![]() Balan Wonderworld often chooses not to explain things with words and this can sometimes be to its detriment as the scenes setting up the character conflicts don’t always use clear visuals, and on top of this some seem to have more care than others as a few can afford to have plenty of rendered extras while others have weird board game piece people stand in to fill a crowd. ![]() Escher to make for a memorable but unfortunately rather cumbersome pair of stages to explore. A farmer who fears for his crops in a storm has a world based around agriculture, a girl ostracized for her interest in bugs has a forested area full of them, and the painter who loses her inspiration has a world inspired by the logic-defying art of M.C. Balan takes the child into the Wonderworld because they have some problem in their life they need to overcome, and it appears the idea is that by helping others overcome their own negative emotions the kid might grow emotionally as well.Įach of the main worlds of Balan Wonderworld are split into two acts, a boss fight, and a post-game special stage, these worlds formed around the lifestyles of those that Balan and the child have gone to help. The visual treat follows the young protagonist, either Emma or Leo depending on how you customized your character, encountering an unusual figure named Balan who has all the accoutrements of a theater showman but with his head hidden behind a hat his facial features poke through. Right off the bat the game impresses with a beautifully realized opening scene that can easily hook the player. Exploring the dream-like Wonderworld ends up not a nightmare but instead fascinating trip into something obviously flawed but with plenty of easily identifiable room for becoming the great game the creators no doubt wanted it to be. It’s certainly not the abysmal train wreck its reputation implies, but undoubtedly the game’s director Yuji Naka, despite his pedigree in creating Sonic the Hedgehog, squandered its potential by clinging foolishly to design ideas that only ended up dragging down the end product. However, rather than some disaster ripe for tearing apart, Balan Wonderworld feels more like a tragedy as it has a strong visual aesthetic and plenty of ideas that could have worked for a 3D Platformer. By now, Balan Wonderworld’s bad reputation precedes it.
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