The Game Boy Color version of Marble Madness was developed by Digital Eclipse and published by Midway in 1999. It’s an okay port, but it does have a few flaws…

I found it too easy to fall off the courses in places where I didn’t feel like that should be happening (for example: on the zig zag channel leading up to the goal on the first course). Occasionally you can also fall off the course and re-spawn in a place where you repeatedly lose lives (Jet Set Willy-style), which is both annoying and puzzling. I also struggled a bit with the controls, and the movement of the marble. It would just act inconsistently, like sometimes losing inertia quickly and sometimes not. It even rolled along non-existent floors on occasion.

There were a few details relating to later courses that seemed to be different to the arcade original, and they caused serious problems. Like, for example, the cylindrical barriers that pop up out of the floor on course four (Aerial – just after the catapult throws the marble). In the original (and in the most authentic ports) these will come up in threes across the width of the course, then pop down again. In this: the barriers were popping up in twos along the length of the course, which makes them pretty much impossible to avoid. Why the designers decided to change these I don’t know, but it makes completing course four almost impossible – unless you use quicksaves and get lucky with the timings, or cheat.

Overall, Marble Madness on the GBC is fast – maybe too fast – and the difficulty is far too high. And there’s no way to change the difficulty level, so you’re stuck with it. In fact: this version is sorely lacking a few options and features – like different difficulty levels, and a two-player link-up mode. Like the Game Boy version: you also have a limited view of the course on the GBC‘s small screen, so unless you know the layouts you’re going to struggle to orient yourself. The game at least has a high score table, which is something, but that doesn’t compensate for its shortcomings, which are considerable.

More: Marble Madness on Wikipedia