Upon crossing the threshold, they’re quickly accosted by a grinning and vaguely menacing showman figure named Balan who whisks them away to a fantasy land to presumably do something good for other people. The children are both unhappy(?) and as they wander the streets of their city, they happen across a mysterious entrance to a place called Wonderworld in a back alley. The story starts off with you selecting either a boy or girl character, followed by a short (though well animated) cutscene which thoroughly fails to explain any of the events which follow. Stiff controls, uninteresting level design, and many other issues all come together to make for a game that simply fails to properly achieve what it sets out to do. only it’s a new release and not a relic of two decades ago. Unfortunately, Balan Wonderworld feels like a period piece in many respects. Yet here comes a brand-new seemingly high budget entry in the genre that feels straight out of 2001 (not in a good way) and it’s produced by Square Enix no less. Mascot platformers were all the rage around the turn of the century, but that fad has long since died off. I am being pretty harsh on the game, but when there’s a game from 16 years ago with better execution of the exact same idea, they honestly should have researched a bit more before designing the game, because what they have feels more like a Beta than a realised experience.Balan Wonderworld is a strange game. Kameo Elements of Power had none of these issues back in 2005, all of the transformations (though there’s 10 instead of 80 this game reported to have) had their own movesets, transforming was mapped to ABXY buttons and you could seamlessly transform even mid-attack for combos. the only every single face button is Jump/Action, so if a costume attacks you can’t jump, in a platformer So they can’t be used seamlessly and have no synergy, you can’t use them mid-jump either. They all only do 1 thing, to transform you press L1/R1 but you do a 2 second spin between each. The main mechanic of transformations/costumes is questionable as well. But it’s also at the same time very linear, you could run through a whole level in 2 minutes if you ignore the collectables. The level structure is weird, You enter the level and there’s almost no signposting, it’s practically aimless wandering and collecting, the NPCs just randomly dance and phase in and out of sight. The Jumping Jack Kangaroo suit also kills your momentum at the end of the flutter jump just before you fall. You press jump and the kid shoot 2 meters up in the air, but you lose all speed in the direction you move and cover the same distance as if you jumped from standing still and cover like 1 inches. The gameplay is so stiff, the jumping carries no momentum and kills your speed. So here’s my critique, I’m quite harsh on this I’m afraid so if you did enjoy the demo don’t let this turn you off, it’s my opinion: Unfortunately beyond the cinematics, character design and the music there isn’t much to like…I really do appreciate them releasing a demo because otherwise it’d feel like they were trying to dupe me into an undercooked game. The reveal cinematic and the Sonic Adventure-style character designs made it look very creative and bombastic. So I was looking forward to Balan Wonderworld.
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