Balan Wonderworld from Square Enix and Balan Company is the brainchild of Yuji Naka and Naoto Oshima, two of the masterminds who brought us such renowned SEGA icons as Sonic the Hedgehog and NiGHTS Into Dreams, reunited at long last.
With a pedigree like that, Balan Wonderworld seems like a sure thing. But then why do so many people seem so unsure about it now?
For starters, a free demo is available to one and all on all the major platforms the title will be released on: Xbox One (and by extension, Series X|S), Nintendo Switch, Steam, and PlayStation 4 (and by extension, PS5). So if you feel there’s any reason to doubt what anyone is saying, then anyone with a real interest in the game can check it out for themselves. For this preview, I’ve played both the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch versions.
First, let’s talk about the gameplay. It’s not as action-oriented as Sonic; there are enemies to fight here and there, but at least in the demo, they tend to be more of an easily disposed of nuisance than a major part of the puzzle-platforming gameplay. In truth, the smaller enemies’ tendency to respawn in specific areas rather than be stationed at certain points throughout the levels can almost feel disruptive to the flow of everything else, which is more about exploring and how to best use your myriad abilities to reach different places in a rather 3D Mario sort of fashion.
As you progress through each chapter (which contains two parts, then a big boss battle), your main objective is to make your way to the goal at the end of the stage. Along the way, however, you’ll want to collect statues of Balan, which act similarly to Stars/Shines/Moons/Purple Horseshoes/whatever in Mario, in that you need to collect a certain number to unlock further levels. Collect enough, take out the level’s main boss, and you’ll be treated to a rather elaborate and nifty dance number before boarding the train and moving on.
Controls are, to put it rather bluntly, simple. You have an action button… and that’s mapped to nearly every button on the controller, save for the two shoulder bumpers, which toggle your chosen costume selection left or right. Your main action is jumping, and if you turn into something like the Tornado Wolf, then jumping can double as an action — in that case, creating a tornado around you that can deflect other tornadoes and break brittle blocks. Or if you turn into something like the rabbit-like Jumping Jack, you might need to press or hold the button again, in this case allowing you to perform a flutter jump which carries you further through the air. However, turn into something like the Dainty Dragon, and your jumping ability is completely negated in favor of a flame-throwing projectile attack.
That said, it almost feels hypocritical to hold that as a point against it, here of all places. After all, the SEGA Genesis had three and then later six buttons, and for Sonic, they all did the same thing: Jump. Then again, even that series expanded on that bit by bit after going 3D, so I guess that could go either way.
All in all, the flow of the game is… fine? It’s definitely leisurely-paced, perhaps even to a fault when you consider that the main characters’ running animation seems faster than their actual movement speed. It was a little weird at first, but the more I played, the more I got used to it.
All in all, the game is charming, if a bit simplistic. This strikes me as the type of game that’s targeting someone who has never played a platforming video game before, making itself accessible to anyone who can hold a controller in their hands (or heck, keyboard controls might even be sufficient here). It starts a bit slow, but once you get a feel for the general flow of the game, it is a little hard to resist the urge to want to see what comes next — what bizarre world someone’s heart will conjure, and what bizarre costumes you’ll have to wear in order to make it to the end.
That said, despite its simplicity, it’s also a bit obtuse. Sure, it’s just a demo, but I was left with so many unanswered questions (some of which required visiting their Twitter and website to find answers to). Such as “what do the Tims (those little guys who look like a cross between Peeps and un-digivolved Digimon) do?” Or “what are these weird distortions I keep seeing pop through the air?” Or “what is even going on here?”
So, if the gameplay is fine (if not exactly groundbreaking), then what’s the big problem?
Put simply, these demos run like crap.
On Xbox One, load times were significant, and while the game looks nice, it doesn’t look that nice. And the more I played, the more the game froze. Not as in needing a reset or anything; it would just freeze in place for moments at a time as the music kept playing before finally resuming, as if nothing had happened. It happened enough times that I quit keeping track of the number after seven.
I tried a full system shutdown and restart, but the game, she just kept a-freezin’. And just to be sure, once I finished the demo, I took Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate — which seems like a much more resource-intensive game — for a spin. It worked beautifully.
I also noticed in some parts, the visuals had sort of a grainy quality to them, though things like the HUD seemed unaffected. I couldn’t tell if it was just a stylistic choice, or if something wasn’t processing correctly.
Then we have the Switch version, which… wow. There was aliasing everywhere, and while I’m generally not sensitive to low frame rates, even I could tell there was something off here.
But it never froze! Sure, half the screen just turned black for a moment, but it never froze on me! And the loading times were faster, too.
Ironically, despite these flaws, the Switch version was almost the more preferable one just on account of its consistency. Sure, it didn’t run well, but at least it felt more playable. Go figure.
Balan Wonderworld is scheduled for a release on March 26th, 2021, so about two months away. If I’m not mistaken, we’re in that period where a lot of polish and fine-tuning goes into the product, so what is released may differ significantly, performance-wise, from what we’ve witnessed here. As such, it’s possible that Balan Wonderworld isn’t a bad game, but simply has a bad demo.
Some have speculated that Naka let this demo be released in such a state so that the feedback might convince Square Enix to give them more time to work on the game. To which, what can you really say but:
Whatever it is that this game needs, hopefully it gets it before release.
