Yuji Naka's Balan Wonderworld

Tried the demo. There's nothing I would say is overly bad but the game design feels rather dated.

I'd compare to a platformer from the GameCube/PS2/Xbox era. It's clear the focus is mainly on transformations, but it feels like the platformer is largely an afterthought for that. Which is a shame. There's potential, but I feel like it's falling into trap a lot of 3D platformers make where they focus more on gimmicks instead of making sure the movement itself feels good first.

Edit: It definitely has a lot of charm to it that'd you'd expected from a Yuji Naka game though.

Edited by TokoWH on Jan 28th 2021 at 1:45:00 AM

If they have the money, it might be a good idea to delay the game to make some improvements.

I'm pretty sure that, if they're far enough into development to get a demo out, then it's probably too late for any major changes.

Oh man, this game screams So OK, It's Average.

This is a game from the early 2000's, why are we getting it in 2021?

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Jan 28th 2021 at 10:24:54 AM

This is a game from the early 2000's, why are we getting it in 2021?

Maybe because they really really really wanted to do a non-Sonic related Sonic Team game?

Have they established a release date yet? I don't think it's improbable that if we nudge them ever so slightly, we could delicately suggest a delay or something.

It releases March 26.

EDIT: Was checking Wikipedia and found this!

A novel is also planned to be released alongside the game in both English and Japanese, which will explain the story more as the game does not have spoken dialogue (although Balan speaks in the opening movie[15]). It will also cover events following the end of the game.[16]

Edited by lalalei2001 on Jan 28th 2021 at 11:17:58 AM

I played the demo this morning on Switch, and while I do agree there's certainly some issues, they could be fixed with updates either as a Day 1 patch or over time.

Can we re-add the work page now that the demo is out?

If you flesh it out enough and make the needed citations, sure.

Someone on 4chan datamined the demo and it uncovered a lot of story related stuff, but mostly the (supposed) ending: Both Balan and Lance are human-like. And by that, I mean your typical anime-style human. Balan is a blue haired guy and Lance is a white haired guy.

Also Balan is a costume.

That sort of thing explains why the demo's filesize was an entire third of that of the whole game.

Also, the Balan costume is hinted during the demo if you find a special costume and then view its group in the closet. Seems like the kind of thing I'd want to keep a tighter lid on, but maybe that's just me.

I recreated the Balan Wonderworld page! Help and Wiki Magic would be greatly appreciated.

Square is aware of the criticism they got from the demo. A Day One patch is confirmed, but they can't address everything. Here.

See, you big worrywarts? They know what's up.

EDIT: I jest, but it really is relieving that they are acknowledging the demo's hiccups.

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Mar 15th 2021 at 7:44:49 AM

"Specifically, this patch will adjust movement controls, camera movement, and rebalancing of the difficulty."

Agreed. I'm glad they're acknowledging and addressing the problems people had with the demo instead of just ignoring them and sending it out as is.

Hopefully, it won't take two hours to change costumes and the character isn't a snail like in the demo. I'm not sure if anything can be done about the one-button control scheme and the Switch framerates, however, but this is promising.

The game can cause seizures without the day 1 patch installed. D8

From what I've heard—and this is admittedly only via Twitter and Game Informer—it can even cause issues in people who don't have known neurological issues. o_o;

So, please do be careful, even if you're no epileptic!

Link to the relevant tweet-thread and article.

The game's Twitter account indicated that the Day 1 patch does in some way address this, however. That said, I gather that details on what is addressed and how are somewhat light.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Mar 26th 2021 at 11:58:05 AM

"The studio took to the game's Twitter to relay news of a day-1 patch. It says that it was a bug, but does not address the numerous instances in which this occurred and does not explain what exactly the patch tackles."

Hmm. Wonder what happened there.

Man... It's sad to see how this all turned out.

Its Mighty Number 9 all over again. At least Yuji Naka didn't try to scam people with a Kickstarter...

Edited by Demongodofchaos2 on Mar 26th 2021 at 12:35:58 PM

How is that even comparable?

A dissapointing revival from a creator of a beloved previous franchise (Yuji Naka: Sonic, Keiji Inafune: Megaman) That has far more problems then people were expecting from a veteran developer.

I'm pretty sure Wonderworld was already in people's "warning" radar after Arzest was revealed to be the devs.