Here memories and vistas from the real world mix with the things that people hold dear. Led by the enigmatic maestro named Balan, the stars of the show Emma and Leo will use special abilities from a multitude of characterful costumes as they adventure in the bizarre and imaginary land of Wonderworld. It may look pretty (when it's framerate isn't chugging), but there simply isn't enough good content here to justify your time or money, and this is doubly true when you take into account that this is a full-priced retail release.Welcome to a wonderous all-action show, the likes of which has never been seen before!īALAN WONDERWORLD is a wondrous action platformer game themed around the Balan Theatre. Monotonous level design, awful performance, and shallow gameplay combine to make for an experience that is simply not fun to play. What were they thinking? We're not going to mince words here, Balan Wonderworld is a waste of your time. There's no reason for a limitation like this to exist and it only makes an already frustrating game that much more baffling. The result? Wearing an attack-focused suit literally means you can't jump anymore. All the face buttons and both the triggers do the exact same thing, which for most suits is some version of a jump - in some cases, it might be a basic attack instead, but it can't be both. Mitch Vogel, Nintendo Life: "There's nothing wrong with setting up different hurdles in levels for each suit's abilities, but Balan Wonderworld fails to go beyond scratching the surface with the creativity of these obstacles, a creative failure that extends to the control scheme limited by one button. Wonder what in the world happened with the Switch version. Wonder how a very well known publisher could stomach having it in their library. Wonder how a game could so masterfully miss literally every opportunity to treat its players with a modicum of respect. The kind of wonder that makes you wonder. Balan Wonderworld will leave you with a sense of wonder. The more I played the more I began to think the latter was the case. At times you'll catch a glimpse of what seems remarkably close to a vision for the game, yet equally common is the nagging feeling you've fallen victim to a scam. It's backed by the monolithic Square Enix and yet the Switch version in particular feels like a poorly funded indie title that is overstretching a lone developer. It clearly has modern influences-most obviously Super Mario Odyssey in its ability swapping mechanics-and yet it either wildly misunderstands them or simply takes glee in ignoring key elements. John Rairdin, NintendoWorldReport: "After many hours, Balan Wonderworld remains a mystery to me. RELATED: Super Mario 3D All-Stars: The BEST Way to Play These Games Now That Mario Is Dead Because while much of this title pulls at the parts of the brain that control nostalgia, some elements are stark reminders of just how far the medium has come." It feels like Yuji Naka and his team at Balan Company have ignored the past 25 years of progress made in game development. But Balan Wonderworld doesn't just feel old. Retro games are as big now as they've ever been, and we're still getting Kickstarters for "spiritual successors" to those titles we deeply adored as kids. And hey, there is nothing wrong with feeling a bit old. If you were to tell me Balan Wonderworld was actually an HD remake of some 1997 Sega Saturn title, I'd probably believe you because from top to bottom, this feels like something I played back when I was 13 years old. It's an artifact of the mid to late '90s, calling back to the golden era of the mascot platformer, a brief period when developers blessed the world with weird and experimental platform games like Bug or Croc: Legend of the Gobbos. This is a new game that feels very, very old. From its misguided one-button control scheme, to its haphazard transforming costume mechanic and the levels that use them, to the half-hearted Chao Garden-like hub world between them, it gets a lot wrong – and very little of what it gets right helps to balance the scales."ĬJ Andriessen, Destructoid: "If I were to sum up Balan Wonderworld in a single word, that word would be antiquated. But when you take Balan Wonderworld as a whole, it sinks lower than the rudimentary platforming that barely props it up. Some of its barebones obstacle courses can occasionally produce hints of what I might call fun, and it's not much more than a total bore the rest of the time. Tom Marks, IGN: "When you're hopping around Balan Wonderworld's simultaneously imaginative yet bland stages, it doesn't necessarily feel like a total trainwreck.
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