Jelle's Marble League

Jelle's Marble League is a game announced shortly after the 2021 Marble League, hosted by the Crazy Cat's Eyes. It received a large amount of publicity and quickly became very popular among the JMR community, with plenty of talk, news, ideas, and videos surrounding it. If you wouldn't mind, keep reading to see if it lives up to the hype! Upon loading the game for the first time, there's no tutorial, however, there's a button with instructions on the upper left of the main menu tab. Jumping into offline simulation play, you're given one event, the 5M Sprint to try to unlock the remaining events. You can unlock the remaining events by getting medals, which you earn by finishing in certain positions. This varies by event. While some people, myself included, may enjoy the grind to unlock the events, it's very understandable why this can be very annoying, frustrating, and time-consuming. It would be nice if there was a setting to choose between having them all unlocked and having to gradually unlock them, satisfying both parties. Arcade play, where you can control your marble, only has a few events- the Talisman Challenge, where you try to collect all the talisman along the Sand Moguls course, Roldo's Entourage, where you're challenged to find Roldo among the Felynia crowd, and a mode where you try to collect a certain amount of stars and/or collectibles and/or finish a certain position. These are entertaining, but eventually the magic fades, and I hope for more in a few month's time, hopefully all the ML21 events in the future. Seasons were just released a few days ago, from the time of this update. Despite there being a few bugs in some events, it's amazing and one of the main reasons to buy this game. You get to choose your team and the other teams participating (it would be nice if there was a qualifier though), and run through all 16 events, just like you would see in the actual Marble League. There's an opening ceremony, and podium ceremonies for all 16 events, although no closing ceremony, but hopefully that will come soon. Arcade mode has also been released, adding additonal elements of team control to the seasons (it's optional). Online play would benefit from there being more people in the lobbies. This is completely understandable because it's early access, so hopefully the lobbies will be busier in the future. It would also be nice if there was a way to compete with people and AI. There's a way to make your own team in this game, with 3 slots for multiple different teams if you so desire. The actual team creating process is a bit dull, but still worth it. It would benefit from more different marble presets rather than just JMR skins plus a few different ones, but it's still fine the way it is. A fun idea would be to use your leftover medals to unlock more skins, since medals become useless after unlocking all the events. There's a team biography section, worth going through even if you're familiar with the JMR teams. Some other things, the music was composed by Minos Fylaktos himself, and some of it was even taken from the 2021 Marble League! All of it is fantastic, and I'm very excited to see if more will arrive if this game gets expanded in the future. A physics engine overhaul may be in store a while down the road, as some events are either way easier or way harder, in comparison to the actual Marble League. However, I'm not sure if this is even possible. This game is a bit pricey for the content, but absolutely worth getting on sale! Thank you for reading my review!