Balan Wonderworld - Easy Allies Review 

Turns out there's a good explanation for the game itself being shit. That explanation? Made by the creators of Yoshi's New Island and Hey Pikmin! I'm not joking.

Entire budget spent on cinematics

@@dragonbornexpress5650 I think there was also a AI involved in the level difficulty. Is that normal?

@@star22sally67. I don't think so.

@@dragonbornexpress5650 [kazoo noises]

Don't worry, it goes nowhere.

Spoiler alert: Girl swims with dolphins Dolphin turns evil You defeat a boss Dolphin is good again that is literally the extent of that plotline

There's a demo so your intrigue can be satiated.

All the plots are: -This person is sad -You beat a boss -This person is no longer sad because..... reasons. The game never bothers to give any context to why or how the player's actions fix the person's problems.

😂 Same

Now, some may disagree with me here (due to Ultimate's enormous scope) but I genuinely believe this happened with Sakurai when he made Smash Bros Melee. to the point he refers to his GCN-era work ethics as "self destructive", aka it was a point he was so driven and passionate in his work, that he was being consumed by it. Obviously this is not a normal or healthy state people can stay in for very long... but I think all the greats of this industry, have had those peaks. And either they want to get it back again their whole careers, or they merely maintain high quality standards but lose that 'spark' of DRIVE they had in one specific product. Majora's Mask; SSBM; Pokemon Red; in these products, there is actual, electric *energy* from its creators. Yuji Naka's products have this energy as well, but in every aspect of the game EXCEPT AS A GAME. The man coded an entire AI culture, full emotions, and population growth scripts for tiny fairies that populate stages in NiGHTs that, 9 times out of 10, players won't even notice because they're trying to play the GAME. He cannot code good gameplay, his games suck at being fun games you actually play, because every inch of the screen is overflowing with fluff and extra shit he kept adding and it just gives you a headache or bores you to death to play.

People forget Sonic was directed by Hirokazu Yasuhara, not by Yuji Naka. Yuji Naka coded it. While he created a beautiful engine, he didn't make the level design nor created the characters. He probably gets too much credit for what was in fact a collective effort. Same goes for Nights.

Sonic 2 was also coded by Mark Cerny. He also coded Marble Madness and was the lead architect for the PSVita, PS4, and PS5.

@@Shendue So basically Inafune and MegaMan?

@@B4ss88 I'm guessing yes.

Mighty number 9 hurt my soul :(

A sad reality is that not everything that comes from the master will be gold.

60$???? Holy...

@@riddif Yeah, I was really looking forward to it, but the demo had me worried. This review confirms my fears. It could have been something special if they would have held off and thought things out maybe.

You can play the demo anyway.

@@Stormgazer I doubt the game would have been saved with more dev time. The game has several fundamental design flaws that were never going to be fixed with just more time, this was Yuji Naka's vision. He said it was his one chance to work on a platformer instead of going back to Phantasy Star, he had his whole career riding on this, and he blew it haaard.

@@riddif right? 50 quid for a game that's essentially a glorified beta

Ha lol I've developed the exact same thing, and I still haven't seen anybody else even mention the timmies besides in passing.

Same here. Didn't know this game until yesterday and since then I have spent hours watching reviews about it.

It’s gotten really entertaining watching everyone shit on it. My local GameStop manager said a couple months before it came out that it “looks really good and everyone is hyped for it,” trying to sell me on a preorder for it. I had to stop myself from laughing.

@@puritydvoyd2978 Wasn’t everyone excited for it a couple months before release? Then the demo came out

Well you do solve problems in people hearts

He's a bootleg NiGHTS

This could have been like baby's first persona...

@@facilityhues It would have to be a good game if that were the case :P

Lol, I thought your link was gonna take me to the bell @5:48.

"if you can get someone else to play with you" LOL

It's how "multiplayer" worked in the Sonic games for years, so I guess it's just Naka going back to his roots on that.

@@myname9130 Was a terrible idea at the time as well.

@@LordYggdrasill Nah, I meant player 2 not being able to see what they're doing. If they're gonna be hamstrung by the camera, they might as well not be there.

lol

No it didn’t

Eeeh No?

What I'd say is its biggest promise is its visual style, we really don't see games with this particular style commonly these days. That said, I could personally tell from the reveal trailer that the gameplay looked alarming and its become apparent they had no intent of ever fixing it sadly. If they really put solid effort into the gameplay this could have been a really special title. Oh well.

Wtf was square enix thinking? 😂

@@kob4918 It really did have promise, the music is for the most part good, some pieces could belong in Hollow Knight. The character design for Balan is still super interesting. The designs of the powerups were all varied, even if they're useless. If Yuji Naka scrapped the idea of having all the face buttons do the same thing then they could have had something special. It seems old video game designers are overwhelmed with modern design to the point where they have to limit themselves.

Why? All the bad guys die from jumps so the non jump power ups are solely for their uses for puzzles. Boomerang attacks to catch stuff, block breaking. That sort of deal

@@masteroflag Does that make it fun? Does restricting movement for the sake of a shit ton of (mostly) useless power fun? Its honestly a really awful take on Mario odyssey. Plus there is no back button for the menu. Like you cant even press X to go back. What the hell!

@@hotfuzz4416 actually yes because most of them become useless because of game progression. Like the jumping Jack power up in level 1 works like Yoshi, but it gets outdone by the next area power up to float on bubbles where it’s downside is anything could pop the bubble early, then you get the next set of levels and get air walk cat to walk float with much more control and speed and no bubble issues, and then the next set of worlds gives you the same thing only you go upwards as you walk. So basically jumping Jack, air walk, and bubble are useless by the end of the game but in knowing that stuff meant for them is made even easier with the later suits so you use them to get around at the risk of if you fall or get hit you lose and need to grind for that power up again. Finding out what stupid op crap the next world can give you to get around the earlier levels is half the fun of this game. As for the menus that’s an unfortunate side effect but one anyone used to one button Gaming is used to when you can just hit start again.

@@masteroflag Wow. That's a very long list of excuses and doesn't really explain why a lot of people don't find this game fun and super restrictive beside bad game design. "Unfortuate side effect" The fuck? It was made that way! Yes because there are many one button games that do this. If you like it than good for you . I'm sure that all 10 people out there like it but everyone else, wait for a new Mario game or BOTW2.

@@hotfuzz4416 you realize based on the sales the game had you already won right? I’m not even arguing it needs a higher rating than the 4.5 it already got from the video. I might personally be in the super minority who like the game but something I don’t get is why a game that already in an environment where If the next Mario got a 7 everyone who played it or not would riot for saying that was a bad score needs to hound a game that already under shot it’s goals by a long margin to explain why it needs to be a 3 or a 2 when any game getting a 4 sends the same message anyway. It’s like if a brain damaged horse was killed already and every time someone brings up the horse good or bad someone else decides to stab the dead horse.

I've played the demo and it felt worng and I feel guilty.

2.100 copies for a triple A game? WOW, Imagine developing a game who's most impressive feat is how terrible its sales were! also whats a Mh rise?

@@An_Entire_Lime Monster Hunter Rise!

@@yuseifudo2609 It will sell more than it deserves by the end of this year

Are you deaf? He literally says 4.5 out of 10!

@@G18999 i didnt watch the review yet just fast foworded no need to be mean

How’d you like the book?

The 1 action thing might have been interesting of someone who knew what they were doing dizigned a game revolving around that gimmick but with what I heard from the game I dont think anyone even thought about that

@@An_Entire_Lime no they did. The issue is that most modern gamers who never had even the Wii which was basically a two button controller, liked that idea. So people who didn’t grow up with say original Sonic as a major game to play didn’t have that bit of only movement and everything else did the same thing. So it’s kinda hard for them when even super Mario brothers was a two button game since it was action and jump. But admittedly they could have made this a two button game and it worked out fine making the action button be run when not in a suit. But I expect that wasn’t considered because replacing run with say “fireball” would yield just as much hate for the scheme anyway and if they didn’t have a run button and instead just jump and power up action it’s still a complaint about how they can’t use fire ball as tornado wolf but can and guardian bird and so on. Basically I can see all the steps that led to these bad choices because at the core they’d need to completely revamp the game levels which likely wasn’t in the budget so chips fall where they may

@@An_Entire_Lime no I really do think that was probably the high concept idea of the game - it's THE core of the gameplay. Unfortunately, like you said, they didn't know what they were doing

Seriously. His character design is great.

That's a serious crime if you ask me. Balan is such a cool looking characters and yet we're stuck with playing as two random children (Why is Leo upset when other children his age tried to hang out with him? What are the maids whispering about behind Emma's back? Who are they!?) all while the cool and badass character, and also the title character, is nothing more then a side character who barely appears in his own game.

Oof

this whole game feels random, everything seems disconected and unexplained, I have heard (because I am not insane to spend 60$ in this garbage) that the main antagonist isnt even named, its like this game has a mortal fear of exposition or something

Such a Shame Really

I really wish they could fix this game but the issues are so large and so... EVERYWHERE that they'd have to start the entire game from scratch.. who the heck decided that this plataformer should have an entire 1 button moveset?! this is a AAA game not a mario ripoff on your phone's playstore!

Yeah, similar issues that sonic had. The characters are too stylized for motion capture to work without editing. Also doesn't help that the characters dancing is very lackluster

Square enix tax and it was gonna at least be 40 in this climate

The songs aren't even in Japanese, they're in a fictional language that fans call "Balanese".

this gives me such a unfinished vibe, like they planned on changing the random, unexplained, offputting and completely pointless models to... literaly anything else.. but forgot to do it

Yes, glad someone else feels the same way.

they really couldnt just have another button activate the ability... nooo that would be good game dizign! we dont do that here

couldnt agree more

Knowing his love for platformers, he probably asked for the gig back when everyone thought this game still had potential.

For the story of the game in general, I would give these ideas: •Depending on what character you selected, you could have some differences in what is going to happen. If you selected the boy, everyone could be more eager to talk with you(because you are the new kid in town) and tell you things about the town, its legends and folkclore(revealing things about Balan and Lance), and pieces of backstory about secondary characters. In his normal ending he will move forward and pass the time with his new friends(the protagonist girl and the people of the town which he helped). •With the girl, most people would not be so eager to talk with you because of the prejuices, reason why you would need to exchange or give things for them to talk with you, or even you would need to go to the library of the mansion where the girl lives to get information(which would be like a "hard mode"). In her normal ending, everyone sees how she has helped them, saying sorry and accepting her. •Also, I think that it would be cool if, depending on what protagonist you choose, in some point you fight the protagonist that you did not selected to help them because the darkness has controled them because they were not capable of overcoming their problems like the other characters, maybe after facing an event near the end of the story that makes them go to the limit(maybe even being the final boss of each individual story, or right before Lance) •In a real ending(which would be required to finish the story of the two characters find all of the spirit guardians, do all the tasks of the people of the town, and maybe even looking and obtaining some things in the town and the "wonderworld... dream world... unconscious world" or whatever you what to call it, that would help us know some info about Balan and Lance), you could also save Lance, facing the shadow mask that made him go to the abyss in the end of the original game and recieving help from all the persons and spirit guardians that you meet through the game, similar to what happened in the original game. In this ending, everyone would say thanks and give their goodbye to Balan like they did in they original game, with the spirits saying thanks and goodbye too(this would not happen in the normal endings, or it would be only the selected protagonist that does it in their respective ending). •Also, Balan would be more present in the story throught in-game cutscenes(these ones not be like the high budget ones obviously) and in conversations with the spirit guardians, which would show more about his character and maybe even past. Oh, and also, he would be playable to fight the final boss of each ending(the two normal ones and the real ending). What do you think?

@@meclaran5377 maybe also explain or even give a hint as too why balan and lance but together spell "balance" Personally, I think it would be cool if the story followed a theme of positive (balan) and negative (lance) thoughts and how you need to balance these two aspects throughout ones life. Maybe start off with the idea that balan is the "good guy" trying to help people while lance is the "bad guy" disrupting the balance. This would play for a few games till Lance was "defeated" and sealed away leaving only Balan. This would seem good, but with only Balan you only have positive thoughts which lead to positive toxicity. He becomes the new antagonist but believes he's helping people. We would then have to pair up with lance to restore balance and safe the people stuck in the crossfire. Along the way, we actually explore side characters instead of a slide show at the end and how Balan's and Lance's influence has affected them both good and bad.

Naka is no stranger to 3D games, but critical lack of polish has become his mark of shame for a good while by now. It's really depressing to see him start fresh with a new studio, then repeat the same past mistakes, again.

@@CyclonSilver that Wii game he did was good. Rodea? But yeah, people forget Mama fell off a cliff

He's worked on plenty of 3D games. I think it's more accurate to say that he's a hack.

its like a hat in time except instead of neat plataforming with a great set of varied movement options to do both in the ground and in the air you walk slow and have a total of 1 action at all times. Oh and it also costs more... buy our game.

@@An_Entire_Lime yup lol i was completely wrong on the comparison once i saw what the mechanics were in the demo. the comparisons really end at its art style being semi-comparable and some may disagree on that, but the gameplay and mechanics are so limited and uninspired this game goes right into the garbage bin.

Anytime they start dancing, the animation is just nauseating watch. It's like they tried to do mocap but they just couldn't pull it off.

May also be the ONLY good game

You could have just stopped at "Yuji Naka hasn't made a good game"

@@linkvagar2336 Except that would be false. Would you say Phantasy Star Online was bad?

@@KnightOfZero00 I'll give you Phantasy Star, Sakura Wars and Billy Hatcher. Everything else...average. including the crapfest that is the Sonic franchise.

@@linkvagar2336 What a terrible hot take.

All dolphins are evil.

@@dreamerabe ... dolphins rape

@@dreamerabe It's not slander if it's true!

@@dreamerabe Damn what did this game do to you? lmao

Saturn

Well even Mario 64 is better than this, so I’m going to have disagree. It really does have bad gameplay design from the foundation, forget the story, music, and graphics. The gameplay from what I played from the demo, is atrocious.

Mario 64 seems to blow this game out of the water, and that was a launch title.

@@LeynosJehuty exactly, the visual style is drenched in saturn era (and I honestly really dig it, just wish the game was... actually good)

Square didn't, Yuji Naka did. He begged the higher ups at SE to let him make a platformer and they told him he had one chance to do it, and this is the result. Dude even named his studio Balan Company, he really had a lot riding on this trainwreck.