Marble It Up! Ultra from the aptly named The Marble Collective brings a fast-paced rolling experience to PlayStation. Check our Marble It Up! Ultra review!
Marble It Up! Ultra from the aptly named The Marble Collective brings a fast-paced rolling experience to PlayStation. It’s a physics-based platforming experience where momentum is key. You’ll be taking on over 100 colorful and challenging levels in the game’s single-player campaign. The single-player levels will be spread over 6 different chapters, along with 4 bonus chapters. There are plenty of obstacles to dodge as you roll over bouncy floors, tight platforms, and twisting turns.
Along with the main single-player campaign and the aforementioned bonus chapters with some extra levels that will test your skills, there are also some additional multiplayer mayhem options for you to dive into. You could take on a fast-paced match of Soccer as you try to protect your goal and score more goals than your opponents in an experience that reminded me at times of Rocket League. You can also play a Sumo match where you’ll try to roll all opponents away from the zone. Maybe you’d be up for a game of Zombies where the undead rise from the grave in marble form? Or perhaps you have what it takes to get a ton of gems in Gem Hunt as you try to rule over everyone else.
To control your marble as it rolls around through each area, you’ll be using the left analog stick as you use the right one to move the camera around as needed. The X or L2 buttons can be used for jumping, which will be needed for taking on the tight platforming segments you’ll run into in the dozens of levels on offer. If you have a power-up, you can activate it with the Square or R2 buttons. And if you activate the rewind ability from the settings menu, you can use it by pressing the Triangle button, which is very useful when you make a mistake.
What are some of the power-ups that you can collect during your time with Marble It Up! UItra? You could collect the high jump arrow that can make your marble jump considerably high, or you could find the boost lighting bolt that can make your marble move extremely fast, which can be used to roll up walls that would otherwise be impossible for you to roll over. You can also collect a pause power-up that will slow down the timer so that you can have a better shot at making it to the goal within the time limit for a Gold Medal. There’s even a set of wings that will allow your marble to float down!
If you want to expand your digital marble collection, then you’re going to love the huge variety that Marble It Up! Ultra has to offer. Each level that you play through offers a special treasure chest for you to collect. The treasure chest has a shiny marble inside of a crystal cube, and collecting the treasure chest and completing the level will reward you with a new marble for your collection. You can equip the new marble right away if you feel like it. There are other ways of gaining additional marbles, such as earning medals or completing specific objectives that you’ll need to find out on your own.
You can also spend the in-game currency – known as Shards – that you earn to purchase new cosmetics for your marble so that it can roll in style through the dozens of stages you’ll take on. Obtain additional Shards by getting a bronze, silver, or gold medal in each level by completing it within each corresponding time limit, and you’ll be able to use it to buy additional marbles for your collection, add colorful and sparkly streaks to leave behind you as you roll through a level or add some accessories to your marble, like a mohawk, a hat, a pair of 3D glasses, and more. Do you have what it takes to collect every single additional marble in Marble It Up! Ultra?
Marble It Up! Ultra has a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy, and it’s a long one! There are 22 Bronze trophies, 18 Silver trophies, and 2 Gold trophies for you to work on. And since this is a Cross-Buy title, if you own a PlayStation 5 console, you’ll be able to download both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions of the game, and each one will have its own separate trophy list. What will you need to do to get that shiny Platinum trophy in your collection?}
You’ll have to complete all levels in the single-player levels in the campaign’s main chapters and bonus chapters. On top of that, you’ll need to beat the silver and gold time limits for all levels in the campaign, which will require you to replay levels as you find the best way to slash some seconds here and there as needed. Roll 5 miles in total, and that will give you another trophy. There are also trophies tied to the mini-games for scoring a ton of goals in the Soccer mini-game, collecting 1,000 gems in Gem Hunt, turning 5 survivors into zombies in a single Zombies match, earning 300 points in a 4+ player Sumo match without falling out, and staying in the zone for 15 minutes in multiplayer Sumo.
Marble It Up! Ultra brings us a fast-paced rolling experience to PlayStation that will keep you busy for a while, with more than 100 levels to play in the game’s single-player campaign between the main chapters and the bonus chapters that will dial up the difficulty. There are also some multiplayer mini-games, such as Sumo, Soccer, and gem hunt, that you can play online, along with weekly challenges you can try to complete to put your name on the leaderboard. Marble It Up! Ultra will launch on August 17 with a $29.99 price tag.
Disclaimer
This Marble It Up! Ultra review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by The Marble Collective.
