It is often said that the first impression is what counts , although this maxim is not always fulfilled, of course … unless your name is Balan Wonderworld, of course. And it is that it has not improved my impression by giving its demo another try, which I saw with a face of disbelief at first, especially when we consider that Square Enix plans to launch the game in stores on March 26 .
The reason? Everything is very green, the development is bland and slow, improper for a team that includes the names of Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima , two SEGA icons responsible for Sonic the Hedgehog, Nights into Dreams, Phantasy Star or Sonic Adventure, for name a few. Many of us saw in this joint work between Arzest and Balan Company a platforms with the spirit of Dreamcast, but it seems that we dream too much and it is far from the expected quality …
A new platform that is still very green
What strikes the most out of the blue is its graphic section, with an island, as a main area, too empty. The tiny Tim swarm there, to whom we can give drops of different colors to watch them grow. A wink that inevitably recalls the Chao from Sonic Adventures , where SEGA soaked up the (still current) fashion for the Tamagotchi with its Visual Memory.
With a very childish aesthetic and not very detailed in some regions, another surprising detail is the issue of control, having a single button to jump, use the disguise ability or interact with the Tim. The latter causes some conflict on the island, when we want to catch a Tim to throw him into the central mill, while the costumes seem very limited due to the scarcity of available actions. Without going any further, with some we won’t even be able to jump …
There is a problem for adults with costumes, since changing between them is not an immediate process , but takes almost a couple of seconds, which reduces its dynamism. To this is added that we can only take three with the character, so if we take a fourth costume, the last one on the list will be erased suddenly.
To make matters worse, if we suffer damage, we will lose the disguise, so it will be necessary to retrace the path to where we found it, having to first obtain a key to open its seal. It is not a complicated game either, for the record, regardless of the costume we have in possession, as the jump against the enemies is very consistent as well as certain skills, such as the fire of the dragon costume.
In other cases, such as the so-called Zorrohedron, the utility is in question, seeing how we transform into a cube every few seconds without being able to do anything … But it is the exception, since all the others are very varied and useful for certain occasions , especially when exploring the stage and enabling certain accesses, such as activating a mechanism with the “Gear Prince” or floating with the “Light Ram” near the windmills that are fixed to the ground.
Balan Wonderworld does not come to break schemes with platforms , since we have already seen transformism in other games, such as the great Dynamite Headdy from Treasure, for example, nor can it hide the past of its creators in SEGA, when we come across a disguise reminiscent of an attack by Sonic, specifically that of the “Aerial Acrobat”, to chain blows without touching the ground. Although then there is the “Saltinguro” with a Yoshi’s Island boost, things as they are.
Balan Wonderworld has a lot of homework ahead of it
In this demo there are three well-differentiated regions, each one with its own costumes to obtain, but none manages to shine in front of other representatives of the genre, where Super Mario 64 continues to be one of the great references since it amazed us in a legendary 1996. The comparisons are odious, of course, but this work by Arzest and Balan Company lacks more spark.
Beyond how little used their worlds are, with few exploration options saving a few detours, or how shocking it is to see how the objects at the bottom of the screen disappear (not so far away, go) or the NPCs soon after approach (we want to attribute it to being a demo), the presence of enemies and the difficulty of the only boss of this demonstration, of short duration and poor attack patterns, is most anecdotal.
The latter is a bit in line with the slowness when it comes to changing disguises, since we have more than enough room to face the opponent’s attacks using the blow of the pig or the whirlwind attack of the wolf .
At times it seemed to me a game clearly focused on children, more than those of us who grew up with the adventures of Mario and Sonic, being for all ages. And it is that we must put a lot on our part so that the experience with Balan Wonderworld is minimally fun, which could use a delay until 2022 as other games are starting to do.
Technically, he would have to give more of himself, improving the collisions caused by the camera when approaching some walls, but he would also have to rethink a myriad of situations to create a more fun adventure, because it is not that the scene of the own Balan with Quick-Time Events in which to “photograph” his poses to obtain more drops …
Okay, a demo does not always reflect the status of a final product , but less than two months before its launch, it is undoubtedly a double-edged sword for those of us who were looking forward to this Wonderworld Balance , turned (for now) into the first big disappointment of 2021. Hopefully delayed … for the good of all.
- Platforms : PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X | S (analyzed version), Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Steam
- Multiplayer : yes
- Developer : Arzest and Balan Company
- Company : Square Enix
- Released : March 26, 2021
- Price : 54.99 euros
