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Published on September 4th, 2024 | by Nay Clark

Marble Abduction! Patti Hattu Review (Switch)

Save the world from aliens by completing their daunting marble gauntlets! Marble Abduction! Patti Hattu is a platforming puzzle game developed and published by BandanaKid, initially released for Windows on May 10th of 2024 and came out for the Switch on August 29th of 2024. There’s something very gratifying about playing with marbles; whether it be the colors that swirl around while the small ball is spiraling out of control, the many ways you can interact with them through casual play, competition, or building obstacles for them to travel through, or the satisfying audible sound of them cracking and clanking due to your actions. The marble videogame genre is especially fun because of these factors as well as directly being able to control the spinning orb through undulating lanes and harrowing challenges. Marble Abduction! Patti Hattu does just that while providing some great visuals, entertaining courses, and a witty sense of humor.

Patti Hattu is a normal human that does very normal human things. One day while he is walking down the street, he gets abducted by aliens. The aliens plan on destroying the planet, but they will spare it if you can get through their obscene and puzzling courses that they created. They put you inside a rolling ball and it’s up to you to adjust the ball’s motion, deal with its physics in the labyrinths, and avoid hazards to reach the goal gate at the end of each level. The story has some great farcical moments like the alien’s spaceship is called “Main Menu” because functionally it serves as the main menu. The alien critters also have some friendly banter and are quite whimsical.

The game is more on the casual side, but that fact doesn’t diminish the fun or oppose any challenging components. The gameplay plays out exactly how you think it would. You can control the marble that Patti Hattu is in to roll around your environment. You can jump to hop over ledges and create shortcuts, boost to try to reach your goal as fast as you can, and release a parachute to slow down. There are clock pickups to help decrease your time and checkpoints to respawn at if you fall off the map. Levels sometimes have different objectives like collecting a set number of crystals before reaching the finish line and there’s also plenty of secrets to scour the haphazard stage for. Finishing levels with a good enough time will net you with a star score and the faster you are, the more stars you gain. You can then use the stars to unlock more marbles to play with.

Levels get trickier as you advance by new rules being added to the mix to spice up the trials and increase the difficulty. Spiked pillars, jetpacks, and bumpers can drastically change the way you look from one level to the next. In marble games like this, you may wonder why the weird looking levels seem to be floating in space or an incomprehensible void. It’s explained by the aliens here in Marble Abduction! Patti Hattu that the process they used to create these trials took bits and pieces from Earth life and sort of mashed everything together. I thought that was a cute way to give context to the story while also giving the aliens a bit more of a comedic demeanor and it makes the actual levels in the game applicable.

The level design can be pretty unhinged in the best possible way. These familiar settings, like a neighborhood or a snowy mountain side, being regurgitated through the eyes of a foreign species is super enjoyable. There are some nice opportunities of destruction like running over little alien blobs or crushing street signs that really feel good tactilely. All of the levels are beautiful and have a cool old school cartoon style that can get pretty diversive on the later courses. There are also a ton of different marbles you can unlock like food items, a tennis ball, and the entire marble vehicle turning into an alien dog-like creature. Besides the main game, there are challenge runs that are strictly based on a time limit and completing them bestows you with even more stars and some even more fancy marbles to scoot around in.

The music is very cheerful and sounds like what you would hear in a 3D mascot platformer. The tunes have a hip beat that you can easily jam out to while rolling over buttons and zooming over broken bridges. You will be falling off the edges of these levels and restarting…a lot. That’s just the nature of these types of games. I appreciated that the music wasn’t super intense, because that probably would’ve driven me up a wall trying to jump off a corner in a particular way to create a wild shortcut for the 100th time while the music is blaring in my ears. The music is a bigger part than you would think and really creates a relieving atmosphere that keeps you coming back for more marble madness.

Final Thoughts?

Marble Abduction! Patti Hattu is a neat little game that bestows smiles and a fun time. The controls of the marble feel tight making your failures feel like your mistakes and your accomplishments feel earned. There is plenty of replayability by challenging yourself to get better times and unlocking more marbles through the challenge mode. The uniquely built stages, interesting graphics, and jolly music are all rolled together as one to create this valuable package. If you are into inertia based puzzle games, then look no further because Marble Abduction! Patti Hattu is the perfect adventure for you.

About the Author

Nay Clark Gaming holds a special place in my heart and I never stop talking about video games. I really love all types of games and have an interest in games that have complicated stories and lore because I enjoy untangling the mystery of it all. When I'm not gaming, I unsuccessfully try to control three amazing and incredibly bright kids.

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