The development of this game can basically be summed up as "literally everyone was doing the thing they're not good at." Yuji Naka is great at designing games but here he focused a lot on the story, which has never been his expertise and he even admits as much. The development team he had were used to making story-heavy RPGs instead of platformers, so they were outside their comfort zone at having to design levels and weren't able to tell Naka 80 costumes was a bad idea (and again even he was surprised they actually did 80). The one and only person who was doing the thing they're good at was Naoto Oshima, and surprise surprise the visual style of the game was the only thing that worked.
@@gaylordfocker7990 how's he overrated the guy you've been talking just pointed out like 6 sonic games (which doesn't count anywhere near to being overrated) and nothing else. How is that overrated it's like saying Keiichirō Toyama is overrated when he only made one selint hill game
@@gaylordfocker7990 all those games minus blaen wonderworld have had positive response to both audience and critics. And i also checked his work and the games he's been apart of most of them never were great games just because he's famous for being a programmer for the first sonic game doesn't mean he's going to be perfect in every game.
What's funny is how the Balan book which is nearly 300 pages explains every bit of detail for the story. For example, the reason Leo at the beginning suddenly got upset was because he is so good at dancing that no one can keep up with him which makes it harder for him to make friends as a result. Or something along those lines
So in the book leo is upset because he's egotistical while in the theater book its because he was hurt by a past friend and is scared of letting others in? Balan pick one
@@star22sally67 so let's fuse it together. Leo is an egotistical dancer who's so so good nobody can keep up with him and one day his only friend called him out on his arrogance and it made Leo unable to let other people get close.
That intro - I looked on Wikipedia and it says: "Both are troubled; Leo isolates himself from social contact due to an argument with a friend years before, while Emma suffers from anxiety about what others might be saying behind her back.". I mean, it could have taken 10 seconds to show this, but nooooooo.
I’ve read another comment and they said that Leo can’t make friends because he is so good at dancing and nobody can compete with him. Man this game is so stupid.
No one has that issue with Smash Bros Brawl’s Subspace Emissary! At least the dialogue free cutscenes are structured so that they’re easy to understand, showing you context clues about how certain things play out.
@@kaydwessie296 It's more of a Disney move. That's exactly what the Star Wars sequel trilogy had to do because it was a mess with no plan. And even then the explanations they give in the novels suck too.
If you have a story, tell it properly. This is 2021 not 1980s. Technology is here to at least write some freaking bios or a little section in the menu to explain the back story. Just WRITE IT INTO THE GAME as free text for all i care! It's not that hard!
Apparently, Yuji Naka is awful to work with, and only caved to the cutscenes we did get after the Square Enix developers badgered and begged him to add them. He initially intended to make a game completely devoid of any cutscenes or dialogue at all... kind of similar to NiGHTS (which worked there because the story was so bare-bones).
@@auralunaprettycure A little too human-like, but hey, if we have Meloetta, we can have Balannio. He and some of the other characters would make awesome Pokémon or Ultra Beasts for sure.
Best thing about this game is the entire plot is contained in an unadvertised novel. Yep. A novel includes *the entire plot of the game and explains who everyone is, what their problems are, and actually lets them interact with each other* Also some cutscene characters are actually the same person as another person in Wonderworld! But it's only explained in the novel. Because of course it is.
@@michaelnelson1127 In my opinion: No. It explains the lore at least but the dialogue is downright terrible, none of the characters feel like humans, plus it's super repetitive It does at least have some additional artwork though, so it's not a complete waste of money 😂
I figured out why there are costumes with similar/the same ability. It was their solution to losing costumes. Add more costumes. Instead of reworking the costume system. Wow.
@emperorfaiz I had to rewatch this video to reply to you and wow, I haven't thought of this game since I wrote this comment. My poor memory meant I went in thinking "oh yeah Balan, that had weird issues but it wasn't THAT bad right?" Yeesh, what a trip to watch it again. I honestly like the concept of costumes for abilities, even extensing or shortening your health for risk vs reward! But all of them being one hit and lose...that softlocks people. Which is OK if you lean into that difficulty and sculpt the game around it, people still love Sierra games and those are known for softlocking you hours after you made a mistake. But their answer was to lean in the other direction and make it impossible to softlock yourself...which makes everything pointless for the experienced player who is unlikely to miss much, and very difficult for inexperienced players (especially small children) who may get hit a lot. Fascinating really, when you think about it. They're the video game developer equivalent of tech bros, trying so hard to innovate they make things infinitely worse.
There are bad games were the devs had no chance at winning. Titus and Superman 64 was sabotaged constantly by Warner Brothers malicious intent. Big Red Button and Sonic Boom was crippled by Sega's jaw dropping stupidity. etc. Games like this however, had all the chances in the world. Seasoned, competent devs. Full backing of their publisher... and we still got THIS!
One word: *Hubris.* This game oozes with Yuji Naka's hubris. And as @MalekitGJ said, no one told him no, they let him do whatever he wanted, and he did. It sucks so much after the game got released and bombed, Naka started blaming others, when he was the one taking decisions and everyone else forced to following through, even after the studio told him they didn't know how to make his ideas (the team had no experience with platformers, just RPGs). But hey, maybe Naka was too busy committing frauds using his position inside Square Enix at the moment Balan was in production...
If I was the level designer of this game, I’d probably tell the director, “Nah you don’t need to put me in the credits... No it’s okay I promise... No there’s nothing wrong... I’m just under witness protection.”
The plant eating your "Tims" when you're not looking is something that would work well in a horror game. Think how terrifying would be to have a friend following behind you, turn back at them and there's a giant monster munching somebody alive.
Kind of like Creepy Watson only malicious instead of just creepy. I wonder if the culprit here is the same as it is there: animations that weren't completed in time so the devs only have it happen off camera.
The Balan costume makes sense as a post-game bonus costume, to be unlocked by either beating the final boss or collecting 100% of something (or both). It doesn't need a convoluted luck-based unlock that requires players to read a guide to know it exists.
You know what just occurred to me? How have they screwed up the "powers you pick up in the level" gameplay mechanic when Kirby came out swinging with it THIRTY YEARS AGO?
I'd say Kirby is still the better example as having a ton of different powers with different specialties is the series shtick Puzzles requiring one/one of a few abilities is a staple. Difference is none of the main abilities leave you kinda helpless like the costumes can
By outsmarting themselves and trying to be "innovative" instead of sticking to what works and going from there. Its okay to steal ideas from other games. If it works, it works.
This really had all the possible ingredients for a truly iconic game... and somehow it became a vanity project for the devs instead. It's pretty obvious they came up with the visuals and songs first, then just tried to shoehorn them into... whatever this was.
Fun Fact: Multiplayer Breaks the games, Because when the two players are stuck to each other their "Powers" effect each other, so if you both don't have costumes you gain the mot powerful ability in the game, a Double jump. This let's you jump as any costume no matter what your outfit is, because if player two is always human, they can jump and so can you
The thing with this is, I really like Balan's design. He looks really cool, has a great design for a hero or villain and looks like he could have some neat lore.. Shame his design ended up being wasted in a poorly made game with no observable plotline.
I don't know why they just didn't have an upgrade system, for example with the Lucky egg, you could had that as the default costume as the Lucky Egg and then when you unlocked the upgrade it replaces all the Lucky Egg costumes with the Lucky Bird. It seems Naka is great with character designs, but fails to understand the actually game making aspect.
Because nobody had the guts to criticize the “Masters”……normally some of the Devs or a publishers guy realizes that a game mechanic, that looked good on paper, didn’t work. They talk about it, and change things. But in this case they were to much intimidated by the big names….and that counts twice for Devs in Japan. You don’t criticize your supervisor, especially not such big names supervisors.
From what I heard Naka wasn't really heavily involved in the game design. He was mainly in the story department, which I would guess was probably just as disconnected as the actual game's story. This is hearsay though, so take it with a grain of salt.
The costumes honestly could've been like the Copy Abilities from Kirby (heck, the upgrade idea is something Kirby would eventually do in Forgotten Land).
@@MabuseXX Adding onto that, considering that the dev team is Japanese, being critical to the seniors is frowned upon IIRC. So I doubt it ever went that far. Though if this past few years have been of any indication, many of these bull-headed business types prefer to double down on their idiocy over admitting that maybe a thing wouldn't work as they would think.
@Rodolfo Ramos combine every costume that does the same, or does something so similar they should be the same into one. And buff the Costumes that are underpowered, like apollo, letting it actually move, or hover for a short time. Reducing the Change animtion lenght, etc.
Maybe Balan Wonderworld is a good example of the old saying, "too many chefs in the kitchen, ruin the soup." As in no-one was willing to compromise on their ideas, what to leave in, what to leave out, so they just crammed all of it in there, willy nilly.
@@MerlinCross13 From what I've seen, the Tims never die- there's no fail condition associated with them. The Tims actually help you in combat, and while they are connected to the end goal, you never need to escort them to the exit. In fact, with how overpowered most of the costumes are, you can practically levitate straight to the exit- leaving your Tims entire continents behind you, and they will show up at the exit no harm, no foul when you reach it. They have no problems at all with finding the exit.
Imagine being a voice actor for this game and your boss is just like "Ok dude all we need you to do is speak giberish in the mic that's all you need to do."
And I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but it worked because they embraced the whole made-up language thing by doing a fantastic job on the rest of the worldbuilding. It actually makes sense to have gibberish and the music actually sounds good, Balan tried and failed to do the same thing by making it inconsistent and not having any good reason to do it in the first place
@@bioticninja2170 Yeah, it is. It really is such a bad game that looks so fake and cartoony, that honestly, it should've just been a fake game that people in said cartoon would create themselves, or just watch someone else play in the background of another cartoon, or the same cartoon, like the person above my other comment said, or like the person below your comment said, or a sitcom. But, don't rule out it could've also been a fake game that's played in the background of a GTA game, or in a Saint's Row game, on one of the TVs in the background, presented as a bad kid's show parody game or something. Also, this has nothing to do with anything, but nice username, dude.
I just had a thought after considering the single button aspect. Can you even call this game a "platformer"? I mean, yeah that's what the creators call it, and I guess there are platforms in each level to jump on, but only a handful of costumes actually have a jump mechanic which is, you know, A REALLY IMPORTANT MECHANIC FOR A PLATFORMING GAME. Hell, some of the costumes, like the Balan costume and ghost costume let you just float/fly over all the levels or required areas due to broken game design. Essentially, they prided themselves into making a platformer game, and even made it the selling point, but couldn't even get that part right. Greeeat..
I tried making a video in the Wonderworld demo, and while I didn’t finish it sadly I did actually reach the same conclusion as you. It feels like Balan Wonderworld is actively trying to *not* let you platform between the single button controls, one ability only costumes, and level design
@@NoahDaArk Exactly. An ambitious project that was trying to hard too be so simple yet 'ground breaking', that it completely lost the point as to why it even exists to begin with.
correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure under that logic you also wouldn't be able to call super mario odyssey a platformer since like half the captures in that game also don't have a jump
@@jemuzuthestrangebear I'd consider Odyssey to be a different case, where the transform mechanic was done better. Even if half of them didn't have a jump, they had a different ability that either made up for it in full, or made it so that jumping wasn't even that necessary to complete the level (Not even touching on the fact that the levels are actually created to properly utalize the specific captures, while Ballan's levels clearly weren't, at least not as well). Plus it's not like 90% of the game is just you playing as enemies like how most of Ballan is just you playing one-note-costumes, with almost all of them not having a jump button and little to really make up for not having one.
In an interview, Naka himself said that he wasnt good with story based games so i feel like enix could have chosen someone that was with their company.
His stories are very simple and kinda innocent. No one complained about his writing in Nights into dreams and Billy hatcher, and no one ever gave a crap about stories in platformers in general, so why do people care about this game's story all of a sudden?
Things don't have to be comprehendable to be enjoyable, I guess. Not everything need a reason. Your imagination and interpetations can fill the gaps, just like kids do when they don't fully understand something. That's how I saw that game's story, and I found it kinda cute to be honest.
So, Balan kidnaps two children, a boy and girl, who enter a bussiness he operates, and then places them into a fantasy world they have to escape? So, basically this game is an unoffical remake of I.M Meen.
This is a game that I just pity more than despise. With a few alterations to the game, like better running speed, two button gameplay in which one button is a jump at all times (like Kirby) and remove the Balan Bouts and the game would have been passable. Not the greatest, but passable, like a 6 or 7 out of 10
Just make Balan's Bout to play like NiGHTS. I mean, Balan is obviously based on NiGTHS, so why not use the gameplay as well? That's the weirdest thing for me.
Kirby should’ve been the main gameplay model. Suits are for different COMBAT styles. They should only sometimes be used to solve puzzles and only for special extras.
The weird thing about the costumes is, they had the potentila to be something really fun! They should of scalled down the amount by a lot. Have some costumes that have the same powers, instead be an alternative costume; letting you choose how it looks. Some useless powers being unlockables for other, more useful costumes and even the idea of getting hit should of been changed to "if you get hit, that costume slot is disabled until you find ANY costume item, to unlock it again; that way you can keep the costumes you chose and it will never change. If they wanted you to not get stuck, how about the 3 slots having specific type costumes: Travel, Combat and Utility? Meaning you will always have 1 costume that is needed whenever you want!
Also, I would like to add don't make a costume that takes a ridiculous amount of effort to get just for it to be useless and can be lost because of stupid gameplay mechanics and/or a glitch.
I have literally never heard of the tim-eating plants or the English versions of the songs in any other review. That makes this the most in-depth review of Balan Wonderworld ever.
Yeah, the costumes feel like they’re trying to ape Mario’s captures, but get it totally wrong. In addition to each costume and the base form having minimal functionality and being easily lost, the big issue is that Balan lets you bring costumes anywhere, including places they shouldn’t be. Mario’s captures are based on the available enemies, so the designers can give you access to only the captures you need; that way captures with limited functions like Chain Chomps don’t overstay their welcome or feel useless outside of specific areas, redundant captures are okay, you can’t bring a capture with inappropriate abilities that breaks a puzzle or abilities that can’t be used, and you can design specific captures and puzzles for each other without worrying if that capture will break other puzzles. Balan, however, lets you bring basically any costume anywhere with its inventory system, which completely makes hash of any plans to design areas for specific costumes. Hence why everything is so samey.
*Old thumbnail:* giant eldritch horror Balan creeping on two children. *New Thumbnail:* _"THIS VESSEL HAS WITNESSED YOUR SIN, AND SEEKS _*_VENGEANCE!"_*
There's a novelization which is the closest thing we have, i heard is good, by a lot. it's hard to compare it because they're different media, but when it comes to present the story, the novel is a better experience in any possible detail you can compare with the game, plot wise.
Wait a minute I just noticed the male protagonist is.. well it's.. it's just Sonic. He's doing the crazy spin dance stuff like Sonic would do, and even has Sonic's head spikes. He's literally a human equivalent of Sonic, it's like someone's DeviantArt fanfiction became canon.
So if someone could mod the game by; 1: Getting rid of keys and key mouse and make costumes free. 2: Get rid of useless costumes. 3: Add more controls so that costumes would be more usable. This includes adding jump on some costumes, making randomly turning off and on actions activate by the press of a button, and randomly attacking costumes have a button and a jump. 4: Make it easier to change between costumes. This game would become maybe easier but more playable.
Honestly, the Lucky Egg and Lucky Bird costumes make me think they could've used some of those similar costumes like an upgrade system, where you start out with a weaker costume, and over time could upgrade them into better costumes with more powerful versions of its abilities. Heck, in terms of some of the more restrictive and gimmicky costumes, those could even work being relegated to challenge levels entirely based around them, where you wouldn't be able to bring in other costumes.
@@blackheartzerotheundergrou3225 Well, lets hope that doesn't happen here, and the usage continues to be spaced out and tasteful. Corporate Commander, also, is a far more drawn out skit than the Money Ghosts, typically speaking.
@@blackheartzerotheundergrou3225 so far it is safe because the money ghost isnt used that often with the exception of the DDI episode where it is make sense why the money ghost have more screen time there.
Yet another proof that creative developers really need people who challenge their ideas in development and gatekeep production money from dumbest ideas.
and also to stop people to working on a thign they never worked on on this high profile of a title... like having someone who is known for designing Games focus on the story.. And a team who is only Made Story heavy RPGs focus on designing Level sfor a Platformer..
@@Whocares158 this wasnt about it being easy or not This was about people SPECIFICALY being put into positions they have no prior experience in, instead of the positions they are known for and are quite GOOD at..... yes a developer can and SHOULD be allowed to try other things..... but not on a game thsis high profile
Definitely. I can totally see ego getting in the way of an awesome game, and when you have two game design legends with a staff that’s scared to say no or suggest things you’re gonna have problems.
It's a shame. This could have been a decent game. It seems like they needed someone to reign in and cut some of the ideas. It's like someone wanted to make platformer, anther wanted to make an adventure / exploration game, someone else wanted to do a mini-game compilation / musical or something (?), and it made the end result an incomplete, unfocused mess.
Maybe it was that confused messiness, and the devs trying their darnedest to make it sort of work, that led to the lack of quality control. I.e. the bugs.
Yuji Naka was a one hit wonder, much like Keiji Inafune. He went from threatening to quit Sega because Sega America wanted to use an engine to help them develop a Sonic game for the Saturn, to basically saying "I don't even know why Square Enix let me develop this turd"
Inafune's Megaman series at least went on to span multiple series and have dozens of quality games over two decades, and he also worked on Onimusha and Dead Rising 1/2, which are good game series. Yuji Naka made Sonic, and that's really about it, and Sonic hasn't had a proper "good" game for a LONG time
@@jack90054 sonic mania was pretty decent. Sonic Colors too. Generations wasn't bad either. Then there's a pretty expansive dark age between Sonic Adventure 2 Battle/and the Sonic Advance games and the ones I mentioned earlier.
With the costumes, it feels like they were trying to hit the BoTW weapon system, where your weapons are disposable but you can keep finding more and some have unique abilities that actually help you to explore. The problem comes from the grinding, Zelda doesn't let you carry infinite weapons so you never have similar weapons until you reach the end where you keep only 2 or 3 types with multiples of each. This game feels like the developers kept adding ideas to fix problems with other ideas with zero consideration for balancing and removing unnecessary bits.
the problem with this game is that the heads of development had stupid ideas like the one-button design and the exact number of 80 costumes engraved in stone and would not budge from them even if it was obvious that they didn't work.
I feel like it was more trying to ape Mario Odyssey’s captures, but screwed it up in a bunch of ways. Most notably, the issues like redundant costumes, costumes only useful in specific areas, breaking the burning floor area with the ghost costume, being stuck with costumes that don’t help with combat, etc are mostly caused by being able to bring any costume anywhere. Odyssey’s captures are based on the available enemies, so designers can control what captures are available in specific areas, letting them make captures for specific areas without them breaking other puzzles or feeling useless outside their area, give captures with limited abilities like the Chain Chomp a limited screen time, and could design areas to require specific captures since they could ensure they were available.
This game is like the inverse of Sonic '06: it's mostly sound from a development standpoint, but the design was a pile of hot garbage from the start. It's like a finely polished turd.
Yeah, Sonic 06 took the things that worked in the Adventure games and broke them (ex: Amy and her weird useless move set, when in Adventure 1 the only complaint was that she was too slow), this thing is weirdly confusing. The costumes should have worked like minis in the Lego games, change on the fly, if they wanted so many of them, many interchangeable. Take the Chao system from the Adventure games for the Tims. And very importantly, use more than one button. The story, I think was supposed to be "artsy", but it doesn't really work. I think a simpler product, then improved from that, could have been better.
18:24 At least the Genesis Sonic games did the single action button scheme right; even in Sonic 3 you know what pressing the button will do. When playing as Sonic, it'll activate the shield ability you have if you have a shield and are currently in the air. With Tails, pressing the action button in midair makes you fly for a limited time. With Knuckles, you can glide. You'd think Yuji Naka of all people would know how to make a one button controls method work properly in a game.
I find it funny, the Balan Costume is something people would love in any other game. Heck the double jump glitch in Spyro 2 letting you get outside of levels was awesome! ...Balan is just so bad something people love to do is actually bad.
Yeah, it feels like they threw a random number of costumes and they spent a huge part of the development time just coming up with different ones. Like, from what I saw 20 costumes, maybe even less would have been enough. Also the story was never added into the game, instead they released it separately on a novel probably because they didn't have enough time.
@@txcforever Ten to fifteen costumes with small move sets instead of 80 that do exactly one thing (often removing your jump in a platformer) would be ideal.
The beginning of the video is far more sadder and rage inducing the moment you read the article on how Yuji Naka had been screwing over game dev's that worked for Sega in the USA by trying to poach developers, fire the rest of them and steal any of the tech they we're working on to apply to Sonic the Hedgehog.... Yeah, at this point, feels like Yuji Naka had his failure coming to him and it was long overdue.
Now that he’s arrest for illegal insider trading, this game should serve as an example of how Yuji is not the creative genius who’s departure killed Sonic or something that he likes people to think of him as. He allowed Sonic 2006 to come out the way it did by bailing on Sonic Team.
I listen to this podcast called why I hate this album, and there's a running gag where one of the hosts, Tim, has to support anyone e!se named Tim and the Isle of Tims sounds like a joke he would make.
The costume concept reminded me of Little Nemo: the Dream Master on the NES. Except that one did it well. Everything was just properly streamlined without wasting your time.
Kirby and the Forgotten world does what Balan tried with costumes and sticks the landing where it crashed and failed. Instead of 80 at once, there's only 12 copy abilities, but collecting schematics unlocks stronger forms, sometimes with a new attack or gimmick to give them extra oomph. This is much more manageable and in fact makes those upgraded versions more fun to get an use by simply expanding the more consistent roster.
This game is the equivalent of the 2004 Lakers or other "superteams" that had rosters full of all-stars, but there was a lot of infighting and ego and it caused them to underperform. Same thing here, you had a team of really talented developers but there was no oversight or veto, so basically everyone's ideas were crammed into the game, making it a huge mess.
This pairs so well with Matt McMuscles' Wha Happen? on this. They cover different sides pre release troubles and gameplay. Matt's explains why the game is like it is and this shows the result of that tragedy.
i love how NO ONE has figured out why balan bouts needed to exist in order for states to exist. like why not put statues in hard-to-find places to reward imaginative/good platforming or places you can only get to by bringing a later costume to an earlier stage???
That balan costume is honestly an amazing idea that's horribly underused these days. Giving players cheats for getting 100% or overcoming a big obstacle or, in this case, figuring out a really obtuse puzzle is something more games should do. It gives you a real sense of accomplishment and I can appreciate the devs not caring how much the cheat would break the game because at that point the game is usually all but beaten anyway. This game didn't execute it very well, but I respect the attempt nonetheless.
Honestly for the level cutscenes you still don't really even need dialogue, real or fictional language, to tell a story. Like... purely visual storytelling is a thing. They just... failed at it
When I saw material for this game, I thought it was some indy game from a country that didn't usually create video games, and somehow SquareEnix picked it up to encourage game development in such countries.
it doesn't always make sense to talk about "how to fix this broken game" though? with balan wonderworld, you have a really compelling idea and a lot of great design, let down by some honestly pretty obvious gameplay issues. with a lot of the other games in this series, you just have mistakes and problems across the board and basically making the game again from scratch would be easier than fixing it
@@daneray9594 considering that Sony allowed masterpieces like the life of black tiger, skyrange free guacamole, and who can forget gilson b pontis games, I wouldn't be remotely surprised.
I mean it not bad game for me. but I will say some of the gameplay it might be the gameplay look rough. here my list of things to do for the game to be fix. 1: fix the game play and control. 2:make sure the dance scene are playable. 3:and finally make sure the game is great. now the game is great. but can we agree that we ,the fan. can fix this game. who with me?
I imagine the fact that the cutscenes having the "bowling pin people" aside from that one cutscene is because it's meant to represent the character who the cutscene is focusing on isnt paying attention to the people around them.
This literally feels like a game made in 1992. And not in a good way. Nintendo didnt have 2 buttons on the NES because it was a special feature, it was because that was as complex as they could make at the time. The 2p camera is just BAAAAAD. The skyrim couch coop mod did a better job. Just split the screen. The cosutmes must be EASY! Mario did it better decades ago! Odyssey did it a couple years back. How do you screw this up in 2021!!!
I think it was the idea of 'costume design is easy' that lead to them deciding to make '80 costumes' a large part of the development process for marketing. At about 20 different abilities you start to run out of ideas.
There are older consoles than the NES with more than 2 Buttons……..it has nothing to do with “to complex”. And by the way: the NES has 4 Buttons (A, B, Start + Select……Start & Select are completely free for developer use and can used by them for any action they want).
Edit: Yes they brushed over the book but to cover the story a bit more: The other Balan that was there is known as Lance. Read this comment to know more. Randomly back to comment on this as idk if you guys brushed over it but the plot of the game is all in a book. A book.. that costs $10 when this game was $60 at launch. No joke, that’s true and it’s a pain as it explains the whole plot, backstory, and everything that is needed for the lore of this game. The world you’re going through was made for people to conquer their anxieties and fears, the characters had self doubt in their own ways(Leo having an issue with trusting people due to issues of his past while Emma had anxiety from the fact she thought people were talking behind her back). The people you see are the ones who’re trapped in the world by Balan’s father Lance and so on. All this could be avoided if the story was just placed in the settings so you can understand who everyone is, what the world is and why you were brought here in case of something confusing you.
While the book is painful to read due to being more like a script with how bad the dialogues and description are so dull, the story is surprisingly interesting, and it is even more interesting the fact that the game is only like one act of the whole book!
This is the only game I know that can literally knock out the actual player. In the earlier version of the game had an issue where the final boss' certain attack will cause seizure inducing light effects so you know what happens They later fixed that issue
Lots of people say that the makers should have just made an animated movie. Something that really sucks is that Balan and Lance(That other Balan-looking guy) are actually really cool and interesting characters, and they honestly deserved far more than the shitshow that was this game.
@@anueutsuho7425 just... Don't let old dog playing with new engines. The old original shin megami tensei director also got kicked by atlus because he is so old fashioned.
This is a very comprehensive overview of what a mistake this game was. I say that as someone who has not played it, but its clear there is so much wrong with it as you lay out. Looking into the future I believe that the PS5 version of this game will be one of the most rare games on the console as it has sold abysmally worldwide. If you can get the PS5 version physically for cheap, you may be very happy you decided to later if you are a collector, thats just my take though. Excellent video Rerez!
Balan Wonderworld kinda reminds me of this old Rare Game called Kameo: Elements of Power for the original Xbox - with all the different transformations with unique powers and such. Except, ya know…really really bad. How come Rare was able to accomplish a game this same concept THREE CONSOLE GENERATIONS AGO, but the people behind this game couldn’t do it on MODERN HARDWARE?!
Not to mention in that game you actually transformed into cool things, not just putting on some stupid costume. I would have loved it if you would have just turned into the animals or characters that those costumes represented.
For any "newcomers" into this video after Naka sued Square... Please, believe to Naka lies less. Most of game problems are his ideas and ambitions. Like 80 costumes that doesn't work and he had no inspiration to do, but team wanted to include all of them anyway, one button simplistic gameplay "just like sonic" oh and "I don't write stories for the games" all his fault. Square actually tried to save this mess by ordering near the end development to make all the story cutscenes with their top studio, to throw in there some story after testers responses. And the story, that could been there if Naka wasn't stubborn, get into a novel that actually good enough. So yea, Naka is a big fat liar that just trying to sue Square for trying to save Balan from him.
Man, this one is just sad. When the trailers and stuff for this came out, I thought it was cool that we were finally seeing another colorful 3D platformer from a team that should definitely be able to knock it out of the park. The amount of passion and polish in previews showed. But several critical flaws in the basic design just ruined it. If those had been corrected early on, this might have been a decent game, great even. But it sounds like this was another case where no one wanted to challenge the "masters," and this was the result.
Ride to Hell: Bad, but in many ways that it makes it laughably enjoyable. Balan Wonderworld: Bad, but in many ways that it makes it infuriating. What a strange jump.
24:45 WHAT DOES MODERN GAMES HAVE AGAINST SPLITSCREENS Seriously framerate? People used to play 4 players splitscreen on halo on what looked like 15 frames it is OBVIOUSLY not the optimal way to play a game but who cares? Let us have fun
The whole time I was watching this, I kept thinking that this doesn't look like your traditional bad game shovelware bug-riddled mess and that it could be fixed with just a few changes. I'm glad to see that when I got to the end, you presented many of the same changes I was thinking would make the game better. I'm glad you did this, and I hope the developers take note. There's a kernel of a great game underneath all the poor design choices. In terms of fixing it, it wouldn't take that much. However, when thinking about the power-up system, I was thinking of A Hat in Time rather than Mario Odyssey. I think the real fix is somewhere in between these two games.
Same, I think if the characters and visuals were refashioned into something different, like an RPG or animated movie, they can still live up to their potential.
"And to your right you see Daikatana, holding not just Balan's drink but even more regrets than before" Sometimes you can dream too big. When you make Daikatana look GOOD something's gone horribly wrong
Come to think about it, the way you need the Tims in order to proceed, and the fact that many of the costumes are useless reminds me of Daikatana. ………..Dang it, why did Naka have to go the way of John Romero?
The development of this game can basically be summed up as "literally everyone was doing the thing they're not good at." Yuji Naka is great at designing games but here he focused a lot on the story, which has never been his expertise and he even admits as much. The development team he had were used to making story-heavy RPGs instead of platformers, so they were outside their comfort zone at having to design levels and weren't able to tell Naka 80 costumes was a bad idea (and again even he was surprised they actually did 80).
The one and only person who was doing the thing they're good at was Naoto Oshima, and surprise surprise the visual style of the game was the only thing that worked.
'Let's put the writers on level design and the designers on the story, this is the best use of their time.'
@@gaylordfocker7990 umm.. sonic adventure? It was the last sonic game he worked on.
@@gaylordfocker7990 nights in dreams?? Sonic 1-3 (and knuckles) plus CD?? WHAT ELSE?
@@gaylordfocker7990 how's he overrated the guy you've been talking just pointed out like 6 sonic games (which doesn't count anywhere near to being overrated) and nothing else. How is that overrated it's like saying Keiichirō Toyama is overrated when he only made one selint hill game
@@gaylordfocker7990 all those games minus blaen wonderworld have had positive response to both audience and critics. And i also checked his work and the games he's been apart of most of them never were great games just because he's famous for being a programmer for the first sonic game doesn't mean he's going to be perfect in every game.
Imagine making someone go through a dreadfully long process to unlock a hidden costume only for them to lose it because of a 1-second error.
28:00
XD
And let me guess, the costume only spawns there, and maybe you're forced to restart the whole tim breeding program to return to that island...
@@a.liguria2698 no, mercifully you only need the 10 rainbow drops to get it back, which xan actually be farmed in 6-2 due to an oversight
I love the cute kids 3:00 also I'm High on Orange soda!
@@a.liguria2698 Pro tip: don't play this game
What's funny is how the Balan book which is nearly 300 pages explains every bit of detail for the story. For example, the reason Leo at the beginning suddenly got upset was because he is so good at dancing that no one can keep up with him which makes it harder for him to make friends as a result. Or something along those lines
And everyone who only played the game will forever be in the dark.
So in the book leo is upset because he's egotistical while in the theater book its because he was hurt by a past friend and is scared of letting others in?
Balan pick one
@@star22sally67 so let's fuse it together. Leo is an egotistical dancer who's so so good nobody can keep up with him and one day his only friend called him out on his arrogance and it made Leo unable to let other people get close.
@@sorrenblitz805 Yes!
@@soulofflame9999🤮
That intro - I looked on Wikipedia and it says: "Both are troubled; Leo isolates himself from social contact due to an argument with a friend years before, while Emma suffers from anxiety about what others might be saying behind her back.". I mean, it could have taken 10 seconds to show this, but nooooooo.
Oh… I thought Emma was a “mistress’s child”.
I’ve read another comment and they said that Leo can’t make friends because he is so good at dancing and nobody can compete with him.
Man this game is so stupid.
tbh if wikipedia is not a reliable source, makes sound leo's trouble better than the book explanation.
The worst part? The novelization of the game DOES explain every confusing or unexplained plot point of the game mentioned through the video.
How very EA of them
"In order to make this playable you have to pay MORE MONEY for DLC!" (Except this DLC is a book)
No one has that issue with Smash Bros Brawl’s Subspace Emissary!
At least the dialogue free cutscenes are structured so that they’re easy to understand, showing you context clues about how certain things play out.
@@kaydwessie296 It's more of a Disney move. That's exactly what the Star Wars sequel trilogy had to do because it was a mess with no plan. And even then the explanations they give in the novels suck too.
@@Superluigi881 Yeah good point
If you have a story, tell it properly. This is 2021 not 1980s. Technology is here to at least write some freaking bios or a little section in the menu to explain the back story. Just WRITE IT INTO THE GAME as free text for all i care! It's not that hard!
Apparently, Yuji Naka is awful to work with, and only caved to the cutscenes we did get after the Square Enix developers badgered and begged him to add them. He initially intended to make a game completely devoid of any cutscenes or dialogue at all... kind of similar to NiGHTS (which worked there because the story was so bare-bones).
Sounds like Yuji Naka Alright.
Balan's character design deserved a better game.
He could even be a Pokémon, he deserved to be.
He kinda looks a Lucario "regional variant" lol
@@auralunaprettycure Nah more like a very bad regional version of Froslass.
@@auralunaprettycure A little too human-like, but hey, if we have Meloetta, we can have Balannio. He and some of the other characters would make awesome Pokémon or Ultra Beasts for sure.
They need to make a new Nights game and have Balan in it as a second playable character.
@@speedslider3913 There was a Novel based on the game.
Best thing about this game is the entire plot is contained in an unadvertised novel.
Yep. A novel includes *the entire plot of the game and explains who everyone is, what their problems are, and actually lets them interact with each other*
Also some cutscene characters are actually the same person as another person in Wonderworld! But it's only explained in the novel. Because of course it is.
The game and book also contradict each other too if you watch the game's credits 🤣
Though the main question is this: Is the novel at least somewhat good?
@@michaelnelson1127 In my opinion: No. It explains the lore at least but the dialogue is downright terrible, none of the characters feel like humans, plus it's super repetitive
It does at least have some additional artwork though, so it's not a complete waste of money 😂
@@casperrabbit7254 Okay, thanks. I wasn’t really interested in getting it, but I was still curious about it. Sheesh, this whole project was a mess.
Great… another example of “yOu HaVe To ReAd ThE bOoK tO uNdErStAnD!!”
I figured out why there are costumes with similar/the same ability.
It was their solution to losing costumes. Add more costumes. Instead of reworking the costume system. Wow.
Or just use the good ol HP system.Mario has no problem with HP system since SM64.
@emperorfaiz
I had to rewatch this video to reply to you and wow, I haven't thought of this game since I wrote this comment. My poor memory meant I went in thinking "oh yeah Balan, that had weird issues but it wasn't THAT bad right?" Yeesh, what a trip to watch it again.
I honestly like the concept of costumes for abilities, even extensing or shortening your health for risk vs reward! But all of them being one hit and lose...that softlocks people. Which is OK if you lean into that difficulty and sculpt the game around it, people still love Sierra games and those are known for softlocking you hours after you made a mistake. But their answer was to lean in the other direction and make it impossible to softlock yourself...which makes everything pointless for the experienced player who is unlikely to miss much, and very difficult for inexperienced players (especially small children) who may get hit a lot.
Fascinating really, when you think about it. They're the video game developer equivalent of tech bros, trying so hard to innovate they make things infinitely worse.
There are bad games were the devs had no chance at winning. Titus and Superman 64 was sabotaged constantly by Warner Brothers malicious intent. Big Red Button and Sonic Boom was crippled by Sega's jaw dropping stupidity. etc.
Games like this however, had all the chances in the world. Seasoned, competent devs. Full backing of their publisher... and we still got THIS!
This was definitely a case where they all tried to do the things they weren’t good at.
The cases you put are the examples of when Publishers say NO to anything the devs want.
This? Is when Publishers never say NO
It’s because arzest made it
I swear, by the time I complited this game, I wanted to blast Balan to subatomic pieces with a missile launcher.
One word: *Hubris.*
This game oozes with Yuji Naka's hubris. And as @MalekitGJ said, no one told him no, they let him do whatever he wanted, and he did.
It sucks so much after the game got released and bombed, Naka started blaming others, when he was the one taking decisions and everyone else forced to following through, even after the studio told him they didn't know how to make his ideas (the team had no experience with platformers, just RPGs). But hey, maybe Naka was too busy committing frauds using his position inside Square Enix at the moment Balan was in production...
If I was the level designer of this game, I’d probably tell the director, “Nah you don’t need to put me in the credits... No it’s okay I promise... No there’s nothing wrong... I’m just under witness protection.”
Aged well
"Just put in Alan Smithy on the credits."
The plant eating your "Tims" when you're not looking is something that would work well in a horror game.
Think how terrifying would be to have a friend following behind you, turn back at them and there's a giant monster munching somebody alive.
What gets me isn't just the fact that it eats your Tims
It's that it only eats them when you're *not looking*
OH NO NOT MY SON TIM 46 AND TIM 76
Kind of like Creepy Watson only malicious instead of just creepy. I wonder if the culprit here is the same as it is there: animations that weren't completed in time so the devs only have it happen off camera.
Balan underworld
That just kinda sounds like Tuesday for me.
You’ve heard of White Men Can’t jump.
Now get ready for Half The Costumes In This Game Can’t Jump
Sounds like the worse sequel ever.
Anyone had patience and counted how many costumes you can't use the jump?
Not being able to jump. In a platformer. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!
no i haven't
Next up: black man can't crouch
Isle of Tims
“Tim Allen grunt from Home Improvement intensifies”
I laughed way harder then I should at that!
More POWER!
I want the Home Improvement game to headline their next Just Bad Games segment. It would certainly fit.
Also "Tim Curry Pennywise WA-HA intensifies"
I was thinking NintendoCapriSun myself.
The Balan costume makes sense as a post-game bonus costume, to be unlocked by either beating the final boss or collecting 100% of something (or both). It doesn't need a convoluted luck-based unlock that requires players to read a guide to know it exists.
You know what just occurred to me? How have they screwed up the "powers you pick up in the level" gameplay mechanic when Kirby came out swinging with it THIRTY YEARS AGO?
Mario did it before
@@fumeknight9796 right.
I'd say Kirby is still the better example as having a ton of different powers with different specialties is the series shtick
Puzzles requiring one/one of a few abilities is a staple. Difference is none of the main abilities leave you kinda helpless like the costumes can
@@OriginalGameteer Can't wait to come back to this video after Kirby and The Forgotten Land comes out. 🙂
By outsmarting themselves and trying to be "innovative" instead of sticking to what works and going from there.
Its okay to steal ideas from other games. If it works, it works.
This really had all the possible ingredients for a truly iconic game... and somehow it became a vanity project for the devs instead. It's pretty obvious they came up with the visuals and songs first, then just tried to shoehorn them into... whatever this was.
They should've made it an anime or cartoon instead, either movie or series format
Fun Fact: Multiplayer Breaks the games, Because when the two players are stuck to each other their "Powers" effect each other, so if you both don't have costumes you gain the mot powerful ability in the game, a Double jump. This let's you jump as any costume no matter what your outfit is, because if player two is always human, they can jump and so can you
The thing with this is, I really like Balan's design. He looks really cool, has a great design for a hero or villain and looks like he could have some neat lore.. Shame his design ended up being wasted in a poorly made game with no observable plotline.
All the plot and lore is in the tie-in novel.
The lore's DLC unfortunately 🤣
It is an absolute Shane, his design is suuuper cool!!
Super original design too. Totally unique in every way.
Tophat with eyes, large mouth.
11/10 on personality and character development.
@@wolfgangervin2582 Which is an incredibly stupididea, as there's really no reason to have essentially required material be not included in the game.
Fun fact: before an update, one cutscene had a lighting effect that is *known to cause seizures.*
Sonic colours ultimate switch prequel 😳
It's Electric Soldier Porygon all over again
@@emberZemian YEA
Not sure about the seizures but it had me floppin around on the floor and stuff!
The game needs MORE!
Kid: "I....I need an adult."
Balan: "I am an adult."
I NEED AN ADULTIER ADULT
I don't know why they just didn't have an upgrade system, for example with the Lucky egg, you could had that as the default costume as the Lucky Egg and then when you unlocked the upgrade it replaces all the Lucky Egg costumes with the Lucky Bird. It seems Naka is great with character designs, but fails to understand the actually game making aspect.
Because nobody had the guts to criticize the “Masters”……normally some of the Devs or a publishers guy realizes that a game mechanic, that looked good on paper, didn’t work. They talk about it, and change things. But in this case they were to much intimidated by the big names….and that counts twice for Devs in Japan. You don’t criticize your supervisor, especially not such big names supervisors.
From what I heard Naka wasn't really heavily involved in the game design. He was mainly in the story department, which I would guess was probably just as disconnected as the actual game's story. This is hearsay though, so take it with a grain of salt.
The costumes honestly could've been like the Copy Abilities from Kirby (heck, the upgrade idea is something Kirby would eventually do in Forgotten Land).
@@MabuseXX Adding onto that, considering that the dev team is Japanese, being critical to the seniors is frowned upon IIRC. So I doubt it ever went that far. Though if this past few years have been of any indication, many of these bull-headed business types prefer to double down on their idiocy over admitting that maybe a thing wouldn't work as they would think.
They should have just made like 20 costumes and let you keep them and swap at will.
Sorta like vigors or plasmids in BioShock. Which _worked._
And have Actual Hp, losing costumes is bull****
@Rodolfo Ramos combine every costume that does the same, or does something so similar they should be the same into one.
And buff the Costumes that are underpowered, like apollo, letting it actually move, or hover for a short time.
Reducing the Change animtion lenght, etc.
@Rodolfo Ramos yeaaaah, like, why so many copies? Just have a single costume, like, wtf
@Rodolfo Ramos exactly
Maybe Balan Wonderworld is a good example of the old saying, "too many chefs in the kitchen, ruin the soup." As in no-one was willing to compromise on their ideas, what to leave in, what to leave out, so they just crammed all of it in there, willy nilly.
"every level is an escort mission!"
OUCH.
So's Bioshock Infinite. At least both games make it so you don't need to protect the thing you're escorting...
they're speaking japanese
Sonic 3D Blast intensifies
Okay I've watched a few vids about this game. Why is this the first time I've heard about the Tims being the EXIT?
@@MerlinCross13
From what I've seen, the Tims never die- there's no fail condition associated with them. The Tims actually help you in combat, and while they are connected to the end goal, you never need to escort them to the exit. In fact, with how overpowered most of the costumes are, you can practically levitate straight to the exit- leaving your Tims entire continents behind you, and they will show up at the exit no harm, no foul when you reach it. They have no problems at all with finding the exit.
Imagine being a voice actor for this game and your boss is just like
"Ok dude all we need you to do is speak giberish in the mic that's all you need to do."
"Rudifikdjxhegxzyurh3dir"
"What a MASTERPIECE!"
Splatoon
And I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but it worked because they embraced the whole made-up language thing by doing a fantastic job on the rest of the worldbuilding. It actually makes sense to have gibberish and the music actually sounds good, Balan tried and failed to do the same thing by making it inconsistent and not having any good reason to do it in the first place
Begs the question of why not just use the office staff and save on the VAs.
Sims
"Did Balan just eat that kid?!" Uh no Shane, he DRANK that kid.
Balan, "Mmm! *S I P*"
🤨📸
This game looks like a fake game people will be playing in a cartoon
You mean, it's not already?
that... is surprisingly accurate
Or a sitcom
@@bioticninja2170 Yeah, it is. It really is such a bad game that looks so fake and cartoony, that honestly, it should've just been a fake game that people in said cartoon would create themselves, or just watch someone else play in the background of another cartoon, or the same cartoon, like the person above my other comment said, or like the person below your comment said, or a sitcom. But, don't rule out it could've also been a fake game that's played in the background of a GTA game, or in a Saint's Row game, on one of the TVs in the background, presented as a bad kid's show parody game or something. Also, this has nothing to do with anything, but nice username, dude.
@@shawnfields2369 wtf are you trying to say
Imagine being so bad that you’re featured on Just Bad Games less than 3 months after your release
That’s a just bad games record
At least it's better than The shiny turd that is Mighty No. 9
M A K E T H E B A D G U Y S C R Y L I K E A N A N I M E F A N O N P R O M N I G H T
it's more about having easy but also topical content = more clicks
Man, it’s still only been 3 months?
I just had a thought after considering the single button aspect. Can you even call this game a "platformer"? I mean, yeah that's what the creators call it, and I guess there are platforms in each level to jump on, but only a handful of costumes actually have a jump mechanic which is, you know, A REALLY IMPORTANT MECHANIC FOR A PLATFORMING GAME.
Hell, some of the costumes, like the Balan costume and ghost costume let you just float/fly over all the levels or required areas due to broken game design. Essentially, they prided themselves into making a platformer game, and even made it the selling point, but couldn't even get that part right. Greeeat..
I tried making a video in the Wonderworld demo, and while I didn’t finish it sadly I did actually reach the same conclusion as you.
It feels like Balan Wonderworld is actively trying to *not* let you platform between the single button controls, one ability only costumes, and level design
@@NoahDaArk Exactly. An ambitious project that was trying to hard too be so simple yet 'ground breaking', that it completely lost the point as to why it even exists to begin with.
correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure under that logic you also wouldn't be able to call super mario odyssey a platformer since like half the captures in that game also don't have a jump
@@jemuzuthestrangebear I'd consider Odyssey to be a different case, where the transform mechanic was done better. Even if half of them didn't have a jump, they had a different ability that either made up for it in full, or made it so that jumping wasn't even that necessary to complete the level (Not even touching on the fact that the levels are actually created to properly utalize the specific captures, while Ballan's levels clearly weren't, at least not as well). Plus it's not like 90% of the game is just you playing as enemies like how most of Ballan is just you playing one-note-costumes, with almost all of them not having a jump button and little to really make up for not having one.
@@PsychoSquee What About Captain Toad? Would that be considered a platformer?
Protip: Don't play this game.
The most useful tip about the game.
*Protip:* Video games are not a waste of time!
~YIIK
@@Aaaa-g6u8e pro tip: except this one.
In an interview, Naka himself said that he wasnt good with story based games so i feel like enix could have chosen someone that was with their company.
And yet he wrote an entire novel for it
His stories are very simple and kinda innocent. No one complained about his writing in Nights into dreams and Billy hatcher, and no one ever gave a crap about stories in platformers in general, so why do people care about this game's story all of a sudden?
@@Nov-5062 Because it's obvious that this game is driven by the story, and yet it's impossible for the player to comprehend said story.
Things don't have to be comprehendable to be enjoyable, I guess. Not everything need a reason. Your imagination and interpetations can fill the gaps, just like kids do when they don't fully understand something. That's how I saw that game's story, and I found it kinda cute to be honest.
@@Nov-5062 I'd agree with you if it wasn't for the fact that they created a story for the game but chose not to include it.
So, Balan kidnaps two children, a boy and girl, who enter a bussiness he operates, and then places them into a fantasy world they have to escape? So, basically this game is an unoffical remake of I.M Meen.
“Very scary AND CONFUSING!!!”
This is a game that I just pity more than despise. With a few alterations to the game, like better running speed, two button gameplay in which one button is a jump at all times (like Kirby) and remove the Balan Bouts and the game would have been passable. Not the greatest, but passable, like a 6 or 7 out of 10
You forgot to add the unnecessary costume grinding that would drag your gameplay hours.
Just make Balan's Bout to play like NiGHTS. I mean, Balan is obviously based on NiGTHS, so why not use the gameplay as well? That's the weirdest thing for me.
Don't forget not telling the overall story in the game through a separate book that doesn't come with the game.
Kirby should’ve been the main gameplay model. Suits are for different COMBAT styles. They should only sometimes be used to solve puzzles and only for special extras.
@@ZX3000GT1 yeah that one especially
The weird thing about the costumes is, they had the potentila to be something really fun!
They should of scalled down the amount by a lot. Have some costumes that have the same powers, instead be an alternative costume; letting you choose how it looks.
Some useless powers being unlockables for other, more useful costumes and even the idea of getting hit should of been changed to "if you get hit, that costume slot is disabled until you find ANY costume item, to unlock it again; that way you can keep the costumes you chose and it will never change.
If they wanted you to not get stuck, how about the 3 slots having specific type costumes: Travel, Combat and Utility? Meaning you will always have 1 costume that is needed whenever you want!
Also, I would like to add don't make a costume that takes a ridiculous amount of effort to get just for it to be useless and can be lost because of stupid gameplay mechanics and/or a glitch.
Perfect. And so simple.
Also, make it so you can fucking jump while in a costume. Not everything needs only a single button, simple does not always equal better.
I have literally never heard of the tim-eating plants or the English versions of the songs in any other review. That makes this the most in-depth review of Balan Wonderworld ever.
This game managed to copy Mario odyssey's homework and still get it all wrong
Yeah, the costumes feel like they’re trying to ape Mario’s captures, but get it totally wrong. In addition to each costume and the base form having minimal functionality and being easily lost, the big issue is that Balan lets you bring costumes anywhere, including places they shouldn’t be.
Mario’s captures are based on the available enemies, so the designers can give you access to only the captures you need; that way captures with limited functions like Chain Chomps don’t overstay their welcome or feel useless outside of specific areas, redundant captures are okay, you can’t bring a capture with inappropriate abilities that breaks a puzzle or abilities that can’t be used, and you can design specific captures and puzzles for each other without worrying if that capture will break other puzzles.
Balan, however, lets you bring basically any costume anywhere with its inventory system, which completely makes hash of any plans to design areas for specific costumes. Hence why everything is so samey.
@@KnakuanaRka excellent point, I never thought about Odyssey's capture/puzzle structure like that
@@nthgth Let's not forget Klonoa for providing a mystic story in their native language made up by the people who created the game series.
That shot of Balan unhinging the girls jaw at 4:06 haunts me
Oh no, the girl got Ash William'd
*Old thumbnail:* giant eldritch horror Balan creeping on two children.
*New Thumbnail:* _"THIS VESSEL HAS WITNESSED YOUR SIN, AND SEEKS _*_VENGEANCE!"_*
You know where i can see the old thumbnail
@@om58499why'd they even change em in the first place?
Leo/Emma: I need an adult.
Balan: I am an adult.
Leo/Emma "I NEED ANOTHER ADULT"
Leo/Emma: I need an adult
Balan: I am an adult.
Also Balan: _Walks away_
💟💙
Leo/Emma: Another adult.
And I need to call the police. I'm too late.... Time to get an Automatic!
This has got to be the quickest release to "Just Bad Games."
why do people keeping hating this game?
The controls feel half baked that’s why.
@erain martinez watch the video to find out
cyberpunk was pretty quick
@@GoldenPickaxe True, but that was just a highlight reel of all of the bugs that they encountered, not an actual Just Bad Games video.
With Yuji Naka recently being arrested for insider trading I look back at this and think "Damn."
Feels like this would have made a better movie then a game.
It really freakin’ would have. The book was actually better than the game. What a let down…
Yeah, i agree with that
I could see it being a budget Netflix title
There's a novelization which is the closest thing we have, i heard is good, by a lot.
it's hard to compare it because they're different media, but when it comes to present the story, the novel is a better experience in any possible detail you can compare with the game, plot wise.
@@ramenbomberdeluxe4958 the book is just as bad
Wait a minute I just noticed the male protagonist is.. well it's.. it's just Sonic. He's doing the crazy spin dance stuff like Sonic would do, and even has Sonic's head spikes. He's literally a human equivalent of Sonic, it's like someone's DeviantArt fanfiction became canon.
So amy rule3.4 will become canon too?
So if someone could mod the game by;
1: Getting rid of keys and key mouse and make costumes free.
2: Get rid of useless costumes.
3: Add more controls so that costumes would be more usable. This includes adding jump on some costumes, making randomly turning off and on actions activate by the press of a button, and randomly attacking costumes have a button and a jump.
4: Make it easier to change between costumes.
This game would become maybe easier but more playable.
Honestly, the Lucky Egg and Lucky Bird costumes make me think they could've used some of those similar costumes like an upgrade system, where you start out with a weaker costume, and over time could upgrade them into better costumes with more powerful versions of its abilities.
Heck, in terms of some of the more restrictive and gimmicky costumes, those could even work being relegated to challenge levels entirely based around them, where you wouldn't be able to bring in other costumes.
Please never stop using the money ghosts, they’re too perfect of a skit lmao.
If Angry Joe's imaginary friend, Corporate Commander, taught me anything, it's that characters like this will become cringe...
@@blackheartzerotheundergrou3225
Well, lets hope that doesn't happen here, and the usage continues to be spaced out and tasteful. Corporate Commander, also, is a far more drawn out skit than the Money Ghosts, typically speaking.
@@blackheartzerotheundergrou3225 so far it is safe because the money ghost isnt used that often with the exception of the DDI episode where it is make sense why the money ghost have more screen time there.
@@blackheartzerotheundergrou3225, Maybe stop bowing to cringe culture and it'll stop being an issue for you.
@@TheTheninjagummybear
It ain't that. I just grew out of liking Joe's Corporate Commander bit is all.
Yet another proof that creative developers really need people who challenge their ideas in development and gatekeep production money from dumbest ideas.
and also to stop people to working on a thign they never worked on on this high profile of a title... like having someone who is known for designing Games focus on the story.. And a team who is only Made Story heavy RPGs focus on designing Level sfor a Platformer..
Let's see you make a game.
Then come back to me and say it's hard.
@@Whocares158 this wasnt about it being easy or not
This was about people SPECIFICALY being put into positions they have no prior experience in, instead of the positions they are known for and are quite GOOD at.....
yes a developer can and SHOULD be allowed to try other things..... but not on a game thsis high profile
Definitely. I can totally see ego getting in the way of an awesome game, and when you have two game design legends with a staff that’s scared to say no or suggest things you’re gonna have problems.
@@Whocares158 that’s the worst argument you can make to defend something. I’m not a chef but I know when food is burnt.
A lot of the design decisions in this game remind me of the saying "just because you can, doesn't mean you should."
As a Canadian, Isle of Tims just makes me chuckle.
I was saying the same thing, lol
I don't get it
@@scott8919 Oh, I've heard of Tim Horton before, I just didn't get the connection to Isle O' Tims
@@otaking3582 Canadians tend to refer to it as "Tim's" or "Timmie's" for short. :)
Tommy Lasorda would've found this hilarious as well. (Huh, you mean he's American? But he sure definitely talks like a Canadian.... 0:39 XD)
It's a shame. This could have been a decent game. It seems like they needed someone to reign in and cut some of the ideas. It's like someone wanted to make platformer, anther wanted to make an adventure / exploration game, someone else wanted to do a mini-game compilation / musical or something (?), and it made the end result an incomplete, unfocused mess.
Maybe it was that confused messiness, and the devs trying their darnedest to make it sort of work, that led to the lack of quality control. I.e. the bugs.
@@nthgth Maybe. We may never know for sure.
@@ZeusTheIrritable Yuji is great Producer, but he is not a good director. It doesn't help ether that this game wasn't even his idea and it shows.
@@orangeslash1667 I figured as much. Nothing wrong with that. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses.
Yuji Naka was a one hit wonder, much like Keiji Inafune. He went from threatening to quit Sega because Sega America wanted to use an engine to help them develop a Sonic game for the Saturn, to basically saying "I don't even know why Square Enix let me develop this turd"
Inafune's Megaman series at least went on to span multiple series and have dozens of quality games over two decades, and he also worked on Onimusha and Dead Rising 1/2, which are good game series. Yuji Naka made Sonic, and that's really about it, and Sonic hasn't had a proper "good" game for a LONG time
@@jack90054 sonic mania was pretty decent. Sonic Colors too. Generations wasn't bad either. Then there's a pretty expansive dark age between Sonic Adventure 2 Battle/and the Sonic Advance games and the ones I mentioned earlier.
@@jack90054
Well there’s also Nights into Dreams
Inafune has plenty of great games, even outside capcom, dont get it twisted just because mn9 was a failure.
@@jack90054 and rode of the sky soldier for the wii, not the wii u cause that one sucks and made by different people
I feel like a game being advertised as being made by famous developers is a huge red flag these days
With the costumes, it feels like they were trying to hit the BoTW weapon system, where your weapons are disposable but you can keep finding more and some have unique abilities that actually help you to explore. The problem comes from the grinding, Zelda doesn't let you carry infinite weapons so you never have similar weapons until you reach the end where you keep only 2 or 3 types with multiples of each. This game feels like the developers kept adding ideas to fix problems with other ideas with zero consideration for balancing and removing unnecessary bits.
the problem with this game is that the heads of development had stupid ideas like the one-button design and the exact number of 80 costumes engraved in stone and would not budge from them even if it was obvious that they didn't work.
I feel like it was more trying to ape Mario Odyssey’s captures, but screwed it up in a bunch of ways. Most notably, the issues like redundant costumes, costumes only useful in specific areas, breaking the burning floor area with the ghost costume, being stuck with costumes that don’t help with combat, etc are mostly caused by being able to bring any costume anywhere.
Odyssey’s captures are based on the available enemies, so designers can control what captures are available in specific areas, letting them make captures for specific areas without them breaking other puzzles or feeling useless outside their area, give captures with limited abilities like the Chain Chomp a limited screen time, and could design areas to require specific captures since they could ensure they were available.
23:45 My favorite use of "The Ghost of the Money We Wasted on This Game" so far.
YOU PAID FULL PRICE FOR THIS...
Balan “Go play Psychonauts instead” Wonderworld
Yes
accurate name
It’s Psychonauts
@@GreenTomas2372 Ah right my bad
Balan is not The Milkman. Balan’s milk is disgusting.
This game is like the inverse of Sonic '06: it's mostly sound from a development standpoint, but the design was a pile of hot garbage from the start. It's like a finely polished turd.
Yeah, Sonic 06 took the things that worked in the Adventure games and broke them (ex: Amy and her weird useless move set, when in Adventure 1 the only complaint was that she was too slow), this thing is weirdly confusing. The costumes should have worked like minis in the Lego games, change on the fly, if they wanted so many of them, many interchangeable. Take the Chao system from the Adventure games for the Tims. And very importantly, use more than one button. The story, I think was supposed to be "artsy", but it doesn't really work. I think a simpler product, then improved from that, could have been better.
But Sonic’s level design isn’t good either... so it’s not an inverse of it. The game’s art direction is better than Sonic 06’s. That’s it lmao
18:24 At least the Genesis Sonic games did the single action button scheme right; even in Sonic 3 you know what pressing the button will do. When playing as Sonic, it'll activate the shield ability you have if you have a shield and are currently in the air. With Tails, pressing the action button in midair makes you fly for a limited time. With Knuckles, you can glide. You'd think Yuji Naka of all people would know how to make a one button controls method work properly in a game.
I find it funny, the Balan Costume is something people would love in any other game.
Heck the double jump glitch in Spyro 2 letting you get outside of levels was awesome!
...Balan is just so bad something people love to do is actually bad.
This is a classic instance of George Lucas, where someone should have stopped them.
Yeah, it feels like they threw a random number of costumes and they spent a huge part of the development time just coming up with different ones. Like, from what I saw 20 costumes, maybe even less would have been enough. Also the story was never added into the game, instead they released it separately on a novel probably because they didn't have enough time.
Or a case study of too much and too simple
@@txcforever Ten to fifteen costumes with small move sets instead of 80 that do exactly one thing (often removing your jump in a platformer) would be ideal.
Yup. It desperately needed an editor and some focus testing to trim the fat and make it at least functional.
@@cyberprime9355 Yeah, wanting to make a game that’s accessible to a good majority of people is admirable but there are MUCH better ways to that.
The beginning of the video is far more sadder and rage inducing the moment you read the article on how Yuji Naka had been screwing over game dev's that worked for Sega in the USA by trying to poach developers, fire the rest of them and steal any of the tech they we're working on to apply to Sonic the Hedgehog.... Yeah, at this point, feels like Yuji Naka had his failure coming to him and it was long overdue.
Now that he’s arrest for illegal insider trading, this game should serve as an example of how Yuji is not the creative genius who’s departure killed Sonic or something that he likes people to think of him as. He allowed Sonic 2006 to come out the way it did by bailing on Sonic Team.
“Nightmare in a top hat”
He’s my favorite character but that’s too true XD
That's honestly kind of why I love him
His design is both classy and really freaking weird in ways
@@OriginalGameteer HE LOOKS LIKE THE PERSONA 5 LOGO WITH A BODY
Isle of Tims?
Man, so all this time these kids were just stuck at Tim Hortons and have slowly descended into madness.
Probably also what happened to Balan and Lance, turning them from the Contra guys into mutant clowns until the kids broke the curse and set them free.
I listen to this podcast called why I hate this album, and there's a running gag where one of the hosts, Tim, has to support anyone e!se named Tim and the Isle of Tims sounds like a joke he would make.
The Timbits have come to life!!! And now they’re following me!!! Help!!!!
I'm still upset that, as Canadians, they didn't make a single Tim Hortons joke here.
Probably from all the shrinking over time donuts and burnt coffee lmao
The costume concept reminded me of Little Nemo: the Dream Master on the NES. Except that one did it well. Everything was just properly streamlined without wasting your time.
I really don't understand how they messed up this badly. The problems with this game are straight up ILLOGICAL.
This sounds a lot like Lego City Undercover, but worse in every possible way.
Lego City Undercover was fucking great that is an insult to compare.
@@emptyvending8964 is game was Shinji Hashimoto idea not Yuji Naka's, that's bad thing.
It's my favourite Lego game, so it must be a lot worse. But, I can see where you're coming from, with the mechanics.
@@emptyvending8964 That's the point.
Kirby and the Forgotten world does what Balan tried with costumes and sticks the landing where it crashed and failed. Instead of 80 at once, there's only 12 copy abilities, but collecting schematics unlocks stronger forms, sometimes with a new attack or gimmick to give them extra oomph. This is much more manageable and in fact makes those upgraded versions more fun to get an use by simply expanding the more consistent roster.
Heck, this is the route Balan's costume system should have gone, but as many have said, only the artists were doing what was in their wheelhouse.
@@pootissandvichhere9135 yeah i agree kirby and the forgotten land is great
Never in a million years would have thought a project with so much talent and dedication would fall the hard on its ass.
It’s what happens when there’s only idea guys and no execution.
This game is the equivalent of the 2004 Lakers or other "superteams" that had rosters full of all-stars, but there was a lot of infighting and ego and it caused them to underperform. Same thing here, you had a team of really talented developers but there was no oversight or veto, so basically everyone's ideas were crammed into the game, making it a huge mess.
Too many cooks in the kitchen.
wow that's stupid 15:47
It’s the Mighty No.9 for the ex-Sega creative.
Imagine if Mario 64 had 80 caps and that 30 were needed to beat the game.
A wayyy shittier offbrand Mario 64 DS
2:40 Team Rocket’s disguises are getting better I see…
This pairs so well with Matt McMuscles' Wha Happen? on this. They cover different sides pre release troubles and gameplay. Matt's explains why the game is like it is and this shows the result of that tragedy.
I do think they know each other. Wouldn't be surprised given they're in the hard-core gamer space......and that they all hail from Canadialand
i love how NO ONE has figured out why balan bouts needed to exist in order for states to exist. like why not put statues in hard-to-find places to reward imaginative/good platforming or places you can only get to by bringing a later costume to an earlier stage???
Or why not just make balan bouts play like Nights?
They just HAD to shoehorn in qte's
That balan costume is honestly an amazing idea that's horribly underused these days. Giving players cheats for getting 100% or overcoming a big obstacle or, in this case, figuring out a really obtuse puzzle is something more games should do. It gives you a real sense of accomplishment and I can appreciate the devs not caring how much the cheat would break the game because at that point the game is usually all but beaten anyway. This game didn't execute it very well, but I respect the attempt nonetheless.
Honestly for the level cutscenes you still don't really even need dialogue, real or fictional language, to tell a story. Like... purely visual storytelling is a thing. They just... failed at it
After reading the book, I can safely say that these characters are better off silent 🤣
When I saw material for this game, I thought it was some indy game from a country that didn't usually create video games, and somehow SquareEnix picked it up to encourage game development in such countries.
I kinda wanna see you guys do the whole “how to fix this broken game” thing in all future reviews. That’s pretty nice.
it doesn't always make sense to talk about "how to fix this broken game" though? with balan wonderworld, you have a really compelling idea and a lot of great design, let down by some honestly pretty obvious gameplay issues. with a lot of the other games in this series, you just have mistakes and problems across the board and basically making the game again from scratch would be easier than fixing it
The first ‘PS5’ Game ever featured in this show
Nakazato Neptunia and hopefully not the last.
@@daneray9594 considering that Sony allowed masterpieces like the life of black tiger, skyrange free guacamole, and who can forget gilson b pontis games, I wouldn't be remotely surprised.
@@Hinokassaudifan1 I UNDERSTOOD THOSE REFERENCES
@@daneray9594 i dont know sir or madam
i think the future of PS5 doesnt look too bad
i mean were getting a new ratchet game
@@dubstepbee6892 oh yeah. I remember now. Caddicarus played them.
lol
17:11 “My ability is I demean you for your purchasing decisions”
21:50 placeholders, as if they forgot to add NPC characters in the game
Glad this game got a demo, saved me money.
Got and later they removed the demo on all consoles.
The only "wonder" is you wondering how they screwed this game up.
Two words:SQUARE ENIX.
Also on another note:Yuji Naka’s ego
@@BigEOT3 You forgot one more word : Arzest, developers the abomination that is Wii Play : Motion
@@ZX3000GT1 so essentially this game was dead on arrival
Most of the game's level were designed by an AI
I mean it not bad game for me. but I will say some of the gameplay it might be the gameplay look rough. here my list of things to do for the game to be fix.
1: fix the game play and control.
2:make sure the dance scene are playable.
3:and finally make sure the game is great.
now the game is great. but can we agree that we ,the fan. can fix this game.
who with me?
I imagine the fact that the cutscenes having the "bowling pin people" aside from that one cutscene is because it's meant to represent the character who the cutscene is focusing on isnt paying attention to the people around them.
Fun fact: Balan's voice actor is the one who also voiced Zack Fair.
So he’s Gongaga.
Rick Gomez???
Legend
This literally feels like a game made in 1992. And not in a good way. Nintendo didnt have 2 buttons on the NES because it was a special feature, it was because that was as complex as they could make at the time. The 2p camera is just BAAAAAD. The skyrim couch coop mod did a better job. Just split the screen.
The cosutmes must be EASY! Mario did it better decades ago! Odyssey did it a couple years back. How do you screw this up in 2021!!!
Yet NES has A LOT of awesome games in it's library, like Contra.
I think it was the idea of 'costume design is easy' that lead to them deciding to make '80 costumes' a large part of the development process for marketing. At about 20 different abilities you start to run out of ideas.
"The cosutmes must be EASY!" Did you mean: The *_costumes_* must be EASY! Use your spell checker next time.
There are older consoles than the NES with more than 2 Buttons……..it has nothing to do with “to complex”. And by the way: the NES has 4 Buttons (A, B, Start + Select……Start & Select are completely free for developer use and can used by them for any action they want).
All jokes aside, I think this game would be a great television series.
Exactly
Yeah, it would had work better as a TV Show instead of a game
We kinda did with the Amazing Digital Circus, which I get similar vibes with.
Damn, I totally see that!
@@CharlemagneGuy127stop comparing that bullcrap to even this stupid excuse of a game
Edit: Yes they brushed over the book but to cover the story a bit more: The other Balan that was there is known as Lance. Read this comment to know more.
Randomly back to comment on this as idk if you guys brushed over it but the plot of the game is all in a book.
A book.. that costs $10 when this game was $60 at launch. No joke, that’s true and it’s a pain as it explains the whole plot, backstory, and everything that is needed for the lore of this game.
The world you’re going through was made for people to conquer their anxieties and fears, the characters had self doubt in their own ways(Leo having an issue with trusting people due to issues of his past while Emma had anxiety from the fact she thought people were talking behind her back).
The people you see are the ones who’re trapped in the world by Balan’s father Lance and so on.
All this could be avoided if the story was just placed in the settings so you can understand who everyone is, what the world is and why you were brought here in case of something confusing you.
While the book is painful to read due to being more like a script with how bad the dialogues and description are so dull, the story is surprisingly interesting, and it is even more interesting the fact that the game is only like one act of the whole book!
Balan... Lance...
Balance...
Goddammit.
@@arditeider2812 yeah, It’s so stupid.
@@arditeider2812 oh my,
mind-blowing 😯
"Balan's _bro?"_ Lance isn't Balan's brother, he's his creator- in essence, he's the closest thing Balan has to a father.
This is the only game I know that can literally knock out the actual player.
In the earlier version of the game had an issue where the final boss' certain attack will cause seizure inducing light effects so you know what happens
They later fixed that issue
Lots of people say that the makers should have just made an animated movie.
Something that really sucks is that Balan and Lance(That other Balan-looking guy) are actually really cool and interesting characters, and they honestly deserved far more than the shitshow that was this game.
I think we can all agree that this should not be the fitting end to Yuji Naka's career....but sadly, it may very well be...
And now he got arrested for insider trading. Truly going out with a wimper here.
@@anueutsuho7425 just... Don't let old dog playing with new engines.
The old original shin megami tensei director also got kicked by atlus because he is so old fashioned.
This is a very comprehensive overview of what a mistake this game was. I say that as someone who has not played it, but its clear there is so much wrong with it as you lay out. Looking into the future I believe that the PS5 version of this game will be one of the most rare games on the console as it has sold abysmally worldwide. If you can get the PS5 version physically for cheap, you may be very happy you decided to later if you are a collector, thats just my take though. Excellent video Rerez!
I’ve played the demo…
They aren’t lying!
Even if physical PS5 copies of Balan are rare it seems like kind of a junk rare.
I got my copy for 20 dollars.
Better then paying for 60 dollars for it.
And now, Yuji Naka has been arrested for insider trading, lol. This has just not been his year, has it?
Balan Wonderworld kinda reminds me of this old Rare Game called Kameo: Elements of Power for the original Xbox - with all the different transformations with unique powers and such.
Except, ya know…really really bad.
How come Rare was able to accomplish a game this same concept THREE CONSOLE GENERATIONS AGO, but the people behind this game couldn’t do it on MODERN HARDWARE?!
Nobody ever talks about Kameo anymore, not even when it came out.
@@Invidente7 It’s a shame too. It was a pretty good game.
@@johnofonett8036 Well, you got me interested. I'll check the game later.
Never heard of that game. I’ll check it out, thanks.
Not to mention in that game you actually transformed into cool things, not just putting on some stupid costume. I would have loved it if you would have just turned into the animals or characters that those costumes represented.
The ghosts of wasted money really are the mvp characters of this series. They always make it better (':
For any "newcomers" into this video after Naka sued Square...
Please, believe to Naka lies less.
Most of game problems are his ideas and ambitions. Like 80 costumes that doesn't work and he had no inspiration to do, but team wanted to include all of them anyway, one button simplistic gameplay "just like sonic" oh and "I don't write stories for the games" all his fault.
Square actually tried to save this mess by ordering near the end development to make all the story cutscenes with their top studio, to throw in there some story after testers responses. And the story, that could been there if Naka wasn't stubborn, get into a novel that actually good enough.
So yea, Naka is a big fat liar that just trying to sue Square for trying to save Balan from him.
Thanks for this, even though I never heard of this. I’ll be on the lookout for Yuji Naka and his bullshit.
Man, this one is just sad. When the trailers and stuff for this came out, I thought it was cool that we were finally seeing another colorful 3D platformer from a team that should definitely be able to knock it out of the park. The amount of passion and polish in previews showed. But several critical flaws in the basic design just ruined it. If those had been corrected early on, this might have been a decent game, great even. But it sounds like this was another case where no one wanted to challenge the "masters," and this was the result.
Ride to Hell: Bad, but in many ways that it makes it laughably enjoyable.
Balan Wonderworld: Bad, but in many ways that it makes it infuriating.
What a strange jump.
24:45 WHAT DOES MODERN GAMES HAVE AGAINST SPLITSCREENS
Seriously framerate? People used to play 4 players splitscreen on halo on what looked like 15 frames it is OBVIOUSLY not the optimal way to play a game but who cares? Let us have fun
Wait modern games don't have split screens ? Why ?
@@Mr.Malliquin666cause online gaming has become too popular. Some games that have multiplayer literally only have online co-op
@@antoniomerette8393 Ah that makes more sense.
The whole time I was watching this, I kept thinking that this doesn't look like your traditional bad game shovelware bug-riddled mess and that it could be fixed with just a few changes.
I'm glad to see that when I got to the end, you presented many of the same changes I was thinking would make the game better. I'm glad you did this, and I hope the developers take note. There's a kernel of a great game underneath all the poor design choices. In terms of fixing it, it wouldn't take that much.
However, when thinking about the power-up system, I was thinking of A Hat in Time rather than Mario Odyssey. I think the real fix is somewhere in between these two games.
It would take to rewrite the whole game logic + needed changes to the map…..that would take at least a year. I don’t think that SE will finance that.
Same, I think if the characters and visuals were refashioned into something different, like an RPG or animated movie, they can still live up to their potential.
15:43
“Escort Missions”?
… looks like Daikatana got an upgrade
"And to your right you see Daikatana, holding not just Balan's drink but even more regrets than before"
Sometimes you can dream too big. When you make Daikatana look GOOD something's gone horribly wrong
I can't leave without my buddy Superfly.
Come to think about it, the way you need the Tims in order to proceed, and the fact that many of the costumes are useless reminds me of Daikatana.
………..Dang it, why did Naka have to go the way of John Romero?
@@ldragon2515 He tried to make us his bitch, but the game made HIM the bitch
I remember my little sister LOVED Billy Hatcher. She considered it a hidden gem on the Gamecube.
10:17
"Surely this would light the path" *an ad of a man and woman laughing plays*