![]() Balan has a dark doppelganger named Lance (the most fearsome of names) who keeps corrupting people and turning them into shadow monsters or something. ![]() I barely know what the plot of this game is. Each of the 12 characters you’ll help has a trio of cutscenes, all including a cringey, choreographed musical number. There’s not really any dialogue in Balan Wonderworld, as most things are conveyed through songs. Down-on-their-luck types, such as a clown that’s scared to ask a girl out, or a guy that lost a chess match one time. But the duo presses forward to assist a dozen individuals who share sadness in their lives. Why Balan, a guy with Dragon Ball powers, needs two children to do this in his stead, I don’t have the foggiest. He invites Leo and Emma into a colorful hub connected to a dozen woeful individuals who need their help. While running from their troubles, they find themselves in Balan’s theater, a magical place or something.īalan is a guy with green hair, a hat, and a creepy smile. Leo is disenchanted due to a lost friendship, and Emma is saddened because her maids keep ignoring her and whispering to each other while she’s present. I say “find,” because they’re more minor inconveniences than anything. But this is a dated game built out of questionable design choices that make me wonder why no one stepped in with advice before it was too late.īalan Wonderworld begins with players choosing from one of two characters, both of whom are struggling with circumstances they find unfavorable. There are numerous things to like and I did find myself enthused on occasion. To be clear, what’s here is far from bad. It’s unfortunate, then, that this is the game he chose to make. He was told by the higher-ups at Square Enix that, while he could execute his vision with Balan Wonderworld, this was his one chance. Yuji Naka hadn’t directed a game since 1999’s Chu Chu Rocket, let alone a tentpole 3D platformer. But it can burn their wings off with an intense magnifying glass as well. It supplies copious winds to set properties aloft. Especially as each one in Balan Wonderworld has multiple ways you can defeat it and you’re rewarded for discovering them all.Hype can be a cruel mistress. The art design for each level is usually more interesting than for the characters, with surreal landscapes of rolling hills and clockwork towers, but the real highlight is the boss battles, which start off fairly mundane but eventually become more involved, as they make the case that old school Japanese boss battles are still a spectacle that modern Western-led design cannot match. There’s the occasional leap of faith but generally the game plays fair, although falling off only to have to spend five minutes climbing back to where you were is not uncommon. That is, presumably, meant to be part of the charm but the novelty of playing such an uncomplicated, unpretentious game lasts mere minutes, as you realise just how much things have moved on in the last 20 years.ĭespite what you might be imagining the camera isn’t that bad, although your experience may differ depending on how you familiar you find the old school level design, with its puzzle-like platform placement and hidden areas. The graphics are better than anything Sega’s final console could’ve managed, but not by much, and the frictionless movement and expressionless main characters all feel like they’ve just jumped through a portal from 1999. If we’d been told Balan Wonderworld was some kind of long lost Dreamcast game, found half completed and then finished up for release on modern formats we’d easily have believed it. That’s not an especially original idea for video games (it’s not far off Super Mario Odyssey’s cap) but if nothing else Balan Wonderwold goes all in the variety of options and abilities. It’s a much more straightforward 3D platformer, vaguely in the Super Mario mould, where the main gimmick is your ability to don dozens of different costumes, all of which give you different special abilities. ![]() The first thing to realise though is that despite the obvious homages this really isn’t much like NiGHTS at all. ![]() We did try though, because even ignoring the history of the creators there are some fun ideas at the game’s core and it’s very rare nowadays to see even a medium budget, old school 3D platformer. Nobody wants to discourage publishers from releasing demos but the one for Balan Wonderworld was so underwhelming it was extremely difficult to stay optimistic about the full release. The hype train for Balan Wonderworld was initially derailed by the playable demo released back in January. ![]()
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