Balan Wonderworld Review - How Bad Can it Be?
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- Опубликовано: 1 сен 2023
- Insert joke about Yuji Naka being in prison here.
A few thing I opted not to mention in the video because they're not that important. The Tims, this game's version of Chao or Nightopians. Very negligible. The system is nowhere near as robust or deep as Chao, and you don't get anything for growing your numbers and working on the machine in the hub. The only thing you can get is a special Balan power, which is cool. But I never bothered to do it. And the gems are used to feed Tims. So with Tims not being valuable, it also makes the gems pretty worthless as well. Probably would have been better if there was an ingame shop where you could buy costumes or something so you wouldn't have to grind or revisit levels.
Another poor choice in my opinion, having almost no dialogue for the entire story. Again, another thing we see in Sonic and NiGHTS. And because of it, I don't really understand what's going on in Balan Wonderworld. Is Balan real? Do these places really exist? Or is this all metaphorical? Why are these random kids helping everyone through their troubles instead of Balan? It's kinda weird. And some of the stories have strange resolutions where the problem just goes away, rather than the person learning how to deal with it. A little weak.
Also, maybe this is because I just played Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, the mocap dancing in this game looks awful. In fact, a lot of the animations in general in the game look pretty weird. And I didn't really care for most of the music either.
/ pariah695
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It's so bizarre. You can have up to three costumes at a time. Why not keep jump on A and have the costumes' abilities on B, X and Y? The game would flow a lot better when you don't need to manually switch to each costume, and you'd never be in a situation where you're not even able to jump.
Yuji Naka prefers one-button controls and mechanics. Like with Sonic 1, 2, and 3. You only really need a control stick for directional inputs and one button (for jumping, the Spindash, Insta-shield, etc.)
@@CrimsonBraveMaster Yeah, but you still need a button or two to switch between your costumes. If he wanted to make it easy for kids to play then it should use the face buttons instead of the shoulder buttons (since they're easier to see and reach) and have a fully automatic camera.
@@TFSned That's how out of touch Yuji Naka is, and also how far his head is up his ass to not realize that.
@@CrimsonBraveMaster Naka managed to reduce/simplify all functions to one button that one time in the 90s and never got over it even after 30 years.
@@CrimsonBraveMasterYuji Naka can prefer whatever he likes, but that doesn't mean it's good game design.
If you want to replay the game for whatever reason, a tip:
Co-Op has a strange, broken property that kinda elevates the game a little.
When player 1 touches player 2, they sorta "lock together", so they move as one. This also lets you use both player abilities at once. If you bind one controller to be two controllers, you can sorta use this to, in a way, unlock a second button/ability slot.
Not only that, but there are buggy, unique properties that come with this. Iirc, if player 2 uses an ability that is meant to have some movement related downside, since player 1's movement takes priority, you'll gain the benefits without the drawbacks.
For example, there's a rocket costume meant to halt you in place while it charges. If player 2 uses it, the player does NOT halt in place, but they still perform the rocket jump.
This can even be used in conjunction with a bubble power up and the ice fairy power up iirc to basically gain a moon jump that lets you explore wherever you want. It's crazy.
15:41 fun fact: in the Archie Sonic Comics (Pre-Boot) Espio is shown to use his tongue a couple of times like an actual chameleon.
"How bad can it be?"
Famous last words.
Lol he didn't hate it tho
I feel bad for Naoto Ohshima in this, because it is clear he put a lot of effort into all the character designs, even the levels aesthetics. After that censored NiGHTS photo on Twitter and the insider trading I think it is safe to say Square Enix and Yuji Naka have a lot of responsibility for how this game turned out.
But seriously, why a story-heavy RPG factory like SE wanted Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima to make them a cartoon mascot platformer?
Naoto oshima and the same exact team that made balan wonderland are making sonic superstars. And from what I’ve seen and heard it’s a fresh breath of air for classic sonic! I’d imagine that’s the main reason why. Probably saw the rise in 3D platformers again and wanted to capitalize and get the team who made sonic one of the most recognizable videogame characters to make them their own mascot.
@@GAPSYO3O1 That exact same team were also responsible for Yoshi's New Island and Hey Pikmin. Very soulless platformers that are generally disliked by fans. Maybe Sonic Superstars will break the curse since the company is generally made up of former Sonic Team members. Though given their track record so far, I'm genuinely not surprised with how this game turned out and I'd blame them just as much (if not more) than Yuji Naka, who at least made Rodea.
Blaming naka is crazy it’s squeenix fault lmfao
I really liked the style but the game in the game was extremly underwhelming
@@NIMPAK1 I never played any Pikmin, so I can't say anything about it, but to be fair, Yoshi's Island has been bad ever since Yoshi's Island DS. To this day no Yoshi game reaches the same level of the original SNES game, even the GBA port is good. Yoshi games became driven by pointless gimmicks instead of being solid platformers. I'd say it is a case of Nintendo not understanding the appeal of their own IPs: Yoshi's Island became all about the baby aesthetics; Paper Mario is all about paper. But I agree, I'll wait to see how Sonic Superstars turns out.
Can confirm: Here in Brazil, horrendous pace-breaking QTEs have been criminalized, specifically because of Balan Bouts. Things have never been the same since.
i was able to do those fine, because of hand-eye coordination
@@ordovicianscourge9520 I don't think the issue he had was difficulty though. He just found them boring.
Duvido q exista alguma lei no código penal brasileiro sobre quick time events lmao
I don't know if Yuji Naka intended to copy so many other games. I think what happened was that because there are so many costumes and because its a one button game, there are alot of costumes not given the opportunity to develop their own identities. Instead of creating many different costumes Yuji Naka should've made less costumes but make them more complex and gave them more abilities they could've had their own identity.
37:02 This sums up exactly how I feel about this game. It's like a Dreamcast Era launch title that time traveled to the 2020s with its experimental game design intact, rather than following the proven design formulas most games follow now, which I can definitely respect.
This is pretty much like the 06 thing. When released everyone just made fun bc "princess kissing hedgehog and game letting you stand still on loops haha ", I remember people making such a huge complain on the "every button does the same thing", not because they played and realized the issue, but mostly because they just thought it was so absurd something like this to exist that people just can't take serious and just end up making fun of, plus Yuji Naka has a very terrible reputation as a person so naturally people would start connecting dots... but at the end when you actually start digging through the superficial shit of the game, you can still encounter some genuine fun.
The vaccuum powerup makes me think of the vaccuum gun from Shadow The Hedgehog actually
It makes me think of Kirby...
@@esdrasreis3481 Yes that too its just Shadow is also a Yuji Naka game
Luigi's Mansion
The idea of a B grade 3d platformer makes me think of the Chameleon Twist games for the n64. Super weird games but I remember them being pretty fun
From the start, I was very weary when i heard the game was gonna be "one-button" and that ti was gonna have like 100 different power-up suits. It was obvious to me they were gonna be redundant costumes all over the game and that it would be very limited in terms of design and mechanics.
Even Sonic as early as *3D Blast* needed to drop the One-Button thing because it just wasn't feasible to even have something as simple as the roll/spindash alone alongside jumping. Even by SA2, adherence to limited buttons was obviously a problem still so even 2-Button limit was a hindrance.
It's really shame because i really was looking forward to the game outside of that. The concepts, themes and style of the game were very evocative of things like NiGHTS and Billy Hatcher to me and the themes and even aspects of it's design felt very inspired.
IIRC, there was actually an update to the game to make your base movement in the game faster, but it actually screwed up the game.
Unfortunately it just didn't come together. What breaks me heart is the fall-out of the game since Naka and Ohshima are on bad terms now due to internal beef surrounding the game. Because overall I don't think the game is an unplayable travesty either. I get a similar feeling from it similar to like...Gen 8 Pokemon.
About 28 minutes in and I'm surprised you didn't mention Billy Hatcher. This same seems cut from that one's cloth almost to a tee
I played through it recently and agree with you. It feels like the criticism and reaction towards this game sort of snowballed into this in great part because alot of people do implicitely dislike Yuji Naka, be it for his also exagerated stories and gossip or because he sort of goes against what alot of people consider modern valuable design.
It is ultimately a very standard platformer for kids, nothing outstandingly bad or good. Would prob just be considered an interesting footnote of the dreamcast if it had come out then, not this contender for worst game ever meme.
I think Rayman 3 executed the multi-power up idea a lot better than this game did. I think it’s because that game had better controls/physics and a more “complex” move-set than Balan does. I also think Balan should’ve been playable in the main stages. I think you’re able to play as him after you beat the main campaign which was a weird decision in my opinion.
you made me wanna replay Rayman 3 again
I went through the rayman DLC of sparks of hope, he had his rocket and vortex power up suits of 3
C'MON UBISOFT GIVE US RAYMAN 4!!
Rayman 3 is absolutely rad
I think Kirby also does the concept of numerous abilities way better by rarely going above 20 or so in each game, and giving each one a fleshed out moveset. Also, his first 3D game was smart by keeping the amount of abilities low, considering it could've felt more like this game if the designers tried to cram in loads of abilities into 3D levels and have them designed around all the abilities, to the point of the level design getting bland.
the thing is, the devs who worked on Rayman 3 were smart enough to make them time-limited and not making it so you don't lose it if you get hit, and not attempt to throw in 30 of them in the same game.
Are you going to make a review of Banjo Kazooie and Tooie? I think they hold up and age very well, especially Tooie that brought a lot of improvements as a sequel. the back tracking will hinder the experience for some people I understand that but over these past 20+ years I still love them both
I think it's really funny how people in the comments section here are just...screaming about how bad Balan Wonderworld is but simultaneously the conclusion made in this video is that it's actually not a terrible game. It basically showcases perfectly how the overarching opinion about gaming shifted nowadays. Many people do not even know anymore what a truly terrible game looks like Many people do not understand that a 5 or 4/10 game is not "the worst thing ever".
People who claim that Balan Wonderworld is a 0 or a 1/10 or anything similar to that honestly have no idea what truly bad games look like.
But to be fair: Nowadays a 6/10 game is pretty much equal to a 0/10 game. Why? Because there are SO many games on the market...why would anyone ever waste their time with a 6/10 or even 7/10 game if they could just play the latest 9/10 games? 15 years ago we didn't have as many outstanding games as we have nowadays which is why any game that is not outstanding gets shit on. Because any game that is not outstand is basically a waste of time to most people.
I mean...come on. Sonic Colors is considered by many nowadays to be a bad game. People just forgot what truly bad games look like.
Sonic Colors is not a broken barely playable mess of a game. At worst you can say it's a 5/10 game because everything included in that game works as intended. But people nowadays act like it's one of the worst Sonic games ever made.
Just because a game is mid or slightly below mid does not make it "the worst thing ever". There is also a ton of subjectivity which influences ones opinion about games.
Subjectively speaking there are obviously a lot of reasons to dislike games like Balan Wonderworld. But objectively speaking everything in that game works as intended. Nothing is actually broken and/or unplayable. Objectively speaking it's an okayish game. But who wants to play an okayish game in 2023? That's why Balan Wonderworld gets so much hate. Not because it's the worst thing ever. But because it's not even remotely close to being as good as rival products on the market.
The game is still not good but I can have fun with it the problem I had were the really just wierd choices why is every button a jump button why does the camera only follow the 1p and not make it splitscreen and the most annoying one for me some abilities are extremely useless after a while but they still show up
I agree. Those were pretty bad design choices, obviously. But what many people do not get is that "many pretty bad design choices" doesn't necessarily result in a 2/10 game.
Just looking at the overall package the visuals & bossfights alone are good enough to take it above a 2/10. That was basically my point with my original comment. Many people have forgotten what a truly terrible game...looks like & feels to play.@@sourlab
I would personally give it a 6,8/10 great ideas pretty good execution
That's a pretty generous rating😅
If the issues you mentioned before wouldn't be present I would agree with a 6,8/10 rating.
But as the game stands now I would give it a 4 or 5/10. In my opinion only having one "action"-button is such a big oversight it easily reduces the rating by at least 2 points alone.@@sourlab
@@tadaokou4919 I' didnt really think for the rating alot 😅 so I just said what came up to my mind
10:54 This is what Sonic Heroes excelled at. One jump button, one action button. Combining different patterns of pressing these two buttons yielded a handful of different moves. It also had a feature of swapping between three different "costumes" at will, just like this game, so I wish Yuji borrowed more from that game that he was a part of.
11:17 I used to think this way too, until Frontiers came out and had a dropdash bound to the jump button, which made me think that the likes of SA1 could have had the spindash executed through a series of jump button presses as well, without requiring a second button.
The main problem with this game is how many customs they tried to add into the game, they shouldv made like 6 customs but with multiple abilities.
The guys at Just Bad Games did a masterful job explaining how to fix it!
Rerez is criminally underrated
@@orlandofurioso7329 you can say that again!
Yeah I actually got introduced to it by them
@@sourlab I think I first saw it through either them, or Matt McMuscles.
Yeah, I think basically the same thing. The game's absolutely flawed, but man the hate was so overblown. I kinda like the game too, really just a couple big issues get in the way for me. It's far from great, but it's fun enough.
I was so excited for this, almost preordered until i played the demo on switch. Also, Lego 2K Drive has a free weekend and i am surprised at how good it is, it feels so good with the boost and the jump, almost like a sonic game, hoping to beat it before the free weekends over
I think a large part of the hate toward this game was the price and amount of game-breaking bugs on release
I want to see a project wonderworld
Like project 06 but for balan
YES PLEASE! _PLEASE!_ 😭
You know what's really sad? There's one, ONE costume in this game that essentially works correctly, the way all of the costumes should work: the special costume that you unlock by having a save file of the game's demo when you begin a new game.
The costume itself is just one of the game's regular costumes (one of the souped-up variations that lets you jump and shoot) with a platform-specific paint job, but since it doesn't spawn anywhere in the game you get one copy of it, and if you get hit and lose it *IT RESPAWNS AT THE COSTUME SELECTION SCREEN.* Which means that you can use it any time you want, you just have to go back to a checkpoint or to the beginning of the act to retrieve it!
Oh thank goodness, thanks for telling me! I was afraid to lose it forever so I’ve never put it on at all 😆😅
Could you review Valkyria Chronicles 4.
Painter is literally just the kirby paint ability
Who would've thought I would see a review that kind of redeems this game 💀
Technically, there is an Espio mission in Sonic Generations where he uses something like a grapple hook.
Have you tried playing Ratchet & Clank? really want to see your opinion about the series.
id be interested to see your take on the rayman games
Hearing the game be compared to Sonic 06 now makes me jokingly want a Balan P-Wonderworld (Maybe called Balan Wonderworld Restaged)
I think espio can grapple in generation
Oh dear...
do you like visual novels pariah? pretty curious about that
I can’t believe there aren’t any mods for this game to improve it…
I wonder have you ever played klonoa pariah?
To be honest, I do share a similar sentiment when it comes to Balan Wonderworld. Well, maybe with the main difference being that I completely turn off critical thinking unless something pops up that really makes my experience bad enough to trigger it.
On a different note, I find it really baffling how about 80% of this game's story and worldbuilding has been cut, instead being released in a book form (Balan Wonderworld ~Maestro of Mystery, Theatre of Wonders~).
I wish the story in the book (yes there is a book for this that actually sounds alright) was put in the game too. So many missed opportunities. But yeah I wanted this game to be good. I also wish there was a Balan transformation or the Balan minigame was actually good instead of a dumb QTE minigame. Balan is such a cool design but he feels wasted.
Also I think at least some of the hate for this game came from the fact it literally could have killed people. IIRC they put it out with a patch or something and the short version is it made a part of the game flash lights super fast in a way that was seizure inducing. I remember one reviewer was pissed cause it gave him at least a massive headache.
So just one more shitty thing with BWW.
13:00 - 14:10
This. This is one of the issues that I had with the costumes. Some people just hand wave it away and say it's no big deal. But it is a big deal. It's a pace breaker and it's time consuming. Not to mention, the ONE button for everything was also dumb and archaic. What may have worked for Sonic in the classic games, will not work as well in a platformer game. It's also dumb how some costumes don't have a jumping ability consider that this is a PLATFORMER game.
Yeah, most of the costumes are either just repeats, barely does anything, or are just completely useless. Let's say for example, the ground pound ability. You have 3 costumes that have this ability, but with slight differences to each of them. There's the Pounding Pig, the Chicken, and the Robot. With the Pig, it's just a standard ground pound and break regular blocks, but can't break metal blocks. The Chicken improves the ground pound by adding a shockwave effect that knocks back enemies and damages them and breaks regular blocks as well. The Robot adds all the previous abilities from the pig and chicken costumes and adds the ability to break metal blocks. By doing this, it makes the two other costumes irrelevant. Why use the pig or chicken costume when you can use the robot costume that does everything? Same thing applies to the other costumes as well.
I actually played this game through GameFly.com where I rented it. I wanted to give this game a chance. It has the potential to be a good game, but the gameplay, controls, and other things you've mentioned in this video is what kept it from being a good game. It's not a good game, it's not a terrible game. It's just... okay/mediocre. I see Balan Wonderworld as a good case study on what NOT to do when making a platformer game.
when i first found out about this game is in a scrooge duck french magazine i thought it was a not so great game
It's frustrating that the game could've just been a pretty alright game if they just tackled the stage to stage level of 3D platforming instead of trying to make an open zone platformer. That's HARD to execute. NiGHTs into Dreams made whatever Balan Wonderworld try to do but worked because the game is simple to play and has simple engaging levels. Sometimes normal platforming levels just WORK.
You know what this game reminds me of: Crash Mind Over Mutant. No game should ever remind me of Mind Over Mutant.
I was *so* excited when this game was announced,,,I love the character design and the premise, but I never ended up buying it. After the demo came out…woof…
Honestly all the game needed was a Jump button make A and B Jump and X and Y attack and ZR and R jump as well as ZL and L Attack
Lets be honest. Sega peaked in the mid to late 90s.
Even lego games have at least two buttons. Usually more. And those are criticized for being very simple.
Btw you should review lego dc villains.
A good example of a simple game for kids I'd Here comes Niko. It's cute, simple and deals with important themes without sacrificing depth or fun
balan is so scary looking
gaming
I was also a bit excited for the game, played the demo and instantly lost any interest. The graphics and art style genuinely looked good to me. 3D Sonic games which consistently impressed me with really nice visuals for the time, and this is similar, just not special anymore.
It did give me one of my favorite youtube videos watching Alpharad play. Also it apparently had major performance issues on PC. Don't know anything more but just another reason the negative reception was so bad.
So basically according to this video balan wonderworld is the square enix equivalent of sonic 06, they're both games that everyone made fun of back in the day due to their problems, but recently people enjoyed all of the elements that as actually considered good
Also you seem to have a high tolerance for bad games and i say it as a complement
This game would be perfect for mobile devices 😂😂
Hello there Pariah. Talking about this game, I hated it back in the day just playing the demo. But I honestly just came to recommend you to play Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy if you've never played before. Thanks for everything bout' your Sonic videos though
Sonic 06 was broken game but good at heart, this was broken and bad at heart
It's super bad. Man, all they had to do was cut down the costumes to like just 2 or so per character at best, and give 'em a juicy diverse moveset. Like imaging the pilot bat with a proper flight and divekicks and bursts of speed airdashes and a splash of mechanical invention trickery like *GUN* or propeller *GUN* or hell, even just throwing paper planes that drop dream bombs or SOMETHING.
Also the eerie synchronization of the dances is kinda ugly. Like the fact that all the models are rigged to single places and they just smoothly dance as the places they're on tilt and spin and whirl and it looks uncanny. Music's def on point. Wonder how many gorillions the cutscenes cost because *holyshitthey'regood*
Thankfully Naka's never gonna get to do video games without being reigned in ever again, his freedom(and obsession with setting up Balan as a big name long-term IP from the fucking start lmao) is what helped ruin Balan.
none of what you are saying sounds like actual critque at all
@@ordovicianscourge9520 My apologies on your brainlessness. I know the feeling well.
So get this, washed up creator of Sonic returns to the game industry after 2 decades and is chokeslammed with the fact that things have changed drastically since the 2000s.
I'm also a fan of the Oncler from Lorax
-nights is not inherently 'one button' because you still need to paraloop ingame and the game has an dodge mechanic with the shoulder pads
-while i'm accepting to what critique culture (weirdos) have negative thoughts on balan wonderworld, their issues about the game being 'one button' have no elaboration nor emphasis on why it's an issue at
-the same people probably enjoy this game but like to suggest otherwise by making negative comments on the internet
-i don't have that problem because those people are weirdos for being narcissists about kids games
Man, I know Sonic Colors sucks, but to think you'd choose *this* instead... /j
Sonic Colors sucks?
I know the internets opinion on Sonic Colors pretty much shifted towards the negative, but I am almost always amazed when people voice such delusional opinions. Do people like you even know what a truly bad game looks like? Or are you just screaming "this sucks!" because you subjectively disagree with certain design choices made?
@@tadaokou4919 Please learn what tone indicators are, my dude... FYI, /j means it's a joke. I put that there specifically to prevent people from taking me seriously, but I guess nothing is good enough on the internet for that, huh?
I don't dislike Sonic Colors *that* much, though it's in no way my favorite Sonic game or anything either. It's mid.
It's just that, it's by all logic the next game on the list for "Sonic was always good" and Pariah seems to be avoiding it like hellfire. He also voiced a dislike for it in his previous videos. So now I'm having a laugh at the fact that he chose to play one of the "worst games ever" instead of Colors.
@@andOlgaFfrom what I can understand, he just wanted to take a break from Sonic...
@@Ms.Unsmiley161 While I'm not going to go dig for the exact quotes and timestamps (the videos are long and there's too many to go through them a second time, so forgive me there), you can find that sort of sentiment quite a lot in the story vids. If I recall correctly, when he talks about the "new" story direction in Sonic (which he understandably dislikes because it's *no* direction), Colors crops up quite a lot as an example of it.
I do not believe he ever commented on the gameplay yet, which I figure would be reserved for the actual video when it does come out.
@@andOlgaFQuite honestly, I am still of the mind that they should have cut the story entirely instead of doing...whatever that was.
People can cry about melodrama for days, but at least prior games were not so void of intelligence that they void their own point for their conflict to happen like Colors does. Eggman's plan is literally foiled once the first boss is beaten. Sure, nobody knows at that point, but it still sucks when Sonic could have just dropped it and went home at that point and still would have won. Story is meant to motivate gameplay, not *demotivate* it.
Fantastic concept, horrible execution
Hey man, i don't know but with the recent classic vs modern discussion on cancer platform, i really wish you to do a video trashing the community bcs that's a really awful waste of time, hope you're doing ok, bye
I barely use Twitter these days. I don't even know what the discussion is about.
@@Pariah6950 oh i appreciate you, is that there's a discussion going on about classic vs modern Sonic but this time is waaay more unhinged, personally i think this is a really damn long waste of time because Classic and Modern are 2 COMPLETELY seperate brands now, like the final horizons ssj2 update is gonna be released this month as for for superstars being released October mere 3 days away from Spider-Man 2 PS5 and Wonder witch i find really awesome, but either way I think this is a lot of bs and just like the cannon video i want you to discuss about the Classic and Modern discussion
And oh I don't use twitter either i was notified by RUclips, like there's a new video by Matthhasnocuts that was released just 2 hours ago on the subject
@@Pariah6950tbh I don't your thoughts on the revival of classic sonic ever since Generations, like that's just a design discussion not a gameplay one or I don't know like there's the Advance and Rush games and those are 2D and they use modern and I see no one having problems with them, might be because everyone forgets about them or with they do they talk shit about them like the good old Dimps pits argument and thing, but this discussion seems pretty dumb, like imagine in Crash Twinsanity everyone discussed about the redising they gave the characters