I played this game / demo for an hour and I’m not convinced to play any further, let alone to buy the full version.

The controls are way too slow and basic and the jumps slow down your movement. It’s not fun. You can find different costumes to obtain different abilities, but you can’t interact with the world. There are many objects, but they’re only decorative. You can’t throw them, you can’t destroy them and you cant whirl them all over the place. The world is static.

I don’t expect a brilliant narrative in a game like this, but even for a collect-a-thon, it lacks some oomph.

The CGI cutscenes are very beautiful, the soundtrack is neat and I think this game has a strong sense of decoration, but that’s not enough to truly impress me.

I recommend playing the demo before you buy this game with your hard earned money.

Edit: I need to lower the score a smidge (from 1.5 to 1.0), because Balan Wonderworld producer Noriyoshi Fujimoto “addressed” the demo feedback and instead of delaying the game to fix all or at least most of the problems, he plans on giving us a day one patch. That’s not how feedback demos work. The only way to address this game is with a flamethrower and I hope Balan Wonderworld is his last game.

I just finished playing the demo and either this game is awful or this has to be one of the worst first impressions I’ve ever seen a game have. I think everyone here has already hammered home the many complaints I share with them: the movement speed is too slow, jump is pretty much the only thing you can do without a costume, every single face button is mapped to jump (including the triggers) for no reason whatsoever, the game feels like it was designed for babies, the myriad of technical issues (characters tposing, random slight framedips and cinematic cutscenes freezing) despite this game being pretty unimpressive for Series X, all that jazz but honestly I need to elaborate more on a couple of issues.

The powerups in this game are awful. Genuinely there is not a single good powerup this game has. A lot of them have this one ability that’s just “break blocks but in a different way”, the flower is a worse Mario Odyssey capture, the rabbit flutter jump kills your already slow speed, the dragon costume REMOVES your jump completely because the action replaces jump (and this applies to the punching powerup as well), meaning you’re in for a wild ride if you’re stuck with that powerup for a good chunk of the stage, the acro-bat is just a worse homing attack, sheep slooooowly moves across giant fans, and then there’s this fox powerup that just...turns you into a box randomly for no reason? Like...huh?????? You can’t even move or do anything when it’s transformed besides slide forward slightly in one direction, so again traversing these stages with this thing must be a real treat. It’s such a useless powerup it’s almost baffling it was put in.

I think one of the biggest things that bring it down for me is the fact that your player character utters the exact same 2 grunts on loop EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. YOU. JUMP. This may not seem like a major critique but when you’re jumping around these levels a lot you will start to wish for the sweet sweet release of death, I guarantee it.

Overall this is one of the most boring and simplistic bargain bin platformers I have ever played, and I seriously doubt it will get better later on. Even by the 5th world the level design still feels like it was catered to babies, and this is all a shame because I do like the visuals and the music is fantastic, but this game needs far more than just a delay, it needs a complete overhaul of everything if it wants to succeed, because otherwise this game is gonna bomb HARD (especially with this being $60 at launch. No I’m not kidding).

Turns out Morio Kishimoto always was the superior higher up at Sonic Team all along

I only played the demo to this but this is easily in the top 2 worst games I've ever played. It baffles me how much this game gets oh so totally wrong from the mechanics to the level design to the art-style. This shit is irredeemable and I'm honestly shocked that it wasn't flat-out cancelled. The only redeeming factor is the very ok soundtrack which is masterful compared to the rest of this abomination. I'm not trying to be a troll or a hateful meta-bomber, I genuinely think this game is an abhorrent abomination from a fundamental level. The fact that I can tell this from a demo is just shocking. Also for those who will comment, no a day 1 patch won't fix jack shit because Balan is a fundamentally flawed experience.


Also apparently the final boss of this game gives non-epileptic people an epileptic response without warning which is shocking and truly ignorant that this was allowed past console certification and testing.

Do better Yuji Naka, do better

Well, I gave the demo a fair shot. But there are a lot of problems.

1. 6 of your buttons are to jump, and there's no dash or dive button. As such, your movement options are just jumping and walking around. Pretty limited for a 3D platformer.

2. You can only hold onto 3 costumes at the same time (from the demo), and you can apparently collect duplicates of the same costume. This can result in situations where you have duplicate costumes delete costumes that you actually need to progress in the level.

3. The background curves toward the player (sort of like Super Mario Galaxy), but it's actually all a linear world. This results in the background constantly bobbing up and down as you explore the environment, and can easily cause motion sickness.

4. Combat is kinda lackluster, due to the limited movement options (where you have to jump on enemies to defeat them) and the few costumes that have other attacks cannot jump because the one button action is linked to the attack rather than jump.

5. The game sort of works like a metroidvania where you will have to bring in other costumes from other levels to access all the collectibles. But as I've sort of implied from the above comments, you'll lose your costume immediately after taking a hit or falling off the stage. Thus, there's very little room for error when you're trying to bring in costumes from other stages to 100% a level (because you still need room for the costumes in the level that are required for navigation).

I hate to say it, because as nice as the visuals and background music are, this might be the worst 3D platformer that I've ever played. The movement just feels so sluggish and the gameplay feels like it's lacking a lot of quality of life features. Really disappointed, and I would not buy this on sale unless it got major improvements.

I really wanted to give this a chance so I went in with an open mind. “Maybe everyone’s just being mean.” Nope, everyone was right. Just a baffling game from top to bottom. I will say this though: I admire that this game is going for its own thing. Is it successful in that venture? Not at all. But in a world of Mighty No. 9s and Yooka Laylees, it’s nice to see a famous game director come back into the spotlight with a new take, rather than just redoing what previously worked. It’s just a shame that this didn’t work.

I will admit that I haven't played this game outside of the demo, but from what I played... it pretty much just felt like a mediocre platformer to me. And this is coming from someone who unironically enjoys Sonic Forces.

I will say I really liked the overall presentation and art style of the game - it has that "Nights" feel going for it that I really like, but honestly outside of that I can't really say much else. The level design felt hella bland and the controls also felt really slow to me with overall pretty clunky and unsatisfying movement.

The power-up system in the game is something I feel could be a really good idea, but the way it's done in the game feels pretty half-assed. A lot of power-ups feel copy-and-paste or in some cases downright useless (coughthe Fox Box).

It comes off to me as a pretty generic feeling platformer, and especially for a $60 asking price, there's so much better you can go with - Super Mario Odyssey, Crash 4, Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, so on and so forth. In a lot of ways it feels like there was more attention given towards the art style, presentation and cutscene animation than the actual gameplay.

I played the Demo of this game on Switch, and jesus christ this is so bad, going into playing this demo, I heard loads of negative things about it from Discord Friends, however I decided to give this a shot, and while I wasn't expecting it to be good or anything, I didn't expect it to be this low quality. My biggest problem with this Demo lies in 2 Issues:

1. Controls and Overall Movement

The movement in this game is utter garbage, you move so goddamn slowly it's not even funny, and considering the fact this was done by Former Sonic Team Members who made games revolving around a character who's main emphasis was Speed, this is flat out embarrassing. The jump in this game is trash with little to no air velocity whatsoever, and to add the cherry on top of this awful sundae, all the buttons except for the L and R Buttons (Switch) are jump, they couldn't figure out ANY other mechanic to add to other buttons? AT ALL? That's plain and simple laughable. Now onto my 2nd issue with this Demo

2. Level Design

To be fair, this is only the Demo, and not the complete package, but I'm going off of what I played, and it was so damn boring, nothing interesting, no neat platforming, bland as day. I know this is coming off as harsh, but I'm being honest, this is legitimately such an awful experience, and never have I been so negative against a goddamn DEMO of a game.

Overall, while I wasn't expecting this to be great or anything, this was a huge shock for me for how low bar the quality of this demo is, playing this on Switch didn't help considering the awful framerate as well. This game needs a lot more time in the oven to make it better.

Not an original opinion here but this is one of the worst games I've ever played lmao. Why does Yuji Naka think his stupid one button philosophy is a good idea for a 3D platformer of all things? Losing the ability to jump with certain costumes kneecaps the level design so hard and the decision is entirely arbitrary.

Movement feel is terrible, art/designs are mostly garish and simply bizarre, technical problems are everywhere. The "Tims" are just... not explained? Anywhere? And they seem to be the only point of the collectible gems as well so the fact that it's this obtuse is baffling. A platformer with awful platforming, a collectathon with bland, confusing collectibles that aren't even placed in interesting locations. Don't even get me started on the "combat."

Why is there just terrible raw mo-cap data slapped on exaggerated cartoony characters with no extra work done... why do all of the NPCs just vanish when you get close to them... why does the world have this nauseating stage morph effect always going on... I'm just rambling at this point.

This entire trainwreck is absolutely hilarious to the point where if you didn't already consider him to be a bad game director I think this has to force you to reevaluate Naka's entire legacy. Final point: Arzest should be shut down for crimes against humanity, we can't keep letting them get away with it

This is not only the worst 3D Platformer I've ever played, but one of my least favorite games of all time. Once the minuscule charm from the opening cutscene and soundtrack fades out almost immediately, we are left with a buggy, unpolished, janky platformer with confusing level design, horrendous controls, the worst powerups I've ever seen in a video game and is just absolutely zero fun to play.

I truly feel bad for Yuji Naka, considering this was his only chance to make a Square Enix 3D Platformer, but the experience I had with this game was nothing short of absolute fucking torture.

This isn’t even remotely as morbid a failure as it’s being made out to be (imo this is far from being the worst platformer of the year, let alone of all time), and they clearly responded to what criticism about the demo they could in the small window of time they had, but this is still a very disappointing release from someone of Yuji Naka’s pedigree. There are some real easily corrected choices here that totally perplex me: why do you need a key to unlock the costume pickups when these keys are, without fail, placed directly next to the box pickups and mindlessly accessible? Why are Balan’s Bouts dreary, maliciously unforgiving QTE sequences instead of cute little rhythm games that would enhance the game’s theatrical motifs? Why do you have to “stock” costumes instead of just being able to swap to them once encountered? Like almost everybody, I have LOTS of problems with the game, but it feels a little cruel and incurious to see people hammer so hard on BW for not being this conventionally engaging mechanically tight platformer (none of Yuji Naka’s games really are lol) when to me it seems like Balan’s priorities… clearly aren’t to be that? I agree that the game fails on its potential in a myriad of frustrating ways, but I’d much rather discuss those briefly glimmering unique elements that could have been pushed further rather than rail on it for feeling “dated” while simultaneously condemning it for not being kinesthetically identical to a legacy platformer series that’s pushing 40.

I think, ideally, the game’s one-button input philosophy and limited level design are intended to create a hyper-accessible fanciful spree of cutesy quick changing aesthetics and encouragement--a sugary character randomizer musically shifting between different flavors of low-stakes whimsy--and thats a vibe outline I can definitely see merit in. Sometimes this almost kind of works: a lot of the costumes are goofy and adorable! It’s genuinely kind of fun to get a new suit and wonder what it can do! There are a few rare moments where the level design and powers are in great harmony and the whacko dancing npcs appear and seem to be cheering just 4 u--u go girl!!! Unfortunately, the levels and costumes rarely feel as exuberant and symbiotic as they should to make something like this work, and the game REALLY underestimated just how meaningful any ability that overwrites your jump function needs to be in order to not feel completely disempowering. It can feel patronizing and dull, but it’s absolutely not some utter atrocity of design; The game is internally consistent and it functions coherently within its own parameters, despite them being pretty mystifying and insipid at times--it’s not some Sonic 06 level technical failure in any regard. I was let down by the mechanics, sure, but my real problem is that the game is rarely as bold and engaging an aesthetic experience as something like Nights or Chu Chu Rocket. However, there are still some bits of genuinely quirky individuality I really enjoyed.

The musical theater aesthetic is a totally bonkers camp delight. Some of the scenarios leading to these redemptive dance numbers are hysterical and charming (I particularly love “girl and her dolphin friend had a falling out (???) and need to reconcile”) Seeing the motion-captured choreo kind of poorly translated onto all these wonky deviantart original character costumes has a synthetic but silly sort of jankiness that fully circled back into an earnest and endearing place for me. The cutscenes are genuinely lovely, and the craftworld sort of cgi stuff they do is great. I kind of love the enigmatic stupidity of the Tower O’ Tims and its ever-expanding marshmallow peep Rube Goldberg device that appears to do nothing but exist for its own sake--I couldnt help but laugh when I spent 10 minutes watching the dumb little critters revolve around in their weird merry go round in order to unlock a third “tim trampoline” i literally never saw any of them use. The soundtrack is unequivocally pretty excellent, although it definitely feels a bit slight on tracks.

I have to wonder what a kid playing this would feel like, someone with a looser outlook about what the genre should do, someone with a less claustrophobic understanding of competence/quality than me--someone who can play games and not even compartmentalize them into genre expectations at all! I’m not even sure those kids exist or would care about this game, but the kind of frustrating letdown experience of Balan was still memorable to me despite itself, and playing it had me thinking about my own processing and approaches to design when playing games. And hey, my partner and I have been swinging our little terrier around and belting the game’s wannabe Idina Menzel gibberish anthems to her for the past week so that’s gotta be worth something right!!!

>Naka: You're awful, Nomura.

>Nomura: Me? I'm Awful? How am I awful?

>Naka: Telling me Square would allow me one chance for an console action game, and then giving me mobile game budget. Making me release that demo knowing full well people would hate it, and then refusing to give us more time to finish the game in spite of the demo reception. You then pushed it out to die on the same day Monster Hunter Rise comes out. You invite me to your company to make a game, but you just wanted to make fun of me. You're just like the rest of them.

>Nomura: You don't know the first thing about me pal. Look what happened because of your ego, what it lead to. You ripped of DBZ, canned Sonic Xtreme, added a human/anthro subplot in 06, and when SEGA finally had enough they kicked you out only for you to repeat the same stupid mistakes once again.

>Naka:Laughing

>Nomura: You're laughing. Your game bombed today and you are laughing.

>Naka: I know. How about another game, Nomura?

>Nomura: No, I think we've had enough of your games.

>Naka: What to you get when you tell an action game enthusiast he can make his dream game-

>Nomura: Stop.

>Naka: ...and send him to a publisher who abandons him and treats his project like cheap cash-in trash?!

>Nomura: Call the police, Kitase.

>Naka: I'll tell you what you get. YOU GET WHAT YOU FUCKING DESERVE!