Balan Wonderworld is a game that I have zero interest in ever playing, but I could watch/listen to people talk about it forever. It's such a fascinating. . . thing. And it's great to hear someone have a more positive analysis of it for a change.
It's like as in if games like this and YIIK are emerging a new genre of games that are so fascinatingly flawed that people who analyze games end up profiting more than their creators.
Cool, thanks UA-cam, it's not like audio's an important part of an audio-visual medium right? If there's no sound give it a minute and reload, seems to be working for most folk now.
Hey Shay, I don't know whether you read the comments, but I just wanted to share my appreciation for your approach to games criticism. It's uniquely positive and constructive in a sphere where people are usually cynical, and the genuine appreciation you seem to have for the good aspects of certain games that you recognize are bad and flawed is ultra refreshing. I love many the work of many games' critics, but I think you're the only one I know of who would make a video with this sort of tone about a game like Balan, and I think that's very valuable. It's fine and even important to criticize bad games to learn what not to do when designing a game, but the way you also look at all the ways it succeeds just isn't something you see that often. Your work (especially for the past year or so) has been a pleasure to watch and I just wanted to say thanks.
Do you know what I think would have been better art style? If they had leaned harder into the musical theater aspect. Instead of it being a dream-like disjointed crazy oversaturated nonsense land, they should have leaned into it. Have the skybox be a stage. Have the jump literally be them being hoisted up on a harness. Have the envirnoment be obviously handmade with papercraft and burlap. Have characters in all black against the background moving stuff. Have particle effects be streamers, confetti, cloth and shit. Lean way harder in.
I've only watched reviews of this game, and each time I do keep forgetting the game is supposed to be set within theatres and dreams and I wouldn't be surprised if the people reviewing it would often forget that too, at least the ones I've seen since some sources are hardly worth paying any attention to anyway **coughIGNcough.** ..It's not very theatre themed, or even dream-like, it does at a glance look like one of those crappy, low budget, zero effort asset flips that you'd regularly see plaguing the Steam store, and I think one of the problems is that seeing those so commonly nowadays makes it so easy to brush moderately flawed games like Balan Wonderworld amongst the piles of objectively garbage games like The Slaughtering Grounds. There's so many of them that our brains kinda filter them out for us, there's plenty of other games that are perhaps almost as flawed as Balan that I'd have normally never given the light of day if not already exposed to them by someone else, simply because they looked or played a little weird or janky on top of there just being so many to choose from, but are otherwise quite fun. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the market is beyond oversaturated and far too many decent games are trashed or overlooked entirely because we throw them all into piles while on autopilot. I still wouldn't count Balan as decent or even average, but I'm not sure it deserved the absolute beating it'd gotten either, it'd just gotten a bunch of quick, half-assed reviews then thrown into the "bad" pile to move onto something else.
It shouldn't need to be screamed in your face to understand this basic concept or at least to just go with the flow. After a point the over communication of its intent can just be a disruption to the experience. This seems less a problem with the game and more the problem of an audience that refuses to embrace simple abstraction and needs everything spoonfed to the point of absurd literalism. Especially in Balan Wonderworld's case, where it isn't a literal physical stage play, it's a dream world that uses stage play more as a metaphor.
@@GreatLange The problem of shooting for dreamlike: game environments are already abstract and surreal. Environments in Balan aren't significantly more dreamlike and impossible than in Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie, aside from the wrapping effect. Actually, with much of the game constructed from conspicuous level-editor-blocks, I was hardly pulled into the magic circle. Without pushing the visuals in one direction, most stages in Balan end up generic and video-gamey (and not in an exaggerated and sublime way). So yeah, I think the game could benefit from "spoonfeeding" the audience a visual gimmick. Reminder: this is an all-ages game aiming for a broad audience.
Stuff like the hub area being backstage just makes sense. Plus, well I guess overall just make a better game, but the Balan sections should have been replaced with tiny stories told about Balan, maybe in a JRPG style.
I think a big reason why many misinterpret some games such as this is due to a lack of immersion. The more immersed you are, the less likely you are to study every last detail to make sure it is all sound. Balan is known to frustrate some players, and so they check out. You can see the reverse of this in Sonic Adventure 2, which has an absolutely insane story, but the gameplay and such retains player attention (if you like the game, at least), and so they go along with everything On the side, I believe SomeCallMeJohnny made the chess player comment. Love his content, love yours too!
Another thing is that the costumes could probably have been worked upon to reflect the person a little more while maintaining both utility and design through the stage, one of the greatest examples for that being Kirby (whose concept is probably what inspired Balan's game). He has many cool abilities that can influence the stage, either fighting against them or reusing it for a different need, besides a really cool look for the character.
Kirby's Adventure seems to be a good example of what Balan Wonderworld is trying to be. It has a simplified control scheme and costume abilities that all do exactly one thing. There are costumes dedicated to movement (Wheel, Hi-Jump), combat (Sword, Fire), and puzzles (Rock, Laser). There are special secret abilities that reward the player with powerful abilities (UFO, Crash), abilites that are better versions of ones you've already seen (Hammer does all the good things Rock and Sword can do), and there's even the useless costume that lights up a single dark room. Taking damage also causes you to lose your ability in Kirby's Adventure, but no one complains because regaining the ability or getting a new one is very snappy. The key difference seems to be the number of costumes and the base abilites. There's about 20 copy abilities in Kirby's Adventure, which allows almost all of them to have multiple associated puzzles that ramp up in difficulty, and the only ones that don't are either the secret abilities or the Light one. Kirby also has a standard movement set that is almost never taken away from the player (Ball and UFO being the exceptions). I think Balan would have benefitted greatly from cutting away most, but not all, of the overlap costumes and the ones with incredibly limited utility. Balan had a lot going for it in the charm and style department, so it really is a shame that the volume of costumes prevents any one costume from getting much attention. I've no idea why the designers felt the need to put in so many abilities, but given Naka's open admission that the story was mandated by Square, I'm willing to blame an executive mandate for "a big number we can put on the box."
Agreed. Personally speaking, the one thing that killed the game for me was how slow the process of switching costumes to perform different actions was and that not all of the costumes can jump (which might only been an issue for me because of the former issue). I think if it had been designed with costume switching just being this fast and seamless thing that doesn't halt your movement, it would've made all the difference in the world in how playable it was. Otherwise, I think there's a lot to like about this game outside of the gameplay. The visuals are nice, the music is pretty mellow and soothing to listen to and the overall message it tells is a good one.
i agree with star on this one, it wasn't the "story bits" or the symbolism that was BW's real problem, it was the trip up that was the gameplay, as star said, this game felt like "kirby but" however didn't fully "get it" sort to speak, i'm willing to bet the game would be so much better if they didn't limit the controls so badly (if all costumes can do some sort of action AND jump, i'm sure there would be MUCH less bitching about the game) also i'm not counting the glitches/laggy bits/slog of random things that could be fixed with patches but every game nowadays had that issue lol the dancing numbers were still weird as hell tho
How would Sony mandate core game mechanics..? Unless I'm mistaken the story (aka the cutscenes made by a different company) was mandated because testers had no idea what was going on, so it's not like Sony pushed it on them out of nowhere.
@@PointsofData I think what they mean by the executive mandate comment is that it might be the higher ups that made it so they had to make so many repeat and useless costumes so they could slap the whole "We have over 80 costumes!" on the box; and not that the execs told Naka to do the costume thing as a whole. Keep in mind, this is all speculation, we don't really know the full story behind the scenes.
Nah, Naka-San is a baka-idiot who wasn't even planning on delivering on the 80+ costume pitch as he wasn't even sure his team would be able to met that quota only to be surprised his team was actually able to deliver on that promise... ...with a lot of compromises attached It was an extremely stupid proposition to begin with No game needs 80+ different gameplay styles Sonic 06 wasn't even able to juggle around 10 It's sheer insanity
1:04:08 That also is prolly alot of the reason box fox became such a meme, they spent so much of the game reinforcing that if a power doesnt seem immediately useful, it probably isnt useful at all, and then give you a powerup that instantly kills you
This is gonna sound weird but I think the existence of the book negatively affected the perception of the game. Like you said, the "Weird Dream Theatre" vibe is not hard to pick up on. The game spells it out relatively well. But there's also a book which adds dialogue and explains the plot, and now suddenly it looks less like "Balan Wonderworld's story is simple but apparent and conveyed through the gameplay and cutscenes" and more like "Balan Wonderworld's entire plot was dumped into a separate release that also costs money and is in a completely different medium and the game looks completely off-the-wall unless you buy and read the book." The presence of an external source that adds way more to the game's plot just makes what _is_ in the game look undercooked, and makes people ask "Why the fuck is this in a book and not the game itself?" On the plus side, at least now we now why SA2 put everything on B.
1:23:57 ok, this one is at least understandable. He did hit the floor 15 times and the boss took damage. When you play a lot of action games like Alpharad does, one thing becomes fairly clear: If you do something that touches the boss, the boss stops moving and seems to flinch, and it makes a loud impact sound, you're going to get the impression that you're successfully damaging it. Even looking at that clip, the hit that actually works is barely different than the ones that didn't. He moved like half the length of one of those tiles, which is about 1/32 around the circle, and even then still wasn't really at the opposite end, certainly not further enough over to figure out the difference. An example of this being done better is with the Bowser fight in Mario Odyssey. When hitting Bowser isn't going to launch him into the wall, he very explicitly starts blocking with his arms, and a giant shield barrier appears in front of him, signalling that his guard is up and he's going to retaliate on that hit. You want to fix that boss to be easier to understand? Have the boss float higher, and have the ground pound tilt the stage more. That way, it'd be a lot more clear that the reason you didn't deal damage is because the floor will tilt in the wrong spot and the part under the boss won't go high enough to hit it. That way, it's unambiguous that the reason you failed to damage it, is because you missed.
Understandable, MAYBE, but still a very stupid criticism to make. One *slightly valid if you squint and give him way too much credit* criticism of ONE boss within a sea of overreactionary bullshit comes off like he was looking for little tiny issues to whine about like a little piss baby lol
Although I understand that the musical numbers make sense in a theater setting, I think any value they have is undercut by the on-the-surface ridiculousness of the whole thing. The uncanny dance animations, with those dead eyes. The nonsense lyrics. It's just so immediately silly that any deeper meaning behind it is totally lost.
Part of the problem is that there is no deeper meaning. It's a very shallow feeling of joy and overcoming generic hardship every time. If the silliness was removed, and it was animated better, you would still be left with a dance number that doesn't serve to say anything about the character other than basic joy and relief. The dance numbers would have to be more complicated and symbolic to show anything more than that.
I honestly can't bring myself to blame Naka for the failings of Balan Wonderworld -perhaps I could with Ohshima and Artoon/Arzest as their track record gets a bit iffier there- I think the blame falls squarely (no pun intended) on the publisher Square Enix, who in the last couple of years seems to have published projects that at first seemed like slam dunks, but somehow end up being massive duds, like a black hole for talent (makes you wonder if there isn't a sort of "The Producers" scheme going on): - The Quiet Man, a "challenging" narrative about a deaf man by the studio behind Prey 2006, *critical and commercial failure* - Left Alive, a spinoff the the forgotten Front Mission series with art by Yoji Shinkawa, mechs designed by Xenoblade Chronicles X's artists and the producer from the Armored Core series as the director, *critical and commercial failure* - Marvel's Avengers, a tie-in game to the popular IP by the Tomb Raider team, *critical and commercial failure* - Balan Wonderworld, a new big-budget 3D platformer from the creators of Sonic, *critical and commercial failure* - Babylon's Fall, a co-op action game by PlatinumGames and the producer of NieR:Automata, *_next in the road to failure_* *(Update:* Confirmed flop) In fact, Naka was fully aware that even by halving the costumes to 40 it would be hard to make each one worthwhile, *but thanks to Square Enix they were able to push it to 80 in the end* *EDIT:* Yep, Naka confirmed SQEX screwed him over and released the game incomplete.
There's so many little things in this game that breaks the player's trust (like you talked about at 1:03:42), hence why so many things are misunderstood I did a video with Sam Procrastinates on how to fix Balan Wonderworld in as few steps as possible, and like, no one watched it, but dangit it made sense and shares some of your thoughts.
I originally ignored this video because I thought the subject of Balan Wonderworld was already so tired. It's an easy target of ridicule and everyone's already done it. Now I needed some background noise while doing other things, and to my surprise, this was a way more balanced take on the game that I had expected. I'm not saying I'm now compelled to play the game or anything, but I definitely learnt a lot about it. This was a really interesting video. 👍
Exactly. There are so many terrible decisions like the Balan sections, that you lose trust in the developers. If they failed in giving you an enjoyable experience elsewhere, your first thought won't be that falling off is a joke. Your first thought will be that it's an oversight.
I have no idea itf it's intentional but when you mentioned that if you lose the costume you're supposed to use, it's probably worth improvising another solution, that seems to fit in with the theatre premise as well. If someone misses a cue, or flubs a line irrecoverably, on stage you just need to run with it, have such a good idea of your character you can improve a way to get back on track. The show must go on.
This was a truly moving saga - I am not afraid to admit I shed a tear. I haven't even watched the video yet, I'm just happy to see ShayMay make an absurdly long game review again!
@@santiagoacosta3372 I was just last night looking into Moomins, out of curiosity, and had gotten so used to seeing the characters it didn't even register that their Avatar was obscure. Isn't it weird how things line up sometimes. I even watched the episodes with the invisible girl. Good stuff, especially considering the show's age.
Man I understand your problem with the other reviews. It is honestly far too common that just because someone thinks that a game (or movie or book or whatever) is bad then everything about it has to be bad. I remember that in the past I even ended up defeninding media that I don't like myself simply because people were just making stuff up about how bad it was.
I absolutely love the aesthetic of Balan. Each and every level, music and cutscene is dripping with character. I really enjoyed my time with it (Except a couple of levels that didn't gel with the way I played XD) Not to mention the bouts were an absolute ache
You did a great job with this video ShayMay! You made this game that looked completely awful from the first-impressions other videos have given to something that I could see myself trying out one day. The game is riddled with flaws which you didn't shy away from and discussed at length, but by the end of the video I'm a lot more curious to try it out, especially to give the tenth level a try. An M.C. Escher themed world sounds like such a great platformer world
25:00 My thing with the Box Fox is that if it's not a joke, it's just a bad part of the game. But even if it is a joke, it's a lazy one. It's more of a "gotcha" than an actual joke. Box Fox is your friend going "there's something on your shirt" and then flicking your chin. Your friend chuckles, you derive a minuscule amount of enjoyment from it, and the two of you move on without ever thinking about this moment again. If there are people who played the game and didn't get the joke, I don't blame them, the game didn't try hard enough.
1:10:33 This about sums up my experience with the game. Many of my out-there solutions involved the same two archetypes of costume (jump more or glide), so it ended up feeling more rote than surprising. Lovely video, though. Appreciate the even hand.
Always glad to see a reasonable take on a hated game. I've never played this game and never will, sounds horrible for what I've heard and I just have too many masterpieces to complete before I die. But I am glad you enjoyed it, and hey, I kind of enjoyed too. I just spent almost one hour and a half watching Balan content, so I am glad it exists and that we can talk about it. A single button to control the whole game though... that's kind of dumb, even sonic had two moves.
"I just have too many masterpieces to complete before I die". My man. Since the start of the pandemic I've been playing all the RPGs I missed out on years ago that are considered top tier. Mother, Suikoden 1&2, FF6, Persona 5, Chrono Trigger. Next is Panzer Dragoon Saga!
@@ultraspinalki11 That is awesome, Chrono Trigger is my favorite game of all time, glad you got to it. Make sure you include some dragon quest down the line, to pay respect to the OG.
I had to go and have a kid right before the pandemic started. Could not stop thinking how much I would have been /loving/being in lockdown playing games if I didn't have this other very important and rewarding job to do.
If you enjoy that, I'd recommend the channel Playable Passion. They seem wholly enthusiastic about even some (what I consider to be) very bad games and do their best to find the good in even the worst of them.
from what i have seen of its game having not played it but seems like if this was a game that released in the early 2000s it would probably be a hidden gen or something at least games like this i loved to play when i was a kid
The story being so "abstract" and people being confused by it is not helped by pretty significant plot points being in a book that most people don't even know exists. What's stopping them from just adding that bit of lore in reading segments after you beat the level?
They should have just not made the book but left the game as it is, so people wouldn't think there is anything more to the story, then it would be received better. Same with Final Fantasy XV. Sometimes less is more.
I played the game to completion. I got all the statues and even built up the Tower of Tims. The only thing I never did was get a crowned Tim and get the secret costume, because I played the game before anyone online had understood how to do it. I enjoyed the game for the most part. The free-form inventive platforming that becomes possible with Frost Fairy was absolutely my favourite aspect of the gameplay, and I loved the visual design atmosphere, even if the level design itself is rather bland for the most part. I think the one-button control scheme is really really awkward though. It makes the jumpless costumes feel really sad and restrictive, and I don't think it's worth it for the few moments where being jumpless could be considered "interesting". I found myself utilising the free invincibility from costume-switching all over the place to brute-force obstacles and boss fights too, which maybe removed a lot of interesting gameplay. The Balan Bouts are just indefensible and honestly killed the enjoyment of getting all statues. I'm really happy to see this video. It's a very fair look at the game.
Man, what a great video! I'm sure I'm not alone in having watched this video without playing this game, but I was thoroughly entertained. Not to stroke ShayMay's ego too much, but it takes some seriously good writing to keep an audience engaged for this long when I hadnt played the game. The insights offered are clear and interesting even without ever having held the controller. Plus, all the jokes littered throughout the video got me to laugh out loud over and over. Loved this video.
Gotta say, you made a good one here. I was one of the many people who saw the negative reviews about the game and just assumed it was Mighty No. 9 all over again, and just about every video about this game reinforced that assumption. I won't say your video convinced me it's a hidden gem--like you said, some people will click with and some won't, and it just doesn't grab me--but you helped me appreciate the things it does right (and even some of what it does wrong). So, thanks for providing an actually nuanced view of this game. Though now I'm kinda sad that we'll likely never see a sequel. There's a lot that needs to be ironed out, but another game could bring out some of the lost potential. Oh, well. Also, you forgot to mention the Balan Wonderworld official light novel that somehow actually exists.
"Imagine a completely different game where you can only carry one costume at a time" It's not too hard to imagine since space station silicon valley exists. It made me know that a one button gameplay system could work really well too the levels just need to be designed with all of the abilities you can get in mind.
the thing i would really have liked is if you had costume buttons that were specific to a catagory, like one for movement, one for utility and also one for combat so they could always bet you had a combat costume
One question I have in regards to the appearance of background characters in scenes: Why does the painter always view the crowd as board game piece abstractions while the old man who was being ignored always views them as detailed people? They're both seeking validation from a large group rather than individuals but the presentation doesn't reflect that in the same way as the bug girl's change like you mentioned. Another thing: Why is killing yourself on purpose to get back to a checkpoint too gamey, but exiting a level, getting a good costume from an old one, and reentering the level at a checkpoint also not an exploitation of its video game nature? These are meant to be legitimate questions, not "gotchas" or anything. I feel like my opinion after playing the game was very close to yours, I would have loved all the presentation choices and the worlds if you could inherently explore them with those few good costumes that open up their design. It felt like I dreaded each new introduced costume since it came with that risk I'd have to swap out one of the good ones I've been trying to hold onto for those prescriptive ones. I did enjoy moments like embracing Frost Fairy's flexibility and people definitely overstate the issues with the game. Not even close to the worst game of the year, but I suppose disappointment in something promising stings more than something that looks awful and plays awful.
Great video, Shay! It's always exciting when I see a new video of yours pop up! I'm a bit disappointed when you said "Then it got its head kicked off" at the beginning of the video when you could've said "its hat kicked off" hehe All in all, this was a really interesting perspective on Balan, one that illuminated a seemingly more fair look onto the game, illuminating the genuinely interesting and positive points about the game without disregarding the real problems with them. It has been exhausting dealing with all the CinemaSins-esque type of reviews that we've been getting in regards to media nowadays, and so taking a fair and honest look at these types of media that have been persecuted by public opinion is a breath of fresh air
Nice to see somebody try to look at Balan somewhat positively instead of just dunk on it for "flavor of the week" views. ThorHighHeels is the only other UA-cam creator I know who did this
The obvious exaggeration about how bad the game is has made me almost curious enough to play it. It's one of those situations where you could just look at the game and look at most of the criticisms and see that it's obviously just people being over the top for clicks. Your video and Transparency's video has more or less cured me of wanting to try it but I mean that in a good way - I can appreciate it from a distance without experiencing it myself. I think the rampant malicious exaggeration of the game highlights a growing problem with discourse about games that are deemed acceptable targets. How often have you heard that a game "looks like a PS2 game", for example? I remember people saying that about WatchDogs when it came out because of the bullshots controversy and, no, it doesn't look like a PS2 game, not even close. Folks will iterally just say anything about a game nowadays. Those same people want games to be art so their interest isn't considered to be for manchildren but they don't want to engage with games in good faith on its own terms and will go out of their way to bully a children's game. I haven't played Balan, I don't want to play it, but it makes me mad to see something that somebody put some genuine thought and effort into get trashed because some UA-camrs gotta make a "worst game of 20XX" list and I think it's discouraging aspiring indie gamers from putting their work out there.
This is an absolute pièce de résistance. I have a vague memory of this game being hyped but that's about it, and had forgotten about it. It's amazing that you got me from wanting to play it (and knowing I can't because I am rubbish at platformers) to not to fussed over it back to really bummed about it. Super wish I could see your playthrough. Your analysis is super fair and absurdly in depth. This hour went by so fast. I hope you find another game that inspires you to pour out this kind of passion. What the heck do you even do for work? I'm just a STEM bum, and people who can pull off this kind of thing have me in awe. Just thanks so much for sharing it with us. It's brilliant and made my night.
Just so everyone knows, if you play this is video on UA-cam with DarkMode/NightimeMode enabled, ShayMay matched the borders of his video to the same shade of grey so the videos actual border is invisible. I know I am probably the only one who cares about that, but thank you ShayMay.
I really like that you explained the story and it's intentions. I haven't played this but I like that you showed the potential there and what they were going for. The only other review I saw of this was LSMark's and he wasn't too harsh on it either I think, but it's been a while since I saw it lol. It really seems like whoever made this game needed people who could say no to certain ideas and let other ideas be developed more. Dunno why they thought 80 costumes is a good idea except to say "we have 80 costumes and moves!" in marketing or whatever xD
I feel it might be worth mentioning: This game came with a book! Well, by which I mean a book was released alongside it, you have to buy it separately, but if you ever wanted Balan Deep Lore, it exists, and explains some finer details like why everyone does a lovely (?) dance at the end of the stages (The main boy character likes to dance - no really, that's the answer) and what the hell's going on in a more general sense (Everyone's trapped in a dream world of Lance's creation, that Lance made to help people get over their problems and such, but unfortunately Lance went bonkers at some point and decided the best way to solve things was to trap people forever, but thankfully Lance created Balan (I think?) pre-going-bonkers as some sort of fail safe and Balan is trying to overthrow Lance so that everyone can get out of the dream world.) Also: Ba[lan]+[Lan]ce = Balance. I feel like that was intentional, ties to the overarching thing in some way, you know? Like, getting away from your problems for a bit in fantasy land absolutely helps, but you have to balance that out with, like, actually solving them, dontcha.
This was a good video. I was one of the people that completely wrote this game off due to the demo and the reception it got on release. I'll definitely consider giving it a shot when it goes on sale.
i like the section at 26:00 a lot. i like that kind of thing in a lot of other games too, and it feels really alienating when i see other people get so angry and frustrated at this sort of thing. it's weird that people get so mad at being the butt of a harmless joke as to miss the comedy entirely and mistake it for malice or just "bad" design. it seems like such a self centered way to look at the game they're playing. like, god forbid the waiter cracks a joke when he brings your food. what an asshole, wasting the diner's time for something that wasn't even funny anyways. who does he think he is?
Really neat video. I know a guy who's CONSTANTLY shilling for Balan, to the point where he's hitched his self-esteem to the public reception it got (he's not in a good place, needless to say). And I gotta say, after using your Nights into Dreams video as something of a guide to understanding Nights when I recently gave it a go, your meager thumbs up for Balan makes me more compelled to check it out someday than ANY of said friend's shilling for it. Also, you didn't touch upon it, so I have to guess: I've heard the final cutscene has a lot of dialogue, but all in the gibberish Balan language. Should I assume that, just like the musical numbers, that gets subtitled after you reach it a second time?
No, but I don't think you need that dialogue to be understandable to comprehend it's meaning. It's not something you must find out to understand the game, but the Novel has a certain line in it that may be a translation of that in-game line.
I think that the difficulty with arguments like "boxfox was obviously a joke" or "breaking levels is obviously the point" is that they require a player to have some level of faith in the game already. Even though I'd agree with those statements, I think that players were 'missing the point' because the game was so unreliable and gave such a poor first impression. While watching others play the game, I watched multiple people accidentally walk off the gap directly following the upwards slope just past the boxfox location - missing the jump not because they mistimed it but because they didn't see the gap due to the camera's default angle and the color of the ground. It's difficult to see the comedy and playfulness in falling off the ledge as boxfox when it's directly next to a place where you can fall off the ledge in a way that feels unsatisfying and punishing. I think there are some good (or at least interesting lol) elements in this game, but with all the weird choices I can totally get why people would assume those elements are mistakes or oversights. At least this game is bad for interesting reasons, though. I love seeing discussions about it.
i appreciate the fact that you’re willing to stand up for a game that was so absolutely clowned on by the wider gaming community. that said, you spend a lot of time explaining why the narrative is actually pretty good, but i don’t think that’s where the majority of criticism was coming from. i would say the reason that most players didn’t like the game is because it simply isn’t fun. you mentioned how people were put off by the amount of costumes and explained how it’s due to story reasons, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bad gameplay mechanic.
I agree, but I also don’t think he’s trying to. I doubt that Shay actually believes that Balan’s two-button gameplay is secretly genius. Again, at the start of the video, he said he didn’t think it was some underrated masterpiece. He’s just defending the parts of the game that he thinks aren’t getting enough credit.
@@joebarrett8310 of course! i just wanted to address the bits where he felt that people were picking on parts of the game simply because they didn’t get the theme. imo it’s the same case with the giant farmer in level one. shay is correct when he says it makes sense in the context of the game, but it’s not exactly an elegant or tactful way to do a set piece. that is the real reason people point at it and laugh.
"i would say the reason that most players didn’t like the game is because it simply isn’t fun. you mentioned how people were put off by the amount of costumes and explained how it’s due to story reasons, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bad gameplay mechanic." This. It doesn't matter if there's an excuse for having a song and dance number in the overall narrative of the story. If the song and dance numbers are bad and uninteresting and unwanted then of course people won't like them. Hey it makes sense in a game set in a really bad slum that at any point you could get mugged, just stabbed and left to bleed out with no warning in a game without combat. It would be ~internally consistent~ with the setting and tone. But that doesn't make it a good thing to include for what I hope are very obvious reasons.
@@Shenaldrac Games are art. Art doesn't have to be entertaining or fun. Games like Spec Ops the line can make due with good enough gameplay and still be popular because of the themes they present. Games like the Pathologic series are intentionally made unfun, yet most people wouldn't call them bad games because they achieve what they set out to do. So the problem with Balan IS that it failed to capture the minds and hearts of some audience, because like with Cyberpunk 2077, if it did the gameplay and the flaws thereof wouldn't matter nearly to this extend. This "gameplay first" mentality, used to dismiss "walking simulators" was already proven incorrect with general audience, and should be left back in 2012 where it didn't belong either. Your personal video game preferences aren't objective facts.
I really loved the point at the end where you mentioned the whole cinemasins thing with critics. Fantastic video overall Shay. Can't wait for the next one!
Oh boy more ShayMay!!! EDIT: That bit about how reviewers are I a particular position that changes how they are predisposed to enjoy a game is something I've echoed quite a bit online and something I wholeheartedly agree with. It's a framework that makes certain gameplay styles and preferences predisposed to being viewed in a negative way that a person just sitting around playing a game wouldn't have.
Hey, I missed you Shay! Your videos are always interesting and funny and this was no exception. I'm pleasantly surprised to see someone with positive things to say about such a hated game, and I'm glad to see you not jump right into the hate bandwagon and engage with the game on its own terms and discuss the good with the bad. Nicely done.
I dont know why i wasnt recommended this, but after watching the Ruby review twice this is great content and its a shame it doesnt have more views Also in case youre trying to keep your accent down, dont, it makes the video 10x better
The best part about Balan Bouts are failing on purpose against Lance and watching him just full on punch Balan in the face. Honestly the highlight of my playthrough
"Wow, one of my favorite UA-cam did an hour long essay on Balan Wonderworld, that was cool." *clicks away, goes to subscription feed sees this* "Wow, one of my favorite UA-cam did an hour long essay on Balan Wonderworld. What deja vu!"
Great creative Idea, enormous potential, seriously flawed, as professional as we are used from AAA this days, for some weird reason playable with a Atari Joystick
Balan is a game, that I like what I see, I like the themes behind them, but the gameplay is how everything crumbles, it would need a lot of redisign that could not be fixed just by mods
Easily the best review of this game I've seen, amazing job! While playing it I really struggle to see the terrible game everyone else is seeing, even if I can totally understand why plenty dislike it. It has plenty of things going for it, and I don't like how many ignore them.
Haven't start yet. But I've been really curious about your thoughts on Balan Wonder World, given how invested you are in Yuji Naka's other works. I especially enjoyed your defense of Night's video. Not expecting this to be "glowing" by any means but you're in sight is always welcome.
Man, I literally just loved the stupid goddamn pun of Balan and Lance and that's all I knew about this for a while. Tims, Time, fuck me, that part is the one part that's just plain great, man. The puns.
Only just saw this upload and I'm here kicking myself not knowing you were at Summer of Sonic in 2016, the only one I could actually go to. That aside, this looks set to be an interesting review.
Thank you for all of this. I can tell you really did enjoy the game for the most part, and gave the rest of it a heck of a shot. The criticism of the bad parts feels like it comes from a place of love, and I can't say I disagree with any of them. It's a take that you don't see much of; most either ruthlessly tear it apart or make coddling excuses for it being the way it is. And so little could have changed to make this game at least a resounding "meh". We've seen fans mod games to do more than it would take to improve this game, so it wouldn't have even taken that much for the devs to fix it in the first place if they'd done some actual playtesting for feedback before the demo, or if Square cared enough to give them a little extra time or money for it. And with the game being what it is, there aren't any fans with the skill and desire to improve it. I was excited for this game and also fell in love with the art and character concepts. I wish the end product resembled what Naka-Oshima had hyped it up to be. A story told through the concept of musical theatre but basically without words? That'd be so amazing if they could pull it off. Rely entirely on set design, the emotion of the wordless voice and the body language. Too bad the pre-rendered cutscenes had to do so much heavy lifting. Give the novel a go some time. It's a pretty quick and easy read. (And boy would I love if Balan Wonderworld at least managed to find its home in a series of short novels like that.)
Another great video. I’ve never played Balan, and not sure if I will, but I feel like one way to solve the issue of only one button and needing to jump meaning some powers can’t be mapped to the action button, could be to have a separate jump button, that only works with those costumes that can jump? It would take a bit away from the simplicity, but I feel like if they communicate clear enough how to know if a costume has the jump button or it doesn’t, it would still be a fairly simple moveset and take a way from the drawbacks of one action button at least.
14:12 You're absolutely right, it's a King, not a Rook! My mistake!
Review the entirety of one piece next
@@moosesues8887 do it yourself
@@Tiny_Tango bet
@@Tiny_Tango no wait he’ll no it’s too long
To be fair, Rerez mentioned all the fixes that need to be made to the game that you did, just not for the reasons that you gave, exactly.
Balan Wonderworld is a game that I have zero interest in ever playing, but I could watch/listen to people talk about it forever. It's such a fascinating. . . thing. And it's great to hear someone have a more positive analysis of it for a change.
It's like as in if games like this and YIIK are emerging a new genre of games that are so fascinatingly flawed that people who analyze games end up profiting more than their creators.
Cool, thanks UA-cam, it's not like audio's an important part of an audio-visual medium right? If there's no sound give it a minute and reload, seems to be working for most folk now.
Shay, its over.
3D platformers are dead unironically.
DMC1-3 review when?
Viewtiful Joe review when?
The big lipped alligator moment joke caused me to take D12 psychic damage. 10/10 video 👍
When the world needed him most, Shay returns with a subject that's still so intriguing. Thank you for making this.
Hey Shay, I don't know whether you read the comments, but I just wanted to share my appreciation for your approach to games criticism. It's uniquely positive and constructive in a sphere where people are usually cynical, and the genuine appreciation you seem to have for the good aspects of certain games that you recognize are bad and flawed is ultra refreshing. I love many the work of many games' critics, but I think you're the only one I know of who would make a video with this sort of tone about a game like Balan, and I think that's very valuable. It's fine and even important to criticize bad games to learn what not to do when designing a game, but the way you also look at all the ways it succeeds just isn't something you see that often. Your work (especially for the past year or so) has been a pleasure to watch and I just wanted to say thanks.
Thank you so much, you have no idea how much that means to me
Do you know what I think would have been better art style? If they had leaned harder into the musical theater aspect. Instead of it being a dream-like disjointed crazy oversaturated nonsense land, they should have leaned into it. Have the skybox be a stage. Have the jump literally be them being hoisted up on a harness. Have the envirnoment be obviously handmade with papercraft and burlap. Have characters in all black against the background moving stuff. Have particle effects be streamers, confetti, cloth and shit. Lean way harder in.
I've only watched reviews of this game, and each time I do keep forgetting the game is supposed to be set within theatres and dreams and I wouldn't be surprised if the people reviewing it would often forget that too, at least the ones I've seen since some sources are hardly worth paying any attention to anyway **coughIGNcough.**
..It's not very theatre themed, or even dream-like, it does at a glance look like one of those crappy, low budget, zero effort asset flips that you'd regularly see plaguing the Steam store, and I think one of the problems is that seeing those so commonly nowadays makes it so easy to brush moderately flawed games like Balan Wonderworld amongst the piles of objectively garbage games like The Slaughtering Grounds.
There's so many of them that our brains kinda filter them out for us, there's plenty of other games that are perhaps almost as flawed as Balan that I'd have normally never given the light of day if not already exposed to them by someone else, simply because they looked or played a little weird or janky on top of there just being so many to choose from, but are otherwise quite fun.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the market is beyond oversaturated and far too many decent games are trashed or overlooked entirely because we throw them all into piles while on autopilot. I still wouldn't count Balan as decent or even average, but I'm not sure it deserved the absolute beating it'd gotten either, it'd just gotten a bunch of quick, half-assed reviews then thrown into the "bad" pile to move onto something else.
It shouldn't need to be screamed in your face to understand this basic concept or at least to just go with the flow. After a point the over communication of its intent can just be a disruption to the experience. This seems less a problem with the game and more the problem of an audience that refuses to embrace simple abstraction and needs everything spoonfed to the point of absurd literalism. Especially in Balan Wonderworld's case, where it isn't a literal physical stage play, it's a dream world that uses stage play more as a metaphor.
@@GreatLange The problem of shooting for dreamlike: game environments are already abstract and surreal. Environments in Balan aren't significantly more dreamlike and impossible than in Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie, aside from the wrapping effect. Actually, with much of the game constructed from conspicuous level-editor-blocks, I was hardly pulled into the magic circle. Without pushing the visuals in one direction, most stages in Balan end up generic and video-gamey (and not in an exaggerated and sublime way). So yeah, I think the game could benefit from "spoonfeeding" the audience a visual gimmick. Reminder: this is an all-ages game aiming for a broad audience.
Stuff like the hub area being backstage just makes sense.
Plus, well I guess overall just make a better game, but the Balan sections should have been replaced with tiny stories told about Balan, maybe in a JRPG style.
Wouldn't that just be super Mario 2/3 mixed with paper Mario? Don't get me wrong, it sounds fun, and I'd play it
I think a big reason why many misinterpret some games such as this is due to a lack of immersion. The more immersed you are, the less likely you are to study every last detail to make sure it is all sound. Balan is known to frustrate some players, and so they check out. You can see the reverse of this in Sonic Adventure 2, which has an absolutely insane story, but the gameplay and such retains player attention (if you like the game, at least), and so they go along with everything
On the side, I believe SomeCallMeJohnny made the chess player comment. Love his content, love yours too!
Thank you! Johnny's a good lad
Another thing is that the costumes could probably have been worked upon to reflect the person a little more while maintaining both utility and design through the stage, one of the greatest examples for that being Kirby (whose concept is probably what inspired Balan's game). He has many cool abilities that can influence the stage, either fighting against them or reusing it for a different need, besides a really cool look for the character.
Kirby's Adventure seems to be a good example of what Balan Wonderworld is trying to be. It has a simplified control scheme and costume abilities that all do exactly one thing. There are costumes dedicated to movement (Wheel, Hi-Jump), combat (Sword, Fire), and puzzles (Rock, Laser). There are special secret abilities that reward the player with powerful abilities (UFO, Crash), abilites that are better versions of ones you've already seen (Hammer does all the good things Rock and Sword can do), and there's even the useless costume that lights up a single dark room. Taking damage also causes you to lose your ability in Kirby's Adventure, but no one complains because regaining the ability or getting a new one is very snappy.
The key difference seems to be the number of costumes and the base abilites. There's about 20 copy abilities in Kirby's Adventure, which allows almost all of them to have multiple associated puzzles that ramp up in difficulty, and the only ones that don't are either the secret abilities or the Light one. Kirby also has a standard movement set that is almost never taken away from the player (Ball and UFO being the exceptions).
I think Balan would have benefitted greatly from cutting away most, but not all, of the overlap costumes and the ones with incredibly limited utility. Balan had a lot going for it in the charm and style department, so it really is a shame that the volume of costumes prevents any one costume from getting much attention. I've no idea why the designers felt the need to put in so many abilities, but given Naka's open admission that the story was mandated by Square, I'm willing to blame an executive mandate for "a big number we can put on the box."
Agreed. Personally speaking, the one thing that killed the game for me was how slow the process of switching costumes to perform different actions was and that not all of the costumes can jump (which might only been an issue for me because of the former issue). I think if it had been designed with costume switching just being this fast and seamless thing that doesn't halt your movement, it would've made all the difference in the world in how playable it was. Otherwise, I think there's a lot to like about this game outside of the gameplay. The visuals are nice, the music is pretty mellow and soothing to listen to and the overall message it tells is a good one.
i agree with star on this one, it wasn't the "story bits" or the symbolism that was BW's real problem, it was the trip up that was the gameplay, as star said, this game felt like "kirby but" however didn't fully "get it" sort to speak, i'm willing to bet the game would be so much better if they didn't limit the controls so badly (if all costumes can do some sort of action AND jump, i'm sure there would be MUCH less bitching about the game) also i'm not counting the glitches/laggy bits/slog of random things that could be fixed with patches but every game nowadays had that issue lol
the dancing numbers were still weird as hell tho
How would Sony mandate core game mechanics..? Unless I'm mistaken the story (aka the cutscenes made by a different company) was mandated because testers had no idea what was going on, so it's not like Sony pushed it on them out of nowhere.
@@PointsofData I think what they mean by the executive mandate comment is that it might be the higher ups that made it so they had to make so many repeat and useless costumes so they could slap the whole "We have over 80 costumes!" on the box; and not that the execs told Naka to do the costume thing as a whole.
Keep in mind, this is all speculation, we don't really know the full story behind the scenes.
Nah, Naka-San is a baka-idiot who wasn't even planning on delivering on the 80+ costume pitch as he wasn't even sure his team would be able to met that quota only to be surprised his team was actually able to deliver on that promise...
...with a lot of compromises attached
It was an extremely stupid proposition to begin with
No game needs 80+ different gameplay styles
Sonic 06 wasn't even able to juggle around 10
It's sheer insanity
1:04:08
That also is prolly alot of the reason box fox became such a meme, they spent so much of the game reinforcing that if a power doesnt seem immediately useful, it probably isnt useful at all, and then give you a powerup that instantly kills you
This is gonna sound weird but I think the existence of the book negatively affected the perception of the game.
Like you said, the "Weird Dream Theatre" vibe is not hard to pick up on. The game spells it out relatively well. But there's also a book which adds dialogue and explains the plot, and now suddenly it looks less like "Balan Wonderworld's story is simple but apparent and conveyed through the gameplay and cutscenes" and more like "Balan Wonderworld's entire plot was dumped into a separate release that also costs money and is in a completely different medium and the game looks completely off-the-wall unless you buy and read the book."
The presence of an external source that adds way more to the game's plot just makes what _is_ in the game look undercooked, and makes people ask "Why the fuck is this in a book and not the game itself?"
On the plus side, at least now we now why SA2 put everything on B.
Ahem, sonic forces.
What is with not writing a story and then putting it in a book like thing? Just make a good story for the game, damn
1:23:57 ok, this one is at least understandable. He did hit the floor 15 times and the boss took damage. When you play a lot of action games like Alpharad does, one thing becomes fairly clear: If you do something that touches the boss, the boss stops moving and seems to flinch, and it makes a loud impact sound, you're going to get the impression that you're successfully damaging it. Even looking at that clip, the hit that actually works is barely different than the ones that didn't. He moved like half the length of one of those tiles, which is about 1/32 around the circle, and even then still wasn't really at the opposite end, certainly not further enough over to figure out the difference.
An example of this being done better is with the Bowser fight in Mario Odyssey. When hitting Bowser isn't going to launch him into the wall, he very explicitly starts blocking with his arms, and a giant shield barrier appears in front of him, signalling that his guard is up and he's going to retaliate on that hit.
You want to fix that boss to be easier to understand? Have the boss float higher, and have the ground pound tilt the stage more. That way, it'd be a lot more clear that the reason you didn't deal damage is because the floor will tilt in the wrong spot and the part under the boss won't go high enough to hit it. That way, it's unambiguous that the reason you failed to damage it, is because you missed.
Understandable, MAYBE, but still a very stupid criticism to make. One *slightly valid if you squint and give him way too much credit* criticism of ONE boss within a sea of overreactionary bullshit comes off like he was looking for little tiny issues to whine about like a little piss baby lol
Although I understand that the musical numbers make sense in a theater setting, I think any value they have is undercut by the on-the-surface ridiculousness of the whole thing. The uncanny dance animations, with those dead eyes. The nonsense lyrics. It's just so immediately silly that any deeper meaning behind it is totally lost.
Part of the problem is that there is no deeper meaning. It's a very shallow feeling of joy and overcoming generic hardship every time. If the silliness was removed, and it was animated better, you would still be left with a dance number that doesn't serve to say anything about the character other than basic joy and relief. The dance numbers would have to be more complicated and symbolic to show anything more than that.
I honestly can't bring myself to blame Naka for the failings of Balan Wonderworld -perhaps I could with Ohshima and Artoon/Arzest as their track record gets a bit iffier there- I think the blame falls squarely (no pun intended) on the publisher Square Enix, who in the last couple of years seems to have published projects that at first seemed like slam dunks, but somehow end up being massive duds, like a black hole for talent (makes you wonder if there isn't a sort of "The Producers" scheme going on):
- The Quiet Man, a "challenging" narrative about a deaf man by the studio behind Prey 2006, *critical and commercial failure*
- Left Alive, a spinoff the the forgotten Front Mission series with art by Yoji Shinkawa, mechs designed by Xenoblade Chronicles X's artists and the producer from the Armored Core series as the director, *critical and commercial failure*
- Marvel's Avengers, a tie-in game to the popular IP by the Tomb Raider team, *critical and commercial failure*
- Balan Wonderworld, a new big-budget 3D platformer from the creators of Sonic, *critical and commercial failure*
- Babylon's Fall, a co-op action game by PlatinumGames and the producer of NieR:Automata, *_next in the road to failure_* *(Update:* Confirmed flop)
In fact, Naka was fully aware that even by halving the costumes to 40 it would be hard to make each one worthwhile, *but thanks to Square Enix they were able to push it to 80 in the end*
*EDIT:* Yep, Naka confirmed SQEX screwed him over and released the game incomplete.
The skinning an antelope joke was masterfully executed holy shit
There's so many little things in this game that breaks the player's trust (like you talked about at 1:03:42), hence why so many things are misunderstood
I did a video with Sam Procrastinates on how to fix Balan Wonderworld in as few steps as possible, and like, no one watched it, but dangit it made sense and shares some of your thoughts.
I originally ignored this video because I thought the subject of Balan Wonderworld was already so tired. It's an easy target of ridicule and everyone's already done it.
Now I needed some background noise while doing other things, and to my surprise, this was a way more balanced take on the game that I had expected. I'm not saying I'm now compelled to play the game or anything, but I definitely learnt a lot about it. This was a really interesting video. 👍
I feel like box fox was misunderstood because of how shitty the rest of the costumes are. if the others were decent the joke would land
Exactly. There are so many terrible decisions like the Balan sections, that you lose trust in the developers. If they failed in giving you an enjoyable experience elsewhere, your first thought won't be that falling off is a joke. Your first thought will be that it's an oversight.
I have no idea itf it's intentional but when you mentioned that if you lose the costume you're supposed to use, it's probably worth improvising another solution, that seems to fit in with the theatre premise as well. If someone misses a cue, or flubs a line irrecoverably, on stage you just need to run with it, have such a good idea of your character you can improve a way to get back on track. The show must go on.
This was a truly moving saga - I am not afraid to admit I shed a tear.
I haven't even watched the video yet, I'm just happy to see ShayMay make an absurdly long game review again!
An hour and a half is down right brief for ol' Shaymay. But, damn if I'm not looking forward to this.
Omg, fellow snukfin enjoyer
@@santiagoacosta3372
I was just last night looking into Moomins, out of curiosity, and had gotten so used to seeing the characters it didn't even register that their Avatar was obscure. Isn't it weird how things line up sometimes. I even watched the episodes with the invisible girl. Good stuff, especially considering the show's age.
@@marnea1 it's funny how a children's anime based in a children's book of a bisexual Finnish autor can make you cry
"what are you gonna do about it? theres no dislikes anymore" love it, love the attitude
Man I understand your problem with the other reviews. It is honestly far too common that just because someone thinks that a game (or movie or book or whatever) is bad then everything about it has to be bad. I remember that in the past I even ended up defeninding media that I don't like myself simply because people were just making stuff up about how bad it was.
I absolutely love the aesthetic of Balan. Each and every level, music and cutscene is dripping with character. I really enjoyed my time with it (Except a couple of levels that didn't gel with the way I played XD)
Not to mention the bouts were an absolute ache
yes good
You did a great job with this video ShayMay! You made this game that looked completely awful from the first-impressions other videos have given to something that I could see myself trying out one day. The game is riddled with flaws which you didn't shy away from and discussed at length, but by the end of the video I'm a lot more curious to try it out, especially to give the tenth level a try. An M.C. Escher themed world sounds like such a great platformer world
Your analysis videos are outstanding!! Really enjoy them, thanks for putting in the time and effort to produce this kind of quality 👏
My pyjamas were in a fresh load of laundry, so I _did_ follow Shay's suggestion to take a break and change. 🥰 Great advice!
25:00
My thing with the Box Fox is that if it's not a joke, it's just a bad part of the game.
But even if it is a joke, it's a lazy one. It's more of a "gotcha" than an actual joke.
Box Fox is your friend going "there's something on your shirt" and then flicking your chin. Your friend chuckles, you derive a minuscule amount of enjoyment from it, and the two of you move on without ever thinking about this moment again.
If there are people who played the game and didn't get the joke, I don't blame them, the game didn't try hard enough.
1:10:33 This about sums up my experience with the game.
Many of my out-there solutions involved the same two archetypes of costume (jump more or glide), so it ended up feeling more rote than surprising.
Lovely video, though. Appreciate the even hand.
What a coincidence, another European youtube channel I'm subbed to uploaded an hour-long video essay about Balan Wonderworld yesterday.
Who's the other one?
@@Transparencyboo
It was the friends we made along the way
@@MishKoz Thank you~
Always glad to see a reasonable take on a hated game. I've never played this game and never will, sounds horrible for what I've heard and I just have too many masterpieces to complete before I die.
But I am glad you enjoyed it, and hey, I kind of enjoyed too. I just spent almost one hour and a half watching Balan content, so I am glad it exists and that we can talk about it.
A single button to control the whole game though... that's kind of dumb, even sonic had two moves.
"I just have too many masterpieces to complete before I die".
My man. Since the start of the pandemic I've been playing all the RPGs I missed out on years ago that are considered top tier. Mother, Suikoden 1&2, FF6, Persona 5, Chrono Trigger. Next is Panzer Dragoon Saga!
@@ultraspinalki11 That is awesome, Chrono Trigger is my favorite game of all time, glad you got to it. Make sure you include some dragon quest down the line, to pay respect to the OG.
I had to go and have a kid right before the pandemic started. Could not stop thinking how much I would have been /loving/being in lockdown playing games if I didn't have this other very important and rewarding job to do.
I always love seeing people who are able to earnestly appreciate the artistic merits of even the most flawed of works
If you enjoy that, I'd recommend the channel Playable Passion. They seem wholly enthusiastic about even some (what I consider to be) very bad games and do their best to find the good in even the worst of them.
Always love your videos Shay. This was a great in depth breakdown that really dug its teeth into its totality of it as a product/release.
from what i have seen of its game having not played it but seems like if this was a game that released in the early 2000s it would probably be a hidden gen or something at least games like this i loved to play when i was a kid
I love your voice alot, and its really nice to hear and sleep through.
Hey look, another video without a single dislike!
Man, creators have REALLY stepped up their game recently!
Okay.
The story being so "abstract" and people being confused by it is not helped by pretty significant plot points being in a book that most people don't even know exists.
What's stopping them from just adding that bit of lore in reading segments after you beat the level?
They should have just not made the book but left the game as it is, so people wouldn't think there is anything more to the story, then it would be received better. Same with Final Fantasy XV. Sometimes less is more.
I played the game to completion. I got all the statues and even built up the Tower of Tims. The only thing I never did was get a crowned Tim and get the secret costume, because I played the game before anyone online had understood how to do it.
I enjoyed the game for the most part. The free-form inventive platforming that becomes possible with Frost Fairy was absolutely my favourite aspect of the gameplay, and I loved the visual design atmosphere, even if the level design itself is rather bland for the most part.
I think the one-button control scheme is really really awkward though. It makes the jumpless costumes feel really sad and restrictive, and I don't think it's worth it for the few moments where being jumpless could be considered "interesting".
I found myself utilising the free invincibility from costume-switching all over the place to brute-force obstacles and boss fights too, which maybe removed a lot of interesting gameplay.
The Balan Bouts are just indefensible and honestly killed the enjoyment of getting all statues.
I'm really happy to see this video. It's a very fair look at the game.
Man, what a great video! I'm sure I'm not alone in having watched this video without playing this game, but I was thoroughly entertained. Not to stroke ShayMay's ego too much, but it takes some seriously good writing to keep an audience engaged for this long when I hadnt played the game. The insights offered are clear and interesting even without ever having held the controller. Plus, all the jokes littered throughout the video got me to laugh out loud over and over. Loved this video.
That was literally the perfect opening clip lol
Gotta say, you made a good one here. I was one of the many people who saw the negative reviews about the game and just assumed it was Mighty No. 9 all over again, and just about every video about this game reinforced that assumption.
I won't say your video convinced me it's a hidden gem--like you said, some people will click with and some won't, and it just doesn't grab me--but you helped me appreciate the things it does right (and even some of what it does wrong). So, thanks for providing an actually nuanced view of this game.
Though now I'm kinda sad that we'll likely never see a sequel. There's a lot that needs to be ironed out, but another game could bring out some of the lost potential. Oh, well.
Also, you forgot to mention the Balan Wonderworld official light novel that somehow actually exists.
"Imagine a completely different game where you can only carry one costume at a time" It's not too hard to imagine since space station silicon valley exists. It made me know that a one button gameplay system could work really well too the levels just need to be designed with all of the abilities you can get in mind.
Also Avenging Spirit, and Geist.
@@fireflocs And in may be a little different, but there are the Megaman-X-Zero games.
Also, you know...Kirby. The game that they were obviously most inspired by gameplaywise.
the thing i would really have liked is if you had costume buttons that were specific to a catagory, like one for movement, one for utility and also one for combat so they could always bet you had a combat costume
"I won't harm any cats on this channel"
50 minutes later…
"there's more than 1 way to skin an… antelope"
One question I have in regards to the appearance of background characters in scenes: Why does the painter always view the crowd as board game piece abstractions while the old man who was being ignored always views them as detailed people? They're both seeking validation from a large group rather than individuals but the presentation doesn't reflect that in the same way as the bug girl's change like you mentioned.
Another thing: Why is killing yourself on purpose to get back to a checkpoint too gamey, but exiting a level, getting a good costume from an old one, and reentering the level at a checkpoint also not an exploitation of its video game nature?
These are meant to be legitimate questions, not "gotchas" or anything. I feel like my opinion after playing the game was very close to yours, I would have loved all the presentation choices and the worlds if you could inherently explore them with those few good costumes that open up their design. It felt like I dreaded each new introduced costume since it came with that risk I'd have to swap out one of the good ones I've been trying to hold onto for those prescriptive ones. I did enjoy moments like embracing Frost Fairy's flexibility and people definitely overstate the issues with the game. Not even close to the worst game of the year, but I suppose disappointment in something promising stings more than something that looks awful and plays awful.
Great video, Shay! It's always exciting when I see a new video of yours pop up! I'm a bit disappointed when you said "Then it got its head kicked off" at the beginning of the video when you could've said "its hat kicked off" hehe
All in all, this was a really interesting perspective on Balan, one that illuminated a seemingly more fair look onto the game, illuminating the genuinely interesting and positive points about the game without disregarding the real problems with them. It has been exhausting dealing with all the CinemaSins-esque type of reviews that we've been getting in regards to media nowadays, and so taking a fair and honest look at these types of media that have been persecuted by public opinion is a breath of fresh air
Nice to see somebody try to look at Balan somewhat positively instead of just dunk on it for "flavor of the week" views. ThorHighHeels is the only other UA-cam creator I know who did this
Your videos are always such a breath of fresh air!
I cannot wait to watch this after work, it’s been a long time coming.
Balan's artistic merits would likely have been easier to notice and properly critique if the gameplay and storytelling *weren't such a disaster.*
The obvious exaggeration about how bad the game is has made me almost curious enough to play it. It's one of those situations where you could just look at the game and look at most of the criticisms and see that it's obviously just people being over the top for clicks. Your video and Transparency's video has more or less cured me of wanting to try it but I mean that in a good way - I can appreciate it from a distance without experiencing it myself.
I think the rampant malicious exaggeration of the game highlights a growing problem with discourse about games that are deemed acceptable targets. How often have you heard that a game "looks like a PS2 game", for example? I remember people saying that about WatchDogs when it came out because of the bullshots controversy and, no, it doesn't look like a PS2 game, not even close. Folks will iterally just say anything about a game nowadays. Those same people want games to be art so their interest isn't considered to be for manchildren but they don't want to engage with games in good faith on its own terms and will go out of their way to bully a children's game. I haven't played Balan, I don't want to play it, but it makes me mad to see something that somebody put some genuine thought and effort into get trashed because some UA-camrs gotta make a "worst game of 20XX" list and I think it's discouraging aspiring indie gamers from putting their work out there.
This is an absolute pièce de résistance. I have a vague memory of this game being hyped but that's about it, and had forgotten about it. It's amazing that you got me from wanting to play it (and knowing I can't because I am rubbish at platformers) to not to fussed over it back to really bummed about it. Super wish I could see your playthrough.
Your analysis is super fair and absurdly in depth. This hour went by so fast. I hope you find another game that inspires you to pour out this kind of passion. What the heck do you even do for work? I'm just a STEM bum, and people who can pull off this kind of thing have me in awe. Just thanks so much for sharing it with us. It's brilliant and made my night.
Damn... its been many a years since I heard that voice! Seumidh?!
Oya beast, Gemma, how's it goin?? It's been years!
The Quad cannon isn't a Rook. The cross on its head is that of a King.
...You're not wrong, wtf was I thinking hahaha
41:52 I never knew just how much I needed to hear you say this until now xD
25:43 i don't know why but i love this scene 🤣🤣🤣
This video was so well made, hour flew by so easily.
I *LOVE YOUR VOICE AND ACCENT!* I could listen to you read the phonebook, and it would still be enjoyable. :3
Just so everyone knows, if you play this is video on UA-cam with DarkMode/NightimeMode enabled, ShayMay matched the borders of his video to the same shade of grey so the videos actual border is invisible.
I know I am probably the only one who cares about that, but thank you ShayMay.
I really like that you explained the story and it's intentions. I haven't played this but I like that you showed the potential there and what they were going for. The only other review I saw of this was LSMark's and he wasn't too harsh on it either I think, but it's been a while since I saw it lol.
It really seems like whoever made this game needed people who could say no to certain ideas and let other ideas be developed more. Dunno why they thought 80 costumes is a good idea except to say "we have 80 costumes and moves!" in marketing or whatever xD
I feel it might be worth mentioning: This game came with a book! Well, by which I mean a book was released alongside it, you have to buy it separately, but if you ever wanted Balan Deep Lore, it exists, and explains some finer details like why everyone does a lovely (?) dance at the end of the stages (The main boy character likes to dance - no really, that's the answer) and what the hell's going on in a more general sense (Everyone's trapped in a dream world of Lance's creation, that Lance made to help people get over their problems and such, but unfortunately Lance went bonkers at some point and decided the best way to solve things was to trap people forever, but thankfully Lance created Balan (I think?) pre-going-bonkers as some sort of fail safe and Balan is trying to overthrow Lance so that everyone can get out of the dream world.)
Also: Ba[lan]+[Lan]ce = Balance. I feel like that was intentional, ties to the overarching thing in some way, you know? Like, getting away from your problems for a bit in fantasy land absolutely helps, but you have to balance that out with, like, actually solving them, dontcha.
This was a good video. I was one of the people that completely wrote this game off due to the demo and the reception it got on release. I'll definitely consider giving it a shot when it goes on sale.
i like the section at 26:00 a lot. i like that kind of thing in a lot of other games too, and it feels really alienating when i see other people get so angry and frustrated at this sort of thing. it's weird that people get so mad at being the butt of a harmless joke as to miss the comedy entirely and mistake it for malice or just "bad" design. it seems like such a self centered way to look at the game they're playing. like, god forbid the waiter cracks a joke when he brings your food. what an asshole, wasting the diner's time for something that wasn't even funny anyways. who does he think he is?
excellent video as always! probably my favorite game reviewer honestly
really great stuff 🤠 (footnote: this is balan bc hes got a hat on)
Been waiting for this video since you first posted about Actually Liking This Game on Twitter
Do the fan artist's not count as liking the game?
Really neat video. I know a guy who's CONSTANTLY shilling for Balan, to the point where he's hitched his self-esteem to the public reception it got (he's not in a good place, needless to say). And I gotta say, after using your Nights into Dreams video as something of a guide to understanding Nights when I recently gave it a go, your meager thumbs up for Balan makes me more compelled to check it out someday than ANY of said friend's shilling for it.
Also, you didn't touch upon it, so I have to guess: I've heard the final cutscene has a lot of dialogue, but all in the gibberish Balan language. Should I assume that, just like the musical numbers, that gets subtitled after you reach it a second time?
No, but I don't think you need that dialogue to be understandable to comprehend it's meaning.
It's not something you must find out to understand the game, but the Novel has a certain line in it that may be a translation of that in-game line.
I think that the difficulty with arguments like "boxfox was obviously a joke" or "breaking levels is obviously the point" is that they require a player to have some level of faith in the game already. Even though I'd agree with those statements, I think that players were 'missing the point' because the game was so unreliable and gave such a poor first impression. While watching others play the game, I watched multiple people accidentally walk off the gap directly following the upwards slope just past the boxfox location - missing the jump not because they mistimed it but because they didn't see the gap due to the camera's default angle and the color of the ground. It's difficult to see the comedy and playfulness in falling off the ledge as boxfox when it's directly next to a place where you can fall off the ledge in a way that feels unsatisfying and punishing. I think there are some good (or at least interesting lol) elements in this game, but with all the weird choices I can totally get why people would assume those elements are mistakes or oversights.
At least this game is bad for interesting reasons, though. I love seeing discussions about it.
Great vid, cool seeing a game that was universally panned like Balan Wonderland in a new light.
I just noticed why I remember you , you made the animal crossing critique and the really long ORAS video which I may have watched in one sitting
Never heard of this game but love your insight! Cheers thanks for the quality content
i appreciate the fact that you’re willing to stand up for a game that was so absolutely clowned on by the wider gaming community.
that said, you spend a lot of time explaining why the narrative is actually pretty good, but i don’t think that’s where the majority of criticism was coming from.
i would say the reason that most players didn’t like the game is because it simply isn’t fun. you mentioned how people were put off by the amount of costumes and explained how it’s due to story reasons, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bad gameplay mechanic.
I agree, but I also don’t think he’s trying to. I doubt that Shay actually believes that Balan’s two-button gameplay is secretly genius. Again, at the start of the video, he said he didn’t think it was some underrated masterpiece. He’s just defending the parts of the game that he thinks aren’t getting enough credit.
@@joebarrett8310 of course! i just wanted to address the bits where he felt that people were picking on parts of the game simply because they didn’t get the theme. imo it’s the same case with the giant farmer in level one. shay is correct when he says it makes sense in the context of the game, but it’s not exactly an elegant or tactful way to do a set piece. that is the real reason people point at it and laugh.
@@kynlem Totally agreed - and well put!
"i would say the reason that most players didn’t like the game is because it simply isn’t fun. you mentioned how people were put off by the amount of costumes and explained how it’s due to story reasons, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bad gameplay mechanic."
This. It doesn't matter if there's an excuse for having a song and dance number in the overall narrative of the story. If the song and dance numbers are bad and uninteresting and unwanted then of course people won't like them. Hey it makes sense in a game set in a really bad slum that at any point you could get mugged, just stabbed and left to bleed out with no warning in a game without combat. It would be ~internally consistent~ with the setting and tone. But that doesn't make it a good thing to include for what I hope are very obvious reasons.
@@Shenaldrac Games are art. Art doesn't have to be entertaining or fun. Games like Spec Ops the line can make due with good enough gameplay and still be popular because of the themes they present. Games like the Pathologic series are intentionally made unfun, yet most people wouldn't call them bad games because they achieve what they set out to do.
So the problem with Balan IS that it failed to capture the minds and hearts of some audience, because like with Cyberpunk 2077, if it did the gameplay and the flaws thereof wouldn't matter nearly to this extend.
This "gameplay first" mentality, used to dismiss "walking simulators" was already proven incorrect with general audience, and should be left back in 2012 where it didn't belong either. Your personal video game preferences aren't objective facts.
I really loved the point at the end where you mentioned the whole cinemasins thing with critics. Fantastic video overall Shay. Can't wait for the next one!
Oh boy more ShayMay!!!
EDIT: That bit about how reviewers are I a particular position that changes how they are predisposed to enjoy a game is something I've echoed quite a bit online and something I wholeheartedly agree with.
It's a framework that makes certain gameplay styles and preferences predisposed to being viewed in a negative way that a person just sitting around playing a game wouldn't have.
Jesus the music in this game is amazing, really reminds me of the atelier games.
Two video essays defending Balan Wonderworld released within a day of each other? Now that's crazy
Hey, I missed you Shay! Your videos are always interesting and funny and this was no exception. I'm pleasantly surprised to see someone with positive things to say about such a hated game, and I'm glad to see you not jump right into the hate bandwagon and engage with the game on its own terms and discuss the good with the bad. Nicely done.
"Gamecube Era Sonic games."
I will NOT stand for this Dreamcast erasure.
I dont know why i wasnt recommended this, but after watching the Ruby review twice this is great content and its a shame it doesnt have more views
Also in case youre trying to keep your accent down, dont, it makes the video 10x better
The best part about Balan Bouts are failing on purpose against Lance and watching him just full on punch Balan in the face. Honestly the highlight of my playthrough
Brilliant review, keep up the good work gamer boy
ShayMay is back! looking forward to watching
Guess I'm so early that the audio isn't up as yet
"Wow, one of my favorite UA-cam did an hour long essay on Balan Wonderworld, that was cool."
*clicks away, goes to subscription feed sees this*
"Wow, one of my favorite UA-cam did an hour long essay on Balan Wonderworld. What deja vu!"
Great creative Idea, enormous potential, seriously flawed, as professional as we are used from AAA this days, for some weird reason playable with a Atari Joystick
That delicious catharsis at the end, omg
Great to hear from you again!!
Balan is a game, that I like what I see, I like the themes behind them, but the gameplay is how everything crumbles, it would need a lot of redisign that could not be fixed just by mods
that antelope joke lmao
Easily the best review of this game I've seen, amazing job! While playing it I really struggle to see the terrible game everyone else is seeing, even if I can totally understand why plenty dislike it. It has plenty of things going for it, and I don't like how many ignore them.
No audio, or is that just me?
Haven't start yet. But I've been really curious about your thoughts on Balan Wonder World, given how invested you are in Yuji Naka's other works. I especially enjoyed your defense of Night's video. Not expecting this to be "glowing" by any means but you're in sight is always welcome.
Man, I literally just loved the stupid goddamn pun of Balan and Lance and that's all I knew about this for a while.
Tims, Time, fuck me, that part is the one part that's just plain great, man. The puns.
Only just saw this upload and I'm here kicking myself not knowing you were at Summer of Sonic in 2016, the only one I could actually go to. That aside, this looks set to be an interesting review.
2022: The year we finally give roses to the games that got dunked on unfairly.
The year of the Balan!
Shaymay has restored Balan ce to the force.
Thank you for all of this. I can tell you really did enjoy the game for the most part, and gave the rest of it a heck of a shot. The criticism of the bad parts feels like it comes from a place of love, and I can't say I disagree with any of them. It's a take that you don't see much of; most either ruthlessly tear it apart or make coddling excuses for it being the way it is.
And so little could have changed to make this game at least a resounding "meh". We've seen fans mod games to do more than it would take to improve this game, so it wouldn't have even taken that much for the devs to fix it in the first place if they'd done some actual playtesting for feedback before the demo, or if Square cared enough to give them a little extra time or money for it. And with the game being what it is, there aren't any fans with the skill and desire to improve it.
I was excited for this game and also fell in love with the art and character concepts. I wish the end product resembled what Naka-Oshima had hyped it up to be. A story told through the concept of musical theatre but basically without words? That'd be so amazing if they could pull it off. Rely entirely on set design, the emotion of the wordless voice and the body language. Too bad the pre-rendered cutscenes had to do so much heavy lifting.
Give the novel a go some time. It's a pretty quick and easy read. (And boy would I love if Balan Wonderworld at least managed to find its home in a series of short novels like that.)
Another great video.
I’ve never played Balan, and not sure if I will, but I feel like one way to solve the issue of only one button and needing to jump meaning some powers can’t be mapped to the action button, could be to have a separate jump button, that only works with those costumes that can jump? It would take a bit away from the simplicity, but I feel like if they communicate clear enough how to know if a costume has the jump button or it doesn’t, it would still be a fairly simple moveset and take a way from the drawbacks of one action button at least.
I remember there was one area where you soft lock if you take damage and have no other jumping costumes.
If you can still take damage you should be able to shed to your base form which can jump?
Balan Wonderworld truly is the Van Halen III of hat-themed 3D collectathon platformers
[makes note to pay attention to how Shay pronounces the word balance in any future videos unrelated to Balan]