Lmfao you guys are nuts, I literally wouldn't even play this game even if you payed me, none the less that I think this game is even worth maybe like 2 dollars
No. The fact that it sucks is the worst part. You couldn't pay me enough to waste my precious time on such a worthless game. Why wouldn't I just spend my time replaying a good 3D platformer instead of this garbage?
@@davidaitken8503 exactly what I'm saying this game needs a miracle lmfao, though I do feel they are a bit harsh as I think it looks pretty nice I like the time concept and dream like state I definitely liked balan's look along side the trailers they really made me feel this was a passion project that was just handled really poorly unfortunately
@@danaltamirano2546 idk there's a lot of bad 3d sonic games but I'd argue there's more good ones. Generations, unleashed, colors, adventure 1 and 2. Even lost world is objectively good even tho it's not what people expected
@@danaltamirano2546 Speaking the truth here. I think it took them a whole generation later until Sonic was even half decent in 3D with Heroes, the Adventure games are laughable at best compared to Mario 64, Spyro or Banjo-Kazooie.
Also the gaming market is different than it was in the 90s people are spoiled with all types of innovative ideas coming into gaming now. The 90's and I would argue early 2000's were test runs for the games we have today.
@@Londonlink shame developers had more passion in those "test runs " than they do today. Now its all about how greedy you can get away with being while 9 times out of 10 shoving out a low effort, exec meddled with game that no one had any real passion for
How to make a great strawberry jam sponge cake. Step one: scrape the lint from your belly button, place it into a pot of butter, and stick it in the microwave for 3 hours. You now have a strawberry jam sponge. The original idea was nice, but the ingredients were wrong.
Balan Wonderworld's narrative structure -or what it is suggested its narrative structure is, based on Alex' review-, reminds me of an Argentinian children's book called "The last magician or Bilembambudín". In that story, a girl called Aldana is taken by the last magician to the kingdom of Bilembambudín, where she helps the citizens deal with problems caused by unchecked emotions (for example, there's a group of dudes who get so angry their bodies swell like balloons and they start to float, so Aldana helps them calm down in order to make them deflate and get back to the ground). Because of that comparison, I can imagine a version of Balan Wonderworld that touches the heart and teaches younger players about emotional intelligence in a creative way, but well, evidently, that did not happen. I am just sad they didn't at least use Balan more, he's got a superb design, peak cosplay material tbh, but he's gonna be forgotten because his "Wonderworld" doesn't keep up.
I want to add to this a bit, specifically with Balan and Lance's designs: Balan and Lance have a very "stage performance" design aesthetic; Balan being the main performer, Lance the stagehand. Their true faces are also reminiscent of Sock and Buskin, The Masks of comedy and tragedy, with Balan being Sock, and Lance being Buskin. All of this indicates that there was a relationship between the two of them, and something caused a falling out between them. In this version of Balan Wonderworld, there could be a story about being emotionally mature enough to accept mistakes you made, and that a good friendship shouldn't end because of a silly little disagreement
@@Druid-T you are correct, all the visual cues point at Balan and Lance having a strong connection, it could be as friends or colleagues, or as two sides of the comedy/tragedy coin, following the reference to Sock and Buskin you pointed out. I watched the final boss battle earlier today, and when Lance's true aspect was revealed -and the parallels with Balan became so damn obvious (they are even colour coded!)-, I truly expected something to happen with Balan. I mean, Lance looks as if he had been freed or purified and was waking up from a dream, the conditions for the resolution and final lesson you propose were there! I deadass thought he would call Balan's name or maybe Balan would reach to him and welcome him back, revealing that healing Lance was the final mission for the kid, but instead [spoilers], Lance was thrown into the abyss and everybody danced without sparing him a thought. I have no clue why they wasted such expressive designs like this, I mean, we all know the game is terrible and yet we are here discussing possibilities just out of how interesting Balan and Lance look, come on.
What if they used the train trips to have balan talk to the main character? It would have been nice to get some more hints to balan and lance's relationship so people could have more to work with directly from the game. What if they hid books or photos in the level as collectables? Missed opportunities 😓
@@angelsmile6942 It feels like they had this wonderful idea planned out and then perhaps Square Enix came along and said "hey yeah we're going to need this game to be released sooner" so they had to scrap all their ideas.
"It has to be consistent within its own rules" - Thank you for saying that Alex. This is something I am a stickler for in all forms of fiction. Books, games, movies, etc etc. When you create a fictional world that differs from reality, it doesn't have to make sense as it would in our world. But it does have to make sense within its own world. When creating a fictional world with rules of its own, it is very important to establish what those rules are to the reader/player/viewer. And then it's even more important to have the characters within that fictional world follow those rules.
Let me guess, you didn’t like The Last Jedi because “that’s not how the Force works!” However I will agree more with that for massive issues that make one suspend their disbelief (looking at Episode IX).
@@arbaran01 I don't like the entire new canon because, in discarding the existing expanded universe, most notably the Thrawn books, X-Wing books, Jedi Academy, and NJO, Disney said "We can do our own story and it will be better" And in almost every way, they have failed to deliver. There is almost nothing in the new Disney canon that I think is even on par with with stories I grew up loving. The closest being the Mandalorian. But even that is tainted by context. I have nothing against people for enjoying the new SW movies. But I will never agree that they are better or even on par to what I consider the real Star Wars. And just in case you were gonna give me the "But George Lucas didn't make those books" I don't give a damn about that either. I give credit to Lucas for planting the seeds. But as far as I am concerned, it was the wider expanded universe that cultivated the farm. And though the EU made mistakes, had some inconsistencies, and a few downright badly written stories, overall the experience was something amazing that the new SW cannot match. SW however is only one franchise. Let's take another; Dragon Ball. I grew up liking it and later DBZ. But the series should have ended with Gohan defeating Cell. After that point Toriyama became set in a routine. New bad guy shows up, character transform again, and repeat. Every new "limit" introduced in that series was added just for the characters to break through it. Why should the viewer care about Supreme Kais worrying that Goku and Beerus would break reality if they fought, when like one arc later Beerus is training Goku to be stronger still? Fiction done well however follows its own rules. Take the Expanse novels by James Corey. Probably the best sci-fi ever done. Very little technobabble, as much grounding in real world science as possible. And most importantly, when things are made up, when artificial rules are made for the story, they are followed. It establishes very on that faster than light travel is not possible. And they never break that rule. Even the super mind blowingly advanced aliens who seem to ignore some of the laws of physics as humans understand them, still had to build a Einstein-Rosenberb wormhole by sending a machine at sublight speeds over millions of years to their target system.
@@heavyarms55 LOL that was a long thing that I apologise for not reading, but from the first sentence of your comment you sounded like one of those people and I was right. I have nothing against you, I just was making an observation. I hope you have a good day though! :D P.S. you grew up loving the OG trilogy, from the part I have read, and meanwhile I grew up technically with the sequels (I was 11 when I watched TFA, now I'm 16) and liked 2/3 of them so both of us are understandably biased towards what we liked when we were young. That's one of the cool things about Star Wars, it means so many different things to different people! And I read the Star Wars paragraph now. :) Your opinion is your own, and you just as right as I am since all art is subjective. I’m just someone who found The Last Jedi to be great and am not super deep into the lore novel-wise but still am invested in the world and characters. I’m generally one of those people who enjoys and pays attention to the themes and messages of a piece of media and how the characters and their actions make me feel, rather than if something fits with certain “rules”. Well, again, hope you have a good day and I guess we can agree to disagree on art.
You can have breaks in the logic, but it really should be a highlight. for example, alchemy in Full Metal Alchemist normally conserves mass (roughly) and there are ways to subvert that rule, and finding those ways is a character goal.
@@cofagrigusfan24 Okay it's fine to say that you love it, but you have to add some context about why you love it for it to be believable. For me the only redeeming quality is the art design. The gameplay itself from the demo just may be the worst 3D platformer I've ever played.
Oh my god THANK YOU for mentioning the cat thing. Not only does it make zero sense, but it was the final nail in the coffin for me that made me not buy it. I got invested in this game in January right after my own cat died and I was desperately looking for something to bring me joy. Seeing them tackle this very real situation with an impossible solution hurt.
Its not an impossible solution. If you recall the girl never truly saw her cat get hit. She only assumed it got hit, but the cat got out of the way in time.
@@mlpfanboy1701 I think it’s a wishy washy solution then. This game already seems like they can’t decide how dark they want to take things. There are actual traumatic events some characters go through met with endings that are this game’s equivalent of “just stop being sad.” I know that there was speculation that the girl just thought her cat was in danger and became anxious over it, but then what does that mean? The ending shows her cat is fine and then she doesn’t have anxiety anymore??? The level’s imagery and theme highly imply that the cat did in fact die to based on how the girl wants to turn back time. It’s a very common thing to say when you’re grieving someone, *especially* a pet.
I mean I can understand why the cat ending could seem anti climatic but it is only like the 3rd world. Later levels are darker like with the Snow level where the inhabitants parents die and she isolates herself from her new fiance unable to cope after their deaths
That's what I got as well, and maybe there's no longer a balance in the world because the characters Balan & Lance got into an argument or something?! Perhaps they're a sort of Nights into Dreams version of Yin and yang? Well. It's a hint of a story in there somewhere..
@@geminijinxies7258 the latter is probably it because neither Balan or Lance are evil. Opposites sure but the conflict is what people brought in. The NPCs are the ones without any balance in their lives. Lance forces them to confront their faults, Balan empowers their strengths, without both playing their part the players in this play would just be consumed and self destruct. It is easier to face something when you can physically combat it, these guys grants you just that while making sure everyone learns and grows all the while styling everything as one gaint play. I got all of that from the cutscenes alone. I have no idea why these guys didn't.
@@andresmarrero8666 then why is lance defeated in the end and its shown to be a good thing? Also, how does lance make you confront yourself? He actively stops you from helping people, and he corruption the npcs to a point that they are just raving monsters attacking anything in sight. What you said is a really cool story, but that's not what's happening in balan
Considering how much effort was put into the cutscenes I could see a patch that’s just like - Reduced compression of pre-rendered cutscenes and nothing else is changed.
Something went wrong with this game. Worst case scenario is that Yuji naka is simply out of touch, but I'm just curious because many of the wrid design constraints feel odd. The development of this game is probably an interesting story I'd like to hear about one day.
There is this game called Demon Turf that's coming soon in the future. It's quite interesting because it's a 3d platformer, but in which all the Main character and NPC are entirely in 2D. I heard it's really good based on feedback on the demo, which is available on steam right now.
It's a shame. The game has a great aesthetic and the music is good too, but the actual game itself is poorly designed. Your nephew may still enjoy it, but I'd wait for a sale if I were you. This game will likely be $20-30 a few months from now.
Crash 4 just came out on Switch and that's a much better game. It's also $40 for Switch, $30 at Walmart. A much better option than paying $50-60 for Balan Wonderworld.
The game also looks horribly derivative, you've got the onion "powerup" from Odyssey, one costume functions as Yoshi, one costume looks and functions like Incineroar, and the whole thing feels like a mediocre Hat in Time.
I personally don't mind if they clone mechanics from popular platformers like Mario Odyssey, but they have to make fun gameplay out of them. You know in Mario Odyssey, you have an boss battle designed entirely around the stretch mechanic of Uproot (the stretch plant). But in Balan, you just stretch to collect gems (note: I only watched the demo and didn't play it myself) and that's it. The existence of the mechanic is poor.
@@Explorer09_kc "But in Balan, you just stretch to collect gems (note: I only watched the demo and didn't play it myself) and that's it. The existence of the mechanic is poor." How do you know if there is/isn't a boss fight that uses this then? The entire point of your statement relies on it not being used for more... but you don't know. In other words your argument completely breaks.
I love the comparison to Odyssey because it's amazing how well the movement set works for each different creature that you capture. I was playing the demo of Immortals Fenyx Rising and it made me realize how amazing Zelda BOTW is. The devil is in the details
I opened up the demo for immortals and this on switch and deleted it after looking it for 5 seconds because it was grainy (undocked). Odyssey and Breath of the wild are also optimized for switch and miles better than those games technically
@@wellyouknowthatslikeyouropinio Yeah. Two things I noticed. They increased movement speed and stamina, so you are less limited from the beginning. This was done to mask the fact that the world isn't really that interesting and theres no reward for slowing down and exploring. Second, the combat is fast and dynamic (which could be seen as a good thing), so there is less incentive to find creative solutions to kill monsters.
I haven’t played it, I played the demo but I watched my friend play through the game because they got it day one, and was massively disappointed. I was joking about how it can’t be worse than the bakugan game that came out last year.... but LOL IT IS. i played a few hours of the Balan wonderworld demo, I didn’t want to get the game. I got bakugan and have played about 10 hours in it. It’s surprisingly fun and unique compared to Pokémon.
Which is a really stupid move because not only does it make the plot of the game incomprehensible due to the lack of context, but also because if people find the game bad why would they give a shit about the novel.
@@elin111 oh it’s not even that. The most context you’re gonna get for the game’s story is on the website. The novel though? That’s like some kind of alternate universe. The villain and balan swap places, names are different, and there’s something weird with the second protagonist character. I may read it just to see if it’s any better than the game
@@sweetumami1338 ive read it, it is. Each of the 12 inhabitants get much more depth, and some things actually make sense; like in the diver’s world how you cant fall in The water if you’re human
My Tin Foil Hat is that Yuji Naka while at Sonic Team was highly responsible for pushing piles and piles of new characters that just drag down "Sonic" gameplay, and Balan Wonderworld is the ultimate expression of that. The timeline all checks out. He's got an obsession with designing new characters, and they can be good designs, but he doesn't think twice about if their game play is fun, or contributes anything to the bigger package. He makes a character, it goes in, and don't you dare question it. It started with Sonic Adventure and just bloated and festered until he left the company in 2006, and what Sonic Game came out in 2006 hmm? That game is what finally drove home something internally at Sonic Team that Yuji Naka had to go. Balan Wonderworld was Christmas for Yuji Naka. He could make DOZENS of characters designs and had a blank check from Square Enix. What we are looking at is what Yuji Naka wanted "Sonic" to be all along.
This is actually kind of plausible, you can really feel the "pointless unfitting characters" of the Adventure era in this game, but I think Sonic Team was also partially responsible because they just don't know how to make other characters fun without making the game too short (presumably because of Sonic's speed). There were a lot more characters introduced in the game in the Adventure era than anyone else though, so I think he was responsible for a lot of them being added.
If they make this into a movie it will be the first time a movie about a video game will be better than the game itself. Those cutscenes look incredible!
I think the only context this could have been considered good is if was made in 1995 and it released just before people knew what a good 3D platformer (Super Mario 64 or Crash Bandicoot) played like.
The problem with balan wonderworld is that it has the looks but not the style of a mascot platfromer. Look at Billy hatcher, it has that same stylistic look, but it's gameplay is also unique and interesting, using an egg for almost all your actions. Balan wonderworld needs to do the following in order for this game to have any kind of creativity. 1. Make costume switching instant, and allow this to happen mid air and mid attack, imagine combining jump costumes to make giant leaps that give insane air time for instance. Allow creativity. 2. Increase the movement speed, allow the game to have this great feel of speed and movement using instant costume changing. 3. Update the game with new platforming challenges that use this instant costume changing to its fullest. These changes would allow for the players to create the fun rather than being stuck in this limbo of boredom
20:25 What if the reason Lance is called like that is Balan + Lance = Balance? Balan is a positive force and Lance is a negative force, it kinda makes sense.
Why do people call Yooka-Laylee bad? It’s a pretty good 3D collect-a-thon platformer. That hate it gets is largely undeserved, unlike this train wreck.
@@Michael-590 Mostly the issues with the level design, the camera, some jerk-placed collectables and how some obstacules are poorly designed around power ups. They corrected some issues with patches. But the initial impression is already done.
The people who made Yooka-Laylee did actually try with that game. That game is designed as if it was made in 1998 like Banjo and Kazooie but a few polishes of modern design.
@@dukemon6163 I have the Switch version, so I had no problems with the camera really. And I think levels were quite well done. Not as good as Banjo-Tooir, but at least as good as Banjo-Kazooie.
Man I'm disappointed. I love the game the way looks, the style, totally reminds me of NiGHTS. But that demo alone killed off any sort of hype I had. What happened, Square?
@@neosquid9609 and yet 06 is way more fun than this, that says a lot imo To me, that just shows how having something functional doesn't mean it's good, and that's sad considering the concept was really promising
In the morning i was thinking "Should I've commented that the only thing good to come out of this game is Balan fan art??" Even though i haven't checked and Jon asks for Balan fan art at the end of this video, nice lol
I used to be in the balan server and I can confirm that twerking balan has already been drawn (not saying that as a cringe thing, I just think it’s genuinely funny and so does op fkjfkgn)
Problem bhere is a.) The game was so close to completion b.) This is a side thing for Square. They dont super care, its just a passion project someone wanted to do and they gave him his budget c.) It would cost SO much money. WAY more than they'd probably make back, to recall every cart of the game from stores that were already made and sent out, add more budget to ENTIRELY change EVERYTHING about the game, produce new carts, and then ship all those. It would be way too much money for Square to give a single fuck.
Lol what kind of nerd who still use that outdated shitty quote in 2021? Its all about how publishers and game studios handle the project. As long as they is no development hell or if there is a sudden major change during game development then the game should be fine. No mans sky made a comeback. Star wars battlefront 2 also did the same thing. These games after multiple amount of patches are not considered as "bad forever" anymore.
I feel like they’re being too tough on the game. For me, it’s *a really shiny experience to live for just have some good moments of fun, with a nice platform.*
@Alex McDonald I mean it’s entirely fine if you like this game, more power to you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still acknowledge its flaws or understand people’s criticisms of it. You also shouldn’t let other people ruin your enjoyment of something, otherwise I doubt you liked it much to begin with to let random people influence it. (Also, I’m fairly certain this guy’s comment was meant to poke fun at the terrible Engrish reviewers that are somehow spamming this game with 10s on Metacritic.)
I like how you can take ANY frame... of ANY stage, and you can say “this is badly designed.” Not even just the level design, but in the colors and style choices as well. Balan Wonderworld is a masterpiece in terms of bad decisions.
played the demo, really disappointed me. From the trailers, this game feels so enticing and captivating, but the game itself is an absolute mess. The only good thing about this is that Choctopus said he'll play through the full game so it'll be nice to hear what he has to say about it.
All I'm gonna say is Dear heavens I adore Worville Wrigth so much. He looks so good in motion My understanding of the Girl and the Kitten goes as follows: If we hadn't done anything, the girl would've run off in guilt and despair, too afraid to look back. We help her come to terms with that, and it's because she was able to look past her despair that she chooses to take the chance of looking back and discovers the kitten survived. We didn't change history, we helped the girl have the strength to look back since she didn't know for certain the kitten died. As for the diver, it was indeed an accident, but the trauma of almost dying causes her to become afraid of the dolphin.
Idk why people are freaking out over the cutscenes being to non specific. The storytelling is incredibly similar to NiGHTS with its 0 dialogue and it's focus on storytelling through game mechanics, designs, its description, and extra content like... idk ... a book or smthing. NiGHTS's story if a thing is even worse if you wanna go by the same critiques that people are giving balan. all we can really pull from the game alone is that the mcs are facing anxiety over something going on in their lives namely bullying and stage fright and after nightmare creatures chase them both they get whisked to a dream world and defeat nightmare creatures with NiGHTS. Despite this though plenty of people connect and praise the story it tells despite it being even more vague and open to interpretation then balan which provides you a direct explanation of what emma and Leo's narrative is and the reason why they go to wonderworld after their own cutscene showing the problem they are facing, outwardly anti social behaviour and a constant worrying of what people are saying behind their back. People could interpret what NiGHTS was about on their own and could also yknow read the description of what the plot is that is usually readily available when getting a copy of the game, if people wanted even more info or specifics they could seek out other NiGHTS related media like the picture book archie comics or interviews with creators. Same goes for Balan really except now theres even less of an excuse to not understand sense there is occasional dialogue from balan that explains things or gives players a better idea of what's going on. there is also the novel that released along side the game and the games description that tells you the plot if you are still lost. I Genuinely just dont see the problem with the games story.
@@minabotieso6944 Lots of stories rely on the reader making assumptions to work. There's a reason why "show, don't tell" and the Kuleshov effect both exist. I won't defend this game but it sounds like the story basically holds together and really isn't the main problem
@@segaspice4062 Interesting you have to drag down Mario Sunshine to make the other two look better. This is the kind of fanboyism Sonic fans are disliked for.
@@roskiart8750 No not really, I just personally don't like Mario Sunshine. I love Mario 64 and Galaxy but Sunshine's levels are underdeveloped and over all the game is boring especially because each environment is beach themed and in turn lacks identity and makes each location boring. You assume just because I criticize your precious Mario I'm a fanboy. The overall toxicity and superior types Nintendo fans have honestly is why people hate Nintendo Fans because they will buy anything and hate everybody for having a opinion.
@@roskiart8750 I never even said which game was better, I said I had more fun. KEYWORD IS FUN. I can admit that BOTW is a good game but I had more fun with OOT and Majora Mask.
@@roskiart8750 I personally feel like Mario Sunshine is boringand mediocre, does that make me a fanboy. Having an opinion is not a crime. Get a life and stop giving Nintendo your life savings.
The game felt like it was over priced, after hearing about it’s issues I’m now saying that the game is absolutely over priced. Maybe square will fix some of these issues by the time this game gets a sale price
important to note that yuji naka isn't really a game director to begin with, even in the sonic days he was either lead programmer or producer. I'm not sure if game design is his strong suit, anything good about the adventure era's game design or nights can be attributed to takeshi iizuka who directed them.
I keep hearing that it’s so weird that the people behind sonic made this bad game, but sonic games aren’t necessarily known for being good. The running animation reminds me of the old sonic games, too.
No they’re known for being decent to an extent but because of 1 bad one you fucks wont let anyone say otherwise . I will agree pedigree is no substitute for playtestinf
@@gamingawesomeness222 There are like 2 good sonic games, and out of the hundreds they’ve made, I’ll assume the good ones are the exception, not the rule.
@@nutcase6443 before we go any further, are they *actually* the only “good ones” or are they the only ones YOU like? Sorry, but ive been through this song and dance before.
@@gamingawesomeness222 I’m speaking objectively here. On the metric of what inspired Sonic’s gameplay to begin with, the feeling you get when speedrunning mario. Every sonic game is either filled with game breaking bugs or tedious timing sections where you have to wait to progress. As a general rule of thumb, if the game is forcibly put to a halt, stopping the player from actually playing the game, then that’s just poor game design, especially in a game all about speed.
Geez. Even with all the stuff you're required to do with Billy's eggs, I don't think if was ever THAT easy to soft lock. Such a shame though. I hope people can enjoy it but it sucks that it turned out to be something I might not like at all after having hope for it since it's reveal.
I was really holding out for this game to be great... I was going to pick up the game if the reviews were at least like 6s or something. It’s a damn shame that it didn’t turn out well. The idea sounds great.. it kinda gives me persona vibes (narratively)... kinda? Like how they use a different world to influence people and things in the real world through hearts and all that. Idk I just wish this was a good game
