Yuji Naka's Balan Wonderworld

Oh man, this interview with IGN Japan mentions it's Yuji Naka's self-assessed "one chance" to make a platform action game for his new employer, Square Enix.

"For Naka, who joined Square Enix in 2018, Balan Wonderworld will be his first full-scale platform game in quite some time. "I think Square Enix has an RPG image," Naka said, "but I don't think I'd be good at making RP Gs." Of course, Naka has made RP Gs, such as Phantasy Star and Phantasy Star Online. However, the genre he feels he is most skilled at is still platform games. Therefore, he received permission from the company president to make a full-scale platform game with the condition that it was his "one chance".

The Protomen enhanced my life.

You'd think pressure like that would get him to recruit from anyone except Arzest, for starters.

SoundCloud

More novel stuff: Lance was the former master of Wonderworld before being overwhelmed by negative human emotion, creating Balan as a replacement. Visitors to Wonderworld are drawn from various time periods and locations around the world, and normally lose their memories upon leaving. The novel ends with Balan allowing the visitors to retain their memories, vowing not to become like Lance.

Now the name pun Balan/Lance, Balance seems incredibly obvious and I dunno how I missed it.

The Protomen enhanced my life.

He chose Arzest specifically because Oshima was head of Arzest.

I guess even in Japan, friendship beats out going with the more qualified choice then.

SoundCloud

Japan has hella nepotism in its corporate culture.

Disgusted, but not surprised

People keep creating a Characters.Balan Wonderworld page but doing nothing with it. :\

The Protomen enhanced my life.

I mean, Yuji Naka shouldn't be brushed away on the game's failure too.

Gotta say, I'm really baffled by the amount of vitriol this game is generating. Not that I think it's good — I haven't played it, and I'm not in any rush to change that — but because the sheer amount of backlash it's getting would make you think it was the most hotly anticipated game of 2021, but was anyone even talking about this game after the initial reveal last year?

Even this very thread didn't make it past one page until the demo dropped.

Edited by Primis on Apr 17th 2021 at 4:39:09 AM

Probably just people on the internet who like having an easy target.

SoundCloud

That and the prestige of Yuji Naka and Square-Enix, I'm guessing.

The Protomen enhanced my life.

People like the "look how revival/spiritual successor game X failed" story. Everybody's looking for the next Mighty Number Nine.

Nach jeder Ebbe kommt die Flut.

I honestly think part of the issue is that the game is by the creator of Sonic and Sonic is the internet's punching bag. Guilt by association, basically.

The game seems to be legitimately terrible on top of that, though.

Edited by Karxrida on Apr 17th 2021 at 1:03:11 AM

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

Presumably, the suspiciously large number of glowing user reviews written in broken English isn't doing them any favors either.

I must say I found that weirdly hilarious. Not that I like fake reviews, but they couldn't have made them more obvious. I feel like they weren't done by a fan of the game but just an average internet troll.

You can only write so much in your forum signature. It's not fair that I want to write a piece of writing yet it will cut me off in the mid

Alright I'm curious.

How is this game so bad that it's generated such an insane press ?

We've had to remove it from so bad it's horrible a few times for failing the criteria.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

I don't think it's really So Bad, It's Horrible but generally speaking, the game just seemed to be built on a premise that was doomed from the start. Yuji Naka's biggest concern seemed to be trying to get 80+ costumes into the game by any means necessary and based design choices around that goal. Most of the bad press I'm seeing on it comes from early reviewers who legitimately disliked the dated gameplay but I think a lot of the 'hate' is largely a combination of people laughing along with the ridiculousness of the final product and having heightened expectations given the pedigree of some of the names involved (Yuji Naka, Square Enxi, etc). If this was just some random shovelware title without a couple of big names, the reaction would probably be more like So Okay, It's Average.

It's not the worst thing, but it's still bad. Aside from the mediocre at best gameplay, the glitchiness, the uninspired level design, the underwhelming powerups, the complete lack of story, the boring QTE minigame, the expectations for a game by a guy involved with Sonic and Nights...there was also the fact that they charged a full $60 for it and didn't hand out any review copies prior to release.

It's a mess all around.

But really, it was inevitable. You had a platformer published by a publisher that isn't known for platformers but known for story-driven games with a project lead who by his own admission doesn't do story-driven games.

Edited by M84 on Apr 18th 2021 at 2:33:03 AM

Disgusted, but not surprised

Between this and Shenmue 3, I'm starting to think we shouldn't expect much from old-school Sega alumni.

"I just wanted to know the truth!"

Don't forget the shitshow that was Mighty No. 9.

Disgusted, but not surprised

On the plus side the novel is pretty good, and it's only 10 bucks.

The Protomen enhanced my life.

Problem is, this is meant to be a game first. a Novel promoting the game being better then the game itself doesn't pan out well for the game its advertising.

Watch Symphogear

It's not even really promoting the game, but rather it has all of the actual story bits that aren't in the game itself.

Disgusted, but not surprised

Technically he didn't even direct most of the classic games. It's another case of Inafune attribution.

He was the head programmer from Sonic 1, he worked on 2 and was the producer and a programmer for 3 & Knuckles. The only Classic title he didnt work on was CD.