6/29/2023 0 Comments Balan wonderworld face![]() It is not the pariah that the internet makes it out to be though. That just creeped me out.īalan Wonderworld is a game that I tried hard to love. I am looking at you giant girls in the early water stage. There are weird occurrences of characters and geometry just randomly appearing and disappearing at times, which is jarring. The warping levels and unique themes feel right out of the Saturn era. The colorful visuals really remind me of a time when platformers were popping with color. I do love the look of Balan Wonderworld despite its flaws. They feel like everything else in the game, which is half-baked. These are simply button-press mini-games that take little to no skill to complete. There are also mini-games hidden in each level where players get to step into the shoes of the Nights-esque main character on the box. ![]() Sometimes it feels like the game would have benefitted from streamlining of these ideas into a dozen or so really fleshed out suits. A lot of them overlap abilities and seem to only slightly modify the core functionality. There are a ton of costumes in the game, over 80 in fact, but it feels like a bullet point. This is a game that requires a lot of revisiting levels to collect all the pieces with new suits as you progress, but these mechanics made me simply not want to do that. I feltmy enjoyment turn to frustration as I just wanted to collect something only to have it thwarted by poor design. The tedium of having to swap suits and watch the animation over and over really drags on as the game does. Again, this sounds unique and clever on paper, but in execution it can become a real chore. ![]() There is only one button to perform actions and instead the design is that each suit makes that button do different things. It feels like so much of the game is arbitrary costume switching or just a lack of having a jump button with all suits. The game is never hard, but it can be frustrating due to the design choices. Once it didn’t bother me, after the 20th time I was ready to throw my controller. Then I have to grab the key again, then switch to the suit all while making my way from the poorly placed checkpoint. Say I had the dolphin suit and fell off a platform trying to grab a collectible. So, if I needed to get on a specific platform, I had to invoke the animation until I cycled to the right suit for a simple jump.ĭying in a level also resets more progress than I would like. Think of playing a platform game where jumping is not something you always have. For starters, each suit change requires an animation that takes way too long for something that I did very often. While I did enjoy my time with the game, I was constantly annoyed by its archaic design choices. ![]() Suits granting powers to complete puzzle platform levels with a charming visual style. Balan Wonderworld is the kind of game on paper that sounds like a good idea. From the clear design to the colorful palate this game truly does feel like a lost Dreamcast title. They felt straight out of a platformer from the late 90s early 00s. Navigating each level requires various suits, suits require keys, but it is all pretty rudimentary. Players can collect multiple suits and switch between them by tapping the bumpers on the controller. An example is one level has water tunnels that can only be traversed in a specific suit. This is a platformer that relies on various suits to perform different moves and progress in each level. On paper the premise of the game is sound. Platforms: XSX (reviewed), XSS, PS5, XB1, PS4, Switch The cut scenes are well done but made little sense to an overarching narrative. There is a lot of style with not much substance. The story of Balan Wonderworld is awkward at best and confusing at worst. Honestly neither choice really makes a difference outside of some obscure cut scenes. The game kicks off with players selecting either a breakdancing boy or recluse girl as their avatar. It would have felt right at home on the Dreamcast, which is both a good and bad thing. Balan Wonderworld is a game that feels like it was lost in time. So, when I heard he was returning with a new platformer that resembled his early work, I was on board. That was a long time ago though, and over the past decade plus the games he created didn’t really fill me with as much excitement. He was kind of the face of Sega titles in its prime. Titles like Sonic the Hedgehog to Phantasy Star and of course Burning Rangers. So many games that I remember growing up were born from his mind. When I hear the name Yuji Naka it fills me with joy.
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