpa: Marble Mania fills the gap.

Many people will compare this game to Super Monkey Ball, and its really an unfair comparison. Sure, all "balance" games will be compared to the most popular series, but this one is definitely unique. Super Monkey ball feels more frantic, whereas Kororinpa overall feels more relaxed. You are timed for completing the levels, but you are not time-limited unless you want to earn prizes and gold/silver/bronze cups. So, if you want to take your time, go ahead. The game retains a good level of tension even when you're just cruising since it's more about balance than racing...which I found very enjoyable.

If you need to compare this game to a similar "balance" game, then think more along the lines of the old wooden Labyrinth game with the metal ball. Much like that old board-game, you will find yourself open to different interpretations of how to complete levels and get that ball to the other side. The later levels encourage some experimentation as well.

Overall, this game is very fun for "balance" game lovers, and it stands in it's own category of the genre...and it's only $30, so you can't lose!

Rent it

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 11
Date: March 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game because I loved Super Monkey Ball, and I was hoping for more of the same, even if it was a knock off. I had read that the game was very easy, but when I played it, this was not my experience, virtually every level seemed harder than monkey ball. However, there's no lives, you just keep going and going til you have beaten that level, in later levels there is even checkpoints. So that I had beat the main "quest" in around 2-3 hours. The replay is only worth it long enough to unlock the other levels, as each level is not necessarily fun, it's not worth going back over to unlock some more of the music, or another marble to make another animal sound.
Another minor complaint I had was that the camera angle is fixed, so sometimes you're rolling towards the screen with no idea as to what you're about to hit. This also wreaked havoc with my ability to hop right back onto monkey ball because instead of tilting the remote to the side and followin through with the tip to adjust the camera, I had now gotten used to just twisting the remote to the side. Wow does this review make me look like a geek.
Anyway, I did not find this game to be as fun, or challenging as monkey ball, if you're hoping for a passable knock off to get you through to a sequal, I'm sorry that is not the case with this game. But I'd recommend a rental, because it's at least worth that, and some of the other reviewers seemed to enjoy it more than I did.

Cute but easy...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: March 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Cute but easy, with more on the easy. If your looking for a fun pick up and play game for the Wii, this one is definitely for you. Very easy to pick up with no learning curve. There is about 40 levels with each of those having mirror modes and then some secret levels. The object very simple: make it to the finish line with all the red crystals collected and move on to the next course. Bottom line, I would say this is a fun pick up game but to maybe wait till the price drops alittle.... Enjoy Rolling.....

Best game currently available for the Wii

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: September 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I only own three Wii games - Resident Evil 4, Mario Strikers Charged, and Kororinpa. Thankfully Gamespot allows you to buy used Wii games and return them in 7 days for a full refund if you don't like them. It beats the heck out of renting from Blockbuster's limited Wii selection, and I've bought enough used Wii games to know that Kororinpa is one of the best out there right now. On my budget, I have to really love a game before deciding to buy for keeps.

There are quite a few Wii games out at this point, and the sad truth must be told that the majority of them are disappointing. Excite Truck is a fun game, but to me not worth the $50 price tag, while Strikers is easily worth $50 due to its replayability and online play.

At $29.99 now, purchasing Kororinpa should be a no brainer for any serious Wii gamer. It it the only game I've found to be using the Wiimote in such a sensitive manner. Players simply will not believe how accurate the board tilt is based upon tiny, tiny wrist movements here.

So not a game for anyone with shaky hands! This is a perfectionist's game - someone who doesn't mind spending time to continually reduce the amount of time it takes to get the marble from point A to point B.

By the way - in order to get the 5 bonus levels (I've read different things on the internet so wanted to write what I've confirmed here), you must finish these levels in the following times:

Stage 01 - Under 6 seconds
Stage 02 - Under 12 seconds
Stage 03 - Under 10 seconds
Stage 04 - Under 28 seconds
Stage 05 - Under 13 seconds
Stage 06 - Under 15 seconds
Stage 07 - Under 9 seconds
Stage 08 - Under 31 seconds
Stage 09 - Under 14 seconds
Stage 10 - Under 27 seconds
Stage 11 - Under 14 seconds
Stage 12 - Under 20 seconds
Stage 13 - Under 32 seconds
Stage 14 - Under 16 seconds
Stage 15 - Under 22 seconds
etc.

Once you have finished all stages 1 to 24 and received gold cups, all 5 bonus levels are yours.

Fun for old folks who like to slow movin stuff

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: July 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is great for us old folks who like to play with the $400 toys we buy our kids once in a while. The kids like this game too but slow and steady wins the race so guess who useally wins for once.

Harder than the other reviewers make it sound

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: August 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I rented this game and it can be very challenging. i got frustrated easily with it, and had to have my husband finish the game ( I played the first five levels and then let him have a turn and those five levels ended up being the only ones I beat. I tried some of the other levels, but could not finish. Maybe I'm just not much good with the wii remote and all the tilting, but I just wanted to let everyone know my experiences with it since all the other reviews say how easy it is.

That being said, my husband was able to play through all of the original levels at least in 2-3 hours. Even though they were not really easy to get through, the board he did the worst on only took seven minutes.

Frustrating fun!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

As soon as this game arrived, and without reading over the manual too much, I and a friend immediately launched into the two player mode. We played for a solid 2.5-3 hours, at first competing to see who would win. Once the difficulty ramped up, we were simply trying to finish. The two player mode only makes use of the remote and a nunchuk, with each player holding one or the other. While this is annoying in that it requires two people to sit fairly close to each other, the control afforded by the nunchuk was great...in fact, after trading off with my friend after he grew frustrated, I found it to be better than the standard remote. Too bad the nunchuk cannot be used in single player mode.

The game itself is quite fun, with numerous unlockable marbles that have a dramatic effect on the gameplay....well....some of them do. Many of the early marbles are of the "easy cute" type, shaped to resemble a cutesy animal. Several of the later marbles provide more speed, weight, or other handling characteristics that makes better times in previous maps possible. The maps themselves are ingenious, with many later maps requiring a creative application of gravity. The controls are solid and precise- a player will not be able to blame his failures on the controls. That said, the camera angles were, at times frustrating. My friend constantly complained about them, but I really didn't have too much of a problem with them. Graphics and sound are quite good, though the music is a bit lacking.

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