Balan Wonderworld - A Third Look: The Yuji Naka Story [Bumbles McFumbles]
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
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Watch this video 2 days ago for the authentic Balan Wonderworld experience
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Yuji freaking speaking in front of everyone to fire them all in Japanese not knowing some of them spoke it honestly says alot. Who knows what other things he might've said not knowing people understood him.
He’s like Ric Flair. A real snake of a person if you’re someone he doesn’t care or think you’re worth his time.
@@rayvenkman2087 All that's left for Naka is to sexually assault a Flight Attendant.
@@DR3ADER1 I’d insert something witty here but what Ric did was no laughing matter.
@@rayvenkman2087 They do not call him the "Nature Boy" for nothing!
@@rayvenkman2087 What happened with Ric Flair?
I find it super hilarious that the only reason Yuji Naka is going to jail because he tried to throw Square-Enix under the bus for Balan Blunderworld's... blunder. And then Squeenix ratted him out for doing insider trading as punishment.
It is evident that Naka's insider trading played a major role in him getting fired. It is not a coincidence that the timings line up and Naka very conveniently forgot to mention he was essentially stealing from Square when ranting that Balan totally wasn't his fault.
It reminds me of when Silicon Knights tried to throw Epic Games under the bus for Too Human's disaster, only to end up being exposed for breaching their contract by trying to steal the code to their Unreal Engine and having all of their games court ordered to be terminated...which ended up destroying their company.
Insider trading? Really? Yawn.
he's not going to jail
@@barriehannon6857he has been sentenced to 2.5 years in prison
I love the progression from "Yuji Naka is a complex figure who did a lot of important stuff" to "Yuji Naka is an asshole"
52:14: For those wondering why he's using Shadow of the Colossus as an example of 'start big but then get beaten back into reality by the actual development process', it's because that game was originally envisioned to have no less than *48* Colossi. The final game has 16. Let's just say the 48 number was... overambitious.
His first video of the Balan trilogy also explained that.
Even at the end of the development there was gonna be 24 colossi but decided to cut 8 of them. Looking back it was a good choice since while the game was shorter it avoided to make the game too repetetive.
@@nidohime6233Plus, it really keeps the idea that you're doing something that you really shouldn't be doing, but you've come this far, the end is right there, you can't stop now.
16 is the sweet spot to maintain that atmosphere of going "they're giant monsters I'm helping people" to "I'm kinda having doubts" to "this doesn't really seem like a good idea now" and finally to "I've come this far, I HAVE to see it through"
48 colossi? Like 48 demons from dororo? But thats just a theory, a game theory
It is commonly said, mistakenly, that "Sonic games were never good". But perhaps it is accurate to say that "Yuji Naka was never a miracle worker".
Or alternatively "yuji naka was always a asshole"
@@manuelvasconcelos8982 or alternatively alternatively... Yuji Naka was always a cun-
He fucked over Sonic on his way out.
@@miilexthemii9353 Or alternate alternate alternately:
Yuki Naka was a twa-
Or alternate alternately alternately alternately, “Yuki Naka was always a bit-“
Censoring Oshima in a picture from 1997 is just the tip of the iceberg of Naka's absolute pettiness. Naka even went as far to tell someone who made fan art of Balan to only tag him when it comes to fan art. The other person tagged in the art was Naota Oshima.
Censoring Ohshima merely shows why he left Sega in 1999. He had a fallout with Yuji Naka regarding the direction of the sonic franchise.
@@Austinator0630 Really!!!!
@@orangeslash1667 Yes, Yuji Naka hated working at Sega. For instance, we threatened to leave the company after the completion of Sonic 1 because the higher-ups refused to give him acknowledgement for his work. Naoto Ohshima has been uncredited on all versions of Sonic Adventure since SADX.
@@Austinator0630 Yuji Naka said that he left Sega because he wanted make more than just Sonic games. Back then Sonic Team would be allowed to experiment like Nights, Burning Rangers, and Billy Hatcher. Once Sega was bought by Sammy, that's when Sonic Team would no longer have variety.
@@orangeslash1667 Your right. He was also unhappy with his role as head of Sonic Team.
“Yuji Naka is completely blameless in how this game turned out. Everyone was screwing HIM over for a change.”
Well, what comes around, goes around. Karmic retribution, and all that.
Somehow, I am not sure about that. Either through negligence or some other failure of Naka, he might have still had something to do with the Rodea nonsense.
Great to see the world's foremost Balantologist continuing to heed his calling.
Banal Wonderwank
I'M WHEEZING-
Yuji Naka: "If they use my engine im quitting!"
also Naka: "Lets take their tech and fire everyone in that team except one guy"
I love how it takes 50 minutes in a 70 minute video to get to the part where Balance Wonderworld is mentioned, it’s pretty much a Yuji Naka documentary and I wasn’t expecting that lol
Unbalanced Wonderland
@@handlessuck589 yeah pretty much...
As much as I still see Yuji Naka as kinda a hack, the whole story abour Rodea is genuinely heartbreaking.
Kadokawa is basically funded by the yakuza, literally, but it nearly always make shit business decision and blind to global market. Sometimes even even more blind to domestic market.
Probe seeking deals with Kadokawa is not a wrong decision, but it is just that fickle.
Brooooo, Yuji Naka finally does something right and THAT happens. It's like Divine Intervention from a shinto god "thou shalt no longer make good games" etc
Never forget what Kadakowa did to Kemono Friends
Kadokawa makes the most amazing anime movies.
@@fumomofumosarum5893 They don't "make" those movies. They fund them. The crew of animators, writers, and other workers make those movies.
@@BBWahoo It did feel like karma for how he had acted previously.
glad to see Jack is committing to making feature length films
For real
ARADIA???
Homestuck?!
It is honestly so tragic what happened to Geist Force
That development team deserved so much more than that
Reminds me of what EA, Activision, and Nintendo have done countless times...
@@Carsonj13 That doesn't make it any less shitty. Especially since it was Naka who orchestrated it, not an executive at SEGA. Stop defending that cunt via insinuation.
You can figure out who is telling the truth with the Nights Engine.
Earlier in the video Yuji Naka specifically downplayed what one of the Three Fathers Of Sonic had done. Dismissing their contribution to the point where they were calling them worthless. This is contrary to reality in the project though.
He had lied about another person simply because he disliked them.
So if we apply his behavior to Nights... it fits him perfectly.
If I understand things correctly he visited them floundering people before they got the Nights Engine and left. He knew they were in a likely bad state around the time they got it. He knew denying it would be a huge blow against them. This knowledge should be fact.
Consider how later he was willing to talk about firing everyone in person and in front of them.
Now consider this man has consistently been ruthless, willing to be a monster, and shown to be spiteful.
This is all stuff roughly around the same time period where his behavior before and after the Nights incident was the same unless I'm mistaken. In other words it fits his MO or method of operation and is harder to argue he wouldn't do that.
Look at how he acts in the future and this is a case of there is an 90% chance he is at fault out of spite alone.
It would take a miracle for him to not have lied again.
Man if naka was a spiteful monster from the start then i imagine he had made alot of enemies
He’s like an unholy fusion of Hulk Hogan and 90’s Shawn Michaels.
@Manuel Vasconcelos a lot of spiteful people only begin actively doing things out of spite once they know they can get away with it
Yeah, I appreciate Jack remaining neutral to try to sort of tell "the full story", but when a dude who's full story includes lies, lies, lies, lies, suddenly unverified, lies lies lies, you start to just sort of figure that unverified part in the middle is also a lie. Seriously, when one of the sources of information that Liar McLiarman wasn't such a bad guy is from Liar McLiarman himself, it throws the whole side of the conflict into question. In fact, Naka saying "I didn't do it" just makes me MORE convinced he did it.
Habitual liars are precisely that. Habitual. They will lie when it suits them, and even when it doesn't.
If you start with the assumption that Yuji Naka is a liar in almost every statement he makes in his defense, everything else falls into place.
I can't wait for next year where we will be going the life stories of every single other person who worked on Balan Wonderworld.
Which will beg the question of how will that effect Yuji Naka’s Legacy?
Barring any further developments, he could talk about the actual plot of the game in the book since that's basically the only thing left that isn't fan related or even deeper into the developer hole... would be hilarious though if next year he talks about frame data of each costume and ranks them.
@@karmicrespite5737 I'd watch that
@@ultimapower6950 Like Hulk Hogan, whatever good he had in his career will be overshadowed by his bad antics. Depending on wether you think Stan Lee deserves the credit for having a hand in creations like Spider-Man or a thief; it’s easier to know the truth of that matter than anything to do with Yuji Naka.
If you’ve ever read the book Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, Yuji reads a lot like the Stan Lee that’s described in those pages.
@@karmicrespite5737 I read the novel and not only it is quite good it fully explains both the characters' motivations and also game mechanics
56:59 In all fairness Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 did have a very similar style of level design however the main difference I can gather is Mario Galaxy will usually have a specific mission focused on a power up like the Bee Mushroom or Cloud Flower, and powerups were generally treated as a level gimmick, not necessarily a "power up." Balan it feels more like if you lost the Bee Mushroom in a level and Mario just instantly died during the level.
Plus it helps that the Galaxy powerups were a little more nuanced than Balan's costumes.
In the Galaxy games, for levels with powerups the level was either designed entirely around the item, or it was just a tool used for a single segment and then you moved on, alongside most powers not being a straight "upgrade". Bee removed most of your jumping abilities, Fire and Ice were temporary, Spring and Boo controlled completely differently, etc.
I think it also helps that Mario isn't helpless without a power thanks to having a mobile and useful set of skills, unlike the two kids in Balan who literally need a costume to anything other than a basic jump
An entire level in Galaxy can work with base Mario. It can't work in Balan with a base kid
@@OriginalGameteer yeah pretty much.
Not to mention the item needed for the level is always within the level, and not just strewn about in a different random location of the game.
Balan basically said "what if every trophy required a specific thing, at sometimes that thing isn't even in this level". Mario Galaxy is a bit more linear and in a good way, even in more open galaxies you have all the tools you need right there. As someone who did everything in Balan, even with the secret costume that practically cheats I STILL had to backtrack time and time again to get one specific thing to get a trophy. It was tedious as heck
@@cryguy0000Remember kids: Linearity does not equal bad or boring. A roller coaster is a linear ride, but with proper theming and track design can be an exciting experience.
I hope the next time Bumbles does one of these videos, he changes the name of the day from the simple “Balan Day” to the much funnier “Balantine’s.”
The story of Rodea broke my heart. Imagine pouring your heart and soul into a project that you know people will like, only for the people you hand it off to basically give it a little kiss and send it on its way to instead grind it into dust pour the dust into a machine that could barely run it and then grinding the already ground dust back into an approximation of what it was meant to be, in a process that took half a decade and pushed out a product so atrocious that they included the original product as a bonus and you have to beg people to play the bonus disc instead.
None of it was Yuji Naka's fault, and I just feel bad for that entire situation.
Yes but you did see the rest of the hour long video where he systematically sets everything else around him on fire on purpose, right?
Don't woobiefie Naka just because one of his projects failed outside of his control, he's done a great job of making sure every other project fails on his influence.
@@StarkMaximum I don't deny that Yuji Naka was a massive dick, just in that particular instance, none of what happened was his fault.
It sucks for Rodea, but you can argue that Yuji Naka had it coming. It was only a matter of time before he'd get a taste of his own medicine.
@StarkMaximum I don't feel bad for Yuji Naka so much as I feel bad for all the other staff who worked on the game. Imagine tolerating Yuji Naka's BS for so many years and finally having some great result to show for it, only for it to get butchered and buried despite your team doing everything right.
Naka still made a deal with Kadokawa because everyone in Japan knew that he was a massive cunt to work with. He deserved to fail that way. He could have worked with a European developer, but because he's such a xenophobic loser, he chose to stick to working with Japanese publishers. The fact that Kadokawa was the only company to even bother working with him in the first place is evidence enough that no one in Japan wanted to deal with his bullshit.
It was his decision to work with Kadokawa and therefore, the responsibility lies on Yuji and ONLY Yuji.
Hell, Square Enix only gave him one chance because of how much of an administrative fuck up he is to work with. And he even fucked THAT up as well.
This man has given more thought to this game than any other RUclipsr and I'm here for it
You know, I thought that this whole story would've been a comedy, but now I realize it's a *bleeping* tragedy.
Tragedy + Time = Comedy is a really old idiom.
Please, put down the pillow. WAIT, NO, NOT IN THAT WAY!!!
@@costby1105 Except for his Tweets about Balan Wonderworld, those are timeless classics in comedy gold
@@costby1105 The only problem I have with it is that it implies that larger tragedies are funnier with the same amount of time. It should really be something like Time over Tragedy = Comedy.
Why can't it be both?
I’m glad people are finally starting to see how corrupt and unqualified Yuji Naka is. The man has only gotten by through luck, connections, and stealing the achievements of others despite his clearly only average (at first) leadership and programming skills, and while that has worked out for him in the past, this time with Balan there were only yes men who were forced to follow his every incompetent move due to company mandates and his falsely-gotten prestige. People used to praise this man like a god so it’s nice to see him get his comeuppance
Yuji Naka never even liked working at Sega to begin with. That's why he was difficult to work with.
In the words of Wrestling Bios; “He is not a Jam Up guy.”
The fact that the biggest positive of Belan is due to it completely shattering the illusion that he was the only person in the original Sonic Team group who knew what Sonic should be... That would have been it for most people in his shoes but the inside trading? That’s the cherry on top.
I will not be shocked if in a few years, Sega in general will give a bigger acknowledgement to the lesser known members of the original team that he stole credit from and downplay his role to a mere fraction of what he was once thought to have just to spite him.
@@rayvenkman2087 Yuji Naka never even liked working at Sega to begin with. That's why he was difficult to work with.
@@Austinator0630 Yuji Naka said the reason he left Sega is because wanted to make more than just Sonic games.
the sonic series is so mired in corporate drama it's insane. i didn't even know the extent of the sonic xtreme development cycle's disasters
dude check the development of Boom
A whole company tanked due to Sega's incompetence
Or 06's where Naka leaving was only one third of the problem and two thirds Sega's incompetence
@@Sigismund697 that's just because sega hates their games division and only keeps it around for pr
One of Sonic X-treme's developers nearly died of pneumonia because of the crunch time that he had to endure. I imagine because of cultural differences, where the Japanese are more into working overtime like it's in their blood to do so, unlike Americans who take the consequences of working hard for too long seriously. Thankfully he survived. I imagine Yuji Naka had something to do with his suffering, given that he didn't like working with American devs, so naturally, this chap would be happy to know of Naka's own suffering as a result of Balan Wonderworld.
@Thatitalianlameguy I have a Japanese friend that told me that Japan never saw sega as first party company from the beginning. That's probably one of the reasons why soj doesn't do much for their ips because they focus on other stuff
Just more proof that SEGA should just give Sonic over to the west. We know more about Sonic than they ever will.
Not a broader statement. Sonic is a rare exception to the Japanese superiority of gaming character franchises.
I will always find it funny that not only did the insider trading from Dragon Quest, a non-Balan game make Yuji Naka get arrested, BUT HE DID THE SAME FUCKING CRIME OVER UPCOMING FINAL FANTASY 7 PLANS
10:54 I can't believe Ronald McDonald is an integral part of the Yuji Naka story.
Actually, I think I can. It's just crazy enough to fit.
It’s like the time Sting and Robocop teamed up. It all connects.
“When they Chris, me Jack” made me almost choke on my water. I love your intros man, they’re always so creative! Keep up the great work as always big guy!!!
A 3rd view is definitely necessary.
1st To experience the clusterfuck firsthand
2nd To convince yourself that this game actually exists
3rd To finally do some in depth reviewing
I can already tell this is the greatest documentary film ever. Yugi Naka certainly had the most interesting career of any game creator in history. Thank you for the time and effort it took to tell us his tale.
"Yugi" Naka thought he was the king of games, but now he's in chains
@@InvaderIceStrike He used Pot of Greed and committed insider trading
@@InvaderIceStrike Sega actually treated Yuji Naka terribly.
@@Austinator0630 my comment is word play, using the misspelling of his name as an allusion to the anime “Yu-Gi-Oh!”, where main character Yugi Moto is known as the “king of games”; it is also an allusion to the fact he makes games.
The chains part is simply a reference to Yuji Naka having been arrested for insider trading, it is written that way as games and chains have a light rhyme.
I understand if my comment may be read as a criticism of the man’s character, but nothing in my comment is actually saying anything critical. It simply states that he was prominent in the games industry and has been incarcerated; these aren’t insults, they are facts.
tldr; I wrote it for the funnies; it ain’t that deep.
@@InvaderIceStrike I'm just saying that Sega's mistreatment of Yuji Naka lead him to being difficult to work with.
The mass firing the Geist Force team story is so despicable like wow.
I cant wait for "Mighty Number 9 - The Keiji Infaune Story"
I'm waiting for the Yooka Laylee episode myself
I love how he says ivy the Kiki? It’s so much like doofenshmirtze’s “A Platypus?”
ah Ivy the Kiwi? how unexpected, and by expected I mean COMPLETELY EXPECTED
Im sick and tired of Naka being called the father of Sonic. That title belongs to Naoto Oshima.
It actually belongs to the level designer, Yasuhara. Oshima wanted Sonic to be called something else (early designs by him depict Sonic as a rabbit and even as a human) and also wanted him to have a human girlfriend. Remember, Oshima is the same clown who thought Blinx was a GOOD idea.
@dr3d180 yasahara was a mere level designer my friend. There was no one genius behind the creation of sonic. Madeline Schroeder made the general aesthetic and world that people love about the series and removed the nonsense sonic team Japan came up with originally.
@@Carsonj13 This is incorrect. Schroeder was just a marketer whose incompetence led to Sonic 3 being rushed to market. As for the artwork, Greg Martin was hired by SOA for the cover art for the US and Canada exclusively. Martin's experience in illustrating for Hanna-Barbera led to SOA's decision to request his talents.
@dr3d180 sir, I don't mean to be rude but where are you getting this information from? Schroder was working with Crystal Dynamics when Sonic 3 was in development... the bit about Greg Martin is correct but wasn't he appointed by Schroeder?
@@DR3ADER1 Good news, Naoto Ohshima the director of Sonic CD, has returned to Sonic Team.
From what I can tell, Yuji Naka is the John K. of the video game industry but without the diddling
I hate both but Naka deserve's some slight more credit. Naka has made multiple decent things while John is a one hit wonder that has only regressed and really only has the one hit decades ago that has somehow convinced he still has any talent.
I had this exact same thought halfway through the video.
@@roble8943 Yuji Naka never even liked working at Sega to begin with. That's why he was difficult to work with.
@@Austinator0630 Okay. What's your reasoning for the Square Enix debacle then?
Yuji Naka is the Stan Lee that’s described in Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.
The more I heard about the troubles at STI, the more I'm thinking that that abbreviation was an omen. Let's just be glad they didn't decide on Sega Technical Division.
Y’know, when we were kids saying “this game is so bad whoever made it should go to jail,” did anyone ever think…
Jack so far is the only person I've seen put Getter Robo music on Ronald McDonald and for some reason have it strangely fit the scene.
Granted I'm easily pleased by people acknowledging in any form that Getter Robo exists so that might explain it.
Don't care if Sonic X-treme looks like turbo ass, the team should have never gone through that.
100% agree. lets not beat around the bush, SOJ absolutely sabotaged the dev team.
“Maybe not going bankrupt is a good thing.”
~Yuji Naka
Every single time this channel breaks an hour we get solid gold. That intro alone had me reeling.
Also, it's very Yuji Naka of Yuji Naka for this much more nuanced investigation to reveal him to be even worse than I ever thought.
The thing is, Jet Set Radio Future and all those other games made for the Dreamcast and Xbox aged better than what was popular in the early 2000’s. Also, Blinx was a classic.
yeah but like he said they are cult classics for a reason aka they sold like shit and didn't help Sega not go under
Not marketable tho. That's the big issue
Everyone back in the day was wrong.@@Sigismund697
@@gantz22ify hey Baroque is one of my favorite games of all time and it sold like absolute diarrheic shit yet that doesn't make them lesser
I hate STING released them on switch but japan only, the bastards
Balan wonderworld really is the gift that keeps on giving nightmares
Over an hour of Balan Wonderworld on a Saturday? If I was peanut butter and jelly, I'd be pissing myself over a combo that good
If I took a shot every time I said “wow what a prick” while watching this my liver would melt off and I’m only around halfway through. Anyway Love the long form content from you. More Bumbke Mcfumbles is always good!!!
Can’t wait for Yuji Naka to make his was into the next Bumbles McRumbles
If Yuji Naka ever releases an autobiography detailing his childhood and infancy, I will be patiently awaiting "Balan Wonderworld - A Fourth Look"
Having read the Balan Wonderworld novel, Balan would have fared better if it was just a kids novel instead of a game
Game development is such an interesting subject. So much stuff can happen during work on a game, and it can maker for some great stories. Thanks for making a video on this!
Also, when are you gonna do a video reviewing Sonic Frontiers? I’m looking forward to hearing your opinion on it.
Sometimes the making of a story/media is more interesting then the product itself.
@@starmaker75 definitely. Look at lost media searches. The best searches end boringly or abroply.
@@delededendboyyt I love the search for Cracks, a short from sesame street. People hyped it up so much as being scary.
And then the short got found, and it was perfectly normal. Nothing scary at all.
Or Clockman. Which wasn't scary either.
55:58
Hearing Cjszero01's voice after all these years of watching youtube was a gut punch of nostalgia i was not ready for...
Looks like we can add Yuji Naka to the "Guys who ruined their lives over a blue rodent" club
Nah, let’s add him to the “Ultimate Warrior” Club. Managing to ruin other people’s careers directly or indirectly like what the late wrestler did to WCW’s Renegade by publicly calling him out as a fake and having one of his gimmick entrances during his short WCW run lead to the British Bulldog getting hooked on painkillers for his back injury that led to his death a few years later.
His life is ruined, but his legacy will live forever.
God this channel is so underrated that it is so good.
Welp, I set my alarm for this, glad to know I'm on time! Can't miss such an important holiday!
...or really any other video, love you stuff :3
Seems like a lot of people who touches Sonic becomes insane. If USA has Chris-chan and Ken Penders, Japan has Yuji Naka.
lordy lord I can only imagine the video Mr Mcfumbles would make if he decided to cover the absolute shit show that is Ken Penders career
To Me, Robert Morgan will Always be the REAL culprit behind Sonic X-treme's cancellation since HE was the one who REFUSED to give Chris Senn And Ofer Alon a Saturn devkit to help with the game's development. as well as bringing in his buddies from Point of View to make the Crummy build That was shown to Hayao Nakayama. Too bad a LOT of people don't know about that little tidbit of Information, though.
Like the weasel he is, everyone else’s busy on blasting at the lion to notice him.
your script writing and humour reminds me a lot of the non sequiturs in Khonjin House, they make me laugh so hard
Legit the highest compliment I've gotten. I finally made something as good as Jungle golf
I watched Jungle golf because of this and had an aneurysm, 10/10 experience thank you for introducing it to me
The more I listen to this the more I'm convinced Akira Nishikiyama in Yakuza was loosely based off him.
I would not be surprised if they modelled him after Nakia but kept quiet about it to have deniably just in case, seeing as he was still with Sega when they created him.
Are we talking Zero!Nishiki or 1/Kiwami!Nishiki?
@@Nehfarius I think the latter.
@@Nehfarius definitely kiwami
Found this today. Can’t wait for part 4
12:42 you know you can't just drop "floigan brothers" after knowing how that game has severely affected the gaming landscape
what
This video takes 50 hilarious minutes to actually getting to talk about Balan Wonderworld and it's development.
That's how much history Naka and his legacy have to cover
With how much SOJ and SOA have been choking each other's throats throughout most of their development in the 90s, no wonder sonic and nights were the only games sega made that people considered fun at the time.
Nowadays, SoJ’s choke-holding SoA when it comes to all things Sonic with Paramount and Christian Whitehead being the rebels against their stranglehold over the series.
@@rayvenkman2087 And then Sonic Team made an average Sonic game that managed to restore hope to many (even myself, honestly)
And SoJ will probably leverage this fact to tighten the grip on SoA for another 10 years or so
@@brazilian_oak Yep. In the case of Whitehead and his team, Sega doesn’t know how to keep their mouths to not piss off a talented crew. Supposedly.
@@rayvenkman2087 they're so talented, yet SoJ insist on keeping them on the tightest leash ever
I would disagree, Phantasy Star Online was one of the best online experiences for at least half of a decade. As much as I may not empathize with Yuji Naka, I would never deny his early genius.
Circa 2030 “Balan wonderland, a 15th look”
I'm giving this a thumbs-up because Jack is one of the only people willing to admit that Sonic Xtreme looks like it would have been an AWFUL game.
it’s frustrating but true, though I maintain Sega of Japan pretty much doomed the project from the word go. I dont think this documentary hammered home just how bitter and petty the Japanese division was during the 90’s.
@@darthgamer9861 During the 90’s? They’re still petty about it now and they’re wondering why they have been spending the last few years playing second banana to other franchises including Crash Bandicoot with their Sonic brand.
@@rayvenkman2087 oh absolutely I just feel that their attitude in the 90’s had more drastic results
Used to feel the opposite but every time people roll that loop footage, all I can think of is the idea of them selling a Sonic Xtreme Companion Bucket just in case.
Oh yeah. There’s a reason they canned it and made Sonic Adventure instead.
I have only now realized Balan's plot is basically just Persona 5's except oversimplified to a disgusting degree and with no endearing characters
Excuse me, what? Persona 5 is about how corrupt people take advantage of public perception in order to exploit vulnerable people, particularly teenagers, and how complicit adults frequently dismiss or even silence those teenagers to protect their own public image, especially within Japanese society. Balan Wonderland is about interpersonal trauma and anxiety and how to deal with it in a healthy way rather than letting them consume you to the point where you take your problems out on undeserving people. They’re not similar at ALL plot wise.
Like, the only similarities I can think of are the boss worlds and mind palaces, and “places that reflect the personality/mind of the person who wields power over it” is NOT unique to Persona 5, that’s a pretty common trope in any fantasy media concerning dreams/psychology. Or, is it the costumes? I mean Persona 5 stole that from every magical girl anime ever by that logic, just minus the transformation sequence. Unless you mean the costumes are comparable to the Personas themselves, which on a surface level they’re kinda similar in that there are a lot of them to collect and they have different powers. In the same way that Personas are on a surface level kinda similar to Pokémon because there are a lot of them to collect and they have different powers.
Trying to call Balan Wonderland “Persona 5 except grossly oversimplified” because they touch on the topic of trauma and share a couple superficial fantasy tropes is in ITSELF a gross oversimplification. That’s like accusing Ori and the Blind Forest of being a Hollow Knight ripoff, except at least those are comparable on some level because they’re both Metrodvanias. Balan Wonderland is a bad 3d platformer meant for kids, and Persona 5 is a massive JRPG meant for young adults, you’re comparing a moldy orange to a pristine apple, FFS.
@@justsomeartist8895 I pray to god this is satire
Man the more you heard about the miscommunication and at times in-fighting with Sega American and Japan. It no wonder the company demoted to a third party company and just makes yakuza and sonic games.
Sounds a lot like the in-fighting between Marvel Comics and Marvel Sunbow Productions (The ones that had a hand in the making of the original Transformers cartoon) where they disagree on a lot of things.
Making awful business decisions like going forward with the Dreamcast because they were to prideful to stop making consoles didn't help either.
I guess one lesson here is “Don’t meet your heroes.” With that said, sorry Jack, I’m gonna have to cancel our dinner plans. There’s no way the real you is this funny consistently.
As someone who's played the hell out of NiGHTS, that Project Condor demo of Sonic in a fully 3D Jade Gully with the fucked up rotated 90° pink clouds, is *absolutely running in the NiGHTS engine.* The warping terrain is what confirms it, that exact technique is used in Soft Museum in NiGHTS, and would have been insanely hard for anyone other than tech wizard asshole Naka to have pulled off on such an esoteric system, especially considering how developers outside Japan got shafted in terms of development kits and hardware documentation.
Though if there's anything good to come out of this story- Rodea on Wii is fucking awesome
And also the Balan novel is fucking awesome as well, you gotta pirate a PDF of it
Do you know where to, uh, get a "legal" copy of the pdf? I tried to do it but every site either asked for a sketchy login or had a dead link
@@mauricioalvarezpino1818 Same, it was a bitch to track down a working one, and even then, illustrations wouldn't load. I don't have it anymore and can't remember where I got it, but I can confirm that, at least as of summer 2022, there IS a working cracked PDF floating around somewhere. You're just gonna have to keep searching. It's worth it though, ending made me tear up.
Though if you do want to try out one of those sketchier links, you could use a virtual machine, or if you have antimalware run it through that before opening it, just in case it IS something malicious.
man I tried Rodea last week and could not get used to the wii remote controls for the life of me
@@darthgamer9861 Your issue may be that you're not flying as much as you're supposed to. Ground movement should be a last resort if you're near death, or if you're in a tight environment.
You can prolong your air time while moving towards a target by holding B over your intended target and then flicking the wiimote in a direction, you'll arc in that direction towards the target. The tail power-up that gives Rodea green hair will exaggerate the arc, letting him shoot off in a sharper curve towards the target. You may also want to turn up the camera sensitivity [if it's an option, I forget].
Otherwise uh... skill issue ig? Rodea's unconventional controls can be tricky to get comfortable with, but once you've messed around enough, it's really satisfying. The first area of the first real level once Ion wakes you up, is a great place to play around and get comfortable with the movement. I don't think there are even any enemies in that entire first stage since Geardo appears at the end of it and that's when he spawns the enemies.
@@aortaplatinumhuh, maybe I didnt give it a fair enough shot. I’ll give it another go. Thanks sir!
I cant waint for "balan wonderworld: a fourth look" where its just jack looking at a life sized balan suit witch is on fire
That funeral joke at the end of this video was hilarious.
I 100% want to use that line when talking about any kind of major failure cause it’s so funny and good.
I expect nothing but the most riveting animal focused content from you moving forward
“Mr. Yuji Naka is ok.” -GUN soldier, Shadow the Hedgehog
Oh how poorly things age.
While it sucks what happened to Rodea, one can't help but look at it as a werid karmic punishment for all the wrongs that Yuji Naka has commited from screwing other projects over, whether directly or indirectly. I feel bad for the staff of Rodea that had to pour their hard work while taking Naka's controlling leadership only to have it dragged in the mud. Hopefully Rodea sees a port on the Switch, but that's about as likely as a Balan WonderlWorld 2.
A cautionary tale of given power too early when that power goes to your head.
Might be weird to say I see Sakurai and Naka as almost parallel timelines like a good and dark timeline.
10:56 What song is this? Also what was the song at the end..Pokemon song?
Getter Robo - STORM
I'm sorry but... "A kiwi?" The kiwi gets in an egg shell... "IVY THE KIWI?!"
Ok, at first I thought that Keiji Inafune would be my most hated Japanese developer. But now it’s Naka
I didn't realize how 'few' Kirby costumes there were in comparison, but what makes it even funnier is that even looking at every costume so far there's still at least a couple repeats. There are apparently differences between the three, but Mike, Crash, and Festival are all limited charges abilities that act as board clears (which are also rarer abilities that are debatable to use on bosses since you go back to normal Kirby after they take their chunk of damage). Festival is apparently buffed by having allies and also turns enemies into points, Mike has 3 charges and Kirby gets a costume during each attack, and in the latest game Crash has an upgraded form... but they all are abilities that you use to clear a screen before losing them.
Heck, Burning (where Kirby is lit on fire and shoots forward) has basically been replaced by Fire as the games got more in-depth control schemes and you can just do a running fire tackle as Fire (along with breathing fire) instead of a dedicated form for just the fire tackle with Burning.
A lot of the abilities had similar hats for a really long time (Stone and Ninja's helmets and/or Sword and Bomb's hats come to mind), but starting in... Return to Dream Land, I think, they started trying to diversify them more. And also some abilities were fused together, like Burning + Fire, Freeze + Ice, Plasma + Spark, and Backdrop + Suplex
the first part came off like an Xavier Renegade Angel bit, and that's a compliment.
Can't wait for Balan Wonderworld: A Fourth Look in another year and a half.
As a Gunvolt fan, you mentioning it made my entire existence skip a beat. Please make a video on it. You will probably get ten views but I will be two of them.
As the Shadow the Hedgehog dub said:
"Mr. Yuji Naka is FUCKING WRONG!".
“Yasuhara would bounce back with the Floigan Brothers, and lesser-known games”.
Belly laugh. I’m only 15 mins in and this video is already absolutely terrific 😂
...I have never audibly said 'what' as often as I have related to this man, holy *shit* Naka managed to falsify his importance for so long that I think even some former US presidents would be jealous.
EDIT: I'd like to state I made this comment *halfway through* and I did not expect that claim to get a little more...on the nose...with all of that at the end...
He’s a hardcore Hulkamaniac. Right down to his tall tales except not as amusing like claiming Andre the Giant died right after WM III... Despite continuing to have matches with him including a rematch at WM IV or working extra more days on his schedule than the total days of the year on the calendar.
On the other hand, Yuji’s tall tales can just be as anger-inducing like some of Terry’s more scummy statements. Ask the Undertaker about what happened during his early WWF career when he worked a program with him.
If you keep at this rate, your next Balan video will be an entire retrospective on Sega itself.
I subscribed for the second Balan wonderworld video and I’ve since watched most of your videos. This is a treat. I’m sharing it around. :3
If i see a fourth look on this game, I'm going to walk into the ocean.
Get your walking shoes on
After Inafune turning out to be a hack who didn't create Megaman on his own and now Naka basically being the same thing, I honestly just have to doubt anyone. Who knows who else worked on Mario where only Miyamoto gets the fame?
I think with Miyamoto, there’s enough proof out there to confirm of his involvement in the creation of the original Donkey Kong and the first few game appearances of Mario. We do know plenty about the other members of the teams making the games to know who did what.
oh, his sentence has been passed: 2 years, 6 months prison, suspended for 4 years, with two fines of ~¥2M & ~¥170M.
That intro bit felt like something out of Xavier: Renegade Angel, and I love it.
11:55 Except, in this context it's not "YOUR" engine, it's the engine you were paid to make for the company. Yuji throwing a tantrum didn't change the fact he didn't own jack diddly. Yuji Naka is one of those people that enters a space, contributes, and then claims whole ownership just for contributing, it's his ultimate character flaw.
yeah at worst he had the right to be frustrated management didn't tell him straight up which yunno might be relevant he's still making the game it's made for
but yeah the way it's described even in the ones where's "resonable" makes him look petulant
You are Balan strongest soldier
Balanism Religion When?
And this kids, is why you listen to and accept criticism, and why you don't form inter-corporate rivalries!
Another wonderful addition to the Bumbles Cinematic Universe
BCU
Ironically, Bumbles McFumbles could also be Yuji Naka’s legal name at this point.
Is baffling to me how easy it was to avoid Balan Wonderworld from failing, all you needed to do was call it Balan Wonderland...oh and:
-Add a jump button
-Reduce the number of costumes to 20
-Make the customes something you don't lose when damaged, you have a separate health counter
-Make levels a little more vertical and gameplay interactive
-If you are going to repeat costumes make them do something different like make the dragon be able to burn stuff and hay blocks while the puncher can activate switches from afar and grab stuff from afar
-Make the cutscenes have a narrator
-Make the story different, be a cliche or whatever but different, lets see, there are 2 dimensions, Balan is split in 2, bad Balan makes people see stuff in their life in a depressing light, Balan tries to brighten their life again, so you see a introduction to the villain and then work towards making them see stuff in a better light, and after that they help you somehow, the last level Balan is sealed away and you are trying to help yourself stand up again, but you are so depressed you can't use customes, the characters you saved help you and give you boosts around the level with their own powers so you can tackle obstacles, you become better, Balan accepts his dark side, they merge back up and Balan becomes a therapist after going to jail for kidnapping kids
-Make the game cost less than $60
-Allow the novel to be unlocked in-game, either by beating the final boss or by collecting the pages as you explore each world
-Explain how the damn Tims work and make them actually fun to raise
so Kirby
You know a video was finished later than planned when Bumbles McFumbles says its 2022.
Love you channeling Wrath Club's Pregame Discharge intros with the intro to this video.
Balan Wonderworld has all the awkward things about Sonic and NiGHTS without most of the good things those games had. Even the cool stuff like Balan's and some bosses designs are wasted with those pointless mocap performartsy fartsy dances.
Oh so Yuji Naka is just like Keiji Inafune but with crimes.
This video is so long it feels wrong to just make a comment about the very first part; but dammit, that opening monologue was like the average episode of Xavier Renegade Angel. I loved it lol
Every DAMN time my brain autocorrects to Wonderland
I swear with all the Pokemon Colosseum songs, I'm surprised you haven't covered it in some way.
"Hindsight is 2020...or at least that's what they used to say. Now it's 2022." -Jack, 2023.
Yuji Naka, a man one can best describe "Never a miracle worker, never an innovative man, but the opposite, and does not work well with anyone who isn't Japanese."
'does not work well with anyonr who isnt japanese' and even then not for long with those either.
Apparently he does work well with Americans, despite their difficulties, because they made Sonic 3.