Marble Blast's Art Style

There were several factors that made Matan's team distance themselves from the MBUPC team.

• Matan doesn't consider any of their shit legal, unlike Marble Blast Platinum, which had the original team's blessings.
• MBUPC's team borrowed assets from MBP, which Matan's team didn't like since it their work.
• Matthieu Parizeau creating two new power-ups : Power Cube, and Anvil. The anvil was Matan team's idea for their upcoming game "PlatinumQuest"

These factors, alongside a conflict with Matthieu Parizeau's other project "Marble Blast Super" led to this thread , where the staff discussed his history with stealing assets and code under both games.
Like I said, this has been resolved for a while now. HiGuy acknowledged this whole conflict to be petty, stating that this was "not the correct way to deal with competition"
No I never approached Matan for comments, I don't think he cares about legality anymore, that was his whole thing in the past.

Marble Blast Platinum [Mod]
This is a really basic answer, but there's something about Marble Blast Platinum's art style that really resonates with me. The compressed shit reminds me a lot of old games, artists trying to put detail while working with the game's limitation. It's an interesting contract to Marble Blast Gold, and as a result, makes shit look dated. This isn't a bad thing by the way.
I really like them mimicking Marble Blast Ultra's idea with making each difficulty take place in a different environment. Aside from it's fuckass levels, Expert's whole night-time environment is beautiful, they did a good job with setting this as the last section of the game.

Marble Blast Ultra [Mainline]
Next on the line is Marble Blast Ultra, a game that perfectly encompasses a time period. This game screams Xbox 360, from presentations to art style. It's gritty, discarding Marble Blast Gold's cartoonish art style for something more futuristic, which was pretty common in this console generation for better or for worse (we don't need to talk about Bomberman Act Zero). The Intermediate section of the game is my favourite part of this game, the tile colours and skybox compliment each other better than the other two difficulties. The style is its best when playing the Multiplayer maps, where the designers utilised the limited palettes to create alluring maps, even if they're a bitch to play though.

Honourable Mentions
This section is mostly about games and mods that I sort of liked, but not enough for them to marinate in my mind. I have a few thoughts about them, but nothing in-depth.
PlatinumQuest [Mod] and Marble it Up [Game] both have something interesting about their art direction. I feel like they were trying to strike a balance between their previous styles. For PQ, it was working between MBG and MBP's art style. While Marble it Up ran with the vibrance of MBG, while retaining the futuristic aesthetic of MBU.

With Marble it Up's art direction, they really went experimental with meshing other colour palettes rather than stick with a consistent one for each difficulty. The multiplayer rotation, save for some open maps, is pretty disappointing in comparison to their offerings in MBU. This is the part where I give out a map designer's name and we spend the next few years swooning over them.

PlatinumQuest on the other hand narrowed down their colour choices and tile designs. Where MBP had harsher colours and raised tiles, PQ had one-colour gradient and wavy tiles. A consistent colour palette meant that the difficulty environment had to be discarded, as I imagine it would've made the levels looked bland or samey. Despite this, there are a few levels that give off MBP's dingy look, notably the construction themed levels.

Marble Blast Gerson Level Compilation series [Mod], and by extension Great Marble Adventure [Game] have something interesting going for them. The creator had an emphasis for looks, which makes the levels look amazing at the cost of gameplay. Throughout playing the GLC series, I found myself appreciating the artistic direction rather than playing, which would work if this was just a showcase. This seems to be a common complaint with people who played through this series, and it goes to show the value of striking a balance between aesthetics and gameplay.