Marbles. They roll, hit things (maybe each other), and get lost under the sofa. Lovely little things though, the swirls and all that inside of ’em made for an excellent collection—well, til I lost that bag. But thanks to the fine folks at Marble It Up, LLC, I can finally have my dream marble collection back. And even better, this time I can actually play with them in Marble It Up! Ultra. Gone are the messy marble cleanups, now I can be a marble and explore what must be the world(s) where lost marbles end up.
Marble It Up! Ultra is a platformer where the goal is simple: your marble needs to make it to the goal in the fastest time possible. Sometimes this goal might need you to collect gems to open up the exit, but otherwise its full-speed ahead to the goal. Along your way are twists and turns that will gladly chuck you off the almost-psychodelic beaten paths. Stages will have collectibles for your marble too, meaning extra reasons to retry a stage if you really want to deck out your balls.
I haven’t played something so simple yet so fun in quite a while. Controlling the marble feels smooth and weighty, and there are tricks to getting your marble to hit top speed based on the level layouts. Power ups can boost you to places you’d otherwise not be able to reach normally or you can use them to explode your way to the stage exit. Resetting the stage is perfectly timed to pressing the up button on your dpad, letting you reset when you actually want to and not accidentally (yes, this has been an issue in other games). This game wouldn’t be out of place in WildTangent’s catalogue of yore.
Marble It Up! offers a lot of levels and a fun little multiplayer mode to waste some time in. Zombies, gem hunting, etc are available for play although you’ll likely spend more time on the weekly level challenges and the main campaign unless you want to get specific marble gear tied to the multiplayer mode. The levels are great—sometimes tight, occasionally a little too simple for my liking, but I blew past them nonetheless. Checkpoints are evenly spaced out so every level can be beaten by all skill levels, all the while jiving to 70s synthetics. It’s the perfect pick up and play game.
With a strong control scheme and physics alongside a solid variety of content, Marble It Up! Ultra is a fantastic addition to the arcade slash platforming-lovers library.
Marble It Up! Ultra
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Strong character controller and physics.
- Lots of levels with strong design, encouraging many methods of completion.
- Lots of collectibles for your marbles.
- Fun multiplayer mode.
