Balan Wonderworld...Well, We Tried. 

8 years later and Sonic '06 is still the longest review? Talk about being impressed

At this point, I highly doubt that the Sonic 06 review will ever be topped.

So, we gonna wait another 8 years lol

@@LYK1003 Probably not.

Well shit 😢

they tried to copy you with the up for interpretation story davey boy lol

I find it quite amusing considering that for the most part, NiGHTS is a one-button game. (The acrobatics barely counts...)

@@CiromBreeze Keep in mind that it’s also a 2.5d game so the one button gameplay is more fitting for that game style.

@@CiromBreeze it's also not a platformer (unless you really wanna count being able to walk around and explore a bit as Elliot and Claris before shifting gears to Nights) so you only need the one button for dashing

@@revalution1965 Seriously, imagine a video game directed by David Lynch. I bet he'd get along great with Hideo Kojima.

That's not the only thing Balan Wonderland "broke" judging by the gameplay I've seen on the Switch.

Lynx Fresh Yeah I love them CRUNCHY PIXELS

@@skydiamsteam6005 taste the framerate

It’s beat sonic 06 in length so that’s something.

@@RuuisuMori thats the joke that its not a normal versus video

Oh come on, that ticket was adorable!

I wouldn't be surprised if the back of the ticket was scratchable and would reveal a "help me" message from Yuji Naka

@@gamingawesomeness222 Adorable? Yes. Unintentionally hilarious? Also yes.

@@CaptainTitforce Accurate.

Lol

Foxbox guy is sitting smugly on his winnings...

IS THIS A MARIO RIPOFF?

I can just imagine Fox Box guy putting his magnum opus in the game and explaining it to the other devs “You turn into an immobile invincible box that slides on surfaces” “Haha that’s pretty lame but it looks like it has fun uses, doesn’t stand up to my two foot teleport” “You cannot control the transformation I made it random” “... you bastard.”

@@Chaos_867 i would say it's more hat in the time rip off but Mario works as well

Among

oh no. he tied all of his buttons in Streetfighter to jab. darn, he's too goodXD

Sonic Adventure 2 puts 10 moves in only 2 buttons but Balan has one move on ALL buttons

@@theminecraft2516 At least with Sonic all those moves are context and input sensitive; The LS-Dash when near rings, the spin dash when crouching, etc.

kirby air ride did a lot with a single button, sometimes to a fault but it did a lot of interesting things to the design

God THAT sounds BROKEN, AF!!! Lol xD

A delay wouldn't be enough, this game is flawed at the very core, you would need to outright restart development to fix it.

@@justinbowman1342 Oh for sure. I’m just saying that people were that desperate for the game to be good.

@@justinbowman1342 can I ask because I have never played nights or seen anything of it other than the comparisons to the yellow wisp. But whats wrong with Balan Wonderworld specifically? What’s the core problem. I’m typing this as I’m just a few min into the video?

@@josevazval the movement is bad. like you literally can't mess up movement in a platformer.

Delayed games aren't guaranteed to be good. Example: Cyberjunk. Last of Us 2. Final Fantasy 15 and 7 Remake are giant disappointing games that took years to make.

Naka's problem is more taking too much credit for team efforts. Sonic was conceptualized as a character by Naoto Ohshima and programmed by Yuji Naka, but the gameplay and levels were designed by Hirokazu Yasuhara. Naka grabbed more and more power at Sega and ran Yasuhara out.

@@Argorox his programming was integral to the game, not to mention he created the concept of sonic

“nights into dreams” was his “illmatic”...

I think he suffers from "He got lucky" syndrome. He just got lucky. Sonic was created by the marketing department, not him.

@@king_big_pp That's not true, you can disprove that with 2 seconds of research

I think it’s also a bit that we put too much stock into these people on their own when their chemistry with their team (and their team itself) make or break their game development abilities a lot of the time,

It seems like whoever designed the levels and gameplay mechanics hasn’t played any games made after 1996

I'm not even sure it's a new level of depth we expect. I mean hell, Nintendo figured out how to make 2 different buttons do two different things back on the NES... If this game had just made a jump button and an action button, and maybe cut out half the duplicate costumes, it would just be resoundingly mediocre instead of downright awful.

Sakaguci and uoematsu delivered with Fantasian.

In the case of MN9, it was people idolising one man without considering the restraint his team kept him under and the endless money Capcom gave him to piss away. Cut him loose and give him a budget (of 4 fucking mill) and he can’t do shit

damn you got a point

Just proves that Balan broke more than the record

It’s not

Yeah, writing a script is a key difference. Podcast/non-scripted stuff doesn't count, Sonic 06 is still this channel's white whale

I didnt even notice the bloody length until I saw this comment!

Same...

Good programmer, not great at game design

@@skydiamsteam6005 Yup. I hope that they can bounce back from this, though.

How hope this turn out like playtonic when they made yooka kaylee and the impossible lair

Yeah. Like they said, lots of potential and you can see what they wanna do, and it hits even harder as someone who was hoping this would bring something similar to the magic of Nights to a modern/non PC audience. But shits just... really dull where it matters most. I really hope it's a victim of covid affecting development or something

Meh. The fact that this game came out as it is is probably the last proof we needed that his design philosophy is completely outdated (and has been for a while). Let's see what a younger, more open-minded and "in touch" dev can do in his place. Cause everything that was invested in Balan Wonderworld was pretty much a waste. Yuji Naka leaving is a good thing for the industry, as cruel as it sounds.

@@DanoLefourbe Hmmmmmm... I see what you mean

@@DanoLefourbe I disagree. No design philosophy is "outdated." The "one-button" design could work as long as it's accommodated by the gameplay. Sonic 2 uses the same philosophy, but it's not "outdated" today. The problem here is more likely not enough resources put toward development, alongside some general poor decisions.

@@U.F.O Ask modern day gamers, and most will consider Sonic 2's design outdated. It doesn't feel outdated to us because we have prior experience with it. One-button design can work, true, and it's been experimented on plenty game jam projects. But it only really works on puzzle games, or only as a novelty we'd get bored of pretty fast. Honestly, a one-button platormer just doesn't work well. There is a reason why it isn't done anymore.

@@DanoLefourbe Sonic 2 still plays fantastically. Just look at Sonic Mania that came out a few years ago. The same philosohy just doesn't work in 3D, or at least in this garbage fire 🔥 of a "game."

At least Mighty No. 9 tried to make it at least fun to play amidst its other issues.

and join the many fail game in Matt wha happun? series

Balan wasn't crowd funded, so it's automatically the lesser of two evils

@@Zerovin But it made us cry like anime fans on prom night.

Hmm, Mighty no.9 sounds like marriage.

Capcom:it was doom to fail because of our next installment of monsters haunter series.

Fingers crossed he still gets to make fishing games, Yuji Naka's true passion. (Actually not kidding, Prope primarily made fishing games)

Yuji's game turned into the moon, and then proceeded to reenact Majora's Mask

@@joshhallam4555 now that's a game I'd wanna play: you're a ghost haunting monsters

@@nobodyinparticular9640 You're an adventurer that was killed by the world's strongest monster. After death, you refuse to give up on killing that monster, and you use ghostly influence to lead parties of new adventurers into hunting it. You strategize your interactions to best help the adventurers by influencing their tactics and positioning, giving them warnings of incoming attacks, giving them various buffs, and taking possession of them for direct control of units.

Moral of the story: Just go play NiGHTs on steam for $8

@@theminecraft2516 nights is great stuff

@@theminecraft2516 Or get Puppeteer for the PS3, if possible, since that's basically Balan's Wonderworld: Majora's Mask as a 2D platforming meta comedy.

@@lnsflare1 Before Sony takes it down that is lol

@@theminecraft2516 SEGA needs to put the sequel on Steam. It's not as good as the original, but it's still a fun time

Now I can't not imagine Balan dancing to Jumping Jack Flash.

That sounds like alot of fun

@@dr.velious5411 yeah yeah YEAH!

I thought Balan wonderland sold like 3 million copies already. Or at least I heard that on 4chan

@@jameskowanko7574 And just like that any credibility your comment had, has vanished into the aether as soon as you said 4chan lol!

@@jameskowanko7574 Square wishes it sold that much as far as I know, it didnt get onto ANY charts across any digital storefront you might be thinking of Monster Hunter Rise

but it just came out?

The sale figures are just sad.

I think it's also difficult for lightning to strike twice. Like, yeah, they made a fantastic game in the past, but that doesn't mean they can do it again. I think a good example is Miyamoto. He's created some of my favorite games/series in existence, yet he still puts out crap every now and then. Usually in the form of a gimmick like with Star Fox Zero. At the end of the day, we're just human. Even the most talented among us are liable to slip up every now and then.

The funny thing is Koji Igarashi is the *ONE* exception to this. He practically made Bloodstained in quite the challenging nature to stick a shovel up Konami's ass and actually had the talent available to pull it off. Miriam herself is showing up in more games than even fucking Shovel Knight by now and THAT guy managed to get in Smash of all things. ...Yes I say that knowing full well Shovel Knight is an actual power-up in Bloodstained.

​@@UltimaKeyMaster Yeah Bloodstained turned out pretty good, although I would argue that igarashi didn't direct the game, he was only the producer. He used his name but he was smart enough to seek young talented developers to direct. But yeah, it turned out pretty good, I wouldn't say it is excellent but it is decent. And circle of the moon is awesome.

I call this the "Butch Hartman" principle. Where a creator tries the whole "I made your childhood" to shovel out their mediocre projects when in reality their past endeavors succeeded because they had a TEAM around them who kept them in check and did a majority of the work.

It's just a bunch of gaming vets making outdated games. The Yookas and the Shenus and the Mighty, all these games by legendary game devs wonking out medicore to bad games (for modern standards) is just a sign of the times. I believe Miyamoto is in this camp too only difference is when his IPs people have pretty low expectation compare to other IPs

The Ode to 2020 perhaps? lol

@@Reala27 Possibly...

Am I the only one who thinks the game looks extremely unappealing? Tbf, I also hate how Sonic characters look and usually the levels are just overly coloured mess.

I love seeing two of my favorite youtubers overlap like this

Why do you comment on random Gaming videos, You're a commentary Channel

Abraham Nettey Because he is a human with other interests?

More unfocused than deep thoughts, would rather have a more clean cutting of the fat than this.

@@subifyouhatetiktokandreddit234 Congrats, you win dumbest comment of the day.

I can already feel the clicks

@@sidthesquid4206 but he already did psychonauts

Persona 5 is a better Balan Wonderworld.

Most games are though

@@patrinizer346 Tbf they are different genres of games entirelly, and no i don't cound jumping around on palaces as platforming

Drakengard 3 also had it's main character Zero's backstory in a novel

Nier Automata says hello with all of the stage plays and novellas.

And lemme guess, most of it isn't translated. Cause that's what happened to most of the Blazblue stuff(which sucks cause it makes Centralfiction make little sense as it's the "everyone is here for the finale" game and a good chunk of the plots that conclude in it are from untranslated novels, mangas or side materials)

@@blooperreloaded5526 at least in Nier and Drakengard's case, the story makes sense without needing the extra context, that stuff just enhances the main story.

At least in those novels are more expansion while this one has no story

The Balan QTE is like those crappy Power Rangers games when you reach the Megazord level you either play a crappy minigame or QTE instead of actually controlling the one cool thing you were looking forward to

Balan’s design is the only part of the game I’d describe as successfully great.

You CAN technically play as Balan - or at least you can get his costume to use his abilities - but it's locked behind a tedious monster raising sidequest with lots of grinding and RNG.

Unrelated, but I appreciate your Soma Cruz pfp

Especially during the battle with Lance. Imagine a 'Doppelganger' battle against Lance.

whats wrong with new island?!

@@crudalicious haven’t played it but the consensus is that it’s very mediocre. Also, the soundtrack is God-awful

I am currently playing Hey! Pikmin and the game is enjoyable... Nice little spin-off.

@@8BitFun never EVER use a kazoo for a soundtrack! Yoshi's New Island made me hate it and made me realize, Yoshi is just not much of a great series in games other than OG Yoshi's Island. Personally kazoos are the worst instrument period for a soundtrack, makes you feel like you're in a world ment for daycare babies, Sesame Street but worse!

@@8BitFun the game is *awful.* I played it a bit and it was just unbearable, not just the music. It doesn't have the charm or fun of the OG. Yoshi's Story on the N64 isn't very good but it's creative and fun at least; Woolly World I hear is very good, but nothing else in the franchise has been worth it.

How is it that people are talking about the inevitable Wha Happun episode in every video about the game?

Essentially the hopes and dreams of many fans turned into despair and nightmares as soon as the demo came out... :/

@@MatthewCobalt It's obvious that this game had to have some development trouble.

@@MatthewCobalt Something must've happened behind the scenes. There's just no way that the people who came up with one of gaming's most recognizable icons just make a game that's this much of a dumpster fire. Unless you're Keiji Inafune and make Mighty Number 9 😂

@@Apotheosister I betting it had to be Yuji and Square Enix hading a hard co operation

Seeing Balan do feats of strength and flying around like a dragon ball z character looked so amazing to play as too

You can actually unlock a "Balan" costume that let's you do just that. It's like the final, "ultimate" costume and you can basically just jump and fly around all the crappy level design, lol

Then people would be complaining and moaning about how it's too much similar to Nights. Shit on that to!

I've never been a fan of nights cause it's an on rails flyer. When I can fly I want the freedom and openness to experience that ability.

Yeah games this shitty have a story to tell

I think I've heard that they assigned all actions to one button because it aould be too confusing for kids, which was supposed to be the target audience for this "Game"...

Several people have speculated that this started out as a mobile game, would explain why every button does the same thing

@@alexpotts6520 That's a very good and pretty accurate speculation for what was given.

@@apichumagician502 even though kids play Fortnite, which requires many buttons; Mario which use more than two; Zelda which uses every button; Minecraft; Crash Bandicoot; indies... Naka sounds like a boomer.

And with the amount of costumes, I'm in awe that the title character wasn't the invincibility costume. You can't control the title character at all. And I was a little more than defeated where I declared this game porn fodder (the lowest denominator for ANY game) as I saw NSFW for the scuba diver on twitter since being Square, you'd THINK they cover body positivity in this game as that's a depressing topic in of itself when you get into subjects like sex positivity, as people still want nothing to do with gender identity and the like.

GaiaX5 Yep, a lot of missed potential.

@@Gaia_BentosZX5 bruh what

@@Gaia_BentosZX5 A balan costume is unlocked at the end of the game though

To be fair, it's not scripted so it probably doesn't count.

An all it took was a game done by two of the main people who came up with the blue blur himself

It's not a vs video though

If you want to be technical, he did that already with SGB Review: Ourselves. Not to mention all the Sonic Hacking Contests.

It’s not a VS video.

^ Me with Final Fantasy 15's dlc situation. Im still peeved that they canceled Episode Aranea, Episode Lunafreya, and Episode Noctis.

@@jrhamari Pretty sure some of those episodes are What-if scenarios though.

@@manuelalbertoromero9528 Well... I was looking forward to Episode Noctis given that I really wanted him to have some form of a happy ending.

On the other hand it’s said the book is a better product than the game proper

@@gamingawesomeness222 Ehhhhh debatable. I enjoyed FF15 for what it was.

The inclusion of BoxFox cracks me up.

BoxFox would be more ok if it was used in an enclosed space when you unlock it

@@tobikat8865 it would be ok if you could CONTROL IT and it wasn’t, quote, “doing it when it feels like it”

"Confused screams"

That only furries would like it?

I swear everything close to sonic is cursed

@@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz it’s sad....but true to an extent.

*_(Angry Infinite noises)_*

@@rosesongoku6980 infinite was wasted edgy potential

@@table2.0 100%. Not only was he not the final boss, his last fight was exactly the same as Metal Sonic’s, and instead of a well-written backstory, when all is said and done he just comes off as a loser.

To be fair, it did originally launch at $60 on PS4/Xbox One.

Crash 4 may be the better MADe game but oh my sweet wumpa loving lord I'd Rather 100% balan ANY DAY than try to 100% Crash 4.

@@gamingawesomeness222 I used to try to 100% every single player game I played. After a while I realized that was usually dumb and not a great way to spend my time. Now I think not about how hard it is to 100%, but rather about what’s in it for me to 100% it

@@helispark the only games I try to 100% are those that I REALLY enjoy. Re2 remake, Bloodstained Ritual of the Night, Axiom Verge and Nier automata are the only ones I've gotten everything (trophies included) in the last decade I think.

@@helispark for years, I’ve set my own definitions of 100% completion. As someone who’s platinum-ed rayman legends and is a regular viewer of the completionist.. not every game is worth a true 100% completion.

It was a really cool idea.

More games should do this honestly, too bad this idea was wasted on a trash game

@@FrahdChikun Luckily, some games still do that, mainly from LRG. All copies of Scott Pilgrim VS The World for instance comes with a ticket stub for Clash at Demonhead, which is kinda rad

But he could be in smash

Trash is incredibly harsh. In my time with the game, I'd say it is painfully average.

@@toaster4975 I'm glad you thought it was fine but I personally agree with him

@@jamiemanning4944 I fully understand and respect your opinion.

Maybe the fan fics could pick up on the story slack

@KammyKat oh hello! Nice to see you!

Oshima did art for sa2 the advance and rush games....

@@Soniman001 That was Yuji Uekawa

@@saturn_wolf oh shit you're right. Wait SA1 and 2 were different artist????

@@Soniman001 yuji uekawa did the “modern” sonic redesigns at he was the main art director for SA2

Balan wonderworld was a money laundering front, 100%

I don't mean to ruin the joke, but Sonic games have used more than one button since 3D Blast in 1996.

@@psychie8625 Which wasn't developed by Sonic Team.

@@MakoShiruba So? Adventure was, And that used more than one button.

@@psychie8625 Not enough.

@@MakoShiruba What does that even mean?

That would be great

I thought that's what Balan Wonderland was aiming to do. Have each level represent a character you're helping and have the different level designs/gimmicks reflect the story as well as the personality of each different character. But I was sadly mistaken, it was just another generic 3D plaformer with hints of the concepts I was thinking about but that's it (also expecting fans to buy a book to explain the story of a videogame is just bad consumer practice).

Andre Stewart it honestly is such a shame that this became such a dumpster fire. I think the scariest part of this is that all it’s gonna do in the long run is strengthen the stigma against modern day 3D platformers, both in consumers eyes and in publishers. If you want a game with this concept done right, go play Psychonauts, and/or follow the development for Psychonauts 2.

@@melofelo4484 nah, we have Mario Odyssey, 3D World, Crash Bandicoot, Hat in Time...

Israel Romero consider the fact that only 1 of those games is a new IP; of the others, one of them is 3-4 years old (and is a Mario game, which is generally a safe bet), one is a port, and one is a sequel (that still received a lot of skepticism regarding its quality before its release). As far as new 3D platformers, there’s been only 3 that come to mind: yooka-laylee, Super Lucky’s Tale, and the only one to really gather any momentum, A Hat In Time. Unfortunately, it’s gotten harder to convince people the value of 3D platformers as of late. Balan ain’t helping that.

At least those games are fun, balan is not

Naka please

I see nothing wrong with wanting a younger audience for your game.

@@KyleEvra of course but you kinda need to make sure its actually fun and not boring.

I wish Yuji Naka would just go back to SonicTeam. Then we could actually get some good 3D controls for a 3D Sonic game

@@KyleEvra The desire to make it for kids isn't the problem. The problem is thinking kids are stupid. The game philosophy is extremely condescending to children.

Imagine if, and stay with me here, instead of just using one button, they used two buttons, one for jumping, one for powers! It's brilliant and revolutionary!

@@heavylobster4339 I apologize, I read that in a Piccolo/Nail TFS voice

Balan's character design is really cool, this is the same thing that happened to Other M, where they don't trust casuals to know how to use a wii nunchuck. In this case, more than one button.

@@gu3z185 Other M was Sakamoto being a fuckwit more than patronizing.

Agreed, this game couldve been great. Balan is such a cool character aesthetically, its so exaggerated just like the old Sega artstyles like Nights. Its a shame that Yugi Naka will not get this opportunity ever again, its a one done deal. That is what hurts the most.

This may sound callous, but I honestly don't feel bad for him. I really don't. Yes the themes of the game are nice. It's about overcoming trauma and getting the inner strength to find happiness after a depression. Those are good themes! But a game is a lot more than just an idea. The single-button-action idea is absolutely baffling, and the design of each world flies in the face of design best practices. The costume system is overbloated and tries to incorporate backtracking but this makes no sense when costumes aren't permanent additions to your inventory. And everything about Balan's design is vastly more interesting than the characters you play as: His costume, his attitude, his movement, the player *wants* to play as him but the best we can do is a grossly repetitive QTE that may be the worst idea in any modern game. I dont feel bad for Yuji Naka because he didn't study his art. He didn't try to improve his craft. This is like feeling bad for Doug Walker and his failed online game shows and internet series Demo Reel. Yeah he put his heart into it but... he didn't actually study the craft he claims to love so much.

@@king_big_pp i don't just mean i feel bad because his vision was muddied up by the gameplay, i mean i feel bad because he never got any real reception for his game until it was too late and he didn't seem to have any ability to delay the game at all so he could maybe overhaul and properly test everything that was wrong with it. also i wouldn't really compare this to Doug's demo reel fiasco. while both were passion projects that went to shit Balan was one that probably could've been salvaged under the right circumstances since the creator was willing to do so, demo reel doug could've taken the opportunity to rework some things (which he tried to do admittedly) but his hubris didn't really allow him to do so

27:30 that was a base plotline for an anime called paranoia agent

That first point reminds me of how in Mega Man X7 you had to rescue a certain amount of Reploids to PLAY AS X! Cause it sounds tedious for something that you should be able to do from the start or unlock A LOT EASIER!

There doesn't seem to be much to say for a Wha Happun other than they made a bad game.

@@elin111 no

@@elin111 Wha Happun is about telling the story of how the game became bad. It details all the misfired and issues that went wrong during development.

@@CeHee123 It's not even about bad games specifically. It more on the development history, where the clusterfuck and trials that the dev have to go through just for the end result to be good or bad. Doom 2016 is an episode and it's a good game, but the development history is interesting, as it could have easily become a generic modern FPS games with demons.

@@MatthewCobalt Oh right. I've literally seen that one. Don't know why I forgot.

I wish Yuji Naka would just go back to SonicTeam. Then we could actually get some good 3D controls for a 3D Sonic game

@jaretco6423 He could !! Sonic games has better control when Naka was involved, especially the classic games and the Adventure games

@jaretco6423 You're right, I agree...I was hoping for a return to the "adventure formula" sometime, but yeah, there's other issues that need fixing too in recent Sonic Games

There's a lil something called youtube vanced... You're welcome

@@Chad_Eldridge *shrug*

IKR LMAO

By 6 MINUTES

@@cybernova0730 06 MINUTES

Jouta Kujo nice.

If you don't count the SGB Review: Ourselves, then yes.

I dunno about putting it on Square when you have such a fundamentally flawed game like this. Having more time isn't going to fix that.

@@UltimaKeyMaster I hear ya, I played the demo and every aspect of that game feels undercooked. Feels like they really just wanted to get any product out in any condition. I only speculated bout Square cause Naka has years in the industry designing, especially with Sonic and Nights. There's gotta be a different issue that caused Balan to turn out like this, but who knows.

@@RoastedJustice I think it's kinda easy to blame Square because they've been REALLY up and down lately. They were just coming of FF15 being an unprofitable mess to FF7 Remake doing immensely well and FF14 still chugging along just fine saving their asses, to the point where key staff of 14's story are now on board for FF16 to make damn sure it doesn't become a mess again. ...And then you got their publishing branch being an even more insane roller coaster, given how Avengers bombed and Outriders, while a decent game in my opinion, launched with godawful online connectivity.

@@RoastedJustice I mean, 2 years is a pretty decent time to get a game like this done, especially on AAA budget. The game just felt undercooked on many areas, like it changed focus every so often or just didn't knew what to follow. Easy to blame executives when it's most likely development team being undecisive.

@@UltimaKeyMaster is balme Yuji Naka more. The square Enid points are valid but Yuji naka has been losing his touch shortly before he quit working for SEGA and this game with the concepts, ideas level design etc. all have Yuji naka’s finger prints over it when he worked on sonic and nights into dreams

Yuji Naka probably should have considered that lmaooo

True. I just wish the cutscene itself did a better job expressing it, because as it is in game, that element isn’t particularly clear

Yeah he’s gone but maybe a fangame?

Until i watched this video I had *no idea* this was a full-priced AAA release, that's honestly disgusting

MN9 was disappointing, but lerfectly playable. I had fun with it. All it needed was more polish, wasn't broken on conceptual level like Balan Wonderworld.

Mighty No. 9 was just mediocre at worse and didn't have the price tag of $60.

Feelies are really cool though!

@@ligtningdog6399 Mighty No. 9 is dogshit.

Wouldn’t be surprised if that was a future episode

@@tailsprower8118 The Nerd usually only plays games from the pre-2000s era. But then again, by popular request he did play Sonic 06, so there is a chance

@@manospondylus4896 And Life of Black Tiger which came out in 2017.

@@CeHee123 True

@@manospondylus4896 I never thought about it but he did that game because he said “I thought there were no bad sonic games”

And Mighty Number 9

I disagree. This games never had any real potential. The very idea behind it is problematic. It was always doomed to fail.

Alongside pictures of Sea Of Theives, Yooka-Laylee, Cyberpunk 2077, and the entirety of the Wii U

Didn't we already went through this before? Mighty n°9 anyone?

But the the difference is the mechanics, while limiting, basically allowed you to use those mechanics to the fullest. The egg mechanic had enough freedom to it to give the game alot of a fun factor. Balan wonderworld has a limiting mechanic, but even then, that mechanic is limited more. Remove the animation of changing costumes, make costume switching instant and allow abilities to be used imediately no matter where you are. This would make the one mechanic of costume switching atleast have some experimentation.

And recently took it down

The problem is they get hyped up, and then get disappointed

Megaman fans get happy endings megaman 11 the Megaman and megaman x collections...sega fans get disappointment unless they love the yakuza series or the othet series people forget that are technically under sega

As a Megaman fan I can so, no can't really relate.

@@ligtningdog6399 okay, tell me who made mighty number 9

@@bebopknux5857 Here the thing. MN9 was at least playable. It was a disappointment but not a joyless slog like Balan. Also I think Sega fans should be used to disappointment by now.

Not by much, but yeah.

But it's not a versus vid so I don't think it counta

@@blazingfury057 I was gonna say aswell that I’m not sure if it counts since it’s not structured like his normal reviews.

Yes, yes it has

Nope

Exactly, it didn't need to be groundbreaking but damn what the Hell was that button mapping and power-up management

Didn't expect you here.

And gave us Blinx.

Unfortunately given some comments it seems easy to blame Square's deadlines for it. I get it was dumb to let Monster Hunter Rise perform a public execution on this game, but there's so many fundamental problems, I think Square wanted this trainwreck to be done with. Given Square has FF14 Endwalker and FF16 to worry about I'm not surprised they treated this game as a band-aid to rip off.

Sadly it isn’t cause those morons are just making excuses like “well if they gave him more time the game would have been amazing” despite the fact the very core of the game is dogshit and no amount of extra time would have saved it

Well, Izuka does need to be fired, still. Forces was also the blandest piece of shit ever released, for an ANNIVERSARY title. They need to just remove every single old fart still left in Sonic Team, and get more people like the Sonic Mania crew to make modern Sonic games, because clearly hiring on a bunch of Sonic rom hackers to make a new 2D Sonic game, and said game ended up being the single best and well received Sonic game in YEARS, I think that says a LOT about what Sonic needs right now, and that's younger blood who genuinely care about what makes Sonic games good and just spend their time creating mods and hacks for Sonic games to further their own programming skills.

@@alexmansfield3268 Fucking this. And now Square is going to take the fall for his fuck up. Square *already* went through this mess with FF15 being impossible to profit off of (and ironically FF14 being a helluva safety net), I don't think they intentionally wanted that a second time with a game nobody knew about until less than a year ago. I get it's kinda defending a huge company here, but the worst Square had was negligence to a deadline, not malice...but that deadline wasn't gonna fix jack shit. The only dumb thing Square did with the deadline was make it release the same day as a portable Monster Hunter game. THAT is brain-dead stupid, especially to a Japanese audience.

Ouch.....

@@vgmaster02 sonic funni

At least Yooka-Laylee was able to bounce back with its sequel.

I like the first yooka laylee

Remains my favorite game of all time.

Another version from the novel is that Leo just doesn’t connect with people, with anyone, dancing is the only thing he truly likes. Idk why Leo’s the only character whose backstory differs from the little introduction backstory the twitter gave out when introducing characters (Which is where the friend backstory came from)

@@ukokira9852 imo, from what I could gather by just watching his intro, I was thinking that maybe he thought he wasn't "good enough" and either felt the praises towards him not sincere or not deserved. *shrugs*

@@ukokira9852 So he's like Neku from TWEWY except not as good

@@alexanderthomas3187 Yeah basically. Just swap graffiti with dancing.

That makes sense! Would be nice for the game to CONVEY that!

*WORLD.*

I felt mario's default running speed was a tad too slow. Like it wasn't bad or anything but. Noticeable enough to be annoying and just have him roll everywhere

Yeah, but that sounds more like a "you" problem rather than a game problem.

Mario still had plenty of movement options to increase speed. Like dives and rolling. Mixing his techniques together could really help being his momentum up.

Yeah, I feel like Mario's movement speed was perfect in Odyssey. The one 3D game where he was faster (Sunshine) people were complaining he's too slippery.

Let’s not forget that compared to past 3D Mario games, some the levels in Odyssey are huge which makes Mario look slower by comparison.

I agree. In fact, are we sure that these 2 AREN'T the same character? Or at the very least, related? And Balan is the disowned family member?

It's the new DLC. Edit: But since it has the tangibility of a physical collectible, it's OK! [/sarcasm]

Facts

Here $10! Don't beat me any more!!!!

Thanks for telling us you skipped the sponsored part. It was totally necessary and not fucking annoying in the slightest. Seriously, please screw off

@@zscout1288 Please leave

@@famoussession7426 you dont have enough power to make anyone leave lol. You dont have enough power to do anything.. And not very many people like you because of the way you choose to be. It's really sad, and I pity you tbh.

Take your time.

"severe" All they did was change the value of the running speed and jump height. Takes all of 2 seconds to do so.

@@nobodyinparticular9640 ...And? The fact that they were easy to change doesn't change that your *base movement* is extremely important in a 3d platformer. *Doubling* the player's movement speed is a pretty severe change, indicating a lack of focus or design on the player's actual movement.

@@PoppySis Ah, apologies, I read your comment more like "that it took them severe effort" or what in doing so, rather than you pointing an obvious flaw in their game design. For as much as I decently know english, it's not my main language, I get things wrong sometimes.

Naka have some bad rap within the company he’s a egotistic and pain in the ass to work with I think Peter Moore did interview about how pain in the ass to work with Naka back when he was in Sega

SEGA might actually be a lot smarter then we give them credit for... Emphasis on *might be*

@@NoahDaArk Sonic Forces: Hello there

@@sonario6489 He said *MIGHT.*

@@sonario6489 nah not even close

I'd chalk it up to the way those scenes are presented not being clear sometimes. It doesn't help that the book they mention probably *does* expressly say that and they just don't feel like actually saying it here.

@@UltimaKeyMaster I mean I gathered it just through the video. I've not read that book.

Man a hat in time was great hope we get a sequel

@@nman551 it's a heavy contender for my favourite game of all time on pc, I absolutely love it. I would be out of this world ecstatic if Gears for Breakfast announced a sequel

Right!? I wanna watch it rn but I gotta save this for my ride home from work

This isn't a Johnny Vs though. You may as well count the podcast episodes as "longer than Sonic 06".

@@oscarmccormack1611 kinda like the Final Fantasy 14 Realm Reborn review years ago.

Unfortunately while it is interesting for us, it was probably painful for them.

Yeah, it’s a shame too. I was thinking about getting this game, but when I heard about the general thoughts on it, I kinda just passed on this game. I may give the demo a whirl, but that’s about it for me personally. Edit: Scratch that, they took the demo down.

I don’t think naka designed balan but yeah, he’s lost his spark. Some of the problems in this game were figured out in the 90s...

Yuji Naka's forte is programming, not character design. His main contribution to the creation of Sonic was programming his movement and gameplay, as he came up with the gameplay concept first, and then had other people develop the characters. Naoto Ohshima was the character designer on the first Sonic game and this, as well as Nights. Ohshima is indeed a really talented character designer, and I definitely feel he bears little blame for this as he has little to do with the gameplay and was responsible for one of the few aspects of this game that people like (the visual design). Naka is an extremely talented programmer, but he's rarely actually directed a game, usually working as a programmer and producer. I'm not sure that he's good at managing and directing a group of people like this. I also think that a lot of his gameplay philosophy works well for a 2D platformer but not as well for 3D (mainly the one-button design idea). Naka was part of what made the early Sonic games good, but there was a team of people who worked on those games that all contributed to their success. It's also just possible that Naka's a bit too stubborn for his own good. Sometimes you have a gameplay concept that sounds great on paper but doesn't work in execution, and you need to be open to changing it. Sonic was an idea that from reports was fun even as a tech demo before a character was even made, where this sounds like a misfire. The basic idea of putting on a variety of costumes to get different abilities is sound, and similar ideas have been done successfully before (see "A Hat in Time"). But they needed to overhaul the actual execution of it to make it fun here, and I kind of think that he may have been to attached to some of the mechanics here to do that. He's famously opinionated and stubborn (he quit Sega of Japan and moved to Sega of America after the first Sonic game because of disagreements with management), so I could see him refusing to listen to anyone who tells him that this just isn't working. Someone could be talented in one area, but flawed in ways that make a specific project fall apart in ways that their previous projects didn't. Naka messing this up and being a contributing factor to early Sonic's success are not mutually exclusive possibilities.